Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Patrick Dunn, author of Cartomancy with the Lenormand and the Tarot; Magic, Power, Language, Symbol; and the new Practical Art of Divine Magic. "Do you believe in God?" You wouldn't think that'd be a hard question to answer, but it always stumps me. Even leaving aside the meaning of the word "believe" there (Have faith in? Assert the existence of?), what does it mean to say "God?" I usually say, "Yes, but probably not in the way you mean." Part of the problem is that we mix up a lot of different concepts in that little word, and when we do, we create logical inconsistencies that are nearly impossible to reconcile. And part of my

Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Aaron Leitch, author of several books, including Secrets of the Magickal Grimoires, The Angelical Language Volume I and Volume II, and Essential Enochian Grimoire. "All the books which treat of characters, extravagant figures, circles, convocations, conjurations, invocations, and other like matters, even although any one may see some effect thereby, should be rejected, being works full of diabolical inventions; and ye should know that the demon maketh use of an infinitude of methods to entrap and deceive mankind. This I have myself proved, because when I have operated with the veritable wisdom, all the other enchantments which I had learned

Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Adam Selzer, author of Your Neighborhood Gives Me the Creeps, Ghosts of Chicago, and the new Ghosts of Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln stories are notoriously hard to verify; many of the famous stories about him weren't told until years after his death, and even a lot of first-hand accounts are pretty shaky. The same is true of ghost stories in general, so trying to find sources that related to both Lincoln AND ghosts was quite a challenge. But looking for evidence to back up a story that Lincoln once rode a flying piano at a séance is a pretty nifty way to spend one's working life. The story goes like this: according to a book published years

Creating spreads is fun. Even when you don’t have a particular question, but you feel like playing with your cards, you can create a spread inspired by the deck that you are using. This is an interesting way to get to know a deck and may reveal some wisdom that you didn’t know you were looking for. This spread was inspired by the Tarot of the Secret Forest, which is a fascinating double-sided deck. It allows us to explore a wonderful world of hidden treasures and surprises. When Lucia Mattioli created this deck, she was thinking about a certain Japanese wisdom that that says insects are born from decomposing vegetation and are therefore the precise thing that should be there at