I have the wonderful luck of being able to provide several services to Llewellyn. As you may know, I write some books, I'm an acquisition editor, and I write this blog. What you might not know is that I'm also the editor of Llewellyn's free, online encyclopedia. As the editor of the encyclopedia, my work involves tracking down terms that are associated with occultism, spirituality, the paranormal, and more. Then, I have to assure myself the definition of a term is accurate. Only when this is done do I actually place it in the encyclopedia. The encyclopedia was already started when I became the editor and made my first set of new entries in 2005. Today I made my 50th set of entries,

A Study of the Fool’s Journey 2 For an overview of and foundation for this series, see HERE Today we look at the Basic Issue of the first row, represented by the Magician and High Priestess. It is helpful to use the idea of childhood development as a metaphor. Some of the concepts we deal with in the journey are very abstract and so having a down-to-earth metaphor helps communicate these ideas. The first two cards do describe a basic issue and they do so by representing opposing facets of that issue. In this case, the issue is about negotiating your experience in and of the world. The Magician, being an active and extroverted card, represents how you express yourself in the

Ah, summer. For many, this warm season means piling into the family car and heading to a fun and exotic vacation destination. A road that led many to an iconic summer vacation destination during the middle of the twentieth century was the legendary Route 66. Spanning eight states and over 2,400 miles, the Mother Road in its prime was full of kitschy restaurants, museums, attractions, and motels. This two-lane highway was so famous and had such an influence on America's pop culture that it inspired a song and a television series.  Thanks to the Interstate Highway Act and fewer people who wanted a scenic route to their destination, the attractions along the Mother Road are now few and

This month the Llewellyn Tarot blog will feature a series of articles exploring the Fool’s Journey using Rachel Pollack’s Alternate Major Arcana Spread, found HERE. The Fool’s Journey was coined by Eden Gray. The Fool card is said to journey through the Majors in order, gaining spiritual wisdom and learning lessons along the way. As the idea resonated with readers, people began laying out the Majors in certain configurations, like a spread, which influenced the interpretation of the journey. For this month’s study, we will use this configuration based on the spread Rachel developed:   We will place the Fool at the top and the rest of the Majors in order in three