Back when I was in high school, I took a course called "Drivers Education." Part of the class was a basic discussion on how cars actually work. When we got to a discussion of how many times the pistons in an internal combustion engine moved per minute, one student complained that an engine would never be able to keep that up. The teacher told the student that she was comparing engines to people. Image: George Rex/V&A Museum of Childhood The instructor was right. People are not machines. YOU are not a machine. You cannot work endlessly. So if you're going to school or have a job, and you're studying and practicing magick, remember to get enough rest and

Llewellyn is proud to be the US distributor for products from Lo Scarabeo, an Italian publishing company specializing in artistic, historical, and boundary-pushing tarot decks. One of their recent decks, which will be available in the US in September, is the Silicon Dawn Tarot. It is a very unusual deck. So unusual, in fact, that I wrote a seven-part review of it on my personal blog. Since it may interest you, HERE is the link to the first installment and you can then find the rest from there. If you are interested in Lo Scarabeo, you can find them on Facebook HERE.  

Keeping with my recent theme of getting to know the cards more intimately and personally, I thought I’d share one of my personal favorites. Whenever a card is bothering me…stalking me or otherwise annoying me, I write it a letter. In that letter, I pour out all my confusion or frustration…or even anger if applicable (I should show you a letter I wrote to the lady in the 9 of Pentacles about 12 years ago! It was a doozey.). I ask all kinds of questions. Writing what are called “unsent letters” is a therapeutic activity, meant to help get something off your chest. It helps you release and move on. Letters to tarot cards can be that. But I’ve found something that works even

Neuro-Linguistic Programming, NLP, consists of a large set of techniques for achieving excellence. The result of such excellence is improvement in your life and your ability to interact with others in such remarkable ways that it seems magickal. Indeed, the first book on NLP was titled The Structure of Magic. The cover implied that the book was occult oriented, so I looked at it when it first came out decades ago. At the time I wasn't ready for it and I bypassed it. I now recognize it as my loss, but I'm making up for lost time. I even include one very magick-oriented aspect of NLP in the new edition of my Modern Magick and you'll discover even more in books such as the forthcoming