What Magic Is This?

Playing cards have always been magical. While not as ubiquitous and long tenured as dice and other means of games and gambling, card games have been a part of western culture for over 600 years. Inevitably, as soon as something gets used for games, it immediately gets used for divination and fortune-telling as well. This form of divination has been called Cartomancy and since the 15th century it has an incredibly diverse and fascinating history, one which currently sees it as the second most popular form of divination in the western world.

If the western Magical tradition has one object which has bled into mainstream culture and seems like it is there to stay, it would be a pack of Tarot cards designed and released in 1909. Originally released as The Tarot, it would later be known as the Rider Waite Tarot, and for decades that is what it would remain. Yet, this name negated perhaps the most important element of these cards- the artist herself. Pamela Colman Smith was an exceptional talent who lived a fascinating and tumultuous life. While her deck is beyond notorious, her story is almost entirely unknown by most. Pamela would like you to join her in the Fools Gallery, for she has much to tell us these days.

If there is one thing that can put a fire into the heart of many a person over the last two thousand years, it is the enticement of buried treasure. Yet for centuries, buried riches weren't merely just items of value placed in the earth for people to seek out, treasure and the spirits which guarded it had a long tenured lore all its own. What's more, treasure was a magical enterprise- looking for it, digging it up and even how treasure behaved while it was buried. To this day, treasure and its allure has always been magical.

One must have their peculiar Holiday traditions. For me, being involved in the stranger side of life and culture, I always take note of a particular happenstance that occurs around this time of year. Every December without fail, you will hear the statement that Christmas is in fact Pagan, and that its symbols and customs have an origin that isn't Christian at all. Grab the Yule log, put up some mistletoe, we're going to go through all that such a statement entails!

One of the longest enduring afterlife beliefs that we have is reincarnation. The thought goes that once we pass away, some part of us is reborn into a new person; a new body, and that life continues again and again and again. Many cultures throughout the world and throughout time have held this belief to be fundamentally true. It has only been in the last 70 years, that certain scientists and researchers have been seriously investigating claims from people that say that they have experienced a life before the one that they are currently living. The evidence that something truly profound and perplexing is happening, is irrefutable.