Monday, December 24, 2012

Monday, December 17, 2012


From our Spotted in the Wild collection: The new sun god (Charles Darwin) burns away the old priesthood to usher in a new fundamentalist religion — Big Science.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Protecting Against Pseudo-Valid Results from Online Divination

We tested the top six free online Tarot systems and determined a single, simple test for protecting against invalid results: 

Friday, November 9, 2012

A Mystic's View of Death

Here's the Belgian mystic Maurice Maeterlinck's view of death as an unquenchable flame:

http://mysteryarts.typepad.com/magicwords/2012/11/a-mystics-view-of-death.html

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

From Spotted in the Wild:


A Fool meets The Moon in this illustration from Puck, 1883.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

We discuss the world of Tarot and other high weirdness in this rather extensive interview.

Friday, September 7, 2012

"Amma took a stack of what looked like tarot cards out of her purse, but the images on the cards weren't right. They weren't tarot cards—these were something else. She arranged them on the table carefully, re-creating a spread. ... Amma dropped the last card. 'There it is. ... The Angry Queen. The Unbalanced Scale. The Child of Darkness. The Storm. The Sacrifice. The Split Twins. The Bleeding Blade. The Fractured Soul." —Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl, Beautiful Chaos (2011)

[See our daily Tarot posts at the Spotted in the Wild blog.]

Thursday, July 26, 2012


A Hierophant from Punch, 1865.

See our regular postings of Tarot imagery in the wild here.

Monday, June 11, 2012

This Tarot Death card is actually a political cartoon from The Canadian Magazine, 1905. See a larger version of the image over at our Spotted in the Wild blog.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

"The cards of Fate had been dealt and they were anchored to the bed like a Tarot spread before her."
—Gianna Perada, Blood Life (2012)

Monday, May 14, 2012

The soothsaying of old and the truth-telling of today aren't so very different:

"The accuracy of polygraph tests depends heavily on the examiner, who must be skilled in the art of interpretation — like a tarot card reader." —Timothy Dumas, Fight of the Century (2012)

Sunday, April 29, 2012

For more Tarot cards we spot in the wild, see us over at Typepad:

http://mysteryarts.typepad.com/magicwords/

Saturday, April 21, 2012

It depends on those who pass
whether I am tomb or treasure.

—Paul Valéry

Monday, April 16, 2012

Fortune telling into the afterlife? See our post over at Abecedarian:

http://oneletterwords.com/weblog/?id=7588

Sunday, April 15, 2012


A 10 of Wands from Shakespeare's The Tempest.

Monday, April 9, 2012

The Lovers, from Shakespeare's The Tempest.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

A Magician from Shakespeare's The Tempest.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012


Colin Campbell Cooper, "Fortune Teller," 1921. Via FrogBlog.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

A Hanged Man and Magician: Harry Houdini.

Friday, March 16, 2012

Here's our 3-card spread we call "The Loop," in which the central card is considered in both its upright and reversed aspects.

Saturday, March 10, 2012


A Ten of Wands from Collier's magazine, 1913.

Sunday, March 4, 2012


A Fool greets the Sun in this illustration from The Century Magazine, 1902.

See also:

http://tarotsoul.blogspot.com/2011/09/fool-on-clifftop-with-his-dog-magician.html

Tuesday, February 28, 2012


A Fool, from Frank Leslie's Pleasant Hours, 1880.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

A Knight of Cups gallops through the land of fairies, from Graham's magazine, 1856.

Thursday, February 16, 2012


An illustration from Graham's Magazine, 1853.

Friday, February 10, 2012


A wheel of fortune, from Frank Leslie's Illustrated magazine, 1890.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Falling from a Tower: an illustration from Frank Leslie's Pleasant Hours, 1867.

Monday, January 30, 2012


"The weird ceremony": a moon illustration from The Century magazine, 1908.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012


Throwing a snowball at Cupid: a Lovers card from Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly, Dec. 1892.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012


Death's Door, engraved after William Blake. From The English Illustrated magazine, 1890.

Thursday, January 12, 2012


A Punch and Judy Queen of Wands.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

A Punch and Judy Fool.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012



A Punch and Judy Lovers. Image from The Lewis Walpole Library.