New Worlds of Body, Mind & Spirit Since 1901
When you think of the Tarot, you probably think of fortune telling. This is not surprising, since divination has been the main function of Tarot cards for more than two hundred years. Only in the late eighteenth century did the symbolism on the cards acquire a higher spiritual meaning and come to be regarded as an important part of the Western esoteric tradition. In spite of its elevation from the mundane to the mysterious, the primary use for the Tarot remains fortunetelling even in the present day. If you examine the books available on the Tarot, most are about divination, with only a handful devoted to the higher meaning of Tarot symbolism. There is another side to the Tarot that is ...
The paranormal (and in particular, ghosts) has held a fascination for me ever since I was a young child in short pants running around the green grassy fields and meadows of 1970s Lincolnshire. Some of my earliest memories involve tales of ghosts and nightmarish creatures that supposedly haunted old barns, dilapidated manors, and dark damp woods. My father, a man of rare intellect, insight, and logic, was a high-ranking airman who, at the time, was flying with the Royal Air Force. My mother, typical of the time, stayed at home to look after me and my siblings (which, in hindsight, was a fairly full-on job in itself given our precocious nature). However, don't let this fool you; my mother ...
We Pagans believe a lot of things. Oh, I know—"it doesn't matter what you believe, it matters what you do." That statement isn't wrong, and Paganism's emphasis on right action over right belief is a very good thing. But still, we talk about a lot of things many people dismiss. Things like Gods and spirits, casting circles and invoking elements, the Otherworld and the Summerlands, and magic. Especially magic. How do we know our ideas are right? Just because our ancient ancestors (maybe) did it this way doesn't mean it's right. Wrong ideas can be passed down as easily as right ones. Just because someone important or really smart says it doesn't mean it's right. Smart people can be ...
Have you seen the movie White Noise? This popular film stars Michael Keaton as an architect who suddenly loses his wife. Grief-stricken, he's contacted by someone who claims to be receiving messages from his wife through the anomaly known as Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP). Gradually he becomes obsessed with trying to contact his wife himself using EVP. While some of the movie's more sinister moments are pure made-for-Hollywood hype, EVP is very real and one of the methods anyone can use to contact the spirit world. There are many ways to communicate with the dead—you can go to a professional medium, develop your own psychic communication skills, use a Ouija board (a less ...
