Josephine McCarthy's Blog

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last few years, events around the world have built into world changing fate processes, and the energetic storms that accompany such a change in world history can directly influence, smack or completely floor a magician who is sensitive to energetic tides. Magicians who work with visionary magic are far more susceptible to such energetic shifts, even apprentice magicians depending on their innate energetic sensitivity. Can get badly affected. 

One of the down sides of such magical sensitivity is that when fate is moving world chess pieces around, your energy gets caught up or co-opted into ‘service’ – the energetic side of you joins with others around the world to create a working army of human energy that shifts the delicate fibres of fate patterns to where they need to be. It is not a conscious thing, it is not something you can choose to do as it is the deepest side of you that is working, not your conscious personality in life. And we have no say or even inkling into what that energy is doing – we become the Fed-Ex of the inner worlds – Here, hold this, deliver this energy to there, thanks, now go away.  Such can be difficult for modern humans as we are used to control, to be able to choose a side, or to work within an agenda. But fate is far far more complex and longer lived than our puny and fleeting lives, and doesn’t operate in agendas, only patterns.

A physical side effect of being a part of that mass of energetic workers is that it leaves less energy for your body and mind to run the day-to-day tasks of being a modern human. You can feel your energy go out from you like a vast tide that vanishes over the horizon, and you are left feeling like a lump of tired, painful, and sometimes downhearted living flesh that refuses to do anything. And one of the consequences of that is the individual self discipline vanishes down the back of the sofa, never to be found again. 

Or so it feels like that. Unless of course you are one of those annoying people who are blessed with inbuilt self discipline that works no matter what. The rest of we mere mortals must work at it, often in phases of two minutes of self discipline followed by weeks of laying on the sofa wishing the world would just fuck off.

Of course in magic, self discipline is one of the main pillars necessary for long term successful and safe magic, so when that goes, everything else also vanishes down the back of the sofa regardless of whether you have a sofa or not. For magicians in training, it is the most frustrating thing of all, because without that discipline your training grinds to halt and becomes this far distant mountain that you have to climb. And of course, you have to climb it still in your dressing gown and fluffy slippers.

Trying to pull on your big girl/boy knickers and giving yourself a talking to, fails either straight away or within a couple of days. Writing out a schedule for yourself, sticking affirmations on your fridge, or tempting yourself with rewards also fails, and you end up back on the sofa, eating the rewards and writing foul mouthed graffiti over the affirmation posters.

So how do you do it? There are methods. 

First, it has to be the right time – If your energy is far out there, it is not going to come back in just because you want it to. So while you are in the depths of the sofa, groaning from pain and lack of the will to live, place a ‘hook ‘on the wall of your mind and rope to it the thought that you cannot stay with this forever, and that climbing back out has to happen at some point. That is enough for that time.

Second – know yourself. Has the tide past but you are enjoying wallowing? Or maybe you hadn’t noticed that the flop over has become the norm for you? Don’t look at yourself and get into self loathing or blame as that is pointless and does nothing.  Rather look at the current situation – are you still too blasted? Or have things eased a little bit but not enough to shift you? If they have eased in the smallest of ways, that is the indication to attempt a climb back in the smallest of ways. 

The smallest of ways

Never try to dive back into magic (or extreme sports, or extreme dating or extreme anything).

First sort the ground zero in small steps of everyday life. Look at the small things – do you leave something out to put it away later when you would in the past have dealt with it straight away often without even thinking about it? Pick that coat up and hang it up. There, your self discipline just got it’s first building block towards the shimmering tower of self mastery.

Surrounded by coffee cups and socks? Put the cups by the sink and put the socks in the wash basket or washer. Now you are exhausted and need to lie down….. two more bricks towards your building. Worry about washing up later, just putting things where they need to go is what you are focusing on.

Day by day, inch in these small steps. Not quite that bad for you? The pick a few bigger ‘small steps’ for yourself and don’t worry about anything else. Keep that going for a week or two, and when you feel like you have a bit of you left over, add in more small steps without losing the ones you have established.

It is the ability to take that one more step when you feel you can’t walk any more that starts to build the tower.

And for those of you magicians reading this who are on top of everything and think this is silly… well, that can be a hard fall from a dizzying height that can maybe come one day.

By establishing a small series of disciplined acts, the self discipline needed for magic starts to grow slowly but steadily – your discipline in magic comes from your discipline in life. 

The key is to not get over enthusiastic and go mad, only to find yourself back on the sofa drooling. My mantra is; small steps – fuck you.

I can have very strong self discipline for long periods of time, for which I thank ballet training in my teens. But I also have a low energy side and when the energy goes very low, the discipline vanishes. When you add in magical energetic tides and inner energetic work to that mix, I end up as a crumpled heap on the floor. 

As menopause barrelled in at high speed, passed by, and then exited the door while shouting obscenities at me, it just added insult to injury. I got the hook of discipline nailed to the wall and hauled myself back up, as a battered wrinkled big nosed old lady… and yes, your nose grows when you are old, so I end up looking (sideways on) like one of those people in Van Gough’s “Potato Eaters” painting. Sigh. Anyway… digression….

There are no masters

Just in case you think I am writing this from a high point of offering scraps of advice to the peasants, here is a slice of my latest round of ‘nail the hook to the wall, loop a rope on it and hang on’ times. 

Over the last few years, the energy in my country as been pretty rough as the clouds of destruction gathered. One only has to look at the mind-boggling acts of self harm the nation has done to itself over the last few years to get an indication of the invisible battle for the soul of the nation that has been raging. And such battles are still going on in nations around the world. Needless to say ,the inner energy as been pretty horrible for a long time.

During the last twelve months it really built to a peak of nasty and I have spent a lot of time between my jobs just laying down and moaning pathetically. Some of it is age, some of it is the genetic syndrome I have which makes you tired and everything hurts, and a lot of it is the inner energy of what is going on (though thankfully, after far too long, it has shifted recently).

The discipline vanished and was replaced by ‘fuck it’, ‘it will be fine’ and ‘just this once’…. this became my most recent norm which recently culminated in an unplanned visit to Glastonbury. My partner and I went to visit a friend on her farm which is not far from Glastonbury, but I avoid that place like the plague (think the worst of the New Age and throw in a few Messiahs and Merlins for good luck) so we drove around and out of the way of it to get to the farm.

Unfortunately due to bad traffic and road works, my partner and I had to return home via Glastonbury as it was the only route available. We were hungry and decided to brace ourselves and stop for something to eat. Omg. It was 3pm so all eateries were not serving food – the English have never discovered that if you serve food all day in a high traffic tourist spot, you earn money. So we went to the health food store (the only food store in the town centre) and bought snacks, high grade chocolate and all the things you shouldn’t eat at our age.

I was munching on the forbidden foods as I walked down the high street and I looked at all the broken and unravelled people who populated the sidewalks… too many drugs, not enough of the right drugs, and too much fantasy that had unravelled delicate minds.

We drove off and finally got home where I ‘dropped my coat on the floor’. I munched on the remains of the forbidden foods, crashed out on the bed and slept, fully clothed for thirteen hours.

I finally woke, feeling like absolute shit and crashed straight into a day of heaving heavy boxes around. I felt ill, I felt dirty (from Glastonbury) and for the first time in a long time, I realised all of my self discipline was gone. I had noticed it before and thought, fuck it, too much is going on right now.

But now, I had no more excuses left.

For the first time in a while I took one small and very focused magical step of discipline, and one small step of physical discipline.

The following morning, I woke feeling tired, but something magical had shifted – that one small act of magical discipline had brought me back online in a small way, and my body was shouting at me to pull my shit together.

I took my blood sugar before I ate anything that morning, just out of curiosity. I had always prided myself on no diabetes, no heart issues, no blood pressure issues.

That morning the voice of the blood sugar machine, in its strange Chinese to English accent said,

“ Are you really trying to fuck yourself up completely?”….

actually it was far more polite but that is what it meant.

No breakfast necessary for me that morning. Sometimes it is the small stuff that scream the wake-up call to you, and that morning the machine screamed, and I finally heard.

So if your self discipline and your magical practice is lost somewhere down the back of the sofa, join me in small steps, as we create single bricks that together we can build a tower of mastery with – but remember, there are no masters, only workers.

PS – this is the process known in Egyptian magic as the raising of the Djed. No, it is not about men’s dicks, it is about gaining back your inner strength and discipline.

There is no try, either do or don’t do – Yoda.

The book for the deck has been put up on the Quareia Publishing website as a free download, and it is also on Quareia’s free books page . The physical books will be available for purchase online in the next couple of weeks, just in time for the decks themselves to arrive ready for shipping in early January. For the physical books, we have done two types – a higher quality hardback for collectors/ keepsake, made with the best inks and paper available…. and a general trade paperback & kindle. We will also… if we can figure it out, do a free Ebook download (as well as the free PDF download) on our websites, it we can sort out the technicalities.

Michael, who does the formatting and typesetting, and I, were planning to get the book finished just before Christmas, but as usual, fate barges in with her sharp elbows and has other plans… suddenly we had to work around the clock to get it all finished and ready…

Here is some of the ‘blurb’ (promotional text/information) for the book and deck –

Mystagogus – The Deck Book, is the companion book to the Mystagogus Deck by magical adept Josephine McCarthy. It is available as a higher quality collectors hardback edition, and also as a general quality paperback and Ebook. They will appear on Amazon and most internet retailers world wide.

The Mystagogus deck is available for purchase on the website of Quareia Publishing along with a free ebook or PDF download, and in spring the deck will also be available through thegamecrafter.com in the USA. The book will also be available for free download on quareia.com

The 78 card deck is magically designed and painted to act as a guide, advisor, and source of divination to someone who is walking a magical path alone. It is not based around any tarot system, but is a unique contacted magical tool patterned and painted by adept magician and teacher Josephine McCarthy.

  It is also magically designed in a such a way that if you do not have access to the deck itself, you can work with the book, and with a set of blank cards with the image names written on the cards.

Mystagogus the Deck Book is more than a simple ‘card meaning reference book’ – it holds within it different layers of magical and mystical learning, along with tips and hints embedded within some of the card meanings that guide a lone magician, for example when they hit bumps in the road or face difficult spirits. 

The Mystagogus Deck is designed around a magical pattern of evolution and has embedded within it the stages of development that are inherent to any magical path that seeks greater union with the deeper self and with the hidden inner worlds that flow through and around the physical world. 

Mystagogus offers a clear concise voice of divination without obscure unnecessary glamour or dressing – it is a no nonsense voice of power that cuts to the heart of divination and doesn’t pull any punches. It is layered so that both mundane and magical voices can flow through it – sometimes we need to speak to a deep inner contact, and sometimes we need to find our missing cat. Mystagogus is designed with both in mind, as they are all part of the weave of fate.

The deck book is also littered with highly relevant references, quotes and information from various religions, philosophy, and science as a way of broadening out the understanding of the magical mind, while also occasionally giving the reader a peek into ancient and classical dynamics in magic in subtle understated ways.

OK, end of blurb…. now… something very interesting happened while Stuart was working on the cover files ready for the printers. Somehow, some way, some wrong buttons were pressed and the wrong option was chosen while he was in the design aspect of a program ( we are both very overtired!). And what happened next was nothing short of astonishing… we had been looking at ways to extend the Angel of the Web’ image (which is on the card back) into the flaps for the hardback, and for the insides of the duplex cover for the paperback…. and suddenly this appeared…….

The colour aspect was inverted and the image was folded/flipped….. and we could not have reproduced the process, even if we wanted to… A strange, powerful, and veiled dark goddess like being appeared out of the screen… and image was alive…. It is strange… not obvious, but by golly she is verbal….

It was immediately clear ‘She’ had brought herself into the process and she was going to join in the guardianship of the book. From a magical aspect, the actual cover and card back painting, is of an angelic consciousness that operates as protective power by way of catching and tangling in its tendrils.. …and what has emerged out of this accidental image, is a female deity power that is the flip side of that power (each power is polarised in some way)… the nearest I could explain the power that seems to flow from her is that of the Egyptian goddess Neith – the goddess of the web/weaving of power, the warrior goddess, and She who birthed all things into life and death… and she whose face can never be seen nor understood.

The deck creation was one hell of a ride, but the formation of the book and its bringing to book form has certainly been like riding a bucking bronco…

Well things are moving along nicely – the deck is due to be delivered at the end of Dec, and we have help lined up for the packing and shipping in early 2023 so they will start flying their way to folks early next year!

The proof/sample version of the deck arrived, and overall it is looking good. There were some light issues with some cards, and the deck box being was a wee bit too light so we have adjusted the files accordingly, and it is now going through the print production phase.

We have also been slowly uploading most of the images to our Redbubble page and once it is all in place, folks will be able to buy prints of the images if they wish to, and I will post a link and blog to show you what is what.

I used the test deck to do a couple of experimental readings with it to see how it rolled…. Oh my…. I thought the Quareia deck was ‘to the point’…. This one is my bluntness on steroids…. Straight to the point, shoots from the hip, and then gives you chocolate as a consolation.

I have already spotted that it uses some of the imagery for meanings I hadn’t thought of, so I am updating the book as I work on it. 

I am sure when people get it, they will also find the same thing – it shows you what else each card can mean, in no uncertain terms, so folks will find they discover expanded meanings, along with dynamics that could be individual for you as a deck reader.

The question I posed for the first reading, was ‘show me the story of this deck (the whole concept, not just the one physical deck), past, present and future’. The second reading was ‘show me the story of the life span of the deck (as a magical pattern) in its entirety’ – almost the same question, but looking from a slightly different angle (one has the element of time, one does not… it shows different layers of existence)

The first reading I did, I used the landscape/inner desert layout as it is the sharpest one I use and I have used it for a very long time. The I posed the similar question using its own layout, which is very different and is based around the pattern of the lightning flash. I had initially wanted to create a more ‘spiral’ patterned layout to show power moving and developing outwards over time. But no, it has having none of it – the deck has its own mind and it made it very clear how it was supposed to be worked with. It worked well with the landscape layout, but with its own, the lightning flash (I got it while washing up… not very glam), it was like all the lights came on and everyone was home. 

Layouts are often overlooked in deck design and tend to be a bit of an afterthought, and yet it is one of the most important aspects of a deck. It is a deck’s own pattern of fate and coherence when done properly, and the layout and deck work together as a unit.

One interesting thing that popped up in both of the readings was ‘where it came out of’ in terms of environment, short term past etc.

In both readings, it indicated that it was born out of fire and destruction…huh?? Then I slapped my forehead – it was born in the pandemic (fever and death) which was, magically, (and still is) a time of a destructive inner energetic tide sweeping across the planet. Out of destruction comes creation. 

The cards that chose to land in the positions that indicated ‘who it is’ in both readings was interesting. In the landscape layout, it was the ‘Companions’ card – the creatures of the land who befriend, guide and co work with the magician. Makes sense… In its own layout (that needs a name), it was Divine Servants that it chose as its own indicator – same meaning but at a different power level…angels not animals.

So now all hands are on deck (…groan) to get everything ready for early next year, while also keeping up with the rest of our jobs… so my whole Christmas time is going to be dealing with padded envelopes, getting in customs forms, sorting export paperwork, carefully cutting the paintings off the frames, rolling and wrapping them ready for shipping. 

For those who are reading this who bought a painting, it is canvas, and it will need matting to go in the framing. If you buy an off the shelf /online frame, some can be bought with the matting included (matting is the coloured card that frames the image, and then the frame goes over the top).

For now, I have one lone box of conscious cards filled with squawking voices all clamouring for attention… naughty loud children… I threatened them with Krampus but that didn’t work (my usual parenting technique…) so now they have been placed inside the shrine of a powerful goddess … that shut them right up….  She will keep them in check and protect the overall deck pattern, which in turn will protect the ‘pregnancy’ phase of the printing etc.

You can check out the new deck, the paintings etc here at Quareia Publishing

I hope everyone has a wonderful solstice/Christmas/holiday/Yule/whatever you celebrate, and that the new year brings you peace, stability and a bright road ahead of you.

Now the dust has settled from the frantic rush of selling the paintings, booking in the printer and nervously waiting for the proof (which arrives later today), over the last few days I have focused on the magical aspect of dealing with the ‘naughtier’ paintings in the deck.

As each painting is an anchor for power that will subsequently flow through a card, some paintings needed dealing with. While you need a card that indicates a negative or ‘bad’ power in order to get a true reading, what you don’t want it that raw power also flowing through those more dangerous cards and into your space. The way to stop that is to deal with the anchor – the painting itself. While some of the difficult cards like ‘danger’ are negative, they are also useful; a danger card warns you rather than actually bringing danger.. so that is fine. But there are some that just need mummy to ‘unbirth’ them.

The first naughty child to deal with was ‘Voices of Untruth’ – unless you have lived under a rock for the last few years, you will be aware as to how such a dynamic has brought havoc to nations around the world. While it is something that has always existed, Mistruth has been weaponised massively in the last few years in many different countries to bring chaos and disaster, and it has been working.

This card is a dynamic rather than a power, so it can be transformed. First I gagged the little shits so that their silent pleading eyes frowned at me.

Then I blindfolded them and cast them into darkness before turning them upside down to disorientate them. I used black over all of their faces to wipe them out, and then brought in light by using a thick white to cover over the black – a new beginning.

After that I repainted and reworked it to transform it into orbs/voices of sacred light. The dynamic changed from untruth to truth.

Next came the Choppers. In the underworld, they do a great job, but in our world they can cause all sorts of trouble. At first I passed over them for ‘re-education’, thinking they would be ok as Choppers do an important job. But then I was awoken at 3am in a cold sweat, after a dream of the Choppers chopping all that was rotten in the world…. Which is a lot…. Oops…

So I used their own power against them. I cut the canvas from the frame, and with a big pair of scissors, chopped them up and dumped their fragments in the dustbin. Job done.

Next was the biggy. I realised with the Serpent of Chaos I was going to have to tread carefully – that is a powerful and dangerous being. The underworld has many serpent beings of different types, and many are good, some are indifferent, and some are venomous. The Serpent of Chaos is the most dangerous of all, as its venom infects fools, takes them over and operates through them. The more powerful and wealthy the fool, the more the serpent is attracted to them so that it can do maximum damage through a vessel (person) that holds power. Essentially, it is like a possession – the power of Chaos operates through a powerful idiot and seeds chaos wherever it can. 

I had put three paintings in an outdoor garden storage box (a Keter box… a good joke for kabbalists)… Serpent of Chaos, Empty Vessel (fool), and Parasites. I thought about where I was going to pin and destroy the serpent, and waited for the right weather. I also went on line to buy large iron nails to pin it with, but something deep inside me nudged me that I was looking for the wrong thing…. and boom!… an amazon ‘suggestion’ of extra long copper nails came up. THEM!! A voice in my head shouted. Ok….. I got them. When I thought about it, copper was perfect, but was not something I would have considered…. You learn something new every day!

The nails arrived super quick (24hrs) which is rare around here, and while I had planned a day and time, it was obvious it must be done that morning before noon. Interestingly, we had been having silent lightning going on around us for 24 hrs, which, if you know your magic, you will understand why that was helpful.

30 mins before I was about to do the deed, I got a really strong contact saying, ‘do not do it as you had planned. Take them to the NW corner, there is wood there, pin all three to the wood and burn the fuckers together’. I slapped my forehead…. NW was perfect (deepest down direction). So armed with firelighters, rubbing alcohol, copper nails and a hammer, and Stuart in tow with the paintings that were wrapped up so they couldn’t see it coming, we went to the NW point in the garden.

I unclothed them, sprayed them heavily with rubbing alcohol, and the started with the serpent – I pinned it by the head and tail while uttering at it, put a line of firelights down it, lit another one, and set it off. It caught fire quickly and as it burned I put the Empty Vessel over it, pinned it through the flames (you gotta know how to work with fire safely to do this shit!), and then put the parasites painting on the top of that, pinned each head, and told them all to fuck off back into the underworld. We stood and watched them burn until there was nothing left of the images.

In the middle of all of that, an ambulance turned up in our small, enclosed street. I peered over the fence to see what was going on, and they rushed into a house at the other end of our street. Five minutes later, they left. Hmm… false alarm? Nope… the person (very old) had died before they got there. A morgue van turned up an hour later to take the body away.

Hmm, interesting…. The sacrifice was taken, even though it was not offered. That may sound heartless, but it is an interesting dynamic you will find in real magic – events time in so that all dynamics are in place at the right time and in the right way. I had to do the pinning and burning right at that moment, as it would tie in with the death of someone on our street – their spirit going into the underworld opened a passage that the pinned powers could be thrown down.

So now the magical excitement is over, I must get back to finishing the book, and going over the proofs… when they arrive, I will photo them and give you a peek!

Well… what a ride! I expected the deck pre sales and art sales to take a couple of months to raise the money to go to print … and it took 4 days! I am gobsmacked. And once I had 24hrs to decompress, some interesting magical ideas and potentials for learning popped into my head.

The first was about the painting called ‘the Voice of Untruth’, which is based on how I see the worst of social media. I got that I had to withdraw it from sale, and ‘deal’ with it magically. Each painting is an anchor and window for a power, and while most of the paintings regardless of whether they are ‘good or bad’ powers are fine to be ‘out there’ in the world in the form of deck cards or prints as they are balanced, that one in particular worried me.

But I wasn’t sure what to do about it, as it was very clear it had to be in the deck. In today’s world of mistruths and misinformation that are so bad they can destroy a society, would it add power to that situation? and if so, what could I do to stop it while leaving the card functional for magical divination?

Stuart I chatted about it and he said something that turned a light bulb on in my head – I will paint blindfolds and gags each one of the heads in the original painting. That way, the card will still function, but it will not allow anything to move through it into the ‘cloned’ image of the card in people’s decks – there will be no eyes to see or gossip mouths to lie from. And the 4 eyes of the angelic being that are in the painting, will have an easier time at keeping all of those mouths under control. So I will get to it.

The other thing that popped into my head is an experiment. The painting ‘purification’ – I got a hint to withdraw that one from sale too and try something with it. In the painting, there is a priest who is ‘doing’ a ritual purification.

I am going to overpaint him and cover him over with yellows and light hue and bring out reflections of the light into parts of the darkness. I am also going to highlight the angelic figure that is mostly hidden in the upper right-hand corner of the painting – it appears as a hint of the upper body and face of someone in the darkness raising their hand in blessing at the back of the head of the priest.

Currently he or she can barely be seen, but I will cast a light on them. The magical experiment is to see if the purification power that flows through the painting will act as a passive inner cleaning influence in the house.

By placing the priest under the light as a hidden layer, it takes the direct action out and what should then come through is not an echo of a direct action, but the results of a direct action. We shall see….

And now life is going to be one big mountain of padded envelopes, bubble bags, cardboard tubes, packing tape, address lists, and piles of wood stretchers that the paintings will be taken off from. And in a few weeks there will be piles of boxes of decks added to the chaos! Some will go straight into storage, but a load of them will need to be at the house to get them ready for shipping.

Between now and the end of January our wee Hobbit house is going to look like a slightly insane post office. If I remember, I will take pics… I am going to spend the weekend preparing the house, as every inch of floor and cupboard space matters in this place. 

But first we have to muck it out – for the last seven days every waking moment has been focussed on setting everything up and then doing the fundraising sales…. Our house is now like a horse barn.. we live in a very rural place next to fields and woodland, and we have outdoor cats that usually bring in half the woodland tangled in their fur when they come in, and then it deposits all over the floor… along with their fur as they are currently shedding for their winter coats.

Our dust bunnies have now multiplied furiously, formed a civilisation and are currently holding an election in our living room. Sigh.

Thank you to everyone who ordered a deck, bought a painting, donated, or cheered us on… you all made this happen and I am eternally grateful! I will get to see my magical baby go out into the world… I just hope the world is ready..bwahahahaaa

Well this has suddenly turned into a bronco ride! The website for the deck is finally up, the paintings are going up for sale in batches, the fundraiser for printing is launched, and meanwhile the images have turned into a bunch of squabbling teenagers.

You can find the webpage for the deck here The painting sale page is still a work in process and I am adding paypal buttons in batches each day.

Stuart, my partner and an artist/graphics designer, has been busy working on light balancing of the images getting them all ready for printing and we hit a speed bump. When you prepare an image for print, it has to work within a template of safe zones, cut zones and bleeds. As we learned with the Quareia Magicians deck, printers sometimes shift and bits at the bottom or top can get lost, or the image can drift. 

So the names and numbers of the deck images have to be within a safe zone. Fine… I had the idea of a transparent band across the bottom of the paintings with the names in the band…. all good…. Until you start doing that with magically alive images. To be within the safe zone, the names would have to cut across magically sensitive areas. That one is on me – unlike Stuart, and our co artist Cassandra for the Quareia deck, I am not an experienced artist. So when I was painting them my total focus was not on how artistic they were, or how graphically planned they were so that text could be overlaid, my focus was on the magical trigger points in the images, and ensuring the powers were expressed as closely as I could given my limited skill set. That way, the power could flow unhindered.

We were both sat looking at the rows of images and at the safe areas of the templates, and realised there is no way to put names on them, as the block would cut across power lines. So we thought about numbering them only, but that wouldn’t work either – teenagers –Im not wearing that!!!

Then we both slapped our foreheads… gods we can be dumb at times….. add on a bottom strip with the name. It would shorten the images a little, but that would work without interfering with the magical pattern of the image. So we are going to look at that this afternoon, but if that shrinks the image too much, then they will be cards with no names or anything else on them.

That would be a nightmare for people looking up the meanings while learning how to do readings with them. But if we need to do that for the magical integrity of the images, then tomorrow I have to have a long conversation with our book formatter to see if he can do an image index for the front of the book…. he is sure to hate me after that conversation!

And I thought doing a deck would be easy…hahahahaha…. Nope…. But my goodness I am learning so much!

And thank you to everyone who has started pre ordering the decks, buying the paintings, and donating to help get us over the line in the fundraiser.

We have until the end of the year to raise the amount – I am too old for pole dancing, so hopefully the sale of the paintings and decks will drag us over the finish line!

Well, while I am on a roll, here is the 2nd blog post on the new deck… the process and some places.

I am a whiteboard person, basically, and when I can’t have a white board, I revert to large pieces of paper, the bigger the better. I am one of those people who has to externalise my thoughts and process, so that I can see them in patterns and pictures, not just thoughts and words.

So when I started the deck, one of the first things I had to do was list what powers/places/people would be in the deck, what their relationships and connects with each other were, and how they related directly to a magician or magical person.

I realised very quickly that it would change, and that happened many times through the 2 year process – cards would argue, sulk, make friends, and some left muttering swear words as they flounced out… new ones pushed through the door unexpectedly, and some transformed themselves into something else. With each shift, the ‘family’ connections shifted so I had to look and adapt the overall pattern each time to accommodate everyone in a balanced way.

A divination deck is a holism – it is not a series of individual powers or isolated symbolism, it is a tightly connected family of beings and powers, of life dynamics and key places… and they all need to rub along well together, make sense, and plug into each other. That process creates a pattern – a magical ‘skeleton structure’ or interconnected web that power and consciousness can flow through, and that our imaginations can plug into in order to work through. That is why the mapping of a deck is far more important than simply putting a load of symbolic images together.

At one point we had stacks of the paintings in the bedroom, with some under the bed and the rest propped in various corners – most of the paintings are 20inches by 30inches (some are a bit larger) canvas on wood stretchers…. That adds up to a lot of space. It is a small bedroom, and with so many contacted paintings all crammed together, it started to get loud and very very busy. After a week of sleepless nights, we sucked up the cost and hired a local small storage room to put them all in…. finally we got some sleep.

So here are some more peeks, this time some of the ‘places’ – some are inner places and some are outer places, and some are in presentations that are not how magicians usually think of a place. One example is the Inner Library, which is most often depicted as literally a vast library.

However, when working in this place in vision, it is important to remember that the ‘books’ are not actually books that we read, rather they are the stored remnants of knowledge and memory.

And that knowledge and memory is not just of humans across time, but also of nature. Trees are wonderful at storing information and also passing it on…. In the painting for the Inner Library, the trees send their roots down into the void….

And all of the images I post in this block are just rough snapshot photos that I took when I finished each one, so some have shadow or glare, and some are cropped…. Obviously for printing, Stuart re photographed them properly…. I am not allowed to play with the ‘grown up’ camera……

I will keep adding dribbles of blog posts with preview peeks of the images while we are busy working away in the background preparing for printing, fundraising, and finishing the book. Thanks for stopping by!

I have been silent on this blog for a long long time…. Because I have been busily beavering away on my next project – the next magical baby….. When the pandemic hit, I was put to work on a new project which filled me with a sense of ‘oh shit’ – as it demanded skills that I didn’t have… namely painting.

It is something that had been building up for a while, and it was also something that started itself before I realised what it was and what I was doing. While the Quareia course sets out a solid path for magical self-learning, it can be a fairly tough going path, and is of a style that is quite contained. But what about people who do not fit onto any path but are best wandering through the magical forest alone, and following their instincts? 

It is a question that has rolled around in my head for a long time and really came into focus with the pandemic – so many people felt cut off, not only from other people, but from themselves and their magic. Personally, I loved the isolation but many didn’t thrive at all in it. It really brought it home for me how some people would benefit from signposts, thumbs up, occasional advice, introductions to various spirits, the odd slap, and sometimes cheerleading while walking their own unique magical path. While the Quareia deck can provide some of that, it is also overlaid by magical complexity and detail that not all magicians need, which can complicate a reading – it was designed as a deck specifically for Quareia Initiates and adepts.

Divination is a major thread through just about all paths in magic, and yet it is often treated as a stand-alone discipline or is given very little attention. Divination can become the ‘elder advisor’ to a lone magician, especially one trying to navigate an increasingly hostile and difficult world. But to be such an advisor, a deck needs clarity, ease of understanding, and to not be locked into any single culture or system – it should be able to function across many cultures. 

 It needs clear basic building blocks of power structures, the different types of beings a magician bumps into, and a vocabulary of power causes and effects. That way when a magician is struggling, a clear message and overview can be provided without the message getting drowned under archaic symbolism or clashing traditions. When you strip the flesh and muscle off any magical system, there are some core ‘bones’ that are common across most if not all magical paths, depending on the intention of the magician.

So I set about designing and painting a deck myself, using contacted magical methods to bring specific energies and powers through into the images, and using imagery that could be understood across a wide cross section of magical types. Over the last two years of the pandemic, I painted regularly, using stretched canvas and acrylic paint.. and I tell you, it was terrifying…. I live with a professional artist, and he was good enough to just leave me to figure it out for myself, and to only offer minimum advice when asked.

I can’t draw…. Unlike a lot of people who can sketch at least adequately, I am still on stick men when it comes to drawing…. But painting is something I have dabbled with (and I really mean just dabbling) for the last few years… but that is very different to painting something that others are going to see. When I set about painting this deck I had failures, I had ‘inner smirks’ from spirits, I had rolled eyes from contacts, and the occasional pat on the head. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be, and sometimes the level of power that came through a painting totally floored me, so it was a major learning experience. And then of course were the practical learning curves of what paint can and cannot do, and what my hands can and cannot do.

I also learned a great deal about fate, divination, timing, and imagery – some of the paintings timed themselves in to being painted just before a major event happened…. The build up of that power went into the painting and yet I was not aware of what was happening until the painting was finished, and then the event happened.

When I first started the paintings, I had a list and a schedule, which quickly went out of the window as the deck took over…. I was blocked from doing some images until I would be suddenly dragged out of bed very early to ‘get this done now!!!’… and sometimes a particular painting would seem to go nowhere for ages before suddenly and quickly coming together… just in time for an event happening that was mirrored in the painting itself.

When this happened, I put a note on the back of the painting, on the wood frame. Once it happened a couple of times, I finally realised what was going on, and I started to observe magically what was happening… and that taught me so much about the energetic building of fate patterns for events, and as a consequence from an inner perspective how elements of prediction/divination can work.. how they tie into multiple fate patterns, and how such energy can embed itself into an image and stay there… like storage…

It was fascinating as I was learning it all from a totally different angle to what I am used to.

Some paintings didn’t make the cut, some had to be repainted over to layer the power in various ways, which was a new experience for me.. lots of learning how visual power works.. …and now I have finished that side of it all.. the images are done and I am currently beavering away on the book.

With the images and the book, it should work not only for divination, but also as an advisor – when the magician or person hits a wall in their life and wants to step forward in a way that evolves/grows their magical path, working with the deck can help flag up the various fate options, and the beings and powers that flow through the deck can be worked with magically to transition from one short cycle of fate to the next.

I hope it will also function as view into the experiential underbelly of magic – each of the cards are core magical principles and beings, and as such can give greater insight into what is going on ‘behind the scenes’ in a situation or working. Whenever possible in the book, I have pointed this out, and also given advice or insight into workings, exorcism, cleansings etc – I am trying to make the book like a personal guide as well as a ‘deck meanings’ book. And where some cards can have complex layers, I have offered a non-magical ‘it is like this’ extra – I have come to realise with working with students from around the world that some concepts do not always translate well.

The deck/book will be ready by spring next year, and the worst case scenario in the current economic climate, is that it will be available just through thegamecrafter.com which is a US print on demand service.

Because it is just me and no other artists to pay, the deck should be cheaper than Quareia deck, unless their print prices have gone through the roof.. and the book will be available on amazon as a hardback, paperback and ebook. There will also be a free ebook on the Quareia website and a link to the free ebook when it is purchased.

The images from the deck will also be available as prints and posters through redbubble, should people want to work with the images magically, or simply stick them on the wall.

A best-case scenario is all of the above, plus a limited edition higher quality print run of the cards.

A lot of that depends upon whether we can fundraise enough for the printing costs, and whether the UK still has an affordable and functioning international postal service – sadly here in the UK anything is possible right now.. we could be in the stone age by this time next year!

I will post a few more updates here as I go along, and put up some more images, plus insights into the journey of creating them.

The name of the deck etc will be kept under wraps for now…. Keeping in line with tradition, a new baby is never called by its name, but simply called ‘baby’…

I have also recently recoded a podcast with Glitch bottle where I talk about the creation of the deck, and that should be airing within the next week before the end of October.

The paintings themselves will be for sale in the not too distant future probably on the TaDehent Books website  https://www.tadehent.com and there will be links on the Quareia website. The money from the sale of the paintings will go towards raising funds for a limited edition print run.

The most pre-eminent kind of human is he who has realised perfection in the intuition of the theoretical intellect, such that he/she is completely free of need of a human teacher, and has attained skill in his practical divinatory ability such that he witnesses ‘the realm of the soul’ and that which therein relates to the states of the lower world, establishing them whilst awake so that the imagination completely performs its actions for him to witness them in a specific way, as we have already explained, and the power of his soul exerts its effect throughout the natural world. – Avicenna (980-1037EC)

All images and text copyright (c) Josephine McCarthy 2022

A friend in Ukraine is starting a blog about life in a country at war… a way for individual voices in Ukraine to be heard. What a great thing to do!

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I started this this blog as a kind of temporary job with no exact idea of what I will be. An editorial politics (as I see it now) with a short bio will be published soon. I see this blog as something as neutral and unbiased as possible; I will try to find a unique point of view that would make it different from the other media. Your feedback is very welcomed; I will try to adjust what I write to your ideas, you may contact me…

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I have been quiet on this blog for a while as it has been a busy and chaotic year so far (no shit.. says half the world)… but with the world chaos in mind, here is a blog about what I have been up to this year, with links to various new tarot resources, interviews and a new book release….. as if there was ever a time your divination skills needed sharpening, it is now!

Quareia

At Quareia we had to make quite a lot of changes to our yearly schedule so we have moved our residential gatherings online – we have a month long series of online video debates and discussions for eligible students who are members of the Quareia online Porch community. Details of this community can be found on our landing page – just scroll down to find the information.

In honour of the ‘plague’ and various other crazy shit that has been happening this year, I have labelled the year “Revelations 2020’ . With the volatile astrological ‘weather’, thanks to Saturn and Pluto coming toe to toe for a stare down along with all their fellow planets gathered around for a scrum, it has been and continues to be a startling ‘wtf??’ year. And of course we in Britain are (once again) bracing for a Brexit impact that will very likely mean major changes to our way of life.

Here is my mental image for this year…. I am such an optimist…..

So with those happy thoughts, here are some things for you to play with.

A new Quareia Tarot Resource.This new resource has just uploaded to the Quareia website free books page

A Quareia worker and Dutch translator, Martien van Ee (www.quareiafriends.nl) has kindly gathered together in one coherent PDF, a series of tarot resources from my various writings and this can be found on Quareia’s Free Books page. This PDF document contains layouts from the Quareia course, from the LXXXI Quareia Magicians deck, and also from my latest book Tarot Skills for the 21st Century. This resource also contains key words from the Rider Waite deck and from the LXXXI Quareia Magicians deck.

The file is available for reading and for download for personal use only – it is fully copyrighted and cannot be reproduced without permission.

Thanks to Martien !!

Tarot Skills for the 21st Century

I brought out a new book this summer called Tarot for the 21st Century – Mundane and Magical Divination. It seemed an appropriate time to put a lot of information, layouts, reading techniques and analysis together for card divination, as one of the great ways to navigate your way through a very destructive time is to use divination to avoid the major calamities from smacking you in the face when it is not truly necessary.

I cannot say this strongly enough – Divination is one of the foundation stones of magical practice – without it, you will be flying blind in the face of danger.

Do you find it difficult doing readings? Failure is part of the process, so don’t let failure stop you – just keep plugging away until the light bulbs start to go on. Practice, practice, practice, along with good journals and taking notes from each important reading you do – that will start you on the path to being a really good tarot reader.

Excerpts from the book can be found on Quareia Publishing UK’s website

And the book is available on all internet retail outlets including amazon

Tarot is a very important tool at times like these, where everything from the playbook (war, famine, plague, political meltdown etc) is being thrown at us. What is also important is understanding the destructive process, and how we can navigate that process as safely and successfully as possible. I recently spent over 3 hours talking to Alex, the podcaster of Glitch Bottle on these subjects 

Interviews

Through the summer I did a couple of interviews on line. I discussed various topics around tarot and divination and answering readers questions with Reddit r/tarot which can be viewed here.

And I did an interview with Students of Franz Bardon online, talking about magical training, developing a magical course, and the magical life itself. The interview can be found here

Finally….

The crazy ‘inner weather’ has not yet passed, and the results of the astrological catalysts we have been experiencing throughout this year will play out for years to come – our world is changing, and like all change it can be painful and difficult.

However, how you approach those difficulties can determine whether you just about survive them, or whether your roots and branches are nourished from the storm. You can emerge from the storms stronger, wiser, smarter and with a far more realistic understanding of the world around you. So chin up, wade through the shit, and let it fertilise your future!

And if anyone comes across a weird tomb or buried casket that has never been opened before, please don’t open it…kick some sand over it and tiptoe away quietly… I think enough has ‘climbed out of the box’ this year to last us a few decades.

And wordpress….. your new design is clever and works like a leaky diaper…. someone forgot the basics…..