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…