Month: April 2026

The Tarot Reader as Healer: Why Now, Why You, and How

On By benebellIn cartomancy, conferences, divination, free download, Learn the Tarot, professional tarot, tarot, tarot card meanings, tarot community, tarot exercises1 Comment

The following is from a keynote presentation I did at the Northwest Tarot Symposium in 2022, the materials now made freely and publicly available.

The subject of this presentation was one more often seen as taboo: using the tarot to do health readings.

Spiritual health and its interaction with physical, psychological, and social wellness had been gaining serious attention in medical literature. So I wanted to consider those perspectives in a discussion on spiritual health and tarot.

What this post provides is a summary of the workshop, the PowerPoint presentation slides I used during the keynote that you can now download and walk through, and all the handouts and resources that were provided to the attendees.

Continue reading “The Tarot Reader as Healer: Why Now, Why You, and How” →

These are a few of my favorite scents

On By benebellIn grimoire, Magical in the Mundane, personal, personal spirituality, traditional witchcraft2 Comments

For anyone interested — and also I’m documenting this for myself so I have an easy, accessible aggregation of my favorite scent recipes — I’m creating this page to house my “best of” recipes. So I’m anticipating that in the future I’ll return to this page and update it with more scent recipes.

I think it’s useful to approach everything I share here within the context of this past article I wrote, “Essential Oils: My (Hopefully) Holistic Perspective.”

Though that write-up is more about using essential oils with the intention of holistic healing, whereas here, while there’s a lot of cross-over, my main focus will be on scent.

There’s also this old post, “On Spell Oils (Cf. Anointing Oils).”

As you probably know, the quality of the essence or absolute you’re using matters a lot and can make all the difference. So two people following the same exact recipe but using different quality essences are going to get two very different results. Fruit notes tend to be more forgiving, but resins and some florals, no, you are very likely going to get what you pay for.

Continue reading “These are a few of my favorite scents” →

Yamantaka, the Wrath of Wisdom and Destroyer of Death: Rites & Rituals

On By benebellIn free download, grimoire, personal spirituality, traditional witchcraft18 Comments

“Wrath of Wisdom and Buddhist Magic: The Rites of Yamantaka”

This is an open informational mini-course on a closed esoteric practice, and builds on what was covered in the preceding course on Kuan Yin (Avalokitesvara) and the Six Syllable Mantra.

Yamantaka will be our entry point into doctrinal medieval Buddhist magic as we explore ritual practices around mandalas, mantras, mudras, and empowerment rites. Which is a bit like throwing you in the deep end of the pool to teach you how to swim. But hey, that’s how I was taught how to swim, so you’re welcome. What’s that species where the mama bird throws the babies off the edge of a cliff and the baby birds either learn how to fly or they die?

I kid. Think of this as just a witchy social studies class. But for those who want to go down the rabbit hole, this write-up will provide you with a well-rounded starter pack, accompanied by exquisite public domain high-res downloads of religious art and Yamantaka mandala references.

Continue reading “Yamantaka, the Wrath of Wisdom and Destroyer of Death: Rites & Rituals” →