We don’t do a huge number of deck spotlights on this site, however I couldn’t not write about the final deck in the Wild Unknown Series, Alchemy, by visionary artist Kim Krans.

And even though we’ll be talking about the deck at length, I wouldn’t regard this article as a review in any way. These will be mine and Tim’s personal thoughts, ideas on how we plan to work with the cards, and any stirrings that come from our initial impressions. We are huge fans of The Wild Unknown series and regard both the Archetypes and Animal Spirit oracle as some of our most loved and most used decks. When we caught wind of this newest installation, we were extremely excited to get our hands on it, and even more thrilled that it overtly tackles alchemy; a subject that underpins much of our work, conversations and contemplations, especially as of late.

We’re back with another installment of our new Bookshelf series. In this post, we’re sharing some of our November reads, providing a quick snapshot of its contents, our reflections and a link to purchase or learn more if one happens to catch your eye.

We hope you find this series interesting and maybe even useful. Please let us know if you’ve read anything we’ve listed, have taken recommendations from these posts or have any suggestions for us! We’d love to hear it!

Elphias Levi once stated, regarding tarot - “As an erudite Kabalistic book, all combinations of which reveal the harmonies preexisting between signs, letters and numbers, the practical value of the tarot is truly and above all marvelous. A prisoner devoid of books, had he only a tarot of which he knew how to make use, could in a few years acquire a universal science, and converse with an unequalled doctrine and inexhaustible eloquence.”

We have come to regard tarot as one gateway to the beyond - not unlike other methods such as meditation, trance, ouija, runes, dreams, hallucinogenic drugs or even contemplation. Could it be though that tarot holds not just the means, but the map itself? Somewhere along our discovery in the months leading up to second contact, we began to explore something we refer to as “the gates”. It would be difficult to reverse engineer this process because a lot of it was stray thought or unexplained guidance, so I’ll just provide some of what we came to and omit the ramble.