Due to our mysteriously esoteric studies, we're often asked for oracular predictions about the new year.  For the upcoming transition, we consulted our own Mimetic Oracle, and here's why: life is a grand pageant, and it's been said that theatre reveals what is behind so-called reality.  Our Mimetic Oracle draws from 92 characters in six vintage plays, with 166 spoken lines and 31 stage directions in the mix.  With the system, one randomly draws five characters and generates a script to illuminate the current drama of life.  (There’s a detailed F.A.Q. which explains how the scripts are created, how to make sense of the dialogues, how to determine whether a reading is positive or negative, what to make of the various characters, and why these specific 6 plays were chosen for the system: http://www.mysteryarts.com/play/.)

Here's the strangely positive scenario that the oracle generated when asked about the new year:

The scene begins ominously: "They're putting out all the lights."  That vague pronoun seems to refer to the "powers that be."  Yet the character Snookums feels "perfectly fan-tas-a-ma-gor-ious."  This is crucial, not just for its positivity, but also for how the word is broken down.  This means: separate out the component parts, get down to the roots, see how it all fits together, and it'll all be good (albeit sort of unreal; the fantastical is removed from reality).  At the heart of the scene is some weeping, nervous rocking back and forth, darkness, and unconsciousness.  Yet a tin soldier (symbolic of humble, innocent, uncorrupted authority) points to the rear of the stage where a candle is being lit.  "Here is a candle," says Paddy Mike; "Now I'll light it."  A single candle dispels all the darkness.  The scene ends on an extraordinarly positive tone.  Note that the candle has been placed upon a box.  A lingering question to ponder is: what's in that box that supports the illumination?

Due to our mysteriously esoteric studies, we're often asked for oracular predictions about Hallowe'en.  For this year's holiday, we consulted our own Mimetic Oracle, and here's why: Hallowe'en is a grand pageant, and it's been said that theatre reveals what is behind so-called reality.  Our Mimetic Oracle draws from 92 characters in six vintage plays, with 166 spoken lines and 31 stage directions in the mix.  With the system, one randomly draws five characters and generates a script to illuminate the current drama of life.  (There’s a detailed F.A.Q. which explains how the scripts are created, how to make sense of the dialogues, how to determine whether a reading is positive or negative, what to make of the various characters, and why these specific 6 plays were chosen for the system: http://www.mysteryarts.com/play/.)

Here's the surreal scenario that the oracle generated when asked about this year's Hallowe'en:

The first line says that "Nobody knows it better than you do."  This indicates that your deepest instinct about this year's Hallowe'en will prove correct.  Note that two characters in this scene laugh: a lame boy and a constable—a foreshortened leg and the long arm of the law.  We interpret this as meaning that high spirits are the long and short of it.  At the heart of the scene is a secret.  The character Biddy Mary proclaims that if there's anything on earth she does love, it's a secret.  She repeats this statement until the end of the scene, as if giving the maximum emphasis possible that a delicious secret will be learned this Hallowe'en.  Note that every character in the scene except one is facing left.  Biddy Mary is facing right, suggesting that her secret will carry things forward in some way.  The scene ends with Enlarged Snookums' own echoing words, "Oh, goody, goody, goody!"  This reinforces the positivity of the oracular reading as well as suggests Hallowe'en treats/goodies.  It's a profoundly favorable reading with a juicy secret at its heart.

Here's one of the cards from the Self-Intuiting Polarity deck.  A heart is on one side of the scale and a feather on the other, recalling the ancient Egyptian concept of one’s heart being weighed upon one’s death and needing to weigh less than a feather.  Without one side of the scale or the other, things can feel very unbalanced.  The heart’s arteries are tangled like the serpent.  The serpent in the center may represent the rise of energy in a relationship to bring things back into harmony, balance and interaction.  Is this the motion of kundalini and the heart chakra as uniter?  The feather, the serpent, and the heart all point the same way.  1 is the number of focus, initiation, beginnings, and male aspects.  2 is the number of reflection, receiving, manifesting, and feminine aspects.  The feather may represent light-heartedness, higher ideals, divine intervention, wings.  The feather is not, however, in a position to fly away or flee, but rather rests comfortably, nested, balanced with the heart.  Other interpretations: weighing one's options, the philosophy of “less is more,” trusting that things will balance out.

About the cards: A few years ago, we collaborated on a deck of "wide-awake dreaming" cards for the celebrated mentalist Kenton Knepper.  Kenton occasionally demonstrated this deck at gatherings of the magical underground in Las Vegas, and that's how the cards got the street names of "Waking Dream Cards," "Metaphor Cards," "Subconscious Communication Cards," "Transformation Cards," and "K-Kards."  But their official name is "[Self-Intuiting] Polarity Cards."  The deck long-remained one of Kenton's best-kept secrets, but we can now reveal that they're finally available to anyone who wishes to experience a mind-blowing insight that they verifiably didn't have before.  Unlike Tarot cards or other well-known reading decks, Polarity Cards are wholly free of dogma and therefore allow for fresh, intuitive understandings that are neither influenced nor hindered by preconceptions.  Deeply rooted in coded principles from the Mystery traditions, the cards also work as powerful meditational tools, unlocking a greater sense of harmony and well-being.  Lots more information about the deck is at TheGameCrafter.

From the University of Maryland's Bones, Molars and Briefs, 1904.  See How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.

From the University of Maryland's Bones, Molars and Briefs, 1904.  Also very much of interest: The Young Wizard's Hexopedia and How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.

"The sorceress divines Faustine's fortune by poisoning a young slave girl," from Dicks' English Library of Standard Works, 1884.