Alexiel Raynes is a shaman, philosopher, and musician from Louisville, Ky. He has studied religion and science for over 20 years. His spiritual path focuses on self realization, the liberation of the constraints of the mind on consciousness. He also studies plant medicines and their use in indigenous cultures world wide. He is fascinated with exploring the world beyond the veil of mainstream western science, and postulates at what lies beyond general consensus reality. Facebook.com/AlexielRaynes2020 Or email [email protected]

  • Reviews

    Oracle Deck Review – The Wild Unknown Archetypes Deck & Guidebook Created and Illustrated by Kim Krans

    Oracle Deck Review The Wild Unknown Archetypes Deck and Guidebook Created and Illustrated by Kim Krans Publisher: HarperOne 78 Cards Deck. 224 Page Guidebook Publication Date: October 15, 2019     Kim Krans is already quite popular in the Pagan community as the Creator of the best selling Wild Unknown Tarot deck. If you’re not familiar, The Wild Unknown has taken the world by storm. I love the art, though I have not worked with it personally, it never called out to me. She also has an animal spirit deck, which seems to accompany the Tarot deck very well. Neither of them called out to me. They’re both very beautiful…

  • Reviews

    Book Review – Your Spiritual Almanac: A Year of Living Mindfully by Joey Hulin

    Book Review Your Spiritual Almanac A Year of Living Mindfully by Joey Hulin Publisher: Laurence King Publishing 256 Pages Publishing Date: October 19, 2021     This book comes to you from a generation quite jaded by planners, journals, and almanacs. It has obliterated this impossibly high bar. Joey Hulin, who is just an amazing human being, has clearly mastered being a human.  She breaks down each month, and she gives you EVERYTHING. A meaningful fable, journaling exercises, recipes, rituals, planetary aspects, yoga positions, aspirations, meditation, and more! An example:   Ritual for November:    Rites of passage are central to a number of cultural,  spiritual and religious practices, and they…

  • Monthly Columns

    As Above, So Below (How the Stars Became Our Hearts)

    Who Are The Dark Goddesses?     Before we begin, as a disclaimer, it should be noted that with the old gods, stories differ from source to source, and were never canonized. An ironic word to use in that the word canonization comes from the canonization of the Bible. So in effect, the word doubles its meaning, in that they are religious texts non canonized, and that the various stories written about them are done so non canonically. The gods and are something that can only be expressed, not explained. Above is a picture of Shiva. Some of you may know, he is one of the Principal Deities of Hinduism.…

  • Monthly Columns

    As Above So Below (How the Stars Became Our Hearts)

    Confessions of a Dark Witch 2   Dark Instinct     Everyone inherently understands how important the play between the light and dark is.  Your shadow is longer when the light is at its highest. If you’ve been to a rave, or have ever experienced Christmas lights, you’ll note that the lights are prettiest in the dark. When the sun is out, you can’t see the stars. And as a witch, we love the moon. If there was no darkness, her splendor would constantly be washed out by the radiance of the sun. The universe doesn’t value light or dark. It values balance. In a cake recipe, each ingredient is…

  • Divination Articles,  Reviews

    Tarot Deck Review – The Sasuraibito Tarot by Stasia Burrington

    Tarot Deck Review The Sasuraibito Tarot By Stasia Burrington Publisher: Independently Published 78 Card Tarot Deck     The Sasuraibito Tarot is the masterful work of Stasia Burrington. Handmade and self printed since 2015, this 78 card deck is a beautiful and complex mixture of ancient Asian reverence, and millennial body positivity. The perfect expression of today’s mystic. Drawing heavily from Japanese as well as Western themes. Paganism encompasses many walks of life. If you believe in any very old, or new age belief system that is NOT Christianity, you might be Pagan. Every habitable land on Earth had some form of paganism. When it comes to tarot, you find…

  • Reviews

    Book Review – The Good Morning Journal: 5-Minute Guided Reflections to Start Your Day with Inspiration, Purpose, and a Plan by Molly Burford

    Book Review The Good Morning Journal: 5-Minute Guided Reflections to Start Your Day with Inspiration, Purpose, and a Plan by Molly Burford Publisher: Adams Media 176 Pages Publication Date: June 1, 2021     I’d like to start with the fact that I approach journals like these with much excitement, but always with a dash of skepticism. With a journal, I hope to see some progression in the prompts, as a journal is usually (as expected) the same page copy and pasted throughout the whole book. I was firstly disappointed by the lack of such a progression in this book.  The journal invites you to take 5 minutes each morning…

  • Monthly Columns

    As Above So Below (How the Stars Became Our Hearts)

    Confessions of a Dark Witch   The Bourne     I decided to write this in response to many different people suggesting to me that I have a hard life because I call myself a “dark” witch, and many of those same individuals also added that, if they did not fully understand, I should clarify to people what I mean exactly. Also, as is obvious, I’ve returned to narrative format, as when talking about deep personal things like your own inner experiences in relationship to you own spiritual beliefs and practices, it should always be made clear that these are opinions and beliefs, not scientific truths. The realm of spirituality…

  • Monthly Columns

    As Above So Below (How the Stars Became Our Hearts)

    Christianity: The Great Misunderstanding   Now, in the last entries, I’ve aimed a lot of criticism at the Christian faith. Setting aside the purpose of the religion now, and whether or not Jesus was real or divine, let’s examine the lore with a more open mind. Let us assume that Jesus was very real, and his words were truth. Then with that lens, examine Christianity once again from the perspective of the man with whom the religion places it’s namesake.  Jesus’ message was very much different from what we find in the Old Testament. Which seemed to be a collection of lore stories centered around sin and blood. The tribulations…

  • Reviews

    Book Review – The Pagan Book of the Dead: Ancestral Visions of the Afterlife and Other Worlds by Claude Lecouteux

    Book Review The Pagan Book of the Dead Ancestral Visions of the Afterlife and Other Worlds By Claude Lecouteux Publisher: Inner Traditions 314 Pages Publication Date: 9/15/2020       The Pagan Book of the Dead: Ancestral Visions of the Afterlife and Other Worlds by Claude Lecouteux is a human’s best attempt at a compendium of all possible sources of astral literature from the ancient world. This book would serve as a Bible book if we witches had such.  With such precision, the line between the myriad of pagan folktales, songs, and fables from the Hellenistic, Celtic, and Scandinavian religions, right to the nowadays more accept Christian beliefs of Heaven,…

  • Divination Articles,  Reviews

    Oracle Deck & Guide Book Review – The Hearth Path Oracle Cards: Miraculous Messages of Love by Nadine Gordon-Taylor

    Oracle Deck & Guidebook Review The Heart Path Oracle Cards Miraculous Messages of Love by Nadine Gordon-Taylor Publisher: Bear & Company 53 Card Deck & 121 Page Guidebook Publication Date: 9/22/20     In this beautiful Oracle Deck and Guidebook, Nadine Gordon-Taylor invites you into the visionary world of mystical archetypes. With riveting art that not only speaks to the mind, but the heart and the soul as one. The use of the word miraculous isn’t in anyway an overstatement with this deck. Many of the cards feature animals and other deep symbols and archetypes in impossible juxtapositions. Many of the images are difficult for the mind to accept when…