26 June 2026
A few things have landed since the last Journal entry — and one of them gives me an excuse to tell you a more personal story.
Our world readings — where we turn a moment in the news into an astrological reading — now draw a tarot spread for that same moment too, woven into the reading. The chart and the cards, speaking to the same question, side by side.
I've always felt the two don't compete so much as light the same thing from different angles — which, it turns out, is rather the whole story of how Occultique came to be.
We've also begun sharing these readings as videos, short and long — with the voices, the moving chart wheels and the cards on screen. They're on YouTube in English at [Astrology World News](https://youtube.com/@astrologyworldnews) and in French at [L'Actu des Astres](https://youtube.com/@actudesastres). We're tiny over there for now, so a follow genuinely helps.
Honestly? I'm not a professional astrologer — my mum is. I grew up around her charts and her little blue ephemeris, learning out of Parker's, and as a teenager I even tried (and failed) to code the calculations myself.
The tarot, though, I took to early. Mum read at psychic fairs, and I've read the cards since my teens — I ran my own little computerised tarot for years, used it almost daily, and kept refining it until I genuinely found it helpful, long before I dared show anyone. That, really, was the seed of Occultique.
I lean psychological (my wife's work is in that world, and it's fascinated me for decades), so my own readings can drift toward something like therapy — a line I'm always careful not to cross. And I'm an unrepentant believer in synchronicity: that if there's something you need to know, the universe finds a way to get it to you — through a chart, through the cards, sometimes through a black cat strolling smugly across your path.
Occultique is partly to honour my mum — who's in her eighties now and still as captivated as ever — and partly something I want to grow into myself, with the help of people who find it useful, and people who know this craft far better than I do.
I couldn't resist letting one of our readers loose on my own chart — and since I'm also a reader here, that reader was me. You can [read it for yourself](https://occultique.net/s/Rmc2ZHxV), or find me over on the [Readers page](https://occultique.net/readers#reader-p_1770970473544_eab2d4).
The summary made me laugh, because it's uncomfortably accurate:
> "I am a Gemini systems-weaver with a Piscean heart and a Cancerian front door, reading by lantern-light in a room full of circuit boards and cat hair."
A Gemini Sun that can't stop connecting things (astrology and tarot, the cards and the code); a Pisces Moon that feels its way toward the meaning; a Cancer rising that, I suspect, is mostly my mother's front door. Make of that what you will — I rather do.
We're right at the beginning, and we're looking for a few kindred spirits — astrologers, tarot readers, writers, creators — who think their audience would genuinely enjoy Occultique and would like to help spread the word.
It's a real partnership, not a banner ad: your own code for your followers, a fair commission, your own page on our site — and we'll do our best to send a little visibility your way in return. We're not here to replace anyone's craft (our readers are crafted, voiced characters, not real astrologers); if anything, we hope to send people deeper into the stars and the cards.
If that sounds like you, write to me at support@occultique.net — I'd love to hear from you, and I'm always happy to have a chat.
Thank you for being here. There's much more to come. 🔮