I’m a retired university professor. My last job in academia consisted of acting as Chair of American Studies at Roskilde University in Denmark.

Since 2017 I’ve devoted myself to the teaching and writing on the philosophy and practice of reading cards.

Currently I’m the director of Aradia Academy, a private institution that teaches students to use cartomancy in private practice, from psychology and divination to math and statistics.

I also operate an online cartomancy club, Read Like the Devil, where I meet with students on a monthly basis in order to develop and strengthen their method, philosophy, and practice of divination under the title signature.

Apart from my teaching and fortunetelling positions, I act as editor-in-chief of EyeCorner Press, an independent publishing house started in 2007 as a collaboration between 4 universities.

fast cars, scents, and martial arts

I love precision. They say I read the cards like the Devil, though I don’t always hit the mark. But anyone working with me gets to learn the significance of metaphors related to speed, rhythm, rhyme, tension, balance, proportion, size, and equanimity.

If I get in a sports car, I engage in the venerable practice of necromancy, and conjure none other than Ayrton Senna. Together we test the wind on the track.

Generally I apply martial arts principles to my essential reading and writing techniques, being forever inspired by fencing and Japanese swordsmanship.

The Butoh dancer Hijikata Tatsumi has also been instrumental in sharpening my awareness of how the body relates to the mind, especially in figuring out where exactly my place is, where my foot is, and where my hand is. I find that knowing my place is the most crucial knowledge to gain and the highest of the arts.

As to how sophisticated we can get when it comes to the use of colors in our lives, I draw on inspiration from another favorite master, filmmaker and director Wong Kar Wai.

When I get curious about something, I focus on it with an intensity that borders perversion. But I prefer to call it ‘discipline,’ namely the discipline of training myself to see the obvious.

The desire to see the obvious is also at work behind my interest in ethnobotany. Although I don’t consider myself a herbalist, and I’m not good at gardening, when it comes to blending different essences from the natural world, another energy is present than consecrated knowledge. Here the nose leads the way, and I love what I come up with in terms of creating scents that I use in my personal approach to cosmetics.

In action

For a portrait of the fortuneteller in action, I invite you to read the essay: The Fortuneteller: A Portrait, as it offers a surprising take on the stereotype.