Why me. Why now.

My name is Damien Rourke. You won’t find me on social media; there’s a reason for that, and I’ll share it inside.

A few years ago, my partner and I taught nearly a thousand students worldwide—Candle Magic, Ethical Love Magic, Spiritual Devotion, and strong Psychic Protection.

She delivered 1,200+ one-on-one consults; I worked custom magic for good people trapped in

• abusive relationships,

• toxic jobs,

• dangerous living conditions,

• and generational poverty.

We loved the work.

We walked away when the occult underbelly’s cost became too high.

We had seen enough. We walked away.

This is not what I planned on doing ever again

I hadn’t planned to return. I was writing a novel and recording an album.

Then a bolted door rattled. The instruction was simple: start teaching again—from the ground, not the mountaintop.

The directive

Before a single word of this project was written—before it even had a name—I asked for a directive and laid out the cards.

The problem wasn't what to say.

It was a question of approach.

The card that answered was the Ten of Swords.

It’s a famously unpleasant card. Unsubtle, even for tarot.

Some call it the “fuck my life” card, and for good reason. The image is a final, unambiguous statement of ruin: a body prone in the dirt, pierced by ten blades under a black sky.

That landscape is not a mtaphorfor me. For years, it has been my home address.

• It is the mysterious illness from Montenegro that felt like being constantly electrocuted, needing help just to take a bath.

• It is the hallucinated music from a bedroom fan after eighteen months of sleeping less than two hours a night, my body forty pounds lighter and my mind on the verge of cracking as I wander through our darkened home at all hours of the night

• It is the crushing clarity of a late autism diagnosis in my forties, finally explaining why my entire life has felt like one long, exhausting performance

• It is the bitter reality of ‘witch wars’ and magical attacks aimed at me and my family once we started teaching magical practice to hundreds of students.Not the stuff of fantasy, but the toxic, targeted aggression of a community turning on its own out of jealousy

• A landlord doubling rent without notice and illegally retaliating when we fought back.

People throw around the term ‘dark night of the soul’ as if it were a single, poetic event.

The reality is less romantic.

It is not a night.

It is the grinding pressure of ruin, day after day.

So, yes…my first instinct on seeing the Ten of Swords was indeed; Fuck my life.

But, the cards aren’t just a mirror.

They gave a method: teach from the scars.

Not power—magical procedure.

Not spectacle—magical recovery.

A Magical Map of Scars

I will write what I know, I will share what I’m learning.

And the people who need it, will find me.

My work NOW, will be much different than before.

To write from the perspective of the man after the war.

After the field has grown quiet and the executioners have gone home.

The story of a man who begins the slow, grim, and deeply unglamorous work of pulling the swords from his own back.

Because this is not a story of power.

It is a story of procedure.

It is a story of recovery with magical practice as its core.

It has to be.

Because the grand architecture of modern performative magic is a highway that leads only to the acquisition of more swords in ones back.

I can’t speak for you, but I am no longer interested in collecting more holes.

The Magic We ALL Need for 2026

The ground beneath us is unsteady, and it won’t get easier.

What’s coming demands a gritty, portable magic—minimal fanfare, maximum resilience—workable under adverse conditions by anyone willing to carry on.

After thirty years, I’ve learned the deepest truths aren’t in leather-bound, limited-edition tomes sold for hundreds of dollars.

The real insights live in the warm vulnerability between two people who’ve seen the same darkness.

This, then, is the work.

This is where we must begin.

This is My Promise to you

I won't be sending you magical theory from a safe distance. My promise is a field report, in real-time, from my own climb out of the dirt.

You’ll get it all: the wounds, the work, and the wisdom that followed, shared with the stark honesty of a fellow survivor.

This real-time record is the Vellum Codex. Think of it as our living grimoire—a map we draw together across this brutal landscape of life.

If I go down and use magic to get back up, you will hear exactly what happened.

If a tool works, I’ll show you how to build it.

You get the benefit of my experience, without the price of my mistakes.

Together, we’ll turn scars into ink and write our way out.

Damien Rourke