Stephen Abbott grew up in Columbus OH and studied divination and Witchcraft with his grandmother Beatrice McCaully starting from the age of 10. He would later use her surname when he worked as a columnist for Llewellyn’s publication Gnostica News. She exposed him to various methods of divination, which he would then study on his own.

He left Ohio in 1970, going to Berkeley, CA, where he would meet three men who would be friends of his for the rest of their lives, Robert Larson, Robin Goodfellow, who died on Beltane 2010, and Isaac Bonewits, who died on August 12, 2010. Isaac and Stephen struck up a friendship in 1970 that would last for the rest of Isaac’s life.

Stephen’s collection of Tarot decks continued to grow because every time he had some money that didn’t have to go to rent, bills or food, he would buy himself a new Tarot deck. His collection now numbers 489. He pioneered such innovations in Tarot as the “Group Grope (named by Tegwedd), where an entire group of people would give their impressions of each card. Readings of sort were marathon affairs, often lasting several hours. There is also the multi-deck reading, in which several decks would be used for the reading.

In 1997, his daughter Megan was born, who has now finished writing her 1st novel, and is now at work on her 2nd. He lives in Sacramento with 7 cats and has Tegwedd as a house-mate.