About Us

Ana Cortez and C.J. Freeman are co-creators of The Playing Card Oracles and The Doors of Somlipith, bringing to the world completely original methods of divination with playing cards. Ana and C.J. (father and daughter) collaborated for many years, and their legacy includes numerous publications and works of art.  

Ana grew up in a household where new ideas, mythic story telling, and creative thinking were encouraged. Her father (C.J. Freeman,) was an English major, self taught artist, and writer; and her mother (Nancy Backlund Freeman) is a designer and artist.

C.J. was an occultist and natural mystic, having continuing communication with the spirit world throughout his lifetime. Often he painted without paint brushes, using only his fingers. Completely without formal art training, his only self described technique was, “I let my hand move and see what comes out.” C.J.'s art legacy contains hundreds of images for divination with playing cards.

C.J. passed from this Earth in 2010. Ana lives in Santa Fe, NM with her husband and small menagerie of rescue animals, and is today perhaps the leading authority on playing cards and the language they speak.