Cats & Magic is Catarot’s serialized reading section about cats, legends, history, and gentle magic.
43 essays are published so far in Korean, English, and Japanese. Every episode can be read in full from the list below.
Read the latest episodeCats & Magic is Catarot’s core serialized reading section—history, folklore, literature, science, city culture, spaceflight, and internet memes told through cats.
Each episode is a standalone article in Korean, English, and Japanese. If the tarot app offers a moment of intuition, this series builds the long story between cats and people.
Recent essays include whether cats like music and the science of species-specific music (ch.43), whether cats can predict earthquakes (ch.42), and the evolutionary origins of cat meows (ch.41).
In a living room somewhere, Bach's "Air on the G String" drifts from a speaker. The cat on the sofa does not move. Not even an ear twitches. Then the track changes. This piece sounds a little strange to human ears: high, sliding tones strung together. The cat's ears swivel toward the speaker. It gets up, walks over, and rubs its cheek against the corner of…
At 2:46 PM on March 11, 2011, a massive magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck off the coast of Tohoku, Japan. It was the fifth most powerful earthquake in human history. The subsequent tsunami claimed the lives of approximately 20,000 people. However, days before the earthquake struck, cat owners across Japan experienced something unusual. A woman in Tokyo…
It is quite strange when you think about it. If you have a cat, you probably talked to them today. "Want some food?" "Are you hungry?" "Where are you?" And your cat likely responded to you with a meow. But did you know that this meow is directed only at you? Adult cats do not meow at other cats, except for kittens meowing at their mothers. Cats rarely use…
Imagine you are walking down a dark hallway right now. Pitch black. You can see nothing. You reach out your hands and grope your way forward. But for some unknown reason, you seem to know what is in that hallway. How high the ceiling is. How close the walls on both sides are. Whether the space ahead narrows or widens. The flow of air felt on your skin…
11 PM, a dark bedroom with the lights turned off. It is completely pitch black to human eyes. Absolute darkness. You can't even see your hand if you hold it up in front of your face. But suddenly, at the foot of the bed, your cat's eyes begin to glow. Green or golden. It looks as if the eyes themselves are emitting light. And those glowing eyes stare…
