Creepy Decks

[Umbrae]

My opinion...

One should never confuse the deck with the message, or how the message is delivered.

True, SOME readers may give consistently grim forecasts with a dark deck, or see only a pessimistic outlook. However these same readers may provide similar insights from a Sunny Bunny Deck.

Speaking from personal experience, I've delivered some pretty optimistic and sunny readings with the Giger Tarot.

Why are there so many "creepy" decks, and why are they so popular?

...

Do you own a deck like this? And, what attracts you to it? Do you use it for a particular type of reading? And finally, how do your sitters respond to this type of deck?

I actually hunt down dark decks. Many fall flat. There are a few 'get on the bandwagon and draw it as quickly as possible on a computer' where what makes horror work is never examined.

And that really is the bottom line of the question.

Why does horror work?

Why are there a slew of 'Real Ghost Hunter' TV shows?

Why are horror movies always pulling in huge crowds?

Why are Stephan King, Peter Straub, and Dean Koontz so poplar?

You know, we always use the “For Entertainment Purposes Only” tagline (often mandated by legal authorities). But we wince at the thought of a sitter coming in for a bit of their own campfire story.

On one hand we have Tarot as a game, and on the other we have Tarot – the spooky stuff. (Play around in the strange worlds of Tarot long enough - you will experience spooky stuff).

If a sitter wants spooky stuff – why the hell not?

Mind you, you won't be sanitizing any of these decks. (I have one deck, I pulled out all the cards with skeletons to not frighten the pikers, and was left with only one card...Death. (LOL)).

Yes you can do very serious, deep readings with dark decks. Just like you can with Gummi Bears or the Tarot of Bug Eye'd Not So Cute Critters.

Reading Tarot (for others), boils down to working with symbols. You can dress them symbols up any way you choose. The Solleone, The Bohemian Gothic, Baphomet, The Deviant Moon...all wrap their imagery around the same symbols. It is the symbols that provide the meaning that the reader imparts to the sitter (okay perhaps not the Baphomet, but I'm making a point here...sheesh...).

Your darling Aunt Zelda may look like she wants the Sunny Bunny Tarot, but she may want to watch you spin the same message from something faintly reminiscent of an 1890's seance. Or perhaps something even more 'taboo'...like that deck you have that's haunted...

ETA: Funny...just earlier today I was thinking about Krampus, and how we've sanitized Christmas. But we haven't really, that's a local viewpoint driven by...I dunno.

When one considers the sheer global Tarot Market, and includes the Asain markets and their influence, darker themed decks are a very tiny fraction of the market. But to us in the market where it (the dark genres) sells, it is more visible.

And we giggle at Detective Conan, and say that Prince of Tennis is not Tarot. However they are.

It's our view of Tarot that is not universal. Just like in Tarocchi playing areas, the viewpoint is different than ours.

It boils down to how rigidly we choose to define tarot...

Just an opinon...

 

[BelovedK]

I have wanted the wormweird deck that one is pretty creepy

http://www.poepuppet.com/wormweird.htm

 

[Golden Moon]

Does anybody own the Savage Tarot? I've seen scanned pics and it's really creepy... and I mean murderously creepy. Body parts, blood, and Saw-like images... so not for me.

I don't think I would ever want to read with it.

No even close, the teletubby produce worse carnige than that hehehehehe

 

[Golden Moon]

Here you go Ice Clone

http://www.savagetarot.com/

 

[nisaba]

No even close, the teletubby produce worse carnige than that hehehehehe

Oh goddess, yes, tubby-toast and tubby-tustard ... <cringes from horrifying long-term memories> But that Tubby-Sun-Baby was nice! I always thought he was a bit of a Tarot image.

It's amazing how scarred you can be so many years later.

 

[shamoness]

This is a very interesting thread. Certainly it has been stated that creepiness is defined by the individual. I love my Bohemian Gothic and do consider it a dark deck. I use this deck more for myself as inner exploration of my shadow self. But I have used it on occasion for others. I carried it with me during the months of September and October. During that time I was asked by someone in my coven to read for them. The BG was all I had with me. She found the images hard to relate to but the reading itself was not at all dark in nature. at a later date she asked for another reading but wanted a different deck.

I had the Vargo Gothic and really disliked it's imagery. Too bloody. I was happy to trade it away. I also have the Vampire tarot by Hertz. It was purchased for my 24yo daughter who loves everything vampire. She didliked it so I am stuck with it. Again, I find this deck to violent.

Interestingly enough, I have only had one sitter react negatively to any tarot image. This was my son's fiance and she was really creeped out by the Five of Pentacles in the....Robin Wood! She refers to this card as the one legged leper card and the deck as the one legged leper deck. She NEVER wants me to read with that deck for her.

everything is relative to the sitter's perception. I choose darker decks when reading for myself in certain areas of my life. I choose other decks when reading for others. I feel certain darker decks can cause a person to look further inward, but if the sitter is lookiing for that kind of reading then any deck can accomplish that.
JMHO

 

[Essjay]

For me, the creepiest ever deck is the Hanson Roberts. It was my first deck and it almost put me off tarot forever. The new deck interview didn't go well, I can't remember what the exact cards were but the general message was, "I'm not mad keen on you, read with me at your peril." (Well not quite, but you get the message).

Every reading after that was terrible gloom and doom, not just readings for me but for others. I traded it away and never had that problem again. My favourite deck is the BG and I appreciate the more shadowy decks but I wonder if I should have kept that deck - it certainly had something going on that I didn't understand.

(I let the person who I traded it to know that it was a bit gloomy - they weren't overly worried)

 

[Shade]

The only time I have read for people where I only used a dark deck was when I was giving readings to people in line at the local Haunted House during Halloween season. This was done just to alleviate the boredom of waiting in line, few took it seriously and for that reason it was ok to creep it up with a dark deck (I used the Mage the Ascension, the only "dark" deck I had at the time).

After that I have occasionally brought in a dark deck when I was letting the sitter choose the deck for the reading. They have only been picked during the Halloween season and never by someone who had a specific question they wanted answered. I think maybe when something big is on the line we may hedge our bets a little by picking a brighter deck (at least I do).

 

[Morgane_49]

I think maybe when something big is on the line we may hedge our bets a little by picking a brighter deck (at least I do).

I thoroughly agree with that! At least, I know it's something I'm guilty of doing when reading for myself.

I love my darker decks, but they seem to be blunt (much like their owner!), and sometimes I need to hear things on a more gentle level.

 

[Asbestos Mango]

I think "creepy" is a pretty subjective way of describing something.

I'm drawn to dark imagery, and I don't creep out easily, so I haven't seen a deck yet that I find "creepy".

I want Bosch and Deviant Moon. I like the artwork on the Giger, but I don't know that I could read with it. The scans I've seen, there's just too much art crammed into the cards, and the symbolism gets lost.

My main deck right now is the Archeon Tarot, which is a fairly dark deck. It's really good at giving warnings in a way my other two decks, the Gilded and Quantum Tarots couldn't.

I think dark decks are a good way of shining a flashlight into those darker areas of our own psyche that a lot of people would prefer not to see, even though it may be necessary to explore them to get to the root of whatever problems they may be experiencing.