New Orleans Voodoo Tarot...anyone use as a main deck?

[Le Fanu]

Once I venture into pip decks, the NOVT might become more appealing.

But it's not a pip deck I have it and rather like it - though I'm aware that it seems to appeal to my urge for sinister tarot decks and that Voodoo guy in Live and Let Die. I'm very well aware of that. I know myself well It is spooky and supernatural. The book has some rather odd touches too.

But - dare I say - I'd feel as if I were trespassing. I have no background whatsoever in this. None at all. It would feel slightly fake of me. It's a belief system that has immense depth and how could I possibly do it justice? Read the book? Seems somehow insulting. If it's something completely made up - Cat People, Navigators of the Mystic Sea, Zirkus Magi - it's no great shakes. But this is real. There is no limit. And you would never get anywhere near the depth and intensity of someone schooled and steeped in this tradition. That's my take. I'm afraid I can't do the whole "oh just be intuitive". thing. It seems wrong. I give it a wide berth. I respect it very deeply in its box at the back of the wardrobe.

 

[magpie9]

It is not a new system! You just have to be familiar and comfortable with Vodoun and all its terminology.Then all the characters are very well chosen to represent the cards.

Thats the thing that holds me back. The deck is fascinating. I'm very drawn to it...but those powers are POWERS, and I holds bak from getting involved with them or offending them. It's a fascinating but scary landscape.... Can you really "just read" with this deck?

 

[tarotbear]

If it's something completely made up - Cat People, Navigators of the Mystic Sea, Zirkus Magi - it's no great shakes. But this is real. There is no limit. And you would never get anywhere near the depth and intensity of someone schooled and steeped in this tradition. That's my take. I'm afraid I can't do the whole "oh just be intuitive". thing. It seems wrong.

Thats the thing that holds me back. The deck is fascinating. I'm very drawn to it...but those powers are POWERS, and I holds bak from getting involved with them or offending them. It's a fascinating but scary landscape....

I think you both touched on it - This is no 'pseudo-Goddess' stuff that we can put on like a sweatshirt and play 'dress up' with - this is real Gods and Goddesses and has a very REAL religious base underneath it all ... not something Crowley made up while being whipped into an orgasm. It's living myth and magic and a darker side of human nature that is very comfortable for people who live and breathe it ... and dare I even say - 'not us middle-class white folk pretending to be cool for a weekend' kind of stuff.

Baron Samedi? Real scary guy! No 'white bread feed it to little old ladies pretending to be Goddesses weekend seminar' stuff!

 

[greatdane]

I take your point, Mi-Shell

And while the system isn't "new", so much of what this deck represents is new to me. I, like some others here it seems, find it really interesting, but....
I do respect what it represents and the art and colors are powerful and visceral.

 

[Freddie]

I quite like this deck, but I never use it.




Freddie

 

[rwcarter]

But it's not a pip deck

I know that. But one of my issues with the deck is the spareness of the images and once I get over that with pip decks, it probably won't bother me with this deck. You gotta remember I'm'a RWS baby, so I like my scenic decks.

OK, so I just looked up the cards at Aeclectic. They're more scenic than I remember them being, but they're still pretty spare in my book. If I get used to pip decks (and I don't mean TdM, which I know are illustrated decks), then the NOVT images will seem lush in comparison!

Rodney

 

[Mi-Shell]

Thats the thing that holds me back. The deck is fascinating. I'm very drawn to it...but those powers are POWERS, and I holds bak from getting involved with them or offending them. It's a fascinating but scary landscape.... Can you really "just read" with this deck?

Well, OK, I will try my best to explain.Yes, Le Fanu, it is
" It's a belief system that has immense depth and how could I possibly do it justice?"

Through my interest in learning some more of the very basics of another shamanistic/ spiritual tradition I started to attended the ceremonies of a temple in Southern Ontario. I learned to drum rhythms and songs of the Lloas and after a while was invited by the Houngan/ Priest to join in a Healing for one of his colleges, who was quite sick with testicular cancer and metastases....
We drummed for him me on my congas - and the Lloa came into me and spoke -It was the all POWERFUL SNAKE OF HEALING which is seen by the follower of Vodou as Damballah-Wedo, who's Animals are the Snakes....
Long story short, it was a very profound experience for me and everyone else and I was invited back whenever I was in Burlington. (I wish memries was here, she came along once...)
I learned more of the tradition and the Lloas - or how the universal archetypal Spirits present themselves to an adherent of this tradition.
So, protected by my own personal Guardian Spirits (from my Siberian shamanistic Ancestors and my family) I ask the Lloas to help me see, sense and feel, what my querant needs to know and help me relate this message with / through the cards.
In this instance the cards of the NOVT, which deals with New Orleans Voodoo, which is quite similar to Haitian Vodou, although some of the Lloas and the local archetypes are different. But knowing that as well, it is easy to relate forth and back....
So up shows this or that card in a reading and with all the respect I have for the Spirits and their manifestations and "appearances/ disguises" to humans everywhere I open myself to the querant's vows and worries and then read the cards for them.....

 

[tarotbear]

Thank you, Mi-Shell; that is a very in-depth explanation showing us both your mastery and level of understanding of Voodoo and Vodou.

Still - 'The Serpent and The Rainbow' still plays in the back of my mind.

 

[Mi-Shell]

Yes, TB!♥
It in the end is not mastery and knowledge, anyone can "learn" these things -
It is after - get out of the way.... and let the Spirits speak to the querant
- through the cards on the table.....

 

[Nina*]

Please.... so the gods in this deck are to be respected? Sure. But aren't all gods and goddesses???
I can find quite a few people who VERY much respect, for instance, Hecate or Odin to name a few.

I fail to see what's ''pseudo'' about them!!

*shakes head*