Extispex: Tarot and Tarot Readings

I expected to hate this tarot deck. I assumed the illustrations would be cheesy and the imagery banal and meaningless. From everything I’d seen of it online, it looked more like a gothic fashion accessory than a usable, attractive tarot deck. I’m happy to say that I was wrong, wrong, wrong.

The Gothic Tarot by Joseph Vargo is, as the title would imply, very gothic. It is a dark deck, with predominantly black backgrounds and black borders, and is packed with images of vampires, witches, angels, demons, ghosts, gargoyles, ghouls and all sorts of denizens of the otherworld. I’ve always liked the idea of dark decks, but its rare to find one that offers superb and evocative artwork. This one does, and does so consistently throughout the deck.

The illustrations are finely detailed, most of them rendered in a tenebrous blue with an occasional red punctuation. But there are notable exceptions to this colour scheme. The Fool card is drawn in a miasmic and ethereal green, whereas the green glow of The Devil is almost toxic in appearance. The Justice card shows a red-clad nemesis angel whose aura is a blood-hued luminescence. And my favourite card in the deck is the full-colour Knight of Wands, which depicts a helmed angel - presumably St Micheal, standing triumphant over a slain dragon.

Other favourite cards from this deck are Death and Temperance, with their lurid red backgrounds displaying such energy and depth. The Chariot depicts a Victorian looking carriage driven by a ghoulish looking creature through a menacing forest. The three of wands is a simple yet elegant image of three serpent-twined bejewelled staffs. The King of Pentacles stands upon ornate ramparts, surveying his domain. The Knight of Swords portrays a beautiful angel, carrying a sword and a banner, standing high above the clouds. Surely the weirdest image in the deck is the gore-stained jester in the Five of Swords, surrounded by blade-pierce skulls and holding aloft the severed head of a king.

There is, in the Gothic Tarot, a proliferation of scantily-clad women women with large breasts and inviting cleavage. In this deck, these depictions never seem gratuitous or vulgar, but rather heighten the dark and moody atmosphere of the cards.

The deck’s images are evocative enough to lend themselves to easy interpretation, though the meanings derived may differ somewhat from the standard decks, but many tarot readers may find the deck too dark and brooding to use. While its true, the Gothic Tarot is very shadowy, for me it contains enough whimsicality in the illustrations to offer balance to any interpretations which may be derived.

In the Gothic Tarot, Justice is Eight and Strength is Eleven. The cards themselves are slightly too large for my petite hands, but people with normal-sized hands should have no trouble handling the deck. The cards are very flexible and lend themselves to easy shuffling.

The little white book that accompanies the deck is, for the most part, utterly useless. The writer of the book seemed to synopsise standard interpretations, rather than base her interpretations on the illustrations in this deck. Throw it away and use your own intuitive interpretations instead.

I suppose this deck isn’t for everyone. Then again, I didn’t think it would be for me. But as it turns out, I not only like it, I love it, and I intend to use it for many years to come.

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