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This post is an extended version of the IG reel of me answering the questions of #nodisclaimerstarot I found on YouTube. The purpose of the next couple posts will be to share aspects of myself as a Tarot practitioner, so you can feel more at ease with asking for a reading. It’s also a dairy type of post, like I’ve done in the past for other topics.
1. What trends/ tropes in tarot annoy you the most?
I am aware of the history of tarot and in a way they can’t be helped, but the Christian and Qaballah references aren’t really needed nowadays eveywhere. The cross on the High Priestess and her Torah scroll have no place, for example, on the Kawaii Tarot and the Dreaming Way Tarot respectively. One’s creator is Korean and whole deck has a fashionable fantasy-esque look and the latter’s in Japanese, full of cute animals. A hardback (luxurious) book or a scroll along with a curtain or a veil are enough to symbolise knowledge that might be hidden. The Devil has become almost equivalent to demons or temptation, so it’s not that bothersome, but I still feel delighted when I find a deck that has the card renamed or depicted in a way other than your traditional ugly goatman.
2. Which deck do you feel is overrated?
Danielle Noel’s decks are beloved by many and I can’t help but wonder why. Similarly with Rebecca Campbell’s oracles. Is it that people have an affinity for filters? Most of the tarot cards have little connection to the archetype (with Starchild being more guilty of this than the Moonchild Tarot) and are an explosion of pastel nebulae. Photomanipulation is also not as immersive as illustration – although that’s more of a personal preference, granted how popular they are. The use of Egyptian theme looks more gimmicky and exotic rather than something with a profound link to each key’s essence or even as a clear reflection of it. This is further highlighted by the addition of akashic records to the mix, which is a concept introduced by the heavily appropriative and quite racist theosophists. I am NOT a fan of New Age, you folks.
3. What are your least favourite decks you’ve seen since joining Tarot tube?
I skipped that question when I was doing the reel but then it occured to me that although they aren’t tarot, Becket Griffith’s decks cause my stomach to turn. Something I feel guilty of abit, granted that the artist seems to have adopted this style because that’s how she sees herself. It’s really an aesthetic dislike than anything else, and I feel that says a lot when I love anime, which have similar disproportionate characteristics. There’s definitely something uncanny in the mix here. To be honest, there are a ton of mass market oracle decks that I think as rubbish, but that’s a discussion for another day.
4. Which out of print decks do you wish were still in print?
As you are already aware, I have much appreciation for many aspects of Japanese art, and actually do own a couple of decks produced or illustrated by Japanese people. I intent on writing reviews on these on day. But one I find really pretty slipped away from me and that’s the Botan Tarot by A. Miyako. The majors are portraits, while the minors hide Japanese folk tales in them. Everything painted in ethereal watercolour!
The other deck I really want to get my hands on, especially for professional readings, is the R. Black Tarot. It’s very inclusive even when it’s mostly duochromatic. It references a variety of religions very respectfully and non-tokenistically, and portrays South Pacific people.
5.What is one card that has ruined a deck for you?
You would expect I’d like this one, being an unusual depiction of the Devil card, but I couldn’t relate it to any of the usual meanings of the Key. It doesn’t remind me of temptation or lust or greed or even freedom. These clouds just tell me of ascendance or dreaminess which are totally irrelevant. I don’t even know what this figure is looking at. Very confusing. And to be honest, it wasn’t just this card. The Lovers didn’t vibe any sensuality or refer to choice, and there was no connection to the Devil, as it usually tends to be the case.
Generally, it usually takes more than one card to reject a deck, and it depends on how attached I may be to that particular card or how strong my impression is of that.
6. What are your thoughts on negative reviews?
They are important as long as they are based on reasoned criticism and they aren’t just ranting/ trashing. When I want to buy a deck, hearing comments on all aspects of the deck -good and bad- helps me make a more solid decision. I choose not to dedicate time on them writing them only because I’ve decided I’d better spend time on highlighting something I wholeheartedly like. That doesn’t mean that negative reviews don’t have a place.
7. What are some decks that you feel should have more recognition?
Francesca Matteoni’s decks, Ask the Witch and Fairies and Magical Creatures Tarot. I love how she blends legendary figures and magical creatures with the tarot archetypes in the guidebook, and how she weaves the meaning of the cards, adding another layer to each Key. In that aspect, these decks may be more challenging for beginners, but are worth the time of investment of learning about the characters depicted on each card.
I also very much appreciate her choice of art collaborators, Simone Pace and Otto Gabos, because their style isn’t the typical romanticised depiction of witches and fey, but has a slightly goblin energy, which is so much more fitting to the subject matter. Reviews of the decks are incoming.
8. What are some tarot Tube and tarot pet peeves?
- Silk cloth storage tradition: Not very practical when you have many decks; you can’t ID them, and they take more space. I’m a tuck box supremacist. The only time I’ll use a tarot bag or pouch is when the deck came into a huge-ass box with a big guidebook and I don’t want my cards laying in this “coffin”. Generally, I find tuck boxes perfect to carry around, too, because you aren’t worried if they get rough-housed in your bag. Just keep them away from water bottles.
- Reading for the collective: These are very vague and mainly a byproduct of social media marketing alongside the pick a card piles. How can you speak one truth for over 7 billion people? The “take what resonates, and leave out the rest” is clearly a “save my ass” strategy. You can definitely do readings though for a particular country or a group of people, yet I hardly ever see these.
- Predictive vs personal growth tool: There’s a tendency to overpraise the use of tarot as tool for personal growth to the point there’s shade thrown against predictive tarot (I’m side eyeing Jodorowsky). Tarot isn’t just spiritual but it also bears historical and racial influences. Fortunetelling used to be associated with the Roma people and therefore are implications of con-artistry and primitivity attached to it. Add to that the historical prohibitions of cartomancy spurred by religious spirit and something starts smelling iffy. In Tarot & Politics Zine Vol.2, C. Jarelle Johnson (@temperancequeertarot) notes that “when you live a life with little margin of error, prediction is important. That’s part of why predictive divination is common among multiple marginalised folks.”
- Ignorance of deck specifics during walkthrough videos: I never understood the usefulness of unboxings to be honest. If I’m watching a deck flipthrough, I do so to make up my mind on whether I should purchase a deck or not. If you actually show the guidebook, it really wouldn’t hurt to have at least browsed through it to know the structure or special aspects of the deck. Plus, I don’t care how much you try, just make sure you pronounce foreign names and objects correctly. We have Google, use it and show some respect instead of apologising for “butchering” this and that.
- Divine feminine and masculine: It’s common among tarotist to talk about Keys claim the Empress may not be a woman but a representation of divine feminine. If there’s a pregnat woman in lush nature with the Venus symbol nearby, you can’t tell me it’s not a literal representation of a woman! Nick Kepley, from @insearchoftarot, correctly has said that’s just gaslighting! If you mean nurturing or productive, use these more precise words instead. Divine feminine and masculine are leftovers from Hermeticism and the birth of Wicca, and such polarities belong in the past. There’s not even one to one contrast in what these two concepts entail…
- Cultural appropriation: We tend to ignore the level of how obtrusive and common place concepts and symbols of other religions are in Tarot, showing up misconstrued, basically following the footsteps of Golden Dawn, jung and other earlier occultists. I’m referring mostly to chakras and Kabbalah. Did you know, for example, weren’t colourful? That was a Western assignment. They weren’t always seven either; the number varies from one spiritual tradition to another in India. The Buddhists have four, and you can see others mentioning more than seven.
The yogic system of energy centers first appears in the Kubjikamata-Tantra, an 11th-century tantra yoga text. The Sat-Chakra-Nirupana further expounded on this system and was translated into English by Sir John Woodroffe in his book, The Serpent Power published in 1919. While Woodroffe describes colors in his explanation of the symbolism of these whirling disks of energy, the color associations was created by Charles W. Leadbeater in his 1927 book The Chakras. The rainbow ROYGBIV color system was first described in Christopher Hills book Nuclear Evolution: Discovery of the Rainbow Body published in 1977.
Site: Yoga Basics
Over the past hundred plus years, the concept of the chakras, or subtle energy centers within the body, has seized the Western imagination more than virtually any other teaching from the yoga tradition. Yet, as with most other concepts deriving from Sanskrit sources, the West (barring a handful of scholars) has almost totally failed to come to grips with what the chakras meant in their original context and how one is supposed to practice with them.
Christopher Wallis for Uplift
Kabbalah is related to Jewish mystic philosophy. Quick reminder: Jews don’t accept Jesus as the Messiah. Granted that in Tarot there are many Christian references (see the Pope and the World, which is basically Jesus with the four Evangellists), one can only start imagining how annoying and distasteful this mix must be for Jews. But people in the past have gone a step further:
With the help of a friend who had converted from Judaism to Christianity, Pico studied the Kabalah and published Kabalistic texts translated into Latin. Pico believed that the Kabbalah contained a lost divine revelation, a mystical key that lay under the teachings of the Orphics, Pythagoras, and Plato, and that demonstrated how all ancient mystical philosophy culminated in the teachings of Christ. Like Lull, della Mirandola believed that he could use this Jewish system to prove the reality of God as the Holy Trinity.
The Tarot: History, Symbolism and Divination, by Robert M. Placend
I really don’t believe we need this stuff in our modern decks. This is not the last time I’ll be talking about this matter, but I need to find time to delve into an Oxford publication first. I’ll sum up my new knowledge here and on my Ig so stay tuned.
Tea Time 