Making A Good First Impression

Have you ever gleefully opened a new deck, riffled through a few cards, then been bricked over the head with one? Sometimes, its an astonishingly ugly card. Sometimes, its so gorgeous you want to cry. Sometimes, you can't understand what the creators were thinking...sometimes, you stare at it for an hour, trying to find all the perfect symbolism.

I've had a couple instances.

My first was with the Tarot of Eden. Looked at the Fool, "squee!" Looked at the Magician, "glee!" Looked at the High Priestess, fell in love... got to the Devil and couldn't stop laughing. To be blunt, he's flaunting his enormous, glowing genitalia. I can only describe it as "radioactive". [snickers]

The next time a card attacked my brain, it was the Knight of Swords from the Fenestra. Now, I don't own the Fenestra, but I saw the image online and had a sudden case of deja-vu. The knight looks identical to the antagonist in my in-progress novel, down to the eyelashes. (I'm in the process of waffling over whether I should get this stunning deck now...thank goodness I like the whole thing and not just the one ironic card. )

Share your card-shock stories!

I must say that I had this experience a few times. The most memorable would be with the Mary-El tarot. I saw some card previews, and thought about buying it. So, I went to the website to get a look at all the cards, and I was completely disgusted by some of the cards. The Hierophant, for example. It just completely freaks me out to no end. It's got chains coming out of its eyes. *shivers* I think most of the cards are great and very expressive, but I honestly think that card alone would make me never want to use that deck for fear of that card coming up.

HarleyQuinnX said:

I must say that I had this experience a few times. The most memorable would be with the Mary-El tarot. I saw some card previews, and thought about buying it. So, I went to the website to get a look at all the cards, and I was completely disgusted by some of the cards. The Hierophant, for example. It just completely freaks me out to no end. It's got chains coming out of its eyes. *shivers* I think most of the cards are great and very expressive, but I honestly think that card alone would make me never want to use that deck for fear of that card coming up.

Click to expand...

Just to be clear the markings under the eyes of the Hierophant were not meant to be part of the chain the key is hung from, rather, they are slightly stylized 'udjat' or eye of horus symbols. Horus had one eye plucked out by Set and later replaced by Thoth by magic and they say afterward it looked inward insead of looking out. So Horus had one eye looking in and one looking out and they could be compared to the sun and moon or external experience along wth internal perceptions, intuition, spirituality, etc.
The udjat resembles the facial markings on a falcon, the symbol of Horus.
The eye of horus was used as a symbol of protection, good luck and divinity.

So yeah, it wasn't meant to be part of the chain but I find it so interesting you saw it like that, it never crossed my mind! I'll have to think about the implications of it. It moved me to reply, hope you don't mind.

It is dfinitely a disturbing image and I struggled for years decding if I should even use it or not for that reason but in the end decided that I felt responsible to report what I *saw* as accurately as possble without watering it down or prettying it up. Balance is important to me and the world is full of beauty and ugliness - often in the same places.

Of course not every deck appeals to every person nor should it!

Thank you for the insight,

Marie

Alamaris said:

The next time a card attacked my brain, it was the Knight of Swords from the Fenestra. Now, I don't own the Fenestra, but I saw the image online and had a sudden case of deja-vu. The knight looks identical to the antagonist in my in-progress novel, down to the eyelashes.

Click to expand...

The Knight swords in the Fenestra deck is a picture of a transsexual man, in Thailand they are very famous and you will see them quite often on TV and around town, their Thai name is "Katoey". That picture put me off buying this deck.

I got the Wheel of Change in the mail yesterday, and many of the cards struck me - hard!!! - but the most powerful for me right now was the Moon - a river of blood??? Wow, just as I'm waiting for the arrival of this month's flow, and that image pops up . . . I was floored. Love that card.

The biggest "Wow" moment for me, though, was the Death card in the Universal Fantasy. I bought the deck on the strength of that card alone, and although I love the deck to bits, that one card still sends shivers up my spine. I love it.

A close second was the Emperor from the Blue Moon tarot - when I was lucky enough to win the Subscriber competition I chose that as my prize because I had to own that card. I love him so much, because that tree visited me in a spontaneous vision I had when experiencing the energy of my favourite stone, epidote.

So, there you have my stories . . . or at least some of them

\m/ Kat