Crow's Magick

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 12 Dec 2004, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Lillie	12 Dec 2004
Hello. I did a search on these cards and I was surprised how little came up. I have this pack and I think that they are quite amazing to look at, though at little difficult to work with sometimes. I get the feeling that people either love or hate these cards. I'm definatley in the love group. I thought at least they deserved a thread to themselves. So here it is.

CloeCat	12 Dec 2004
I have handled this deck Crow Magic, its dark but I like them. I sold a deck at the store a used to work at and it seems to attract complex people. Just and observation. Many purrrs, CloeCat

Lillie	12 Dec 2004
Hello Ummm Complex, me? Yeah, I like that. I'll take it as a compliment. Thanks very much.

Fulgour	12 Dec 2004
When I first got this deck I studied it a lot, but I didn't ever get the book ~ written by the artist, so probably important to a deeper understanding. When I worked with the cards, there was a strong feeling of energy... not anything negative, but enough to make me wonder.

Moonbow*	13 Dec 2004
I have this deck, and I used it for myself for a while. I didn't find it dark, so much as obsure which is great for being able to use your own meanings. I don't have the book either which made me work very hard with trying to understand the deck - my way. It's definately a deck that needs work to find your own comfortable interpretation of the cards. Having said that, I now have it up for trade because I am trying to shrink my list a little (if anyone is interested)

Emily	13 Dec 2004
I have this deck also - I think it was the first deck I bought that steered away from RWS imagery. I never found it negative just very hard to work with. I loved the artwork and the colours used made it a very vibrant deck. It always reminded me of the Thoth (even when I didn't have a Thoth deck). The Chariot and the Empress were my favourite cards. Its been a while since I've had this deck out maybe now I can hear what it tries to say to me. :)

Lillie	13 Dec 2004
There's a book? I want, I want. I agree with everything that has been said. I have always felt that this deck is very hard to work with, and I do not feel that I have given it the time and study it deserves (yet). I have never felt it to be negative either, but instead massive ammounts of wild, powerful energy crackling away in there. Of course, so many of the main images are of animals, and nature itself could never be considered to be negative, for all that it is 'red in tooth and claw'. I have also noticed that many of the background symbols seem to be the kind of thing that you would see in an electrical circuit diagram. Not being an electrician I am a bit vague about the meaning and significance of these (or even if I am correct about them!) Does anyone knowif the book explains this aspect of them? The comparison to the Thoth cards is interesting. I have been strongly drawn to both packs, over and above all others. When/if I get another Thoth I will have to look more deeply into that idea.

Moonbow*	13 Dec 2004
Lillie There's a great interview with Londa Marks here: http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/learn/interview_londa.shtml It's well worth the read and she gives some insight into the cards.

Lillie	13 Dec 2004
Thank you. That was a very interesting read. Some of what she said has really given me something to think about. It's nice that she found her son again. Adoption is a strange thing. One of the things that attracted me to this pack is that I like crows, all black corvids. They have played quite a large part in my recent life.

WolfSpirit	14 Dec 2004
I have Crow's magick and I have used it for spell work and meditation. It works very well for me that way, the images are so powerful. I have never really read with it, for the reasons mentioned by others: so different from other decks, difficult to get into... I have been planning to get the book, but I have not got it yet. Does anyone know where the book can be bought separately ? I have seen it as deck + book set at several places, but not the book on its own. Still I seem to remember that it can be bought separately somewhere...

BlueLotus	14 Dec 2004
WolfSpirit wrote: ......Does anyone know where the book can be bought separately ? I have seen it as deck + book set at several places, but not the book on its own. Still I seem to remember that it can be bought separately somewhere... I did a little search on the book and found this link. Of course you can always enter the ISBN # for this item and do similar searches.

WolfSpirit	15 Dec 2004
Thanks Feebie, I found a copy closer to home. I don't know why I thought it was so hard to find - maybe it was temporarily out of stock. This thread makes me want to get my deck out again and study it more seriously, it is certainly worth it !

Lillie	15 Dec 2004
I think I might have found a place too. I'll have to see about getting it. It's so good to be able to 'talk' to other people about this stuff. It's all really inspired me too.

CloeCat	18 Dec 2004
your welcome lillie, about being complex. When I said Dark before I did not mean scary or whatever I was commenting on colors and style.

Emily	18 Dec 2004
Yes I think too that with the cards being black the colours really seem to stand out. I think the thing that I liked about this deck is that there isn't too many human figures, mostly all animals or animal headed humans. It was also one of the first computer generated decks I bought. Its a deck I do hope to go back to and study properly - I feel that I would be able to relate to it more now. :)

annik	18 Dec 2004
Strange coincidence! I was thinking also to study it more deeply!

smokey	22 Dec 2004
I got my book @ "U.S. Games" seperately for just ten bucks. I really LUV the art on this deck, and the book helped bring new insight to me I might never have known otherwise.Hope this helps! Blessings.

lunakasha	22 Dec 2004
Thanks for the info on the book....I did not realize there was a companion book, and I think it would provide some insight into the images on these cards, making them more user-friendly. Crow's Magick was my first tarot deck, and probably not the best choice for a beginner, but I was attracted by the style and artwork of the deck, particularly the predominance of birds and animals. I have not used these cards in quite a long time, and am thinking it might be time to pull them out again. :) Luna

Lillie	23 Dec 2004
It is possible that a beginner would find the Crow deck easier than someone who had done the tarot for a while. If someone came to it with a totally fresh mind it might be easier than if they already had the standard images and associations in their heads. This is one of the reasons I have found the pack so difficult. I look at the cards and think 'how does that tie in with the cards I already know?' Where as, if I had never done the tarot before I would just accept each image for itself. After christmas, when I have a little money to spend on myself, I think I will hunt down the book, and see if that sheds any light on those so beautiful images.

tao51	08 Jan 2005
I find the Native American associations intriguing. They deck has a mystical feel about it. It lends itself easily to intuitive readings.--Tao

Namaste	02 Feb 2005
Returning, now, from a Tarot hiatus, I find myself looking for a new deck and inexplicably attracted to Crow's Magick. In fact, if I want to be dead honest, and if I remember correctly, it was the first deck I was really attracted to when I discovered the Tarot. Why didn't I buy it? For the same reason Fulgrou mentioned - this strange energy that I get just from looking at the cards, let alone handling them, which, although not negative, stirred something within me; something I didn't want to examine too closely at the time. I think it is time, perhaps, to acknowledge this inner voice, get it and work with it. It would be great to have a place, like this one, here, to talk about this deck, if anyone else is interested. :)

Namaste	02 Feb 2005
I saw mentioned - I'm not quite sure where - that the words written on the cards should be disregarded. I don't have the deck, but from seeing some of the images online, with their key words, I tend to disagree with this view. When I think about the hanged man, for example, I do think that it is associated with transcending and evolving... Am I missing something? :)

WolfSpirit	02 Feb 2005
I don't know Namaste, maybe that person meant you should not depend on keywords too much. The keywords help but do not cover the whole meaning, there are only two words on every card, and in a certain reading with surrounding cards you may want to read the card differently from the keywords. If you go blindly on the keywords you may miss something you would see if you looked at the cards more intuitively. Anyway, that is why I think some people don't like the keywords. I have the companion book now, and I think I will not always follow that either ;) I find it interesting, but I also have a way of just following my gut feeling when dealing with animals on cards.

Namaste	03 Feb 2005
If I decide to get this deck, would anyone be interested in discussing some of the cards, once in a while. Not a study group, just an occasional exchange of ideas? WolfSpirit, you seem to understand these cards very well. Their energy keeps pulling at me, so I believe I am destined to have them. I think it would be interesting to glean some insight into this apparently intriguing world of Crow's Magick. I particularly like, as one of us wrote, that they are for "complex" people :D, having always considered myself as such LOL. Your thoughts are very welcome. :)

WolfSpirit	03 Feb 2005
Namaste, I must say I don't know the deck that well yet, but I am used to working with animal energies and I see it sometimes a bit differently from the book. I see all animals - wether they are regarded as cute or creepy - as having their place in the system and or not bad or evil. So I don't pass judgement on them. I'll give an example: 10 wands on the card are 10 wands in the ground with a big spider walking between them. The sky is a mixture of dark and red. In the book: "A venomous spider creeps through the Ten of Wands. This insect is capable of producing pain or death, and madness." I don't like this way of writing, it makes the spider sound mean when the venom numbs its victim and makes a more humane way of killing than for example shooting an animal. But I do like the rest of the book description: how the spider has woven its web between the wands and is now trying to protect it from the storm - so she has the enormous task to strengthen her web, and may even have to rebuild it. So this leads to the meanings: stress, workload, self-reliance (spider works alone), possible need to rebuild (10 = end of the cycle, new cycle beginning). So the book is helpful to me but I don't agree with everything in it :)

Namaste	04 Feb 2005
I see what you mean, WolfSpirit. :) I agree with you completely. I don't see any animal as evil. The spider's venom really is a more humane way of killing its prey. In one of your earlier posts, here, I think you mentioned using these cards for meditation and spell work, which obviously presupposes a more intuitive approach. How do you find their "intuition potential"? I had a look at them again yesterday, and was a little bothered by the mechanical aspect of some of the animals. However, could it be that in working with them, other facets, that I can't really gage as yet, might surface more dramatically and significantly?

DollieAnna	06 Feb 2005
All I can say, because I just got the deck yesterday, is... It's the best shuffling deck I've ever owned! (if I knew how to make that in bigger print I would)

WolfSpirit	07 Feb 2005
Namaste wrote: In one of your earlier posts, here, I think you mentioned using these cards for meditation and spell work, which obviously presupposes a more intuitive approach. How do you find their "intuition potential"? I had a look at them again yesterday, and was a little bothered by the mechanical aspect of some of the animals. However, could it be that in working with them, other facets, that I can't really gage as yet, might surface more dramatically and significantly? Maybe the deck worked well for me intuitively because I did not have the book, so I had no choice ;) Now I have the book I want to use it but not rely on it too much. I think it works well for me for meditation because of the black background, makes it easier to concentrate on the image because it stands out. My favourite card is the 9 of coins with the lion family. I also love the other felines, some of the wands cards are lovely, and the cards with the flying birds like the Moon and the High Priestess. And then some cards seem just to be geometrical patterns or just some colourful objects put together - I think not all cards are great. But the cards that I love, I love a lot :)

Namaste	14 Feb 2005
Well... Moonbow, bless her heart, told me, out of the blue, that she is giving me her Crow's Magick!!!! :D It would seem, after all, that I am destined to bond with this deck! So... the offer stands. If anyone would like to discuss its cards, after I receive it, do let me know. Can I entice you, WolfSpirit, into a few discussions? :) I know exactly what you mean. From what I've seen, I think I will definitely have my favourites. Wonderful to hear that the deck is a great one to shuffle, DollieAnna. :) The only other deck I can say that about is the Ancestral Path. What a joy they are to shuffle! :)

Lillie	14 Feb 2005
!0 minutes ago I got the book. A neighbour brought it round. The postman had taken it to the wrong house! I have been waiting for ages! So, expect me to have something to say.:D

Lillie	14 Feb 2005
Well, one quick look later and I am not altogether happy. One thing I really wanted to know about was the electrical looking symbols on some of the cards. They look like they came off some curcuit diagram. She chose them, putting different ones on different cards, and yet there is no explanation of that. Did she just pick them for their look and not meaning? Perhaps she is no more of an electrician than me. Yet she does not mention the symbols of the quarters on the universe. Yet they have a meaning very applicable to the card. It's good though. At least now I know what all the animals are. I love crows. I've got a small one of my own.

Namaste	18 Feb 2005
I should be getting the Crow's Magick very soon. A wonderful gift from Moonbow!!!! :D I'll be happy to engage in an occasional discussion about these cards with you, once I have the deck and if you're still interested. :)

The Crow's Magick thread was originally posted on 12 Dec 2004 in the Tarot Decks board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Tarot Decks, or read more archived threads.