gregory said:
I thought EVERYONE here had read about my going nuts.
Man – I missed those threads. I had zero idea. Good on ya for the honesty! I like that!
I love this subject. And I’ve wasted a few posts about ‘What is a Dark Deck’ and related subjects. Each time I post about it I feel farther away from what it (Dark Tarot/Darkness) is.
Umbrae said:
…what is a Dark Deck? Some are dark because of the palette, whereas some simply have a palate of imagery that creates darkness. Still some become known as dark in name only…
In
The Bohemian Gothic Tarot companion book, the final chapter is a good read on this subject (although I find the author of that one chapter (the entire companion book was written by the ever brilliant Karen Mahony (without an e) Dan Pelletier a sophomoric pedant) from which I’d like to quote:
When you leave the Apollonian world, where things are neat and tidy, the sum of a triangle’s angles is always 180 degrees and the good prevails, and enter that of the Dionysian, where the unclean and the taboo are accepted, the individual is often consumed and the bad becomes the good…
He touches on it there, and scoots off. But it is there – moving from the Apollonian to the Dionysian. But what does that look like? How does it feel? How to describe that which escapes a translatable language?
It has been posited that Lovecraft was influenced somewhat by the writings of Crowley. That the formers
‘Al Azif: The Book of the Arab’ (The ‘
Necronomicon’) resembles Liber AL vel Legis; that Yog-Sothoth rhymes with Set-Soth.
Anton LeVey reminded us that fiction can direct magical forces regardless of historical validity…
Michael Aquino wrote two rituals based on a made up ‘Yuggothic” language…
There are of course varied paths where one can explore darkness. The Lovecraftian mythos, some would say the Crowley schools, perhaps the path of the vampyre…
But here’s the thread…that one finds another dimension of being. The normal human world. And another world outside – and it’s different. There is created an ontological tension. That their reality exists, throws our concept of reality into confusion. It pales our existence.
It is a realm where some who view it succumb to madness. Come to think of it, I have known a few ‘students’ of the darker arts who fried a few circuits on the motherboard and exhibited what appeared to be reduced cognitive functions for the rest of their lives…
A few ‘dark decks’ out there lampoon the whole thing. The Lovecraft Tarot is a good example. HP Lovecraft invented the ‘Necronomicon’ (which some believe is an actual book). He also created an entire fictional mythos to use through his horror stories. Other writers since have used the Necronomicon, and recently a modern writer wrote a Necronomicon series based on the fictions based on the fiction. Then he designed a deck based on the fictions based on the frictions based on the fiction.
It sucked. It wholly diluted the entire concept.
There’s the Vargo Gothic Tarot. It has gargoyles and vampires and ghouls and…does to darkness what Halloween does to darkness – lampoons it. Whistling past the cemetary and nothing else.
But then - There’s the Gothic Tarot of the Vampires…now that comes close. That’s dark. It just plain shoves man down the food-chain with a single strong hand and leaves him there with no chance of redemption. Bold stuff.
“Yeah another world exists, and in it you’re weak and defenseless, tag – you’re it.”
Mage: The Ascension – Wonderfully dark.
The Bohemian Gothic falls short for many because of the total immersion, and the assumption that you speak the language (Gothic as opposed to Goth). The former inspires rejection via revulsion, and the latter just does not ‘get it’. There are those of course who embrace it, and many of those – only for a short time – and they won’t discuss why.
Giger/Baphomet – Nice. The stuff that screams are made out of. (I love to read with these cards IRL).
The tie between these decks? They depict another world in a way that accepts it as a fact, and makes no apologies (“Perhaps it WOULD look like this…maybe…”)
Man…remember Roger Dean (may wanna go hunt down some Yes album covers)? Unapologetic otherworldy. It’s dark – not from palette, but from believability.
You know the Lovecraft Tarot? I gave it away to Kiama because it just blew chunks. Why? Because it lacked the artistic merit to allow it to cross into the arena of believability.
Something to ponder, perhaps we’ll chat later.