New deck, Hexen 2.0

That text!

It is interesting that the author writes "In HEXEN 2.0, Treister works through the format of the tarot card,". I think that's all it is. She has taken the format of 78 cards and the idea of "occult" knowledge and used that as a vehicle for something else altogether and it feels different from the artist who wants to create a working/functional tarot deck.

The subject matter - technogaianism, transhumanism, military research programmes, and lots of unfathomable *isms* - is not very interesting to me. Maybe to others. But I find it dry. It has an agenda. The whacky illustrative techniques may permit some intuitive reading at some remote level. But this deck does not give off a vibe of wanting to be read. I'm not sure I trust the artist's understanding of tarot to be honest. The deck doesn't intrigue me as much as I wanted it to and that essay you linked gives me a nosebleed.

Haven't been able to connect with this deck at all! Not even with the book and the enlarged pictures of the cards!

Quester said:

Haven't been able to connect with this deck at all! Not even with the book and the enlarged pictures of the cards!

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I can't speak for everyone but I figure you will not be alone. (I really don't think it's supposed to be read with.)

Aulruna said:

*lol*
What's the Empress about?? Twitter breeding mad acronyms?

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I know - they're all intelligence agencies, I think. I'm trying to put that together with the Empress as luxury maybe? The price of global wealth? I know this interpretation is out there but so is this image for the Empress.

I'm wondering if the book explains this particular card.

merissa_88 said:

I'm wondering if the book explains this particular card.

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As I pointed out earlier in this thread the book doesn't explain any of the cards....

If the book doesn't explain the cards, then what DOES the book talk about? (My apologies if this has already been covered, but I'm walking into this party a little late).

merissa_88 said:

I know - they're all intelligence agencies, I think. I'm trying to put that together with the Empress as luxury maybe? The price of global wealth? I know this interpretation is out there but so is this image for the Empress.

I'm wondering if the book explains this particular card.

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Oh - I just thought it was the way they seem to BREED - like never ending pregnancy. FERTILE, like !

Metafizzypop said:

If the book doesn't explain the cards, then what DOES the book talk about? (My apologies if this has already been covered, but I'm walking into this party a little late).

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The book - by all accounts - has pictures of the cards. Bigger if I'm not mistaken...

Much bigger and very useful for the text and that. There is some text at the beginning which I will look at later - guests are incipient...

Metafizzypop said:

If the book doesn't explain the cards, then what DOES the book talk about? (My apologies if this has already been covered, but I'm walking into this party a little late).

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So the book is a mixed bag. I for one love it because I think it's the perfect way to explain the cards in the context of this deck. A standard "here is the card here is the meaning" would have been a betrayal of the nature of this deck. While most of the book is just large images of the cards themselves there are some clues as to the meanings in the book. After the introduction, which frustratingly is the ONLY text in the book, there are several hugely complex diagrams. One of them can be seen on the cover of the book. I my view these couple of images are what explain the deck. The concepts that are used are plotted out and the relations explained. It will take many, many hours to research the places and people shown in the deck. Not just who they are, but what they mean politically to the counter culture. I've started several files in my computer already on the cards and some are growing to multi-page essays. Once one knows that they they can look where this idea sits in the overall world view of the deck.


I think this deck is VERY interesting. I think it gives me a lot to think about when it comes to seeing the meanings of various cards in a different political and cultural view. As opposed to just giving us the RWS filled with people of animals from one certain culture or place it radically shakes the cards up. That being said I would never use this deck for reading , but rather I look at this as a full thesis on the counter culture manifesto of the past 50 years. The author has chosen to draw its concepts out in the framework of tarot rather then on paper giving ideas cards a opposed to chapters. It is the thinking deck to end all thinking decks. A fascinating deck of themes and concepts that will be debated about in tarot circles for years to come.