Dark Grimoire Tarot - Death

For a deck filled with scary monsters and ominous images, the Death card is somewhat tame in comparison.

A pair of huge doors dominate the card, one of which has partially opened. A large stream of people - men, women and children - are passing through the open door. Two ape-like faces carved into rock mark the entrance to the doors, one face has it's mouth closed, the other has it's mouth open.

The people are leaving one world for another. One life has ended, a new one begins beyond the doors. The doors are carved into a rock face, suggesting that the crowd are entering the underworld.

At first glance this card does seem to be a rate tame take on Death, especially when compared to some of the other cards. However, if you consider the Lovecraft mythos - when Cthulu returns everyone will die, and his cultist long for the day when " all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom". In other words this card isn't depicting individual death but mass extinction. Pretty scary looked at from that angle.

Quantum James said:

all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom". In other words this card isn't depicting individual death but mass extinction. Pretty scary looked at from that angle.

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I agree, from that view point it does paint a rather grim picture. However, it doesn't strike me so much as mass destruction as still individual death. Like the Twilight Zone episode The Passerby, all the people were walking that lonely road. Nobody really knew where the road lead, but turns out the people walking the road all had died in the Civial War at various times. This interpretation is like that to me. People who have died at various times, all the time filing into the tomb of the afterlife. Of course with Cathulu's symbol at the top of the tomb, not a great way to spend eternity! I love though that this deck chose something other then the traditional grim reaper type death card!!

I love this Death card, it is like an exodus - and I guess it IS. After all, Death is a darn sure thing :-D
The doors hint at a destination and when I pull this card in a reading that is what I cling on to, that we may very well be leaving something behind - but there is another destination. There is an open door too.
It kinda makes sense to have a rather 'positive' Death card in a deck where Life is pretty gruesome and filled with horrors and fear.

jema said:

It kinda makes sense to have a rather 'positive' Death card in a deck where Life is pretty gruesome and filled with horrors and fear.

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Very positive way to look at it!!