I hope that I do not put anyone off, if they like this deck. Then again, I think it is doing all the hard work (regarding putting people off) by itself.
There always used to be many threads on here where someone was in search of a dark deck. Those sort of threads don't seem to come up so much anymore. I don't remember this one ever being mentioned. I think that when 'some' people want suggestions for a dark deck, they are looking for something with a 'ghost train' appeal to it - something that gives them power and puts their querant on the edge of their seat. They don't [really] want a deck that, deep down, they are worried will assist their house being burnt down or destroy their marriage.
But if you want a deck that might, then maybe this is your baby. It certainly puts the willies up me! Which is a shame because there is something that is really attracting me to it as well. Even though, I cannot imagine working with it. I think that tarot would become a very dark pastime if I used the deck consistantly. And I cannot ever imagine pulling something like that out to read for someone else. And what really bothers me is 'looking into those eyes' when I was alone with it. It might sound dramatic but I really found them to be quite dead (but alive at the same time) - truely haunting imagery. In the way that yo can feel uncomfortable looking at 'The Scream' by Munch.
Thinking about the CD thing and relating it to cards, I remembered events that are not so removed from these ideas.
In England, in the Eighties, there was abig deal about certain kinds of paintings being either evil or bad luck. The pictures in question were very popular in the seventies and famously depicted children crying. The kids all had quite big eyes and tears would be falling down their cheeks.
I, personally, love these pictures and have a big book full of them. I also have a couple of framed ones in the loft. But in the 1980s, many people were scared of them. There were a succession of house fires in England, and in each house, one of these paintings was found - usually the crying boy. This caused for a newspaper to actually run a story suggesting that anyone had one burned it. There was a mass burning of these pictures, out of fear.
The eventual rule, to avoid bad luck, if you had one of these pictures, was to make sure that the boy and girl were kept together. In all cases, a painting of the boy or girl was found in the destroyed home, without it's partner.
Incase you are interested, the boy and his partnering girl are together in my loft.
So whether there is any reason to believe that these prints or the Voodoo cards are anything more than just paper and ink, people still believe in the connection enough to either box away a deck or burn a painting that they once liked enough to hang in their living room.
LB
