The Tarot of Vampyres

I recently got this deck, and so far I like it very much. I'm also not a Vampyre fan at all, but this one I can handle. The artwork is stunning! Haven't started reading with it yet because I'm checking the book and analysing the cards as I read.

I understand what you mean LeFanu, sometimes he does repeat himself. However, I do find his descriptions very rich - he describes the images in detail and (I haven't found this very often when I get a deck) explains the symbols he drew in the card, what they stand for and why they appear. For example, in the Empress card, he explains how the apples in the image stand for growth and fertility, her peacock collar for the unfolding of beauty and life, and the bee as a connection to honey (richness and pleasure). He goes into the details of the image, and this is what I'm loving about the book. It makes you look at the image and see the various meanings there - very helpful for readings.

Of course, as far as messages are concerned, it's a bit repetitive, yes. But it's detailed and rich enough to make you ignore that and have fun reading the book, in my opinion

Don't get me wrong, I like this deck very much (and this week's 'test drive' is proving fascinating*) BUT has anyone else ever noticed how similar the female vampyre on the 10 of Knives (which also features on the front cover of the accompanying book) bears an astonishing likeness to Frank N. Furter (Tim Curry) in The Rocky Horror Picture Show?

I know all the 'celebrity' spotting in this deck is old hat - butt whenever I turn to the book to check up on how Daniels interprets some of the symbols he uses I cannot get the 'Sweet Transvestite' image out of my head - depsite the large bosom!

*documented in Deck for a Week Daily Draws on here and on my *new* blog (see profile)

Elendil said:

Don't get me wrong, I like this deck very much (and this week's 'test drive' is proving fascinating*) BUT has anyone else ever noticed how similar the female vampyre on the 10 of Knives (which also features on the front cover of the accompanying book) bears an astonishing likeness to Frank N. Furter (Tim Curry) in The Rocky Horror Picture Show?

I know all the 'celebrity' spotting in this deck is old hat - butt whenever I turn to the book to check up on how Daniels interprets some of the symbols he uses I cannot get the 'Sweet Transvestite' image out of my head - depsite the large bosom!

*documented in Deck for a Week Daily Draws on here and on my *new* blog (see profile)

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well thats given me something to look out for when it arrives! I have succumbed and ordered, i just knew that the deckaweek group was going to be enabling!!!

Mine has arrived! The book is awesome and so is it's artwork :3

I'm in love

Elendil said:

Don't get me wrong, I like this deck very much (and this week's 'test drive' is proving fascinating*) BUT has anyone else ever noticed how similar the female vampyre on the 10 of Knives (which also features on the front cover of the accompanying book) bears an astonishing likeness to Frank N. Furter (Tim Curry) in The Rocky Horror Picture Show?

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Thank you, now i have another reason to thouroughly despise that card

Le Fanu said:

*clears throat*
All the card descriptions have this rambling "stuck record" feel.

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I totally agree. I do love this deck very much, but the book is not so helpful, I usually like to see how the creator understands the meanings, and there is few interesting bits, but all and all it's just so deeply spiritual, it just can not be expressed in words I suppose ;-)

I have found one more reason to call this deck "thothy", the quaballistic chart. I finished recently my intensive tarot study of the Tarot of Vampyres. I already had a bunch of Thoth tarot books, a few about quaballah, but I never learned quaballah. I wanted to learn something new for my ITS and since I already know astrology, I decided this time to dig in quaballah. I managed to acquire The Qabalistic Tarot: A Textbook of Mystical Philosophy by Robert Wang, really good book by the way, that helped me greatly. I did the majors last. Well, Crowley didn't follow the GD quabbalistic structure entirely, and switched the Emperor and the Star quaballistic attributions. The Tarot of Vampyres follows the Thoth quabalistic structure, not the GD one.

Cheshire said:

Mine has arrived! The book is awesome and so is it's artwork :3

I'm in love

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Is this what you have in mind? I do!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STxXS5lLunE&ob=av2e

If I knew this song at the time, I'd have had it playing as I looked through the deck ^^

This is probably going to reveal how crazy obsessive I can be...but I read every page of this thread. :O I knew by about page 3 that I was going to buy the deck, but the thread was so entertaining that I kept going.

My vamps arrived today and I've been enjoying slowly going through it card by card, making notes of some of my thoughts. There seem to be a lot of cards that deviate from RWS, which I like. It's intriguing to discover something new. I'm liking the way that each suit's totem animal is blended into almost every card, but not in an obvious "Oh, we have to stick a crow in here" kind of way. And of course the artwork is just stunning overall.

I decided to try this deck because I've enjoyed Vampires Tarot of the Eternal Night for the last few years. I'm not into the vampire thing, I haven't seen but one of the Twilight movies and certainly didn't read it...but that deck reads for me really well. But I have to say, the artwork in Vampyres really blows Eternal Night out of the water. I'm looking forward to exploring this stunner of a deck!

It's still on my wish list... Maybe I should just cave? I've been re-reading a bit of this thread myself.