Re: What is this OOP business?
Frequency said:
I saw some of the artwork of the Giger deck and it was... well very interesting, but some of the cards -- atleast to me -- made no sense whatsoever. Is it even a tarot deck? What is the point?
If the Giger tarot seems to make "no sense," there's probably a couple of reasons for that.
First, the Giger illustrations on the cards were
not specifically created for use in a tarot deck. In the back of the accompanying book, there is a list of all the illustrations used, their original titles, and the years in which they were painted. Deck creator Akron received permission to reprint selected works of Giger's in this form. There's nothing in the book (that I could find) that says who selected which of Giger's works to align to which cards, but I would guess that Akron had the largest, if not sole, hand in doing so.
Second, the theme of the deck is very unusual. Renaming the deck as
The H.R. Giger Tarot may have been a smart marketing move, playing off the recognition of Giger's name, but it doesn't really reveal the point of the deck. The original title --
Baphomet: the Tarot of the Underworld -- explains the "point" of the deck a bit better.
Akron's booklet discusses Baphomet, the dark, goat-headed cult figure of the Knights Templar. (NOTE TO ANY LIST EXPERTS ON THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR: I know nothing about this history or belief system of that group; I'm merely reporting what is in Akron's book, so if there are any errors in my statements here, keep in mind that I'm just the messenger at the moment.) In fact, the original title of the illustration used for the DEVIL card in the
Baphomet deck
is "Baphomet," so perhaps
that illustration has some direct relevance to the subject matter at hand.
To quote one relevant passage from the book: "Baphomet is the pictorial representation of the self-recognizing God who looks himself in the eye, and of the glance which recognizes itself in its own eye. He is the pictorial manifestation of the shadow. He represents the spiritual level by which consciousness breaks through polarities of thought and advances beyond the borders of human conception..."
In brief, this is a deck designed primarily for shadow work (about which I see another Aeclectic forum thread has recently been started elsewhere). So, in answer to your question, Frequency, I suppose that's the "point." Whether simply matching a bunch of Giger's existing work to the tarot archetypes makes for a good deck for that purpose is a matter of debate, I should imagine. But there you have it.
-- Jeannette
http://www.tarotgarden.com