When the leaves turn and pumpkin spice devours our feeds you’re close to Halloween. At RCR, we’re counting down our favorite spooky season things leading to the best night of the year.
Recently, tarot decks have come into my personal life and they’ve brought out more than frightening coincidence. For the fall season, we’re looking through the lens of Insight Editions Horror Tarot Deck to see how this themed card set connects to the occult.
Horror Tarot Deck contains the standard 78 cards of the practice separated by major arcana and minor arcana. You don’t have to be psychic to use the cards or understand them, in fact, you can just be someone kept up at night by burning questions. As with most decks, a pocket guide gives you instructions on what type of pull to stage a card draw from and what thoughts each card wants you to illicit. Keep your questions between you and your tarot reader but in my experiences with the cards I found even in a horror-themed deck there’s less to be afraid of versus what you’re being asked to ponder.
Just as with standard tarot cards you’ll pull characters such as The Lover or The Empress, each with meaning or insight depending on how their orientation. This is where tarot becomes less about supernatural fright and more about fear of your own wisdom. One instance is, taking The Empress card in reverse (upside down) asks you “What’s that knot in your stomach?”, sit and consider the fears and unknowns going on in your life. Forgive yourself for your mistakes. The card isn’t trying to scare me. Think of it as a therapist simply wanting to make you feel listened to. That’s the true power the cards have. If you take them as less of a warning of doom but more as an optometrist phoropter that will allow you to view the fuzzy weights on your base mental health with a proper clarity that’s been there all along.
You can find tarot decks themed to just about anything; classic literature, superheroes, and even movies like Jim Henson’s Labirynth. Such as with all popular things there’s always a risk of a market becoming oversaturated by products making money on something people may feel is sacred. This particular deck is designed and produced with an appreciation for the art of tarot. These characters drawn by Abigail Larson depict the historic imagery in a beautiful modern gothic style. The guide of the Horror Tarot Deck is written by Minerva Siegel and Aria Gmitter, both of whom have a wealth of experience in astrology, numerology, and mental health care. For such an occult sounding thing, the talent combination these people bring results in a perfect time, place, and deck to use this season if you’ve been wanting to introduce your friends to tarot.
Horror Tarot Deck is available from Insight Editions, review copy provided by publisher.
