article
by Lady Damiana
Gothic Tarot of
Vampires
By Riccardo Minetti
Artwork by Emiliano
Mammucari
Lo Scarabeo,
I was recently asked to do a talk on "Living Vampires." I had a lot of
mixed feelings about committing to doing it. Although I would like to educate
people, inform them
and present some networking opportunities for others who walk this path, I was
definitely ambiguous about it.
First, my real name was used on the advertising posters, which completely "outed" me whether I wanted to be out about the vamp stuff or not. I am "out" about most everything; everyone knows I am a witch, bisexual, poly, into kinky stuff and pretty much everything else in my life. The vamp subject has been no secret to those who know me...but I didn't particularly want it advertised under my real name -- especially without being asked first.
Second, it felt a bit weird, because not a lot of people have either the nerve or foolishness (depending on your viewpoint) to stand up in a room full of people and state publicly that they are a real-life vampire. I just knew that people would think that I was a nut bar and would want to lock me up when I started jabbering about blood, ritual, etc.
Luckily, this event was held at the Museum of the Mysteries which touts such "mysteries" as "Bigfoot," "UFOs" and the like ... so not too many people laughed or looked at me funny that night. I thank the goddess that there were plenty of friendly faces present and we laughed and had a good time and I was free to go at the end, whether or not anyone thought I was a nut bar.
It went well and I was well received. I answered lots of questions and maybe cleared up a few misconceptions...like real vampires are NOT immortal, even though there's been some speculation on that about me. Apparently after several near brushes with death, I am considered very hard to kill.
So, in keeping with the season of Samhain and the vampire theme, I thought I'd review a tarot deck for your information and pleasure. It's called Gothic Tarot of Vampires. OK, that already sets my bullshit meter off as I have visions of another oversized, dull, rotten symbology, badly drawn tarot deck created to ride the vampire/goth popularity wave and relieve the goths of the little bit of money that they seem to have.
At first glance, it's interesting. Some fairly dark imagery coupled with some violent/bloody drawings conjures a goth feel to the deck. But on further investigation, it seems to me that the imagery is superficial--quickly and sparsely drawn and colored in like something that someone making a goth or vampire deck might think is appropriate. The back of the cards is a horrific rose-tinted drawing of a man and woman doing what looks like dribbling blood into one another's mouths. Didn't anyone tell this artist that both goths and vampires love beauty as much as they love darkness?
The book describes the atmosphere as necessarily somber, gloomy and violent ... with themes of blood, violence and suicide prevalent.
The metaphor that deck is predicated on is: "...the symbolic parallel between vampire and man." In the instructions, "within the metaphor" is used when referring to descriptions or elements of the vampire world. "Beyond the metaphor" means the real world. The vampire's thirst is therefore a metaphor for the insatiable greed of man."
This seems to play directly on the catholic morality dichotomy, and I am not sure what it is supposed to have to do with vampires, specifically. Vampires have their own coda, the Black Veil, which is totally unrelated to anything resembling Christian mores. Even were this based on vampire mythology it falls quite short of representing even that with any degree of success as far as I am concerned.
The deck also has representations of both a male and female figures as the vampire-- which is great on one hand because both genders are represented equally--but on the other hand it is confusing trying to remember all of the new symbols and this adds another unnecessary element to that. At least the minor arcane have a wand, knife, cup or disk at the top to tell you what card it is...without these there's no way of telling what suit it is. Disappointingly, both the minor and major arcana are mostly so obscure that I cannot get a genuine feel for this deck at all.
The metaphors, while being possible don't ring true for me...which is not surprising as this deck is Italian and has the Christian/catholic morality feeling to it. But more importantly it doesn't follow the traditional tarot symbology close enough to be able to do a reading with the cards without looking at the book. Even for a seasoned pro like me who can see the symbols in almost anything...this deck is like the movie Underworld compared to the actual vampire mythology. It just doesn't line up for me, your mileage may vary.
Try as I might to do a reading with this deck ... it just does not speak to me, and I --as a vampire--would hope to feel an affinity with this deck. I'd love to see a well done vampire deck, with beautiful pictures and easy to read symbols, but this is not it.
Gray and monochromatic with confusing imagery, I find this deck to be limited in use. It may appeal to those who just want it for appearances...but not the deck for you if you're not an expert reader, unless you don't mind referring to the book for every card at every reading.
Copyright © 2006 by the article's author