A New Introduction to the Normal Tarot - 14/may/2024

There is no better introduction to the occult than Tarot. The original Rider-Waite-Smith was developed to be an introductory tool for broader concepts in western esotericism. It’s all in there. The four elements, the seven classical planets, the twelve zodiacs, the twenty-two paths. Each card represents an intersection of these foundational elements. While many later occultists have attempted to iterate on the deck, to improve upon its design, this was never my intention.

The Normal Tarot was an exercise in working from the ground up, an attempt at understanding through reverse-engineering. The original Rider-Waite-Smith was based on the existing game of tarocchi. But folks these days don’t know how to play tarocci, so I decided to build the deck around poker. That was the core of it. A cartomancy deck you could read like poker hands. 

I wanted to build the deck specifically for fortune telling. I wanted every card to be a moment, or a character in a broader story. The structure of a deck like this lent itself well to cycles. So, each suit would be a season, the full deck making a wheel of the year. Each court card is a microcosm of this. We would see knights and queens in their past, present, and future. Shakespearian allusions to fae queens and witches three were only the vaguest of guidelines. 

This left the major arcana. I wanted to continue the theme of cycles. There would be a set of one, then two, then three, then four, until the deck was a size that felt appropriate. Here, I found myself building archetypal characters. The three omens, a story in three parts. Four different paths for an aspiring maiden. Five strange dreams of indeterminate meaning.  Six plans for the future. Seven tragic endings. Eight moments in the cycle. From these, I wanted drama. The interesting tarot cards are always the bad ones. Who gets a tarot reading when things are going great? 

I cannot properly explain the impetus behind the final two jokers. Ninety-seven cards felt wrong. I needed a wild card, but ninety-eight felt wrong as well. I gave the last card to the nameless lady as a sort of votive offering, a signature. It was an appropriate capstone. Ninety-nine felt correct. 

For an artist, sometimes the most embarrassing thing in the world is whatever you were making three years ago. I have never felt this way about this deck. It was truly a labor of love, and something I can call my own. I could not be more proud to see the joy others have found with it.