Customer Reviews

The Vampire Tarot

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Robert Place has created yet another splendid contribution to Tarot in The Vampire Tarot, his most recent opus. Place's artistic style lends itself beautifully to a darkly elegant interpretation of the Tarot images filtered through the scrim of vampire mythology, and his scholarship makes for some unique takes on the Tarot.

Thematically, the deck is primarily focused on Bram Stoker's Dracula, the quintessential Vampire novel, although he draws on the lore and traditions of vampires dating back to the Greeks. The glossy, sharp-edged (a nice touch!) cards are drawn from a variety of of other Gothic, Romantic (the movement, not the sentiment, which is why Lord Byron, Franz Liszt and other, possibly unexpected, people appear in the Court cards) and vampire imagery. The images are arrestingly beautiful and frequently disturbing, dancing along the themes of death and resurrection, blood and salvation, madness and creativity. Place uses the alchemical quest for enlightenment, the desire for immortality that informs the vampire mythos and the Tarot facility for mapping the progress of the soul to craft a timely and satisfyingly coherent themed deck.

The book is a fascinating exploration of the history of Tarot and the evolution of the accoutrements of the Vampire legend, pulling from a wide research base, and a valuable contribution in itself to Tarot literature. Place brings the earlier versions of Tarot from the early Renaissance to the development of the Marseilles style decks back into descriptions of the Tarot, which enriches the descriptions of the cards and their meanings. Between the information on vampires and the elaboration of Tarot imagery and history, the book gives one a lot to chew on.

The production values are very high - good quality card stock, a densely packed booked and a handsome storage box.

This handsome boxed set is a great value for the money. The cards are large and varnish-coated, and come shrink-wrapped and you will probably have to pry them apart, as the high-gloss finish makes them sticky. My cards came apart however without damage. I thought the size and finish might make these cards difficult to shuffle, but the cardstock proved surprisingly supple. One minor disappointment: the square corners on these cards - I would have preferred rounded corners, and I may end up taking a craft store corner-rounder to them.

On to the images. If you are familiar with Robert Place, you know that some of his interpretations are different from the standard Rider Waite, and more in line with Marseilles-type interpretations. That said, the images he has chosen can be interpreted in a number of ways and are not inconsistent with the more widespread (in America, anyway) RWS meanings, with the exception being the Cups suit, where the author really diverges from the Rider Waite system (the 8 of cups, for example, shows a stack of weapons, and the card meaning is "variety"). Also, the minor suits are renamed: Garlic Flowers for Pentacles, Holy Water for Cups, Stakes for Wands, and Knives for Swords. All are weapons used to defeat vampires.

There is a hefty companion book describing in great detail the Bram Stoker novel Dracula, which inspired this deck (although other sources are used, including works of Poe and Coleridge). There is also a long history of tarot, which will be familiar to those who have already read Place's other works. The companion book does a good job with meanings on the major arcana, but the descriptions for the minor arcana are short, and feel a little perfunctory. Again, this is consistent with the companion books for Place's other decks.

Most importantly, the artwork is stunning. Place continues to use his terrific line-shading, but combines it with color shading to produce a new impression of three-dimenality. Some of the vampire faces just seem to glow in bluish white. The colors are vibrant, high-impact, with sharply contrasting white and black, and lots of browns, reds, and purple-blues. The court cards are portraits of famous artists, associates, and characters of gothic literature, set to backgrounds of dusky turqoise, rose, green and amber. They are truly lovely. If you are a fan of 19th century literature, or of vampires, I predict you will want this deck. (But if you still need further prompting, you can see all the cards at Tarot Connection, where you can order a votive candle of your favorite card.) Get this deck!

Given the current fascination with all things vampire, the extravagance of Bram Stoker's imagination and the tarot's links to history and myth, this is an excellent combination of vampire lore and the ancient tarot. Mining Stoker's interest in the tarot (Stoker was a member of the Order of the Golden Dawn and friend of Pamela Coleman Smith, creator of the most used tarot in history), Place explores the images of Stoker's darkly romantic Dracula on his cards, each a superb depiction in gothic shades of black, purple and red, whether a pulpy heart impaled with three daggers or the pale-skinned Mina, two puncture marks on her delicate neck. Here is rendered life and myth, King of Knives (Lord Byron), or King of Garlic Flowers (Bram Stoker). The cards are high-quality, heavy-coated cardstock with square edges.

The matching book offers a tour of vampire and Tarot particularities: "The History and Philosophy of the Tarot"; "The Vampire in Legend and Art"; "The Vampire Tarot Trumps"; "The Minor Suits and the Tools of the Slayer"; and a guide to using the cards. The author cautions those who are familiar with his previous sets- based on alchemical, Christian and Buddhist symbolism and mystical philosophy- that he has not crossed over to the dark side. Death, rebirth and eternal life are the constant themes of myth. The Vampire Tarot celebrates the literary vampire as an ancient mythological creature focusing on mortality and the nature of the soul. These are no clumsy, frightening monsters from village folklore; rather, "the literary vampire is an esthetic creation of romantic poets... influenced by the gods of mythology".

If you are a tarot aficionado, the cards speak for themselves. If you are a neophyte, consider The Vampire Tarot a challenge, an opportunity to expand the mind and embrace the great themes of rebirth and immortality, an archetype of the unconscious on a journey of transformation. Luan Gaines/2009.

I just purchased this deck a week ago. I own the Alchemical Tarot and decided to add this one to my growing collection of tarot decks. Mr. Place's interpretations, (and meditations) on the tarot is refreshing and intuitive, he is clearly someone who knows the history, importance, and the divinatory significance of tarot--and it shows in this deck. This deck is not simply a tarot deck with vampire illustrations; it is a thoroughly researched creation that incorporates both the vampire literary and gothic genres (Bram Stoker, Polidori, Le Fanu, Byron, Anne Rice & even Buffy) while combining iconic and archetypal images with those of the traditional/divinatory tarot. It comes in a sturdy and handsome box with a thick soft cover companion book. What is amazing is the price. This deck is big, larger than other decks I own, and the cards are contained in a protective holder which keeps them in place. A very minor drawback is that the card edges are square, so shuffling should be done carefully. Overall, this is a great tarot deck that incorporates the vampire mythos in the literary and gothic tradition of Dracula, Interview with the Vampire, Varnney and Carmilla.

The first thing you will notice upon receiving "The Vampire Tarot" by Robert Place is the quality and size of the beautiful box it comes in. This will last and be enjoyed forever. I did not expect that. A happy surprise! Upon opening the box you come to the book...and I do mean BOOK. This is a 300 page BOOK! Covering not just "The Vampire Tarot", but Tarot itself, history, origin...WOW! Then you come to the cards. They are large, and square, and the artwork is stunning. They did stick together, as other reviewers have mentioned, but by squeezing the edges together, I was able to get them apart with no damage to the cards. I am still working through the substantial book! It's quite a treat. I recommend this deck to anyone who likes either Vampires or Tarot. A real treat to those of us who love both!

I am very please with this innovative deck - this deck uses the classical symbols of the vampire myth as well as the beauty of the myth. I will want to have two copies of this very special deck- one for reading and one for collecting.

There are now a number of vampire tarot decks (though some are sold out and true collectors items). This one doesn't have that hip modern feel to it, which I have come to dislike. Instead it's themed around Stoker's Dracula story, and somehow doesn't throw every bit of the Rider-Waite's symbology out the window. Not to say it's not a departure, but anything gothic is going to be more than a mild twist on a standard deck.

The look is in keeping with its theme. You will get the impression of handcolored woodblock prints, and the colors are suitably dreary for the deck. The suits have also been tweaked to fit with Dracula. Cups are vails of holy water, disks are garlic blossoms, and wands are (can you stand the suspence) stakes! The court cards are actual historical personalities which is a nice touch. Major Arcana stands out the best though as parts of the original story.

I am a fan of big Tarot decks, and the cards are certainly bigger than standard. What I didn't like was the surface they put on the cards. It almost feels laminated, so there is a tendancy for the cards to stick together. That makes them harder to work with, as well as to shuffle. The other thing I have qualms about is the enclosed book. I find it dry and can't commit to reading it straight through like other books. It's loaded with comparisons to standard decks and historical references to the timesetting of Bram's book, but it has no gothic feel, and no delight in the darkness of the theme. The card meanings are less than 1/4 of the book (the spreads are a nice twist, well the two of them that are pictured). I given the book, I have to think of this as a deck I'll grow into.

This is NOT a Tarot card for just everyone. For those into "spiritual" feelings and happenings, this is a great tarot. This was a gift to someone who "blood bound" to it. The readings are phenominal and VERY right on to the point of scary. THIS IS NOT A BEGINNERS OR YOUNG PERSON's DECK!

The art design is interesting and well done.