Description
This is an Oracle Deck with funny, mad, crazy, super-modern archetypes gleaned and polished from philosophy, therapy, modern mythology, literature, poetry and cinema. I think it’s pretty amazing, and I hope you enjoy it.
I started this idea of making a deck a while ago, and I worked on creating new artwork for the classic archetypes – following in the huge footsteps of Pamela Coleman Smith and Frieda Harris. I was fascinated by their cards, and their backstories too. But it wasn’t me. It didn’t feel right. As I drew and wrote I realised that there were so many new things to say about ‘The Self’ – in fact as Adam Curtis says – are we not in ‘The Century of The Self’? – Psychology, Psychiatry, The New Age, Anthropology, Philosophy, Great Novels, even film and television have all expanded and reflected on humanity’s own endless dance with inner knowledge: and what better mirror than an oracle, giving messages from beyond logic, order and predictability? Even with all the technology and information at our fingertips, the experience of seeing a card turn over on a table with a message for us from… where…? is still as powerful and unsettling as ever. And it’s also fun. Fun to do readings together, fun to wonder, fun to talk about and then to do another. That such a simple premise can be the basis of one of the most satisfying and complex puzzles of my creative life so far is a marvel.
