Product Description

Grim Agents of Cosmic Forces...

In the early twentieth century, legendary horror writer H.P. Lovecraft described an ancient tome as "the unmentionable Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred . . . a book which I had never seen, but of which I had heard monstrous things whispered." In the early twenty-first century, best-selling author Donald Tyson wove the myriad rumors and whispers of Lovecraft's dread grimoire into the epic fantasy novels Necronomicon and Alhazred. Intended as a trilogy, this tarot completes Tyson's formidable work.

The Necronomicon Tarot brings the phantasmagoric desert wanderings of Alhazred to life in a stunningly visceral deck and companion book. Seventy-eight captivating illustrations by fantasy artist Anne Stokes capture the mythic and monstrous world of Tyson's Necronomicon while remaining true to the underlying structure and tradition of tarot. Prepare to enter a world where the accursed and tormented poet wanders in search of the greatest and darkest magic — divination with the dead.

This kit includes 78-card tarot deck with a black organdy bag and 240-page companion tarot book.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #259402 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780738710860
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
"Anyone steeped in Lovecraft's mythos, or curious to learn more, will find this Tarot and book set well worth the shiver or two it may invoke." -- SFsite.com, October 2007

About the Author
Anne Stokes (United Kingdom) is a professional illustrator whose fantasy artwork is popular in the games industry, specifically among products published by Wizards of the Coast and Mongoose Publishing.

Donald Tyson is a Canadian from Halifax, Nova Scotia.  Early in life he was drawn to science by an intense fascination with astronomy, building a telescope by hand when he was eight.  He began university seeking a science degree, but became disillusioned with the aridity and futility of a mechanistic view of the universe and shifted his major to English.  After graduating with honors he has pursued a writing career. Now he devotes his life to the attainment of a complete gnosis of the art of magic in theory and practice.  His purpose is to formulate an accessible system of personal training composed of East and West, past and present, that will help the individual discover the reason for one's existence and a way to fulfill it.

Customer Reviews

The Stars Are Right
That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange eons even death may die.
-- Necronomicon

The Necronomicon Tarot by Donald Tyson, illustrated by Anne Stokes, is a brilliant adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's work to the Tarot format. For those not familiar with HPL, he was an early 20th century pulp fiction writer whose work focused on the other-worldly horrors of ancient magic and forgotten civilizations. He created the Necronomicon as a literary device, an imaginary tome of ancient magic upon which much of his hideous mythology was based. Tyson himself has continued that lineage with two novels and this Tarot, the third in his trilogy. The Tarot comes in a boxed book and deck set, together with a mosquito-net style bag. Given the subject matter, I was a little disappointed that it did not include a shrunken head, or at the very least some dusty old bones, but I suppose there are postal regulations to contend with.

The deck itself is of standard size, and the usual Tarot format of 22 Major Arcana cards, and a Minor Arcana in four suits of 10 plus four court cards. The art work is vivid and brightly colored, set against a black background that makes the cards almost glow. The design of the Major Arcana itself is roughly traditional (whatever that really means), with the substitutions one would expect for the theme. Most of them will be immediately recognized by students of the genre: Nyarlathotep is the Magician, Dagon is the Hierophant, the Hounds of Leng haunt the Moon, and of course Great Cthulhu himself appears as the Devil. Each suit of the Minor Arcana is based on a particular theme, and for the most part, the cards are descriptively illustrated, and follow the Golden Dawn pattern. The Wands, which we are told represent Fire, somewhat surprisingly concern themselves with Atlantis, and Deep Ones make frequent appearances. The Cups reflect an Egyptian theme, tracing the progress of an acolyte of Bast. The Swords concern themselves with betrayal, distrust and death, while the Disks chronicle the adventures, and eventual success, of a necromancer.

The theme immediately invites a comparison with the H. P. Lovecraft Tarot, by Friedman and Hutchinson, published by Mythos Books, and now sadly out of print. Its first edition was cast in bluish-green tones, and its second edition appeared in sepia, while the Necronomicon Tarot is in full, bright colors. The HPL Tarot provides a more thorough illustration of Lovecraft's works -- it is very much a Necronomicon in itself, which might, to those not familiar with Lovecraft's work, make it a little difficult to use as a Tarot. The Necronomicon Tarot, on the other hand, is immediately recognizable as a Tarot deck. While a familiarity with Lovecraft's work would certainly add to one's appreciation of the deck, it should be easy to use by those familiar with the Tarot in general, and, thanks to the detailed book that accompanies it, by those with an interest in the theme who are just beginning their study of the Tarot.

The book, "Secrets of the Necronomicon," is very well written, and would be very helpful to those not familiar with the work of Lovecraft, or with the Tarot itself. It includes chapters on the Necronomicon and its history, the Cthulhu Mythos, and Correspondences, which discusses the Tarot, and specifically its relationship to the Golden Dawn. There are detailed black-and-white illustrations, descriptions, and suggested divinatory meanings for each card, and finally a suggested layout for reading. The divinatory meanings roughly follow the GD standard, though there are occasional differences. If you don't happen to like the GD interpretations, you can focus more on using the card's description as a starting point for your own imagination and understanding of the card.

And there is a lot to imagine here. As Tyson points out, the Necronomicon itself is made out of the stuff of dreams, not out of wood pulp and glue. Its roots are deep within the unconscious, and its "reality" is in its ability to bring forth things that are hidden to ordinary waking consciousness. As such, it is a theme well suited to the Tarot, which is itself a product of the collective unconscious.

But what is this all about? Why all the excitement over a book that does not exist, over monsters that were invented by a pulp writer in the early 20th century? No one could take all this stuff seriously! After all, no one believes in metaphysical Evil anymore; it's evil with a small "e." Human frailty and corruption, not monsters and devils. Right? Maybe. But, methinks, thou whistleth a bit too loudly in the graveyard...

Nietzsche used the word "blinken" to describe a kind of narrow-sighted, closed-mindedness that refuses to recognize anything other than what makes your own world comfortable for you. It's easy to say there is no "Evil," if you have never faced it. It's easy to say Tarot cards are rubbish, if you have no talent for reading them. It's easy to walk through the graveyard at night, if you don't look behind yourself. And it's easy to ridicule what others believe, until your own little world falls apart.

Then, like Pandora's box, the collective unconscious opens wide, and every horror that has stalked the human race since before recorded history lunges forth with vengeance. The stars are right, and that which became Tiamat to the ancients, and Cthulhu in the mind of Lovecraft, rises from the sea to shred what remains of your "reality." Madness, yes, but "reality" too. More drugs? Drugs can alter your brain so you don't see what is socially unacceptable, but they do not change the "reality" of what lies beyond the blinken.

Therein lies the fascination of the Necronomicon. Sure, it's a myth, but that is what a myth is -- a map of the world that lies beyond immediate experience, a signpost in the twilight zone that lies beyond the blinken. Someone else's experience of a world as yet unknown; and whether imaginary or historical, it is just as valid. And this is the value of the Necronomicon Tarot, along with other "dark" tarots, like the Bosch and the Gothic -- they are images of what lies in the collective unconscious, imaginary and at the same time very real. They speak to, and listen to, a part of the mind connected with the primal origins of humanity, and perhaps with the forces out of which humanity arose. They are gateways to a "reality" that we don't ordinarily see -- the stuff of which dreams and visions are made -- and they are ways of getting beyond the intellectual, moral, and spiritual "blinken" of modern culture.

Hauntingly Beautiful Esoteric Deck
I want to start off by saying two things. First, this deck is hauntingly beautiful. And second, this deck is not for everyone. The subject material and design will intrigue and delight some folks or repulse and disgust some others. You will love it or hate it.

Having said that, my own opinion is that I really do like this deck, and did some back research on this before even writing this review. Reading through the book with the deck, I saw in the Introduction that the deck is based on Mr. Tysons own work "Necronomicon - The Wanderings of Alhazred". So after glancing through the included book, I acquired a copy of Tyson's Necronomicon and read through that, wandering back and forth between the book and the deck.

The deck is based on the Ryder Waite deck. It contains 22 Trump cards and 4 full suites with court cards of king, queen, knight and knave. The suits are broken into disks, swords, cups and wands. Each suit has its own theme color to make them easily distinguishable from the other suits. The reverse of the cards is a very clever design of Cthulhu, intriguingly done.

The correspondence "is designed to be in harmony with the set of esoteric correspondences used by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn." And reading through the accompanying book confirms this. The suits are Wands - fire, Cups - water, Swords - air and Disks - earth. This desk also relies heavily on reversal reading of the cards, so that has to be taken into consideration when working with this deck. The deck is meant to work mostly with ritual magics and meditation, and is not considered a "fortune telling" deck.

Looking at the images will tell you this as well. Ms. Stokes has presented us with some images that will really give you pause to consider. While I think they are stunning, other people I have shown this deck could not deal with it. And still others quoted H. P. Lovecraft's work as fiction and didn't take the deck seriously.

The concept of necormancy is not new, and to eventually write a book on Necromancy and call it the Necronomicon would not have been so far fetched if it had not been that the book first appeared in a fantasy novel.

This deck is a natural progression of this process, working into using a deck designed for use in necromancy and the magical arts , calling upon real and imagined images to create a world within the deck that draws you towards the ideas and concepts that Mr. Tyson explains in both of these books.

The images work well with the usual meanings of the decks, but the designs are dark, raw and not for the weak of stomach. While the card for the Two of Cups shows a priestess of Bast pouring wine for a youth and having a statue of Bast in the background and implies what we usually associate with this card as a minor card of love, we contrast this with the Four of Wands, which shows a noble woman sitting staring amorously into the eyes of "The Deep One", very reptilian looking, having a tryst. A very different view of the meaning of enjoyment, harmony and satisfaction.

Ms. Stokes designs are very powerful. The Magician card is one of the most powerful Magician cards I've seen in a while, with the Magician raising a spirit from a grave. Now that's magic!. The Fool card is Azathoth - fat, naked, dirty and alone playing happily on his pipes. Such innocence, such blindness to the world around him.

The deck continues along in this fashion, and should really been seen and felt and contemplated to understand how this deck can work for your own path. I have found it to be compelling to use, but as I said, it is not for everyone.

However, I do recommend that you take a look at this deck and decide for yourself. I do think it is a remarkable deck, and if you have read Tyson's Necronomicon, you will find this deck as fascinating a work as
the book. boudica

Sweet deck of mythos sillyness
Pros very nicely crafted product with nice feel and quality material great color and graphics on both the book and the cards technically they are superb and in spirit they and wunderbar !!!! Great job excelent addition to the mythos and the translucent irradecent black bag is a really nice thoughtfull touch
Cons there is nothing about these cards that precludes them from serious use, however they are at times a bit cartooni and there is a bit of sillyness concerning cats and Atlantis but hey it's best to not be too serious about such things , ifyou want deep pure chulthulhooooo then go with the Giger deck if you dare if you are a Gammer or wiccanish type this deck is ideal , stareersintotheabyss might find it a bit giggly. But that's not nessa a bad thing.