Embrace your inner darkness with The Tarot of the Vampyres! This hauntingly romantic deck will nourish your darkest spiritual hungers. A deck rooted in seduction and feverish passion, these Vampyres demand that you plumb the depths of your shadows, for only then can you fully awaken.
Luxuriantly Gothick art by Ian Daniels loosely follows the RWS structure, with unique and macabre names for the suits: Scepters, Grails, Knives, and Skulls. A perfect Tarot for anyone with a taste the Divine, The Tarot of the Vampyres includes a full book, with detailed card meanings, occult exercises, and original spreads.
After an exhilarating time with the theatre troupe in the land of the Sweet Twilight a group of us have decided to stay from dusk to dawn and spend 78 days becoming very familiar with the people in this world. We are united! In a blissful ceremony we celebrate our loving friendship and commit to supporting one another, to being open to the bliss of life, far removed from earthly concerns.
Guerino the Wretch, became a byword for Italian cunning and fearlessness: he is all orphan hunting for his parents in the company of an innkeeper’s son; in the course of their wanderings, the two youths reach a mountain pass near Norcia in Umbria, where they meet the Devil. The Devil wants Guerino’s soul – what else? – and tempts him with news of a great fata, a fairy, an enchantress, called Sibilla, who lives near by, in a subterranean kingdom where every delight will be his.
From: The Beast and the Blonde Marion Warner Chapter 1
Elisabeta, the snake haired siren offers us a thimble full of her potent fluid. She is the ultimate siren who sings a sweet song of seduction. She understands how to play on unfulfilled cravings and deep longings.
The lure of being able to be free of any responsibility is intoxicating and she leads us to believe that it is a good idea to moor in the Land of the Sweet Twilight.
Elisabeta has appeared at a time when we are seeking to live out a fantasy. Her timing is impeccable. The longing, the promise of boundless bliss is enough to drive us to enter the world of the Sweet Twilight.
When this card appears in a reading it signifies that we are now connected with. the cosmic flow. It is time to make plans, to prepare for a journey and to sail into the unknown. This represents the beginning of a new cycle.
“It has that magic about it, as soon as anyone looks into it, they are just drawn to it, it is quite a magnetic space.” Mirror Maze
Disorientated I stumbled along the long corridor of mirrors. This is not like the grand, emblematic Baroque style gallery in the royal Palace of Versailles. It is a decidedly haunting place and quite frankly, more than a little terrifying. Despite the waves of anxiety I feel that magic is afoot; that questions I have not found voice for may be answered here.
As I walked, a story board depicting my past life, present life and future life appeared within the mirrors. I had lost all sense of time in this maze. I lingered to take in what the storyboard was actually telling me, too process and interpret the images in the mirror.
The Seven of Skulls, the Ancestry Card gives us a concept of where we have come from. The Nine of Skulls, the Descendency Card reveals what will follow in your journey. p. 56 Phantasmagoria
Navigating the maze of mirrors and optical illusions is especially challenging when it is dark and you think you are leaving the Great Hall on the Isle of Ancestors. It is anybodies guess what the mirrors will reveal.
After leaving my talisman on the wooden bench beside the Wheel of Fortune I left the Great Hall, dutifully departing by the prescribed exit. To say that I was taken aback to find myself in a corridor, that resembled the House of Mirrors we used to visit at Luna Park back in the day, is an understatement. Sometimes called Distorting Mirrors, Crazy Mirrors, Carnival Mirrors, Silly Mirrors, Wobbly Mirrors or Hall of Mirrors, those mirrors could make you look short and squat, long and thin, and any variety of strange shapes in between. Their golden age was the Victorian Era and they continued to captivate people for many years.
The mirrors were solidly constructed and the reflecting surface was flexible and shatterproof acrylic for safety. Each one had a different mirror shape and gave a different distorting effect.
As I walked I was fascinated by the image I was reflecting. The person I was seeing in one mirror was non other than Silas, (my Bloodline Clan Card p. 58 Phantasmagoria). The Bloodline Card, which has ‘jumped’ out of my deck twice now is the card that depicts the challenges and the quest of our current life. Ian Daniels says that when we study this card we can unlock personal messages about our personal life journey.
I stopped to take a closer look and recognised that I am him and he is me and we are the Raven that carries messages on the universal ‘songlines’.
As I stood, captivated, the whispers of an old soul reminded me that Virgo rules my path and and many of the Hermit’s qualities are reflected in my personality. Just as the deep earth is energised by the steady heat of the Sun, so creative concentration fills my being.
To get a sense of what this space felt like visit the House of Mirrors. This is an interactive maze-like sculpture that gives you the opportunity to lose yourself – literally and figuratively. It’s a stunning construction of steel and mirrored glass by Melbourne artists Christian Wagstaff and Keith Courtney and stands glistening and mysterious in the Arts Centre Forecourt.
“While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping
As if someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door”.
Edgar Allen Poe
As I sat in my apartment, by my dressing table, admiring the ‘new’ me that Pook had, like some good fairy out of one of those Hans Christian Anderson tales, conjured up using a spell that involved the burning of pine needles, I heard a persistent tapping at my chamber window. I looked to see that Cora had arrived and was beckoning me to pay heed. She had a decidedly haughty, unfamiliar look about her.
Puzzled I opened the window only to be greeted with “Really! Anastasia! I am surprised at you! How could you let Pook lead you astray like this? You know he cannot be trusted. He weaves spells to bemuse our senses and confuse our judgement.”
I was about to slam the window shut, not wanting to hear another word when she added, “You know Pook is the master of illusion and delusion, holding up a distorting mirror to confuse and misguide you”.
With that she dropped her calling card telling me that perhaps I needed to reflect on this ‘little truth’ before I reduced myself to pursuing rather than being pursued or did anything to make an enemy out of the Empress.
As I looked at the card a flood of painful memories surged forward. Bereft I locked my chamber door and slipped under the doona to mull over the truth I was being forced to face.
The Lord of Sceptres is forceful in pursuit of his desires and goals. He is assertive, bold and self assured. He characterises the positive energy of fire, which is direct, dynamic and active. He combines vitality and self-determination with an innovative nature making him a lightning rod of inspiration.
p. 182 Phantasmagoria
When I learned that the Lord of Sceptres was riding through the night to reach Shadwell any thoughts of seducing the Prince of Grails were put on hold. Besides, word had come via Cora (my Raven) that he was lingering at an Inn known to provide services to gentlemen of his ilk. “No class!” I thought to myself. “Still wearing the crease of the nappy!” I muttered a little uncharitably.
Now the Lord of Sceptres is another prospect altogether. His energy is projected forth like a flaming arrow and he is known to be powerful, honourable, optimistic, clever and enthusiastic. He thrusts his Will out into the world, sometimes with spectacular energy.
The more I thought of him thrusting his will the more determined I became. He might be powerful, clever and enthusiastic but so am I – with some help from my guides.
So I popped down into the woods and called upon the Fey Faeries to offer some advice. I clapped my hands together with glee when Pook agreed to a selfie by one of the mushrooms to be found there. This was quite something because the Pook is a shape changer who appears in whatever guise he thinks will be most confusing or useful depending on the circumstances.
Pook really is a naughty little shape changing villain. He whispered in my ear that perhaps, like him, I could do a spot of shape changing and attract the interest of the Lord by presenting myself as the Empress, who the Lord is known to have pursued so often.
“Are you saying I am not attractive Pook”? I demanded.
“Of course not my lady” Pook said quite unconvincingly. ” You are much cleverer than the Lord and you do know that he is besotted with the Empress! What about I weave a little spell and rectify all that grey hair and give you a fresh ‘look’?” he tactfully suggested.
The Lord of Sceptres can also represent divine inspiration and good news or advice. He is the creator who utilises his personal potential by identifying with his own inner image as the creator god. p.183 Phantasmagoria
With that he burned a few pine needles, muttered some mysterious words and blew smoke from the needles all over me. Then he held up a mirror! “What do you think?”
Whence came the term vamp? Short for “vampire,” the word meant a female seductress with an almost supernatural ability to drain male victims not of their blood, but of their…life force. Or something like that. Ask someone from the 1910s to name a vampire, and they were just as likely to say “Theda Bara” as “Count Dracula.”
When Cora, my faithful Raven, sang a sweet love song by my window something stirred within. “Ecstasy! It was once considered a favour of the gods, a divine gift that could life mortals out of ordinary reality and into a higher world. The transformative fire of ecstasy would burn away the barriers between ourselves and our souls, bestowing on us a greater understanding of our relation to ourselves and to the universe” (Johnson 1987, p.vi)
The great tragedy of contemporary Western society is that we have virtually lost the ability to experience the transformative power of ecstasy and joy. This loss affects every aspect of our lives. The truth is that our spirits need nourishment more than ever. Excluding the inner experience of divine ecstasy from our lives can impact on our physical well being.
At a time when we have headaches instead of thunderbolts from Zeus and angina pains instead of the arrows of Eros, the impending arrival of the seductive Prince of Grails at Shadwell was like both a thunderbolt and a blazing arrow, transforming me, drawing forth the inner vamp. I needed to prepare myself! I needed to be as innovative as he was known to be, and think carefully about how to present myself, how to seduce him.
The Prince of Grails is approaching on his stallion. He is the Hand to the Empress and is coming to check that her wing is ready for her and her substantial entourage. As is the case in the Game of Thrones the Hand of the Empress is the most powerful appointed position in authority and responsibility.
Anastasia Riversleigh 