Goetia: Tarot in Darkness

I love the deck so far. I have a few minor complaints, not enough to lower the rating though. *Note that this deck is not very beginner friendly and may confuse someone trying to learn. I enjoy the complexity and learning the different esoteric associations with this deck. The deck even comes packaged in the order of the Demons of the Ars Goetia in the Lesser Key of Solomon, which I found really cool.Pros:•I personally enjoy the art•The cards have the astrology, demon name, card name, demon number, card number, etc.•The book that comes with the deck, which I will refer to as LWB from here on out, has a chart of the card associations. (Pic incl.)•Cards are nice quality and shuffle well. (Similar quality to other Lo Scarabo decks)•I find the imagery really interesting and a nice contrast from the rws clones. For example, The Tower shows a bird flying over a space surrounded by buildings. However, I may unfortunately never know exactly why the deck creator chose that imagery, and how he intended it to relate to The Tower. The reason for this is listed in the cons below.Cons:•The low contrast of the art makes the pictures hard to see.•The glossy card stock reflects light.•The LWB doesn’t provide any info on the cards except for the table. I recommend getting the The Lesser Key of Solomon. (Amazon has the kindle version of The Three Magical Books of Solomon for $0.49 right now which includes the Lesser Key. It also has the Angels if you get the matching angel deck.)•Most of my complaints are for the LWB. The LWB seems to be an issue with Fabio Listrani decks. It doesn't explain why the astrological correspondences were chosen the way they were. I see they went in the order of the astrological wheel with the zodiacal signs, changing signs every 6 cards. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern to the planetary attributions. (Refer to pic on table.)•I’d love a book reference list when it comes to what the author refers to as traditional esoteric attributions assigned by Éliphas Lévi or Aleister Crowley.•The LWB is mostly just a few pages dedicated to explaining Shadow Work and Kabbala.I know tarot and astrology well. I figure if I learn more about the demons of the Ars Goetia, then the astrological correspondences chosen for the deck will make more sense to me.

The media could not be loaded. Bought this deck thinking it was more or less hand-drawn in a dark neotraditional tattoo style with pen and ink. I was a little disappointed to find that it's actually digital art. Nothing wrong with that, every card looks great and carries powerful and moving imagery, I'm just simply stating my personal preference. I feel like with a lot of digital art, they can get carried away with highlights and trying to make it look 3D to the point where it just ends up looking tacky and too busy.One of the cards had some wear on the face of the card coming straight out of the sealed box. It looked like a rat perhaps scampered across it one night. I'm assuming that's not the case though, probably just a printer error. The card's readability is unaffected by the marks, although it's certainly not good for the ol' neurosis. Most people probably would not have even noticed the marks. I have another deck that I take on the road with me to do readings for petty cash (gypsy hobo), and that deck is beat to all hell. I had hoped that maybe the Goetia deck would be something I keep nice just for myself, but sadly it just bugs the living shit out of me that there's marks on one of the cards that's not even from my own sloppiness. Check my video to see the card, you really can't even notice it unless you see it in the glare. I doubt this will be an issue for many others, but I had to mention it.I noticed there's some nudity. I was a little bummed out that there's not more frontal male nudity, people always cop out and just show the tits, but I'm happy that there were at least a couple dongs in there. Not because I'm particularly fond of looking at male genitals, I'm just a stickler... And like I mentioned before the ol' neurosis. One of the male nudes is big-time sus, and people who bought the deck will understand what I'm saying. For that reason alone, you might wanna reconsider who you read the cards for, as you have at least a 1/78 chance of showing a random person CP. Yes of course, everything is done in the name of artistic expression, but like homie you went there when you didn't necessarily have to.This is all just nitpicky stuff, none of it is enough for me to actually dock any points from my rating. It's a great deck and if you know what you're doing then you've probably already made up your mind about getting it. As others have mentioned, might be a good idea to pick up the keys of Solomon while you're at it. They will at the very least provide some light reading in your downtime. Stay froggy.

The artwork is stunning and really skillfully done. Each card and associated entity is accurately depicted. The thought and work put into these cards make them well worth the price. I'm very happy to have them to work with now.

The idea came about to do readings with dark and light. Both decks have received. Dark has thicker card stock. Light is more laminated. Both are smooth enough to spread. No doubt that artistic quality is stunning. Light’s guidebook has more practical information while dark is only a table. Now, this is where materials are lacking in the dark. I feel they tried too hard to save spaces to fit the same box size. I know there are more materials in the dark. I highly recommend an extended guidebook to expand each demon information like the Light has. Currently, I use them with traditional meanings as tarot and the original meanings as oracle. These are very useful decks. I hope they will come up the extended guidebook for dark.

The artwork is absolutely enchanting, very dark and mystical. The energy of this deck is very dark, definitely good for any shadow working. I will say however it’s not the most beginner friendly deck, having a decent understanding of mystical and occult symbolism will be incredibly helpful. Also understanding the goetia and the study of demons will help as demons are depicted on each card. Definitely recommend doing some research before diving too deep with this deck. Researching basic tarot and beginning with the waite deck would be great! Nevertheless highly recommend this deck !!!