Cult of Weimar Tarot

If there was a time and place during the Diesel Era that came closest to capturing the spirit of what would someday be called ‘Dieselpunk’ it would have been Berlin during the 1920s. Known as the Weimar Republic, Germany was midst of a violent, vulgar, and hedonistic age with cutting-edge art and experimental lifestyles that the world wouldn’t see again until the 1960s.

This amazing age is the inspiration for the Dieselpunk tarot deck called the Cult of Weimar.

Nemia at the website Aeclectic Tarot was able to acquire the tarot deck and posted a review. Following is an excerpt:

It adheres to the Classical structure of tarot decks with 78 cards. The suits are Wands, Cups, Swords and Coins. The cards are dark, surrounded by black borders and inner borders in unobtrusive dark colours: dark brown thicker frames for the Major Arcana, and thinner frames for the minor cards (metallic for Wands, dark red for Cups, very dark blue for Swords and brown for Coins). The colours are a bit more muted in print than on the website but very clear. The card stock is smooth, matte and very easy to shuffle. It doesn't have a plasticky feel to it.

The card backs are fully reversible and show a simple geometric pattern, reminding me of Bauhaus tiles or textiles. The card numbers are in Roman numbers on top; the minors have no suit name, only a number, but they're easy to recognize. The card titles on court cards and trumps are given in an interesting, spiky, asymmetrical font in capital letters at the bottom of each card.

The images themselves are collages of old photographs and other graphics. They're composed quite often like a stage, with the person in the foreground shadowed (of highlighted) against a background scene. In spite of the overall darkness of the scenes, the use of light and shadow is very clever and dramatic - there are pools of light that make the dark corners mysterious and sometimes threatening. Every detail on the cards has been chosen with care, and it's a pleasure to recognize some of the landmarks of Berlin in the background. What could be more suitable for the Chariot than Potsdamer Platz, the busiest place in Europe in those years?

You can read the full review here.

Unfortunately, the first edition of the Cult of Weimar has sold out. There is a link at the Rabbits Moon Tarot website where you can be placed on a mailing list for news of the next edition.