The most amazing thing when I first saw Carrington’s major arcana at the Mexico City show was finding out they weren’t prints. Each of the 22 cards from 1955 was hand-painted with oils on board, using real gold and silver leaf that lit up under the gallery lights. It’s wild that serious tarot fans only learned about this in 2018.
Having a good reproduction feels like being part of art history, even though nothing beats seeing the originals up close. It really shifted how I see artist-made decks; they’re not just interpretations but real artworks that also serve as divination tools.
The Hierophant card by Carrington offers a chance to dive into its secrets at your own pace.
Her… unique version hints at undiscovered paths to spiritual independence. Try writing down your first impressions in a journal. This kind of self-reflection often unlocks insights that come only with time and patience.
Working with the Carrington deck taught me that her symbolism operates on its own frequency, as the old Moravian saying goes, ‘The owl teaches best in moonlight, not under classroom lamps.’
I spent weeks trying to force traditional meanings onto her imagery until I watched a cool analysis that showed how her personal mythology from decades of automatic drawing and occult practice created an entirely different symbolic language. Once you understand her visual vocabulary, the eggs as portals, the horses as psychopomps, the hybrid creatures as aspects of consciousness, the readings become startlingly precise in ways that standard interpretations never quite reach.
I always thought surrealist tarot decks were just pretty to look at. Like Carrington’s deck, figured it was more for display than actual readings.
The symbols aren’t random art stuff. She knew what she was doing with the occult meanings, and there’s so much depth there. If you learn her personal mythology and symbolism, the readings read differently. Way deeper than I expected.