- Deviant Moon Tarot Borderless Miniature Edition Deck
- By Patrick Valenza
- Published by US Games Systems, INC.
- Internet price for Deck and Guidebook Box Set: UK £12.34 / US $13.95
- UK Release Date: 9 January 2025
- US Release Date: November 29, 2024
- ISBN-10 1646712188
- ISBN-13 978-1646712182
- Reviewed by Jason C Dean
The Deviant Moon Deck Borderless Miniature Edition is an amazing and bizarre Tarot deck. I was only distantly familiar with it in that I at least knew the name. This deck really comes from another place. The art is truly fantastic in a literal sense. It reminded me of surrealism, art deco, film noir, and a bit of expressionism, too. On his Amazon bio, Valenza describes his technique as derived from photos taken in cemeteries in New York, Long Island, etc., and he digitally manipulated the images to create the various textures and shapes that make up the characters of the Deviant Moon realm in which they exist. My description here does not do the art justice, so I suggest you also visit Patrick’s website – link above.
The Deviant Moon comes in a little flip box. It is beautifully adorned with the Five of Swords on the front of the box and the Wheel of Fortune on the back. This mini deck can easily fit into your palm, pocket, purse or bag, but I suggest you find a suitable little bag to put it in to protect it from getting damaged. The cards ‘surreal and evocative’ as described on the box are indeed those descriptors and more. I could see a whole animated movie being made using these beings from the moonlit landscape realms of the Deviant Moon. The deck comes with a little guidebook which Patrick Valenza also authored. Although this guidebook does not have an introduction, each of the suits does have its own introductory passages plus traditional Tarot names and titles of the individual card. However, the suits are also variously described as clan, tribe, realm, and city dwellers.
The overall feeling I get from this deck is of a place where emotions, desires, actions, and purpose exist in full sight and at the extremes of behaviour. Like living in a dreamscape where manic is normal and the veil is rent between life and the afterlife. Every social entanglement is at once dangerous, thrilling, chaotic, and expected. Considering the name Deviant Moon, it came as a pleasant ‘of course’ when I saw that the circular ten-card spread included is called ‘The Lunatic Spread’. This spread is somewhat reminiscent of a Celtic Cross, but with some distortions, with positions titled Secret Desires, Hidden Forces, and Spiritual Forces. All part of the twisted macabre world of the Deviant Moon.
The Majors all have traditional titles with the exception of number XIII, which has the Roman numerals. XIII shows a highly stylised naked pregnant female human wearing a horse-head skull and stepping on the head of a much smaller but similarly depicted person, complete with a horse-head skull mask. In the background is a 19th-century factory with billowing smoke stacks. Strangely, both figures appear to be having fun; such is this world distorted, as if viewed through a looking glass dark, shattered and disfigured. The Devil, winged and scarlet red, appears to be dancing on an erupting Moon. The Tower is disintegrated by a ray beam blast of a passing UFO, or is it the eye of some demonic force? Whereas Strength, number XI in this deck, is a bald, shining blue, naked muscular circus performer starring in the mouth of a large, prehistoric-looking fish, whilst prizing its mouth open. The Lovers shows an upright naked dark figure wearing a sailors cap, locked in an ecstatic embrace with a nude fair female figure on the edge of an art deco esplanade that leads to an embayment, while a golden snake witnesses this shore excursion.
The Court Cards have traditional titles and similar attributes; however, they are far edgier. The Queen of Swords has two swords, one in each hand. She has the look of clinical retribution as she stands there with one of her swords dripping with blood. The Queen of Wands looks like a fearsome warrior Queen. She has a bare, amazonian chest, sporting four arms like a Hindu goddess, standing tall on a driven crusade, and holding a spear, within the environs of Robin’s Sherwood Forest. The Knight of Cups is of the water, not only holding a chalice, but his form is half human and half denizen of the deep, complete with prawn shell-like, exoskeleton armour. Meanwhile, the Page of Swords is dressed in royal garments, with a sword held high, as he embarks on his lunatic mission, equipped with a Borg-like clairvoyant monocle apparatus.
The numbered suits of the Minors show similarly deviated images of their traditional deck colleagues. The Two of Pentacles shows a gothic belly dancer dancing and holding two pentacles under a crescent moon overlooking the Hagia Sophia. The Ace of Wands has a three-armed Madonna-like Mother Earth figure holding a baby in her arms and encased in a large peapod. The Three of Swords differs as it has a three-legged figure in a dress whose heart is exposed. Three swords, running through from her back, are protruding from her chest, piercing her heart. She holds her hand up to shield the glare from a light of scrutiny, as her shadow is projected like a hard silhouette on the wall behind. Similarly, the Ten of Swords sees a Picasso-like naked figure encased in a wooden box as ten swords are inserted through the walls, piercing the trapped forlorn being.
I had the opportunity to do some readings with the deck for querents. One was a three-card written reading; I have attached an image of the card layout here. At first, I just read the cards and the art as shown. Then I looked up the meanings in the guidebook. I found that my interpretation did not change too much, but with the Deviant Moon descriptions of the cards, the reading became a bit more severe, somewhat poetic, and a bit mystical. Especially in the interpretation of the Wheel of Fortune, as it is described in the upright as fortune is in your favour, whereas in the reverse it would have been misfortune and bad luck. I felt this card’s description was firmly divinatory.
I really love this deck. The art is so well done, with so many influences threading through; however, at the same time, it is a totally original production by Patrick Valenza. ‘Three years to complete, but thirty years in the making, ’ he explains. It is also an interesting example of how the local environment can influence. Patrick describes how he was influenced by a local infamous asylum where macabre and gruesome stories of the incarcerated included tarot and the dark arts.
Deviant Moon Tarot Borderless Miniature Edition is a must-have in any collection, I suggest. If you love the darker shadow dye of life, this deck will be a great companion for all your practices. Or if you are curious but aren’t sure … well, if you want one example of the dark side of Tarot, then I strongly suggest you consider Deviant Moon. The art is superb, the author’s knowledge of Tarot is expansive, and it dimly illuminates the subtle complexity of the human condition and how the border between normal and deviance is fluid. Besides, this mini deck is so inexpensive, they are practically giving it away. So please explore the links below and give it some thought. Deviant Moon Tarot just might bring some balance to your collection, especially if you are into unicorns.
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