Description
The Tarot of Many Doors is a sci-fi themed, queer, anarchist deck, by non-binary trans artist, writer and performer Felix Kawitsky.
Though there are some fantastic reinterprtations of the classic tarot archetypes floating around, more often than not, card characters are represented in explicitly and stereotypically gendered ways, or else reproduce other systems of power and dominion.
Fortunately, tarot is a very flexible tool, and these meanings are not entrenched in the cards themselves. Science fiction is also one of the most adaptable tools for creating alternative worlds and ways of being – ways of existing in bodies that are otherworldly, subterranean, robotic, or otherwise not-quite-human.
Many of the character designs in this deck are the result of drawing through gender dysphoria to finding new, non-normative and ‘alien’ bodies to re-imagine gender with.
The Tarot of Many Doors has very few lifeforms immediately recognisable as human. It contains an array of beings made of blood, light, metal, slime, stone, soundwaves, tentacles, shadows, feathers, bone, data … all existing in other planes, dimensions and worlds.
These other worlds come from a similar impulse to look through and ahead towards relationships, communities, and revolutions that defy the bounds of the present world order.
The future is queer!
What you will find in this deck
- Aliens and other non-human people
- Low key space anarchy
- High key space anarchy
- Sneaky shout outs to Ursula Le Guin, Octavia Butler, Samuel Delany, Ann Leckie, NK Jemisin and others
- Varied representations of bodies and gender
- Many tentacles
What you will not find in this deck
- The glorification of mastery
- Creatures being ridden or controlled by humans (with one notable exception)
- Stereotypically gendered cards
- The perpetuation of racism, sexism, ableism, classism, whorephobia, transphobia
Renamed cards
Because this deck is anti-authoritarian, the Queen, King, Knight and Page cards have been replaced with Reader, Speaker, Walker and Reverie, respectively.
The suits have been renamed as follows: Pentacles has changed to the suit of Dice, Cups has changed to Potions, the suit of Swords is now the suit of Wires. Wands retain their classic naming.
Some of the Major Arcana card names have been altered to be less stereotypically gendered or ableist (For example, The High Priestess is now The Oracle, and The Fool is now The Child).
The deck comes with a downloadable PDF zine. If you would prefer a paper copy you’ll find that here!
Contents
- A 79 card deck: 78 Major and Minor Arcana, plus 1 original card. Printed in cool chromatic grey, standard tarot card size (12 X 7cm) on 350gm playing card stock, with silver detailing.
- 8 Page leaflet including brief explanations of changes to the suits and Majors.
- A customised, black and silver, two-piece rigid box. Box dimensions: L: 13cm X W: 8cm X H: 4.5cm
- DOWNLOAD: The Zine of Many Doors, filled with excerpts from sci-fi novels, original illustrations, notes, influences and other inspirations for the deck. PDF: A link will be sent with your order confirmation.
Printed in the UK.
Raven (verified owner) –
We stumbled upon this deck while buying “all of our stories” (side note, that excellent too, you should buy it) and something about the explicitly genderqueer and anti hierarchical nature of the deck just spoke to us. We slept on the decision, and when the pull towards the deck grew stronger we bought it.
In the past month we’ve come to love the deck, the illustrations can often appear simple, but still convey great depth and meaning, we find ourselves drawing meaning from cards in surprising and unusual ways. The renaming of the court cards and some of the major arcana works, Stratagem (the renamed emperor) makes sense in way we struggled with more traditional decks.
Everything about this deck looks s beautiful, from the care and thought that has gone into the world building for the minor arcana, to the subtle yet powerful changes to the major arcana. As an agender person, it’s so nice to have a deck that does away with the gender binaries in more traditional decks.
We’re still learning the deck, but we can see ourselves using it a lot
Cassie (verified owner) –
I love this deck! It’s really exciting and feels so wonderful to use. The cards themselves feel nice and the grey scale art looks great, I particularly love the shiny silver doors on the back.
The pictures themselves make sense and manage to blend the typically symbology with the new worlds this artist has created.
Also, with some of the names of cards switched up to make it gender free, along with a new card in the major arcana, it frees my mind up to make more intuitive readings which I appreciate.