The Tarot of the Holy Death

The Tarot of the Holy Death

Ekaterina Topilskaya created her deck using AI technology.
Therefore, it is an excellent opportunity to discuss the use of AI technology in creating spiritual products such as Tarot decks.
Artists and graphic designers involved in creating Tarot decks are especially vocal against the use of AI technology. They mainly argue that unqualified people are now capable of creating artwork of questionable quality.
I find their argument at least funny, as I always question the qualifications of most artists to create Tarot decks.

On the other hand, the topic somewhat reminds me of when the first digitally created decks appeared, and artists painting and manually drawing their decks considered them tasteless and unacceptable.
From a scholarly point of view, I’m more interested in the content of a Tarot deck than the creative process and tools used in its conception.
Although the aesthetic criteria might be decisive from a commercial perspective, we often forget that the Tarot is a sensitive instrument for divination, and its content and quality are critical.
The Tarot is a language of symbols. The challenge for any serious Tarot creator is to learn, understand, and rightfully transpose those symbols into the appropriate cards. In these circumstances, AI technology can be an effective tool for creating meaningful Tarot cards – even for people who are less artistically gifted or trained for the graphical execution of the task. Good taste can be cultivated, and proportions, perspective and colour theory can be learned. In any field, knowledge and the will to learn make the difference between amateurs and professionals. When scholars with extended knowledge use AI technology to transpose their knowledge into images, we all should pay attention.

Ekaterina Topilskaya has an unusual relationship with death. She remained an orphan as a child, and her grandparents raised her just to see them die, too. These traumatic events bound her with death in a particular way that changed her life.
Therefore, unsurprisingly, The Tarot of the Holy Death gravitates around death and the cult of Santa Muerte.
Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte, the Spanish for Our Lady of Holy Death, often shortened to Santa Muerte, is a new religious movement, female deity, and folk saint in Mexican folk Catholicism and Neopaganism. A personification of death, she is associated with healing, protection, and safe delivery to the afterlife by her devotees.
According to R. Andrew Chesnut, PhD in Latin American history and professor of religious studies, Santa Muerte is at the centre of the world’s single fastest-growing new religious movement.
The Tarot of the Holy Death is more a twenty-two-card oracle dedicated to Santa Muerte and designed to connect with our deceased ancestors rather than a traditional Tarot deck.
Ekaterina regularly uses her Major Arcana deck by adding the Minor Arcana cards from any other standard Tarot deck.
She is a Priestess of Hecate and co-authored the transformational game “Space Yinks”, based on Hecatheon’s knowledge.
Hecate is a goddess in ancient Greek religion and mythology, associated with Magick, witchcraft, the Underworld, and the crossroads. The name “Hecate” is the feminine form of hekatos, an epithet of the god Apollo, meaning “the one who works from afar”. However, the true etymology of the name is uncertain.
Worship of Hecate existed alongside other deities in major public shrines and temples in antiquity, and she had a significant role as a household deity. As a “goddess of witchcraft”, Hecate has been incorporated into various systems of Neopagan witchcraft, Wicca, and Neopaganism.
The artwork looks as good as any digitally created artwork and lacks the distinguishable notes of most AI-generated works. The design is not exaggerated or overcrowded, as many AI-generated artworks may appear. I only noticed a small flaw in the Chariot card.
The deck’s theme is fantasy, with all the twenty-two cards bearing the marks of the Holy Death.
Santa Muerte is depicted in all the twenty-two archetypes of the Major Arcana cards, which virtually make them aspects of her various manifestations, channelling her energy and message.
As a result, most of the Major Arcana cards have been retitled.
The Fool is renamed Transition, the Hierophant is called Temple, the Hermit is called Search, (the Wheel of) Fortune is called Swing, the Hanged Man is called Insight, the Death card is called the Cycle, Temperance is called the Right Measure, the Devil is called Addiction, the Tower is called the Flame of God, the Star is called Hope, the Moon is called Mystery, the Sun is called the Phylosopher’s Stone, Judgement is called Transfiguration, and the World (or Universe) is called the Absolute.
Ekaterina provided me with a printed guidebook in English. However, I don’t know if this guidebook is available in digital format for those who purchase the deck. She also teaches a Magick course on the deck, but it’s only in Russian.
The guidebook is comprehensive and offers detailed descriptions of the cards and methods for using them for Magickal operations.
Each card is analysed and explained thoroughly. We are presented with a detailed description of the card, its meaning, its negative aspects, the message of Death through it, and how it can be used in Magickal work.
Death is considered the cessation of consciousness, the end of remembering and thinking for a person. However, Ekaterina used her deck as an instrument of necromancy and created a bridge between the worlds of living and dead. Therefore, Death can become the most honest and wise adviser for the living.
The deck must be consecrated on the altar of the Holy Death by a specific, nine-day-long ritual.
A dedicated prayer must be enunciated, which can be voiced each time before the deck is used.
Santa Muerte is a religion and Magickal practice. Ekaterina’s deck bounds these principles and practices with the twenty-two Major Arcana of the Tarot, creating a new instrument of divination.
Those interested in the path of the Holy Death and Cartomancy will find this product worthy of experimentation. As I said, it’s not a standard Tarot deck, yet Tarot practitioners may also work with it in the traditional way.

Two formats of the deck are available:
90 x 140 mm and 60 x 120 mm;
Material: glossy cardboard 300 g;
Lamination: 2-sided, 1+1;
Film: ANTI-SCRATCH matte – 32 mk;
Rounded corners.
The small deck costs 20 euros, and the large one is 25 euros. Plus shipping.

Ekaterina can be contacted, and the deck can be ordered from her Facebook profile.

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