The Primordial Dreams Tarot (DECK ONLY)

• 1 copy of the deck in a custom-printed 2-part box
• If you'd prefer to order the complete set, with a full-color guidebook and storage bag, click here
  

Watch a video with a full flip-through of the cards!

Click here to visit the finished Kickstarter :)

Specifications

• The set of 80 cards is printed on high-quality black core 305gsm paper with a linen finish and black edges
• Cards measure 2.8” x 4.4”
• The cards include NO WORDS OR NUMBERS. The Minor Arcana has a system of dots and color-coding to show the number and suit, with symbols for the Court Cards. The Major Arcana are self-explanatory.
• This deck mostly follows the Rider-Waite-Smith system, but with a few notable changes, as described in more detail in the “How to Use This Deck” section below

Creation Story

Hi! My name’s Lynae Zebest! I’m the artist & creator of this deck. I’m a spiritworker & magician, and I’ve been working with the Tarot for over 20 years. For a long time I’ve dreamt of making my own Tarot deck, and even started on a few different ones, but could never quite capture a cohesive aesthetic vision to pull everything together.

Earlier this year, I began playing around with the MidJourney art generator. I have used a variety of these generators but I immediately felt there was something special about MidJourney. I felt like it had an essence or a spirit of its own, and I started doing magical workings based around this premise, including generating sigils inspired by the works of Austin Osman Spare, using the William S. Burroughs “cut-up” method to create chains of prompts, and treating MidJourney as a direct divination tool: plugging in my queries and seeing what it would dream up for me.

Through that process, it became clear to me that one of the things MidJourney is very good at is distilling things down to a seemingly universal language of symbology, through (essentially) tapping in our collective unconscious. And - this is a lot of what Tarot does too! MidJourney reads our text prompts and thinks, “hmm, this reminds me of something,” and builds an image based on that association. And, when we intuitively read the Tarot, we look at the image and think, “hmm, this reminds me of something,” and build an interpretation based on the imagery.

At this point, I began experimenting in earnest with generating Tarot cards, originally only for my own use. What ended up emerging was something that reminded me strongly of the cave paintings illuminated by firelight in Werner Herzog’s “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” - something very different than the other AI-generated art I was seeing others share. It has been such a joy to fuse an artform practiced for tens of thousands of years by early humans and at least some of our other hominid cousins and ancestors (Yes, Neanderthals, and possibly Homo erectus, made cave art too) with the contemporary digital age, interlaid with the look of other traditional media, such as textiles, watercolors, brushwork, incised art, and pottery!

I used very loose prompts that were mostly about abstracted ideas and feelings rather than specifying how the cards should be depicted visually. I feel like part of the story of the deck is about emergent subconsciousness, about dreams bubbling to the surface.

There was only a brief window where these specific cards could be created. When I have gone back in to experiment with making additional cards, they come out very differently now — even if I specify the same version of MidJourney I used to create them. I am not sure what has changed behind the scenes, but the AI now seems focused on trying to make photorealistic human faces whenever possible, and the styles are much sharper and more defined. This deck really was a once in a lifetime opportunity!

The Primordial Dreams Tarot is meant to be an intuitive deck that's less about looking up or memorizing the static meanings of each card, and more about what you see/feel/intuit when you interact with them and look at the card spreads. It's about dream imagery & abstracted thought. Like cave paintings, there are a lot of animals, human-animal hybrids, and humans changing into animals. Shape-shifting is about changing your outer self to more accurately reflect what’s inside - or intentionally obscure it! - which is a lot of what magic is about, too.

As a queer and genderqueer artist, I feel that this shapeshifting element speaks to a fluidity and spectrum of gender and sexuality. While the Primordial Dreams Tarot contains masculine and feminine archetypes, mostly it is about the spaces in between, or overlapping.

In my own Tarot work, I’ve historically only used the Major Arcana for my readings - I never really connected with the Minor Arcana. I have dyscalculia (a numbers-related learning disorder) and, I must confess, all the numerical-based symbology was stressful & confusing for me! But, in creating this deck, a magical thing happened: I started to really understand the Minor Arcana for the first time. I was able to distill the cards down into their meanings, deconstructing the numerical values that feel so alien to me. The dreamlike, abstract imagery MidJourney was creating with me resonated in a way I never could have anticipated. It would bring me such joy if others find such a deep resonance with these cards!

How to use the cards

Tarot decks have many different uses for different people. Within my own collections, I have decks I use for divination (spread readings, or pulling a single card) and decks I keep as art pieces or to display individual cards on my wall or altars. Some people use the Tarot for archetype meditation, for therapy, or for quiet reflection. I have designed this deck with many of these different uses in mind - but foremost, I designed it as an intuitive divination deck for myself. Only after I had made a little handmade copy of the deck for myself, and worked with it, did I realize how powerful it might be for others!

This deck is meant to be used with or without the guidebook. The Major Arcana & Court Cards are easily identifiable, icon-esque images, especially well-suited to contemplation. The cards of the Minor Arcana are color-coded, and marked with a corresponding constellation of dots, so you can easily tell which card and suit you’re working with.

The Primordial Dreams Tarot mostly follows the Rider-Waite-Smith system, with a few variations:

Rather than Swords, Cups, Pentacles & Wands, this deck uses the elements of Fire, Water, Earth & Air. (In keeping with the original elemental associations of the suits, rather than the modern ones - Fire is Swords and Air is Wands. This may not be the associations you're used to, but it is historically attested and a feature of a minority of modern decks too. It's always worked best for me in my practice, which is why I brought it in here.)

Rather than King, Queen, Knight & Page, the court cards are Father, Mother, Hero & Initiate, reflecting archetypes I imagine are more suited to Neolithic communities

Similarly - bearing in mind that the cards themselves won't have words on them - a number of the Major cards’ names have been changed to fit the theme. Emperor = Patriarch, Empress = Matriarch, etc. The Judgement card is now the Creation card, while still having much the same meaning. This info will all be available in the guidebook!

This deck features 2 additional Major Arcana cards - these are placed at the beginning and the end of the suit, so you can easily choose to use them in your readings, or not, as you prefer.

22: The Dreamer: A card about not just creativity, but whimsy, improvisation, and maaaaybe a bit of chaos! Pulling the Dreamer card speaks to thinking outside the box, or perhaps reinterpreting the meaning of the box entirely. It can mean, magical things are happening that are completely out of your control. This card can also be interpreted more directly as about sleep, rest, hibernation or paying attention to your dreams. In keeping with indie Tarot tradition, this is a cheeky self portrait of me!

00: The Self: A card for contemplating specifically what you are bringing to a given reading: your ego, identity, and position. For gaining better insight into what you have control over, versus what you don’t. For reclaiming agency and finding your own voice. For meditating on what it means to be you.