High Strangeness Tarot

The Magician is the master of the physical realm. He utilizes the four elements and occult tradition to perform magick. Count St. Germain is an historical mystery. Born as early as 1691, individuals have claimed his identity as late as the 1970s. He was fluent in at least 12 languages, an adept philosopher and musician, ran in the wealthiest circles, and by all accounts seemed uncannily youthful. He is associated with the Freemasons, Rosicrucians, and Illuminati. He has even been declared a divine, ascended being by esoteric groups derived from Theosophy.
The Magician manipulates reality by pushing his inner will out onto his surroundings. It goes to show that whether the Count was actually a highly skilled grifter or actually harnessed the power of the elements, he created his perceived reality through sheer willpower.Are your limitations perceived or real? If you had no limitations, what would you choose to accomplish?

The other side of the Magick coin is The High Priestess. Whereas The Magician utilizes the physical realm for Magick, The High Priestess utilizes her internal landscape to perform Magick. Marie Laveau earned the reputation of the “Voodoo Queen of New Orleans.” Her life is defined by just as much fact as rumoured fiction. She drew from a religious landscape shaped by Catholicism, West African and Haitian Vodou traditions, and the diverse cultures of New Orleans.. She was an advocate for the African-American community to practice their chosen traditional spiritual customs freely, providing a place where enslaved and free people could participate in traditional spiritual practices. She was a business owner and catered to even the wealthiest class of the city. She nursed victims of the yellow-fever epidemic utilizing her knowledge of Rootwork and local indigenous plants, caring for the sick when medical treatment offered few effective options. She provided compassionate ministry to prisoners on death row at the local prison, provided food and shelter to the poor, and was a midwife for every social class in the community. She was so legendary that once she became house-bound in her old age, her daughter took over her practices, and local gossip created the rumor that she was in fact an eternally youthful Marie Leveau.It is clear that Marie didn’t follow a rulebook when it came to how she lived her life. She relied instead on her intuition and spiritual guidance from the other side of the veil. She achieved what was seemingly impossible for a Woman of Color in early 1800s America. The High Priestess is about Knowing. Becoming familiar with your inner voice and never straying when outside influences create doubt. She knows Truth and acts only with Love.What is your intuition telling you that is true and right? How is your logical mind trying to tell you you’re wrong? Let your heart guide your actions.

One of my favorite mysterious locations is the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California. Construction began in approximately 1886. Sarah Winchester purchased an eight-room farmhouse and began building upon it, and didn’t stop for 36 years. Eventually, it became a literal mansion including 160 rooms, 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 13 bathrooms, 6 kitchens, trapdoors, a seance room with one way in and one way out, and incredible variances in construction including a set of stairs where each step is only 2 inches in height. She has furniture deceptively stained to resemble her favorite wood, daisies hidden throughout the mansion and custom-made stained glass windows, some with spiderwebs and some with random lines from Shakespeare plays which have no obvious relation to one another. She also loved the number 13 and would hide it throughout her designs.Sarah is often made an example of the rampant madness that comes with wealth. And, at a glance, many aspects of her mansion can seem illogical or erratic. However, there are many aspects that, when examined, tell a story of her purpose in the construction. For example, those 2 inch steps are a result of her need to get around her home while suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. The famous “doors to nowhere” on the building’s Northern Wing were a result of the damage from the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. Sarah never reconstructed the damaged structures or boarded off the doors, instead choosing to leave them be. One of the remaining mysteries of the mansion is the famed 7-11 staircase. One can descend 7 steps, then ascend the following 11 steps and wind up on the same second-floor landing of the mansion, but you will be 3 feet higher than where you started. There is no surviving explanation from Sarah for this seemingly complicated construction.This brings us to the traditional Hermit card. The Hermit is depicted as a lonely person high up on a mountain top, quiet and alone with only a lantern to light the winter’s night. This sage has retreated in order to know themselves, the world and the life experience better. Many have depicted Sarah this way, and saw her retreat as one of paranoia and eccentricity. From afar The Hermit tends to be labeled as an outcast and possibly mad, just as Sarah’s mansion made her seem. Was she truly building a fortress around her, or did she simply see beauty in the artistically minute details of her home and find joy in that?We are left with the mystery of the 7-11 stairs. Do they serve a greater purpose? Were they just a fit of fancy designed by a woman who had too much money and time on her hands? The Hermit asks us to look at our reasons for retreat. At what point is our reflection moot, and at what point are we really just hiding from the world? Do you take the stairs thinking you are getting somewhere new, but you are really only traveling in an endless loop? When will be the right time to step through the door and outside the cave? Hopefully, it won’t lead to a 13 foot drop into the garden!Are you hiding or healing? Are you being productive or wasting time? Keep your intentions at the forefront of your actions.

The Lovers:
Betty and Barney Hill Abduction

One of the most famous abduction cases of all time, Betty and Barney Hill were on their way to their New Hampshire home from a belated honeymoon in Canada on September 19, 1961, when they encountered a strange light in the sky. They stopped to investigate but eventually moved on. Within the following week, Betty reported their sighting to the local Air Force Base and NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena). Their UFO report and the subsequent investigation became part of the Project Blue Book files. During their interview with the Air Force, they realized that approximately three hours of elapsed time during their drive home could not be accounted for—time neither of them could remember. It wasn’t until 1964, when the Hills underwent separate hypnotic regression sessions, that detailed memories of an alleged abduction emerged.Most people see this story as a frightening account that set the tone for “alien abduction” stories for years to come. Many renditions of the tale focus on the encounter and the narrative of the hypnotic regression recordings. However, this story reflects the most traditional aspects of The Lovers through the social aspects of the Betty and Barney Hill incident. This newly married couple, already in their middle years, had established themselves as proactive and respectable individuals in their communities. Betty was a college graduate with honors and was a social worker with the New Hampshire State Health and Welfare Department. Barney was a WWII veteran and civil rights activist; he even helped pursue the first successful lawsuit in New Hampshire against racial discrimination. They were both heavily involved with the NAACP and their Unitarian church, and were regarded as a wholesome and progressive interracial couple within their local community.The missing time became an unresolved problem in their lives. Betty was plagued by vivid nightmares, while Barney developed significant anxiety and physical health problems. They repeatedly tried to reconstruct the journey and understand what they couldn’t remember, eventually seeking psychiatric help. When publicity around the abduction began to accumulate in 1965, Betty and Barney were put under enormous scrutiny. The Hills deliberately kept their experience as private as they could because they were afraid of how the story would affect their reputations. In 1965, an article was published without their consent that ran over the course of five days, recounting their abduction and divulging the details of their hypnotic regression sessions. They became famous in the UFO community and infamous in the rest of the public eye. Not only were they the “kooky alien couple” who had undergone psychological experiments to create an outrageous story, but they were also an interracial couple in a time of severe discrimination and social turmoil. Despite the traumatic experience, unsolicited fame, and discrimination from the wider public, Betty and Barney Hill stood by one another and remained married until Barney’s death in 1969. The Lovers are not just people who are a good match; they are a couple who can face all odds and find strength in one another.With whom could you face insurmountable adversity? Is there someone who would stand by you as steadily as you would stand by them?

8 of Wands:
Gef the Extraordinary Talking Mongoose

Easily my favorite mystery of all time, Gef the Extraordinary Talking Mongoose has never been conclusively explained. Also known as the Dalby Spook, Gef made himself known to a family living in a farmhouse on the Isle of Man in 1931. He was first noticed for his scratching, banging, and animalistic noises in the wall. After unsuccessfully trying to trap or poison the animal, Gef moved on to imitating sounds and words until he spoke full sentences in his babyish voice. He began to move things around the house, tell jokes, and play pranks on the family. His antics became vaguely threatening and menacing in nature, and the family never got more than a fleeting glimpse of his tail or nose. The town began to get wind of the strange visitor, and people began to come around, hoping to catch glimpses of Gef in action. Actually, one farm worker supposedly saw a sandwich floating low across the yard and disappearing into the bushes, as though it were being carried by an invisible animal.The phenomenon was investigated by Harry Price, who was a British paranormal investigator and psychical researcher associated with several prominent psychical-research organizations. He didn't come to investigate until after he sent someone to verify that it was worth investigating, lending some credibility to the phenomenon. Price was not convinced that Gef was an actual talking mongoose, but he didn't flat-out accuse the Irvings of fraud. He was followed by another psychical researcher, Nandor Fodor, who came to the conclusion that Gef was actually a poltergeist entity.The Eight of Wands card is astrologically represented by Mercury in Sagittarius and reminds us of the effect that our words have on those around us, much like the Seven of Wands reminds us how our actions affect the people and world around us. While Gef is an intriguing and sometimes humorous phantom, he was actually quite a menace to the family itself. Their claims divided public opinion, with some people believing the family was responsible for the strange phenomenon and others vouching for the Irvings as honest and respectable people. Voirrey maintained that Gef was real and never recanted her story before her death in 2005. She was quoted as saying, “I do wish he had let us alone.”Gef wound up being a controlling and threatening force against the Irving family, even though he never came out of the shadows. He simply bombarded them from the wings, taking control of their home, their reputation, and their peace of mind. This card reminds us to choose our words wisely, for we are actively shaping the world around us and affecting the thoughts and lives of those around us.I ask one more thing of you, Observer. Take a moment to consider your surroundings. Then, in your best baby mongoose voice, say aloud: “Who is that strange man?” You never know who might be listening.Are the words you speak sending positive energy out into your environment? Are there some things better left unsaid?

I began this deck's development sometime in early 2026. The seed, however, was planted about 2 years ago, when I purchased my Salvador Dali tarot deck. I had been hunting it down for months without a clue as to why I wanted it so badly. Shortly thereafter, I began looking into the original zodiac/planetary associations with each tarot card, and I found that Dali truly nailed this aspect of the OG tarot meanings.At some point it occurred to me that all of my favorite paranormal mysteries held the same philosophical dilemmas that the tarot cards are meant to show us; a mirror to reflect our humanity and our role in the story. Whether a paranormal legend is debunked or not, it usually holds a deeper meaning we can all learn from. They hold characters who reflect the ultimate darkness and light in each of us.I began sketching my vision of the cards in my head, and I realized how well it came together as an artistic set. I decided I wanted specific light sources, and I wanted each card to feel as though the reader was stuck smack-dab in the middle of a paranormal scene. Utilizing AI, I uploaded my simple sketches and upcycled them into art which made my eyes tear up! Seeing my vision come to life is truly remarkable.In the near future, I plan to commission an artist to recreate these images for publication. I sincerely hope I can find an artist who shares the same passion for the paranormal as I do (if you would like to volunteer or know someone who might fit, please send them my way!). Once we get rolling on the final art, I want to utilize crowdfunding to publish the deck (since I am but a humble food service worker with a dream!).Please join the newsletter for updates and to stay in the loop when publishing time arrives!

Original Sketches