Deck review: Cosmic C*nt Tarot by Samatha West

Full of alien probes, ray guns, test tubes and UFOs, this deck follows the traditional 78-card structure, with some small, mischievous changes. The suits have been swapped out to include ray guns, specimens, disks and probes.

In case it's not abundantly obvious, this deck is not for the faint of heart. If you clutch your pearls at the sight of aliens wielding phallic probes, this may not be the deck for you. However, if you possess a cosmic c*nt (one capable of abducting farmers from their land) and love all things ray gun and UFO, this deck will help you embrace your power and delve into your own psyche.

The Cosmic C*nt Tarot is available from Rockpool Publishing. You can see the unboxing and flickthrough videos on Tiktok.

Please be aware that this deck is quite naughty in a funny way, and some people may find it offensive. This is your only warning.

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I love this deck! It's so cute and funny (and yes, a bit rude! You'd need to know your audience before you used it with other people.)

These are smaller than standard tarot, closer to playing cards, which works out great for me as I have small hands. They come in a box the same size as the cards, with a lid that fits down over them from above. The LWB is the same size as the cards.

This deck is RWS based and can be read without any other preparation by someone who knows those meanings. The LWB starts with a general introduction, and - I love when books say this - emphasizes that there are no hard and fast rules in tarot and that what works for you is what works for you. I love a deck that doesn't go too hard on the 'rules'. The books tells us that the Minor suit names have been changed:

There are some other general suggestions before we start, about journaling, ethics, reversals - this is the only mention of reversals in the book and it simply says that we can choose to read reversals or not and that they usually indicate that the energy of the card is blocked. Finally before the meanings, a brief section of spreads; it talks about the one card spread, and a deck-specific spread called the UFO spread, a four card spread to find out what's pulling you from your purpose. I tried this on my usual victim - er, querant - and she said it had pointed at a situation I didn't know about that she was struggling with. 

Now we're into the card meanings. Each card gets one page, with a small reproduction of the card above and the meaning below. I really like it when the card image is reproduced in the book as it makes it easy to look one up and attach the meaning to the image. A couple of the cards have been renamed; High Priestess is now Divine, the Hanged Man is simply Hanged, and there are no 'The' s anywhere - it's simply Emperor, Tower, World. Nice and short! There's also a quick note at the start of each new section; Major Arcana are life's big things, Disks are Earth and material things, etc. A nice little reminder as you're going through. The meanings are short, full of quips and humour, and very accurate.

Now, the cards! They have spredges in a sort of neon green, and this lovely (and fully reversible) design on the back, taken from the Wheel of Fortune): 

As mentioned above, the cards are a bit smaller than standard, which suits me beautifully. They have a limited colour palette - black, white, gray and that same neon green, which I initially thought would be limiting but actually works amazingly well, suiting the tone of the cards perfectly. The style is very 50s sci fi, funny but still serious and meaningful. Majors have the number, in Roman numerals, in the top left corner, and their name across the bottom; Minors have the name spelled out across the bottom.

A few samples, including a Hermit card that is so much like me I reckon Samantha was spying on me (I genuinely wanted to put every card here, but I eventually choose a few; you can see the whole deck in the flickthrough above);

Now. You might have noticed the lack of Wands/Probes above. That's because they are definitely the naughtiest cards in the deck, and I'm giving you one more chance not to see them, if you want to skip over them. Otherwise, here they are:

This is a great deck, very straightforward and honest. My Querant says they're very accurate, and I really enjoy the feel of them to shuffle and hold. They're definitely going into my regular rotation - although, as noted above, you'd really have to know your audience before producing these for a reading! But for people who can get the joke, this is a great deck.