The Uninhibited Deck, Indie (out of print) acquired 2021, Mass Market Edition acquired 2026

*Mild nudity warning and mild disturbing images in the cards ahead

Tarot has been incredibly popular the past few years, and it has, at least in recent history, had a habit of flowing in an out of the mainstream culture. There seems to be a correlation between Tarot popularity and social, political, and world uncertainty and upheaval. In a very simplistic way this makes sense; Tarot can be used as a “means” to predict the future for an individual, thus making them feel empowered in a world that is in flux and lacks stability. Of course, Tarot can also be used as a tool of self reflection, a study of the mind and culture, an experiment in the esoteric, as well as a “poor man” art collection (I want to heavily emphasize the quote marks as Tarot decks are far from cheap), and many other purposes.

Top in red is the mass-market, black with the borders in the indie version

Overall: 9.5/10 I am of the personal opinion that several Tarot decks will define the 2020’s decade and the Blood Moon is one of them. I was thrilled to see it launch into mass market as its one of those decks that everyone ought to have access too even if the deck isn’t necessarily for everyone.

Sometimes the art in Tarot asks you to use your mind and really think, but this deck asks you to use your body. For me, this is the deck I pull out when I need to feel something, perhaps things that I cannot understand. It reminds me a lot of the concept of embodied imagination/dream work. This is a raw, visceral deck. This deck will haunt you, and yet I find it impossible to have the cards image memorized. Every time I use this deck there is something new I find. In many ways I feel like this deck is like an accessible variation of the Mary-El, though it is not nearly as explicit nor cold hearted nor as concerned with being esoteric as the Mary-El.

If you feel particularly connected to mother nature on a primal level, I feel like this deck really would speak to you. Its equal parts sensual, joyous, and terrifying. Everything seems exaggerated and magnified and the cards have much to say, so I can see if you’re new to tarot this might feel a bit overwhelming.

Card Quality:  Indie 4/5 The cards out of the box stuck horribly together and even felt a bit gritty, and worse of all WERE OUT OF ORDER (so so much stress), but after a through shuffle and reordering, they function beautifully. They are a semi-matte finish with heavy gilded edges that easily glide over one another, and handle very well even though they feel stiff. They also smell so damn good! The box is gorgeous too, but I’m not counting any points towards it.

Mass Market 5/5 When I have two editions of the same deck I rarely plug one edition over the other, but the Mass Market is a clear winner between these two as the cards are borderless and bigger and you can see MUCH more of the image than in the Indie editions. The soft red edging on the MM is lovely in the hand and I prefer the thinner linen ultra flex cards even though I don’t believe they have a core. I will say, the color in the MM on the linen does appear a wee bit more muted as is common on linen cardstock.

Readability: 3/5 To me this is a solid intermediate edging into advanced deck that demands intuition and a really solid grasp on the 78 card structure of a standard Tarot from the Fool’s journey through the majors to the progression of the numbered minors and a good grasp of the courts’ role. The Indie version lacks a significant guidebook (unless you fork out a hefty sum for the big art book) while the mass market has nearly the same book included in the kit. The minor’s are not the traditional “wands/cups/swords/coins” but rather “skins/songs/dreams/honey,” but it’s always been intuitive to me which suit they refer to. The meanings of individual cards does mirror the RWS system loosely, BUT the sensibility is quite a bit removed from your standard RWS clone. The cards are much more focused on primal drives rather than strictly the human experience, so this took me quite a while of using the deck before I started to “get” it. There also isn’t a silver lining–the swords becoming a suit of “dreams” and fear, really shook me and still takes me aback at times and I just love it!

Some favorites

Art: 5/5 The art work speaks for itself. The meaning of the cards is so intrinsically linked with the general “feel” of the deck’s system that it’s hard to speak about the Art and Readability separately. The art is stunning–I feel like a very rich art collector with this deck. The artist did not shy away from making the viewer uncomfortable though, and in many ways The Blood Moon reminds me of the Mary-El Tarot, though I feel the Blood Moon is kinder and a little less personal. One of my most FAVORITE THINGS about this deck is the inclusiveness of the people seen in the art. It feels natural and not forced like in some other decks. The backs are absolutely stellar and I’m glad the MM didn’t change the design. I had a feeling when I first acquired this nearly unknown deck that it was destined to become a cult-classic and I think I was right in my guess. I cannot decide if this is a fantasy deck, and earthy deck or a sci-fi deck–it’s something of all of these.

Favorite Card: I like all of the cards, but this deck has to have the best Fool I’ve ever seen. I also love the suit of Songs and Dreams.

Least Favorite Card: It took me many years to feel comfortable with the pentacles with the little sprouts growing out of the character’s mouths! I find them charming now but, man, it took me a while!

Card I Identify As: The Fool

The deck Identifies me as: The Chariot

Boxes it Checks: Earthy, embodied, dreams, pagan, fantasy, sci-fi, witchy, sensual, primal, dark, nature

Similar Deck: The Mary-El Tarot, The Witches’ Wisdom Tarot, Ask The Witch Tarot, The Lubanko Tarot, The White Fly Tarot, Tarot of the Silicon Dawn, The WTNV Hayworth Tarot, R.Black Tarot, The White Numen Tarot (there’s some similar vibes and concepts between these two decks)

Season: Early Fall with warmth and color