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Bohemian Gothic Tarot

XVII THE STAR

Lighter or more conventional meanings

Health and healing * A hopeful and helpful influence * Peace and serenity * The dawn of better times * Light at the end of the tunnel * A time to be optimistic.

Darker, shadow or more hidden meanings

A small light in the darkness * A moment of peace and serenity, typically during a difficult time * The promise of hope when all around seems dark * Health and healing achieved through some hard means and methods.

The Star is the most optimistic and reassuring card in the tarot. It speaks of optimism, healing, a guiding light and a ray of hope - even in the most difficult of circumstances. What form can hope take in a dark tarot? Well, perhaps it shines more brightly against the nightmares that other cards portray. It's a crucial reminder that even amongst horror and wickedness, all is not lost.

The image in The Bohemian Gothic Tarot shows a beautiful young woman who seems to have just finished bathing. She is tying up her hair and holds a cloth gracefully over one arm. Behind her looms a huge metal fountain - gorgeous but also full of images of some of the wilder pagan and mythical figures. The picture is peaceful, but, set in the dark of night and with only a slight implication of starlight, it's more foreboding than the traditional RWS card. It seems to show merely a moment of quiet reflection in a world that, the fountain implies, can turn into something dangerous and uncontrollable at any moment.

When this card comes up in a reading it indicates hope even in the midst of darkness and apparent threats. Depending on its position in a spread it doesn't necessarily promise that all will end up "happily ever after", but it does speak of a calm period of optimism, and, in a sense, a chance to wash away troubles and anxieties and find a time of mental and emotional peace.

Some further ways to consider this card

Look at the figures on the fountain. What might each one of them represent in a reading?
"And now for you, Madam Mina, this night is the end until all be well. You are too precious to us to have such risk. When we part tonight, you no more must question. We shall tell you all in good time. We are men and are able to bear, but you must be our star and our hope, and we shall act all the more free that you are not in the danger, such as we are."
- Bram Stoker, Dracula.

EVIL FROM FOREIGN PLACES AND PEOPLE

In many horror stories, especially those of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, evil is depicted as coming from foreigners and faraway places, most notably Egypt, continental Africa, the Far East and Eastern Europe. Whether it's wicked African witch doctors, Caribbean voodoo practitioners, wily Arab alchemists, or even the amoral Slovak gypsies of Dracula, the message is clearly that anyone who is not from the West is probably to be distrusted. Exotic beliefs and faiths are shown as being at one and the same time laughably superstitious and, in their use of magic and the occult, unusually dangerous. This description of Oolanga, a servant and apparent worshipper of the were-snake Lady Arabella, is fairly typical:
He was originally a witch-finder - about as low an occupation as exists amongst aboriginal savages. Then he got up in the world and became an Obi-man, which gives an opportunity to wealth via blackmail. Finally, he reached the highest honour in hellish service. He became a user of Voodoo, which seems to be a service of the utmost baseness and cruelty. I was told some of his deeds of cruelty, which are simply sickening. They made me long for an opportunity of helping to drive him back to hell.
- Bram Stoker, The Lair of the White Worm.

To a modern reader all this is strikingly ignorant and, at times, racist, but it's a reminder that the emergence of classic Gothic literature coincided with a colonial period in which the clash of cultures produced a great deal of conflict, misunderstanding and suspicion. However it's notable that in many of the tales of this time there is, mixed in with the contempt, a grudging awe and fear of the outlandish power of fakirs, witch doctors and shamans:

"To look at," said the sergeant-major, fumbling in his pocket, "it's just an ordinary little paw, dried to a mummy"
He took something out of his pocket and proffered it. Mrs. White drew back with a grimace, but her son, taking it, examined it curiously.
"And what is there special about it?" inquired Mr. White as he took it from his son, and having examined it, placed it upon the table.
"It had a spell put on it by an old fakir," said the sergeant-major, "a very holy man. He wanted to show that fate ruled people's lives, and that those who interfered with it did so to their sorrow. He put a spell on it so that three separate men could each have three wishes from it." His manner was so impressive that his hearers were conscious that their light laughter jarred somewhat.
"Well, why don't you have three, sir?" said Herbert White, cleverly. The soldier regarded him in the way that middle age is wont to regard presumptuous youth. "I have," he said, quietly, and his blotchy face whitened.
"And did you really have the three wishes granted?" asked Mrs. White. "I did," said the sergeant-major, and his glass tapped against his strong teeth.
"And has anybody else wished?" persisted the old lady.
"The first man had his three wishes. Yes," was the reply; "I don't know what the first two were, but the third was for death. That's how I got the paw."
His tones were so grave that a hush fell upon the group.
- WW Jacobs, "The Monkey's Paw" The Monkey's Paw, The Lady of the Barge and Others.

Egypt was probably the country most often presented as the source of powerful, alien magic; mummies were (and to some extent still are) a continuously popular theme in Gothic stories. Nowadays we tend to see an ancient Egyptian mummified body as a thing to be marvelled at, and also to be treated with respect, but in early tales it's usually portrayed as something rather repulsive:

The features, though horribly discoloured, were perfect, and the two little nut-like eyes still lurked in the depths of the black, hollow sockets. The blotched skin was drawn tightly from bone to bone, and a tangled wrap of black coarse hair fell over the ears. Two thin teeth, like those of a rat, overlay the shrivelled lower lip. In its crouching position, with bent joints and craned head, there was a suggestion of energy about the horrid thing which made Smith's gorge rise.
- Arthur Conan Doyle, "Lot No. 249", Round the Red Lamp, Being -Facts and Fancies of Medical Life.

As well as stories about mummies, vampires, magical objects, and other horrors that end up causing havoc in the West, descriptions of hauntings that take place in foreign lands are also commonly featured in 19th century Gothic writing. Often the ghost is depicted as a poor, civilised British or American soul who has been done away with in dastardly fashion:

The bungalow had a bad name, no one ever entered it, and in spite of the wooden shutters there were lights in the windows every night up to twelve o'clock. One day (so the villagers said), many years ago, a young sahib came to this bungalow and stayed three days. He was alone. He was in the Forest Department. The last evening he sent his horses and servants on to Chanda, and said he would follow in the morning after having some shooting, he and his `boy;' but though his people waited two weeks, he never appeared - was never seen again.
- B. M. Croker, "The Dak Bungalow at Dakor", To Let, Etc.

Using these unfamiliar settings presumably added a frisson of danger to such stories, and in some cases also allowed the author the license of not having to worry too much about realism. Instead we are often presented with highly imaginative accounts of the exotic dangers of other countries and cultures.

All in all, in the Victorian Gothic, we are continually told that foreign lands and the odd things that come from them are risky and best avoided. After all, many stories, most memorably Bram Stoker's Dracula, begin when some innocent naively agrees to journey to the mysterious East, a place where anything can happen. From the moment they set foot outside safety and civilisation, we know they are probably lost.