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Bohemian Gothic Tarot

EIGHT OF PENTACLES

Lighter or more conventional meanings

Working hard to perfect a skill * "Practice makes perfect" * Patience pays off * Detailed, excellent work * Artisanship, though not yet at the stage of mastery * A willingness to stick to something in order gradually to perfect it.

Darker, shadow or more hidden meanings

Skills applied for a nefarious purpose * Making the same thing again and again * Wanting to achieve a reputation for a skill - no matter what it takes * Using someone else callously as part of learning your craft.

Why are certain dolls and puppets vaguely disturbing? This scene shows a girl leaving a shop that sells puppets, toys and general antiques and curiosities. As she walks away hugging her new doll the owner - and maker of the toys - gazes after her. It ought to be a happy scene, and the girl does indeed look contented with her purchase, but something tells us that all is not as it seems. The somewhat nasty smile on the face of the toy-maker is unnerving, as is the large devil puppet and the doll dressed in mourning in the windows. It makes us think of the horror tales, popularised in the late 20th century by films such as Tom Holland's Child's Play, that concern marionettes or dolls that come to life and prove to be malicious.

After the financial and monetary obsessions of the Four, Five and Six, and the selfquestioning of the Seven, we come back to a card that focuses on skills and practical abilities, the other main concern of the Pentacles suit. The Eight takes up the issues that we've already seen in the Three but this time, the card is not about the achievements of mastery, but instead asks us to think about the process of getting there - practice, trial and error and patient application. In the Bohemian Gothic image, it's the toy-maker who has been perfecting his skill over the making of many, many dolls and puppets. What was he trying to achieve; we suspect a doll that could come to life, or perhaps one suitable for possession. Whatever is going on, we feel that it's skill put to a dark purpose.

Some further ways to consider this card

There is a strong similarity in the format of this card and the Six of Pentacles. Draw them both out of the deck and compare them. In what ways might the situation of the girl and the woman be alike, and in what ways different? Do you see any common features in the figure of Mephistopheles and the toy maker?
"'Maria Brown has her own home and enough to live on. She ain't beholden to you to come over here and slave for you and kill herself.' Luella she jest set and stared at me for all the world like a doll-baby that was so abused that it was comin' to life. "'Yes,' says I, 'she's killin' herself. She's goin' to die just the way Erastus did, and Lily, and your Aunt Abby. You're killin' her jest as you did them. I don't know what there is about you, but you seem to bring a curse,' says I. 'You kill everybody that is fool enough to care anythin' about you and do for you.'
"She stared at me and she was pretty pale.
- Mary Wilkins Freeman, The Wind in the rose-bush and other stories of the supernatural.