The Vanstone Tarot and Sacred Heart Of The Purple Dawn
A video on The Tarot , Frank and William discuss the exciting launch of the deck !
William Vanstone
An amateur occultist, he believes in the oneness of opposites. God is the devil and the devil is god.
“For polarity is the principle that plus and minus, north and south, light and dark are different aspects of one and the same system, and that the disappearance of either one of them would be the disappearance of the system.” ---Alan Watts
His first major story is Sacred Heart Of The Purple Dawn, available now at the SHOP page. Here's a lil' taste :
A witches brew story. A concoction with a taste of Lovecraft, Russ Meyers B-movie sexploitation films and the occult. Lesbian vampire bikers and fornication. A getaway driver with abandonment issues. Investigations into a group of deviants on the internet. Cult Of The Black Cube ritual bonfires in the woods. A mysterious obelisk and strange spiritual visions. A dope deal gone wrong creates blackmail and murder culminating in the heist of the century. To rip off the treasure of a Diocese. At the centre lies the horror of modern times, weak men and the dark feminine. The intrepid interloper William Vanstone becomes injected into a rivalry as old as Father Time himself: werewolves versus vampires!
One reviewer, named Matti Silver says:
Sacred Heart Of The Purple Dawn is a dark ride that gets progressively darker as you travel onward. You are playing as multiple characters all them with many issues that never really seem to get resolved. Despite this being a choose your own adventure and the many options there always seems to be some dark underlying force that is truly directing your actions.
The characters you control are either drunk or high and this state spreads off the pages as you read never allowing you to feel as if you are truly in control of your senses. Vampires, werewolves, biker gangs, excons and a host of stonners are littered among the crowds as you make your way through the story.
Every choice you make pulls you deeper into the darkness and to spite the hope of escape this trend becomes an obsessive drive to see how deep you can strive out into the void without drowning.
Matti Silver
https://www.evwpress.com/
The Vanstone Tarot : The Major Arcana
The Art Of Tarot, a forward by Frank Thayer PH.D.
Many occultists refer to the Tarot as “the old book,” because it predates the printing press and may represent the girders supporting the structure of creation. The Tarot, as first appearing in the 14th Century, enjoyed a resurgence of interest in the late 19th and throughout the 20th Century, From the Marseilles Tarot, the book of the Tarot was instrumental in the esoteric lodges such as the Golden Dawn, and the initiates produced the template found in the Waite Tarot deck and others similar to that basic set. Since then, dozens of diverse decks have become available—some using the basic template, and other becoming free form and reflecting the imagination of the creators. Most recently, William Vanstone, of Sun Cross Publications, produced his own Trumps Major (21 cards plus the 0 card) as seen on the website.
The Tarot has been popular for use in divination and is thought by many esoteric students as a serious tool, not given to the pitfalls common to many divinatory tools. The Trumps Major represent cosmic forces in divination, while the four suits (Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles) represent the human condition and the people in the diviner’s immediate world. The court cards (Page, Knight, Queen King) are those individuals, while Ace through 10 become the forces at work (or Karma) such as Sorrow, Pleasure, Disappointment, Strife, Ruin, Bliss, Wealth, in accord with how the cards fall.
Of the many divination spreads, the most popular in the past 70 years is called the Ancient Celtic Method, and begins with choosing the significator or identity card of the querent, then dealing from the shuffled deck a card on top of it called the covering or atmosphere card, then a card placed across the pair and called the crossing card. Here we have the atmosphere of the question and the obstacle. Next, a card to the left of the set is the recent past, a card dealt to the right is the impending future. A third card is placed above the triad, crowning the querent and becoming the ideal for the question being asked, while a fourth card is dealt below the three as the foundation that brought the querent’s concern. A fifth card is placed to the left of the querent’s card, and that is the recent past, a sixth card to the right predicting the nears future. To the right of this core are dealt four cards in a line from bottom to top: (7) the attitude of the person, (8) the environment in which the querent is immersed, (9) represents the querent’s hopes and fears, and (10) the final result or culmination.
These 11 cards can answer most questions appropriate to divination. In the end, a study of the Tarot’s Trumps is the study of the paths of the Qabalistic Tree of Life and is a profound study in itself.
The Vanstone Tarot deck serves as the main illustrations for the novel Sacred Heart Of The Purple Dawn. Just like Cotton Mather and others before him, the author is outing occult knowledge to the general public. This is all an elaborate deception, and you must read the story to decipher the real meaning, or ask the author. The choice of what to do with this knowledge is up to you, it can be used for good or evil. Reader beware! A digital download is available at the Shop page, but is is encrypted and watermarked. If you would like to purchase a physical copy of this deck, it comes with download of story, but please email suncrosspublications@gmail.com
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