Daemon
Illustrated cards from 1863 Dictionnaire Infernal on supernatural beings.
by Ariana Osborne · 1863
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The record
First of all, "The Daemon Tarot" is not a Tarot deck. It's a deck of cards with the illustrations from the 1863 edition of Jacques Auguste Simon Collin de Plancy's "Dictionnaire Infernal" (the original 1818 edition was not illustrated). While the "Dictionnaire" is definitely due for a reprint, the illustrations may be its most interesting feature for many people, so I appreciated having the opportunity to see them through this deck. I can only assume that it was mislabeled as a "Tarot" deck out of the idea that any card deck with even a remote occult connection is "Tarot." One can forgive this, along with the pretension of the extra "a" in "Daemon" undoubtedly added to suggest an air of authenticity that mere "demon" lacks, despte inadvertently calling to mind a background process running on a computer, and not a denizen of the netherworld. The deck includes a book with black and white illustrations of each card, larger than the cards themselves, although not of the same quality. Each card's description is divided into three sections: "Annotation" explains the demon's origin and attributes, "Inspiration" is the author's own observations, and "Divination" indicates the card's signif
The cards
