Astaroth Abstract Tarot

November 1, 2026

Seal of Astaroth in gold on a transparent background

An abstract deck asks a different question from a scenic deck. A scenic deck asks: what story do you see? An abstract deck asks: what do you feel, and can you say why? It holds 78 cards, each described as a high quality art piece, and it is offered as a way to embark upon the mysteries of the demons and Goetia through Astaroth. Everything about it rewards patience, and everything about it punishes hurry.

That is worth saying plainly, because many readers buy an abstract deck expecting it to behave like a scenic deck with the pictures removed, and then feel cheated when it does not. It will not behave that way. It has its own method, and the method is the point. Learn the method, and the deck opens. Refuse the method, and the deck stays shut, however beautiful the cards are.

Slowing down as a method, not a mood

The first thing an abstract deck teaches is slowness, and slowness here is not a mood or a luxury. It is a method. When you cannot read a scene off a card, you have to stay with the card longer, and staying longer changes what you notice. On a first glance you might notice only a dominant colour. On a longer look you notice the direction the shapes move, the tension between crowded and empty areas, the places where the image feels heavy and the places where it feels light. Those are not decorations. They are the reading's raw material.

Try this as a discipline: give each card a full minute of looking before you say anything about it. A minute is longer than you think when you are looking at one image, and it is short enough to be practical. In that minute, do not try to be clever. Just notice. Notice colour, weight, movement, edge, and space. Write those five words down, with one observation each, before you interpret. That short written record is what keeps an abstract reading from drifting into whatever you already wanted to hear.

Over time, that minute becomes a habit of attention that carries into the rest of your practice. You start to notice more in spirit work, in meditation, in ordinary conversation. Attention is a transferable skill, and an abstract deck is a demanding teacher of it, precisely because it gives you nothing to lean on except your own looking.

Three cards, and what each position is really asking

Once you have a feel for single cards, a three-card spread suits this deck well, because three abstract images give you a pattern without overwhelming you. Lay them left to right, and give each position a plain job. The first card shows what is pressing on the situation. The second shows what is hidden, quiet, or not yet said. The third shows what movement is possible from where you stand.

Read the first card for pressure. What in the image feels tight, crowded, or urgent, and what in your life feels that way right now? Read the second card for quiet. What in the image feels empty, soft, or withheld, and what have you not yet said about this situation, even to yourself? Read the third card for direction. Where does the image move, and what small step moves in that direction in real life?

The spread works because the positions are doing different jobs, and you can check your reading against those jobs. If your reading of the second card is just a louder version of the first, you have probably not yet found what is quiet. If your third card gives you a grand transformation but no step, you have probably not yet found what is possible. That checking is not pedantry. It is how you know the reading is actually reading, rather than echoing.

Knowledge first, then power

In the Grimoire Verum material, Astaroth stands as a Superior, tagged with power and knowledge. With this deck, it helps to take those in order: knowledge first, then power. Knowledge, in a reading, means seeing the situation as it actually is, including your own part in it. Power means being able to act on what you see. Readers often want the second without the first, because action feels better than seeing. But action taken without seeing is just motion, and motion is not progress.

Ask the deck, before a reading, which of the two you actually need. If you already know what is going on and cannot bring yourself to act, ask about the step, the obstacle, or the fear that is in the way of acting. If you are acting busily and getting nowhere, ask about what you are not seeing. Being honest about which need is yours will change the question you ask, and the question you ask changes the reading you get.

This is also a good guard against a common trap with powerful decks: treating intensity as depth. A reading that feels intense is not automatically a reading that is true, and a deck centred on a powerful spirit can produce intensity easily. The test of a reading is not how strongly it felt. The test is whether, a week later, you can point to something it helped you see or do. Keep that test in mind, and the deck will serve you well for a long time.

Abstract art and the subconscious, in plain terms

People sometimes talk about abstract art as if it bypassed thought and spoke directly to some hidden depth. It is simpler and more useful than that. Abstract art gives you fewer ready-made answers, so your own associations have more room to surface. A colour reminds you of a place. A shape reminds you of a person. A movement reminds you of a week in your life. Those associations are not messages from elsewhere. They are your own mind, noticing connections it had not put into words yet, and a reading gives those connections a place to land.

That is why writing matters so much with this deck. If you only think your associations, they drift and change shape before you can examine them. If you write them, they stay still long enough to be looked at. Write the association, then ask whether it is relevant to the question or whether it is just the first thing that came to mind. Both answers are useful. A relevant association is material for the reading. An irrelevant one tells you what is on your mind regardless of the question, which is also information, though of a different kind.

Do not force associations, and do not be embarrassed by ordinary ones. A card that reminds you of an argument with a friend is not a lesser reading than a card that reminds you of a grand spiritual principle. Ordinary life is where most readings actually live, and a deck that helps you see ordinary life more clearly is doing its job.

Caring for a deck you read slowly

A deck you read slowly is a deck you handle slowly, and that is a good habit to cultivate deliberately. Shuffle with attention rather than speed. Lay the cards out where you can see them properly, in good light, with room around them. Give yourself a surface that is clear, not crowded with other things. These are small courtesies, but they change the quality of attention you bring, and attention is the whole method here.

Store the deck where it will not be bent, damp, or mixed in with unrelated things, and keep your notes with it or near it, so that the deck and its record stay together. When you return to the deck after time away, read back through your recent notes before you shuffle. That return to your own record is a form of respect for the work you have already done, and it means you do not start from nothing each time. A deck with a history reads deeper than a deck without one, because you bring your history with you to every reading.

A deck with a centre, for a reader who wants one

Not every reader wants a deck with a strong centre, and that is fine. Some readers want a deck that can turn to anything, without a spirit's territory shaping the answers. This deck is not that deck. If that centre appeals to you, if you are drawn to Astaroth or to Goetia and want a tarot practice that lives inside that world, this deck offers something a general deck cannot: a consistent presence behind the cards, and a consistent method for listening to it.

The method, in the end, is simple to state and long to learn: look before you speak, write before you interpret, and ask whether what you found helps you see or act. A deck of 78 abstract art pieces, centred on a spirit tagged with power and knowledge, will reward that method for years. It will not reward hurry, and it will not flatter you, but it will teach you to see, and seeing is the beginning of everything else in this work.

Building your own vocabulary with this deck

Every abstract deck reader eventually builds a private vocabulary: a set of associations between what they see and what it tends to mean for them. That vocabulary cannot be borrowed from a book, because it is built from your own readings, and it is worth building deliberately. After each reading with this deck, note one thing you learned about how it speaks to you. Perhaps a certain kind of crowded image tends to appear before weeks that are overfull. Perhaps a certain openness tends to appear when a space is about to open in your life. Perhaps a sharp shape tends to mean a conversation you have been avoiding.

Review those notes monthly, and look for patterns. Which associations held up, and which were just first impressions that did not survive contact with real life? Keep the ones that held up, and let go of the ones that did not, without embarrassment. A vocabulary built this way, tested against your own life over months, is a trustworthy instrument, because it has been calibrated. A vocabulary taken wholesale from someone else, however authoritative they seem, has not been calibrated to you at all. This deck, with its abstract art and its centre in Astaroth, rewards calibration more than most, because it gives you so little ready-made meaning to lean on, and therefore so much room to build meaning that is genuinely yours.