The Baphomet Tarot: Part Two

 Part 2. The Tarot of the Underworld

          Ridley Scott wasn’t the only person who sought out the artist of the Necronomicon. In 1991, Swiss musician and magician-philosopher Akron (1948-2017) was advised by the deity Baphomet to contact the author of a book with Baphomet on the cover for assistance with his next esoteric project, a “shadow tarot:”

I began thinking of creating a tarot that would penetrate more deeply into the unconscious mechanisms of our behavior patterns. I thought that if a critical book could bring to light the shadows of our lives and souls, it might spark a similar inspiration in the readers so they could recognize their own thought patterns and inner concepts.[1]

Akron found Giger’s Necronomicon in his local bookstore and contacted the artist about creating a new tarot deck; Giger declined, stating that he had neither the time for nor the interest in creating new images for the project. However, recognizing the tarot as a new medium to present his artwork, Giger did agree to collaborate with Akron, and together they selected 22 existing works to create a tarot deck composed of the 22 trump cards.

          Baphomet: The Tarot of the Underworld was published in 1992 in German and English by AG Müller. The boxed set included the cards, a 500-page instruction booklet written by Akron, and a poster of the artwork used in the spreads detailed in the booklet. Later editions included a CD recorded by Akron and the band Epilepsy, a recording designed “to make the unfathomable spirit of Baphomet accessible to the listener.”[2] In 2001, Taschen America released a new edition of the boxed set, called the H.R. Giger Tarot, that included only the cards and a 139-page abridged version of the booklet. Both editions are out of print.

          The Baphomet Tarot is not your standard tarot deck. It is designed to reveal elements of the unconscious to the consciousness mind; it is “a guide for the struggle with the inner demons of one’s own soul.”[3] Akron thought Giger’s art was the perfect vehicle for representing elements of the “shadows of our lives and souls:”

Each picture encapsulated the interconnected nature of human suffering with an absolutely grotesque, tortured perfection. These eruptive, delicately drawn, and closely interlocked visions complemented and overlapped each other in a bizarre panorama of Eros and Thanatos, of dream and reality. But before rejecting Giger as a mere conjurer of demons, I tried to recognize myself in the mirror of his pictures and asked if he had something important to convey with his art. Didn’t these monstrous, corroded, crippled, and mutilated figures conjure up fears that are very real in view of the everyday horrors? These are the fears that we refuse to face, so they fail to fulfill their natural task of confronting us with the effects of our actions.[4]

          The spreads given for the deck are structured using the two interlocking pentagrams surrounding the white-skinned woman found in Spell IV. The cards are not interpreted according to an oracular menu with specific divinatory meanings, but through introspection and meditation. The first edition even gave each card different interpretations based on whether the person receiving the reading identified as male or female.

          Most of Akron’s writings are published in German, which complicates our investigation of his ideas about Baphomet. However, an examination of the English material published to support the Baphomet Tarot (the two booklets and the CD insert) reveals that Akron promoted two related conceptions of Baphomet, the divine Baphomet and the shadow Baphomet.

[1] Akron and H.R. Giger, H.R. Giger Tarot (Köln, Germany: Taschen GmbH, 2000. Booklet for tarot deck. Kindle edition.), 11.

[2] Epilepsy, Baphomet, (Lyrics by Akron. Recorded 1995. New York, NY: Kk/AGMüller. Compact Disc.),

CD Insert, 3.

[3] Epilepsy, Baphomet, CD insert, 14.

[4] Akron & Giger, H.R. Giger Tarot, 11.