Reading Your Future with Edward Gorey and 'The Fantod Pack'

Horror Moments, Edward Gorey Edition

My ‘horror moments’ examine horror-inflected scenes and themes in unexpected places. They are published weekly on Thursdays and come out in series of ten articles focussing on a particular source e.g. ‘Wallace & Gromit,’ ‘Shakespeare,’ or ‘Kate Bush Songs’. Catch up with the current series on Edward Gorey here and browse the full back catalogue of horror moments here.

If you know one thing about tarot it’s that there is a single card nobody wants to get: the death card. If you know slightly more about tarot, you’re probably aware that the death card isn’t supposed to mean simply ‘you are going to die’ but signifies a change in your life when one thing ‘dies’ and a new thing is born…

Let’s be honest though, it still feels ominous, something that Father Ted makes fun of:

In 1995 a limited edition pack of extremely strange fortune telling cards was published, and this time, every card left you feeling like you’d drawn the grim reaper. This was ‘The Fantod Pack,’ which was ‘interpreted by Madame Groeda Weyrd’ (spot what’s going on with that name?). It contained 20 exaggeratedly sombre images and a booklet full of gloomy explanations. This was Edward Gorey’s send up of the whole culture and history of cartomancy (divination by cards.) Like the fates of his many unfortunate characters, you don’t know quite what will happen when you sit down with the Fantod pack, but you know your fortune will be bleak.

The introductory booklet satirises the self-styling of 20th century occultists:

“Madame Weyrd, who is of mixed Finnish and Egyptian extraction, has devoted her life to divination, and is the author of, among a shelf of other works, Floating Tambourines, a collection of esoteric verse, and The Future Speaks Through Entrails. Her career as one of the most celebrated trance mediums came to a close when she lost two and a third fingers as the result of contretemps during an ectoplasmic manifestation. She has long since been persona non grata to many of the rich and famous because of her fearless predictions of disaster…”

Here Gorey pokes fun at a wide range of esoteric cliches. The incongruity of ‘Finnish and Egyptian extraction’ is a dig at the way that the symbolism of tarot seems to draw freely from disparate cultural traditions. It was in 1781 that Antoine Court de Gébelin linked tarot to the Ancient Egyptian ‘Book of Thoth.’ The most popular tarot designs, the Rider-Waite deck designed by Pamela Colman Smith “drew on the 15th-century Sola-Busca Tarot, blended with Waite’s Christian mysticism and occult symbolism.”¹

There’s something bizarrely violent about the way that Madame Weyrd loses her fingers, Gorey invites us to imagine a scene of grisly excess as blood and ectoplasm spew in a séance gone wrong. And then, of course, he pokes fun here at the link between fortune tellers and celebrities by imagining a woman ‘fearless’ enough to upset her clients with ‘predictions of disaster.’

So how does one consult the Fantod Pack? Don’t worry, I’ve got my own copy so I’ll take one for the team.

“To read your fortune, first shuffle the pack and take it in your left hand”

“Stand in the centre of a sparsely furnished room and close your eyes”

“Fling the pack into the air. Keep your eyes closed.”

“Pick up five cards from the floor, keeping them in order…” we are then meant to place the cards in a cross and use our ‘imagination of disaster’ (a quote from Henry James) to interpret their meanings.

To give you an idea of what exactly this might entail, here is the list of options suggested for ‘The Ladder.’ It can mean: Tuesday, slander, reversals, creeping sickness, a forged will, insomnia, loss of hair, detention, theft, cafard (i.e. melancholia), jealousy, an accident in a restaurant, or inanition (i.e. exhaustion caused by lack of nourishment).

And here’s ‘The Bundle’ which can mean: Wednesday, a tedious illness, inadequate drainage, a broken engagement, a train accident, malaise, false friends, hangnails, misconduct, aphasia (i.e. inability to pronounce or understand speech), regrets, disappointments, or fluctuation. Incidentally, does this remind any J-horror fans of a particular scene?

You get the gist. Using my ‘imagination of disaster’ I’ve interpretated my spread above to mean that in March I will experience a miscarriage of justice where I will be swindled through circumstances involving a broken engagement and a forged will.

That all sounds rather exciting. Let’s wait and see!

Each card has its own list of meanings except for one which has no label but is described in the booklet as ‘The Black Doll.’ The Black Doll is a recurring motif in Gorey’s work and here takes the place of the death card as the one you really don’t want to get. Its meaning is simply listed as follows:

“In the words of the old rhyme: What most you fear is coming near.”

So there you go, that’s The Fantod Pack, Gorey’s fun little parody of fortune telling which sceptic and believer alike can enjoy. I’m happy to draw some cards for you — but be warned the outcome will be terrible.

This article concludes our journey through the darkly funny world of Edward Gorey. From child imperilment to gruesome sofas, insect gods to disrespectful demons, there’s nothing quite like a Gorey tale to make you think ‘I really shouldn’t be laughing at this.’ On the surface, this world of monochrome absurdities is morally neutral, the eye of the viewer and the voice of the narrator feel distanced and apathetic.

Yet I think Gorey has a lot to say about life and death, about culture and pretension, about our relationship with suffering, trauma and abuse, and the role the arts play in repackaging tragedy for entertainment. The most consistent villain of his books is not death nor the devil, nor even Gorey himself, but the reader for whose delight he has crafted these snapshots of despair. The Fantod pack makes us the main character, and here we finally get our comeuppance.

Next week we begin a new series of horror moments which will be a mini series of five articles rather than a usual full series of ten. They will revolve around the motifs associated with a particular kind of architecture. Can you guess which? Until then, happy nightmares everyone!

Horror moments are published on Thursdays and a wide variety of articles exploring the history of magic, theatre, storytelling, and more are published on Mondays.

If you’ve enjoyed Horror Moments and want to help me keep going, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber. You’ll be able to read my archive so you won’t have to worry about losing access to the back catalogue, and every month I publish one thing for paid subscribers only. If you can’t stretch to that, please like, share, comment, subscribe or recommend and thank you so so much for your support!

1. https://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/tarot-origins-and-afterlives-review-warburg-institute-london