Black Tarot

 Good Morning, MMers! We've got a story for you that spreads out all over the state. Several of our loyal readers have sent us emails about a mysterious envelope they have received in the mail. The envelope itself is black, about 3.5 inches by 5 inches. The recipient's name and address are written in silver ink. There is no return address, and strangely enough, no postage. So far, four different people have contacted us about these envelopes, Larry Gilbert from York, Sharon Messina from Farmington, Dominic Stoddard from Corinth, and Sara Burgess from North Yarmouth. 

Here's, Sara Burgess. 

"This envelope just showed up one morning," she wrote us. "I didn't know what it was, but figured someone sent me a card or something. It felt heavy, like one of those nice cards. It wasn't my birthday or anything, but you never know. So when I opened it I was shocked the find these five cards."

Sara recognized them as tarot cards, but there was something off about them. "I don't know much about tarot cards - just from like movies and stuff, but just looking at them, something didn't feel right."

The cards themselves were slightly larger than playing cards, about four inches long and 2 3/4 inches wide. Their backs were black dull gold designs reminiscent of fancy playing cards, with two eyes staring outwards. 

The back of the cards each received

The other side, the face sides, were terrifying. Here's Dominic Stoddard:

"When I was a kid, I read those Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books. Scared the crap out of me. The art looked like that, but I did some looking on the internet, and it clearly isn't the same guy. I can't find these images anywhere."

For those readers who are unfamiliar, the art of Stephen Gammell is quite terrifying in its simplicity and style. It's given thousands of readers nightmares for decades, but Dominic was right - this wasn't the work of Gammell. His agent even clarified it for us stating, "This is not Mr. Gammell's work, though obviously an inspired imitation." 

Sharon Messina was shocked. "My mailbox is at the post office - a P.O. Box you know - and yet there was this envelope. I asked the postmaster, but he had never seen it. He couldn't explain it either."

Larry Gilbert, fifty-two, recognized what was wrong right away. "The art was unsettling, for sure, but at the end of the day that's just pictures. It was the cards themselves that was all wrong. As a kid I got really hooked on this occult stuff, you know? Aleister Crowley, H. P. Lovecraft, tarot, all that stuff. So I sorta knew the cads, and these were cards of the major arcana that don't exist in any tarot deck I've ever seen."

For those who don't know, a tarot deck is broken into two sections - the minor arcana, consisting of four suits of fourteen cards (1-10 and 4 "face" cards) and the major arcana (22 suitless face cards). Unlike playing cards, the suits of the minor arcana are typically: swords, cups, coins, and batons. The suits of these cards were blades, wands, sigils, and grails, all pretty clear interpretations of the familiar suits. It was the major arcana that differed wildly.

These cards, which we are dubbing the "Black Tarot" contain cards not found in the normal major arcana; cards with titles like, "The Necromancer" or "The Black Sun." It's clear this deck has drawn some sort of twisted inspiration from a traditional deck, but seem to be something of their own.

There seems to be no connection between the recipients. They have little in common. They do not know one another, are separated by locations, ages, jobs, you name it, these four people seem to be randomly selected. So why did each one of them receive five of these Black Tarot cards in the mail. These could be construed as a spread of some kind. Here's one such spread:

What these could mean and who is sending them is still a mystery. We asked all four of the recipients for pictures of their cards, and they were happy to oblige. Without knowing what the cards all mean, what the spread is, and maybe most importantly, what the initial question asked was, it's almost impossible to determine what all of this means. Still, it doesn't stop Sara Burgess from feeling creeped out.

"It's weird, you know?" she said said. "I mean, who has all these creepy cards and why send them to me? How do they even know me? I don't know, it just feels like... like an invasion of privacy or something."

If you have any information about the Black Tarot, their meaning, or sender, please reach out to us at malevolentmaine@gmail.com. 

Sara Burgess' cards

Larry Gilbert's spread

Dominic Stoddard's spread

Sharon Messina's spread

Stay safe out there, Maine.