I've been aware of Gigers surreal artwork ever since I first saw it on the cover of an album by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer back in the mid '70s (I believe the title was "Brain Salad Surgery").  However, it did not take me long to see more than my fill of naked women or portions of women, imprisoned by or built into some machine, forced into a submissive position, with tubes or other machine parts coming out of every bodily orifice, often for the pleasure of some grey-skinned half-human.  Lots of devices representing phallic objects are present in actual use or in readiness to be used.  That is pretty much the sum total of "Baphomet:Tarot of the Underworld".

Giger's monochrome style is instantly recognizable, but I'm not familiar enough with individual works to say whether or not this 22 card set was specially commissioned as a Tarot deck, or simply collected from his body of existing works.  I'm inclined to think that it was collected, as most of the cards appear as if someone said, for instance "Hmm, we need something to correspond with 'The Hanged Man', so let's use this one", which in this case is titled, "The Hanged Witch", and consists of a woman's lower torso, connected to the usual assortment of tubes, etc, and held with legs spread wide.  It really doesn't improve as one progresses (if you can call it progress) through the rest of the Major Arcana.  These cards don't so much evoke the familiar archetypes, as much as mock them.  This deck is definitely not for wiccans, pagans, or anyone else who follows the rede "If it harms none, do as you will".

All the images bring to mind the most negative of emotions and/or situations, (pain, degradation, imprisonment, torture, etc) so if used in a reading, could only give a very dark outcome (unless the querant was actually into this sort of thing).  In fairness, Giger does have something of a following, so some people like his work, and the title does say "...of the Underworld", so one might not reasonably expect much sunshine and happiness.

    As art, one either likes Giger's work, or hates it.  I will be very professional here and say that I admire his technical skill, but don't care at all for his tastes.  "Baphomet..." is quite expensive for a 22 card set, retailing at about $60.  This seems quite high when you realize that an art book containing a far larger number of his images, in a larger format, can be purchased for much less.  If you are considering this deck, by all means check out some of the several websites devoted to Giger's work.

guest review copyright 1999 by Ronald Russell; used with permission