Christina Ricci’s new creative endeavor Cat Full of Spiders Tarot Deck and Guidebook is coming out Tuesday in the early part of the spooky season, but the acclaimed Wednesday and Yellowjackets star said there’s a big misconception about what tarot cards and readings are about.

Yes, tarot card readings can indeed be the driving force of movies like the summer horror hit Tarot, and some people may want to associate them with the same sort of scary preconceptions that accompany Ouija boards. In truth, however, Ricci said there’s really nothing to fear when using a tarot deck.

“I don’t really believe in anything mystical—I think all of the magic that we need in the world takes place right in our brain,” Ricci told me during a recent phone conversation. “So what I love about tarot is it’s basically a tool to use everything you consciously know about yourself, everything your subconscious knows and everything you’ve collected in your personal journey up until this moment.

“Those are the things that are used when you have a tarot reading,” Ricci added. “You pose a question and then cards are drawn and basically based on whatever theme or idea is brought up by the card; then you then come to a conclusion or get an idea based on your own mind, your own experience, your own identity and your own subconscious.”

Basically, Ricci said, tarot card decks are basically “a tool of self-reflection to predict your future.”

“We can all sort of vaguely predict our futures or solution to something based on our knowledge of ourselves and the choices we will always make for the habits that we have,” Ricci explained. “So, I love it because of that, because it really sort of harnesses your self-awareness and self-consciousness to put you more in control of your life to give you more information about yourself.

Available online and in stores, the Cat Full of Spiders Tarot Deck and Guidebook was created by Christina Ricci with tarot expert Minerva Siegel and the cards feature the artwork of illustrator Felipe Flores.

Released by Insight Editions, Cat Full of Spiders Tarot Deck and Guidebook comes in deluxe packaging that includes a 78-card tarot deck and a 128-page guidebook featuring a foreword by Ricci. The guidebook—which comes complete with card meanings and instructions—was designed to aid tarot practitioners of all skill levels.

Cat Full of Spiders Tarot Deck and Guidebook is a personal project for Ricci for many reasons, including the fact that her husband, Mark Hampton, is the creative director of the project.

“The original idea was my husband’s, to create something that was really personal and came from me that conveyed a lot of messages about how I feel about the world and how I feel about magic and life,” Ricci recalled. “We wanted to do that while combining really beautiful artistry and storytelling, and we thought a tarot deck was the best way to do it. We also really loved tarot and wanted to add to the beautiful decks that are out there.”

Ricci’s acting career, of course, kicked off long before her most recent shows Yellowjackets and Wednesday. Ricci’s film career kicked off in 1990 in Mermaids opposite Cher and Winona Ryder.

Since then she’s appeared in such notable features as The Addams Family and its sequel Addams Family Values, Casper, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Sleepy Hollow, Monster and The Matrix Resurrections.

Yet for Ricci’s vast body of work—she’s amassed more than 90 screen credits since 1990— the idea for Cat Full of Spiders Tarot Deck and Guidebook was solely inspired by who Ricci is as a person and isn’t tied to any of her films or television shows.

“It’s inspired by the life that I’ve led as a creative person and as an artist,” Ricci explained. “I lived my life at certain times as different characters since I create stories and create whole worlds for myself in my work, but this is really about me as an individual, not me as an actress.”

“If you see something [in the images on the tarot cards that] looks like it might be a character I’ve played, well, it’s probably because that’s what I look like with dark curls,” Ricci said. “So, the two things are so intermixed because I’ve lived my whole life [acting]. I do understand the misconception there, but that is one of the reasons that I wanted to do this is because I am more than my work. So, my work is something that has definitely been a good part of my life and comes from my brain.”

For readers wondering where Ricci came up with the title of the tarot deck and guidebook, Ricci offered an explanation of where it originated.

“Cat Full of Spiders is a name that I came up with basically metaphorical, the spiders being all of the experiences and traumas or moments that a person or the cat eats in their lives,” Ricci said. “And so, by the end of the journey, the cat or the person is full of the spiders-slash-experienced trauma moments. They’ll never forget the idea that all of that is carried with them.”

Christina Ricci’s Cat Full Of Spiders Tarot Deck and Guidebook is now available through online retailers and stores.

Source: Forbes