Bonnie Cehovet: Karyn, I feel like I have a vested interest in this deck! What made you decide to develop a deck of your own?
Karyn Easton: Hi Bonnie, thanks for interviewing me. Years ago I was a massive fan of Arthur C Clarke, indeed so much so, that his television programs inspired me to put together a dictionary definition style website called (www.paranormality.com). The www.paranormality.com website is all about anything and everything paranormal, supernatural and unusual. In the early days we didn’t really have the kind of monitoring software that we do now but even without this, it soon became clear that out of all of the topics covered on the Paranormality website, Tarot was undoubtedly the most popular. Many customers emailed to ask if ever I would cover the topic of Tarot. As Tarot is something that has always fascinated me I set out to put together a guide to the cards and what they mean. In order to illustrate this particular topic I scoured around the internet for a royalty free version of a standard deck of 78 Tarot cards. Luckily I did manage to secure permission to use a deck and the topic of Tarot was born on the Paranormality.com site. The long and short of it was however that if I wanted to take the topic of Tarot any further on my website then I needed to ultimately design my own deck. This way I could use my images for any purpose without ever needing to ask permission or more importantly pay royalty fees.
Bonnie Cehovet: This is a Marseilles style deck with the traditional format, with the exception of two of the card titles (High Priestess/Papess and Hierophant/Pope). What was the reasoning behind this?