Since 2004, when she started working as an editor at Stamford American Game Systems, Lynn Araujo has witnessed and helped propel phenomenal, and recently newsworthy, growth in sales of the main product of the business: tarot cards and their cousins, oracle cards.
“Sales have doubled or tripled every year for the past 10 years,” said Araujo, working from home in the Black Rock section of Bridgeport.
“Before, we had prints for a new game of 2,000 or 3,000. And if it sold out in six months, that was great. Then we went to 5,000. Now we are doing initial runs of 8,000 to 10,000. We will go even higher, but we can’t because we can only fit a limited number of pallets in our warehouse” , she said.
The COVID pandemic partly explains the most recent surge in tarot and the accompanying media interest, said Araujo, who now holds the dual titles of editorial and communications director. The pandemic has enforced isolation, but most importantly she thinks that in times of stress, people seek out activities, like tarot, that can offer relief, guidance or a simple distraction. It saw a similar surge after the financial crisis of 2008. But even then, the appeal and perception of tarot had begun to broaden. Araujo was even interviewed about this trend in the Washington Post last December.
“We could see that people wanted something they could be more comfortable with,” said Araujo, whose job it was to put the company on Facebook and Instagram. “It’s not always divination. Or like the films where there is this dark and occult side. Now it’s more mainstream and demystified. This is not something that will happen. Rather, it’s ‘how can I watch this?’ ‘What should I do to change my way of thinking?’”
Tarot cards come in a variety of designs, but the Rider-Waite deck more or less set the standard for modern day tarot. Shown here is The Fool from the Rider-Waite Bridge.
Courtesy of US Games SystemsShe noted that therapists can use tarot decks and that there is a lot of overlap between card readings and Jungian psychology.
How big has the appeal become? Christian Dior has now released two fashion lines based on tarot card designs. Ethereal Visions, a tarot deck done in an Art Deco style, can be found at J. Crew stores – or at least could be before it sells out.
There are also tarot decks with what might be called affinity themes. Araujo checked off a few: decks based on James Bond, Game of Thrones, Disney characters, Marvel superheroes, Star Trek, and even Gummi Bears.
“It reflects our popular tastes and interests,” she said. “A lot of our artists are fantastic artists.”
According to the Washington Post article, “Modern versions of the tarot have been a major draw for many Kickstarter backers…Over the past 10 years, backers of the Kickstarter crowdfunding platform have pledged approximately 21 $.7 million to tarot projects, and 69% of those pledges came in 2020 or 2021. The platform saw the biggest jump in tarot popularity from April 2020 to May 2020.”
Araujo herself worked with fantasy artist Lisa Hunt on a deck called Pastoral Tarot. Due for release later this year, it has an American theme based on the Depression era and Araujo’s own penchant for the countryside around Corning, NY, where she grew up.
The Two Wands card from the Pastoral Tarot.
Courtesy of US Games Systems
“I came up with the concept for each map and she (Hunt) took my words and my vision and put it into paintings. I also wrote an entire book that goes with the game. For each map, I a little background story, a vignette,” she said.
There are 78 cards in a standard tarot deck, and while each is open to interpretation by a reader, each is also open to interpretation by an artist and writer. In Araujo and Hunt’s horizontal deck, the iconic tank card is replaced with a hay wagon. The message about getting a job done may be the same, but the feel is different.
“It’s not just what the numbers do. This is the stage,” Araujo said. “There are different moods and tones; whether it’s a clear sunny day or a gloomy day with clouds. Whether there is barren land or verdant orchards. In the Pastoral play, she wanted to capture the innocence and hardship of the Depression era, she said.
Araujo also worked on decks of oracles, which contain fewer cards and are a kind of light tarot because they are not as structured as traditional tarot. One is his award-winning game Dreaming Way made in collaboration with a Korean artist. The game itself falls into a category named after Marie Lenormand, a French fortune teller who rose to fame during the Napoleonic era as an advisor to revolutionaries and royalty. Araujo noted that oracle decks can be “simpler, easier to learn” than tarot, but people can combine their oracle and tarot decks.
Tarot remains “the bread and butter” of the US Games, Araujo said. The company’s website lists 180 different tarot decks as well as 130 oracle decks. Many tarot decks are “clones”, more or less faithful to the deck that set the standard for modern tarot and also made the business. Called the Rider-Waite Bridge, it was designed in 1909 by English artist Pamela Smith Colman, who also illustrated works by poet William Butler Yeats and novelist Bram Stoker. US Games founder Stuart R. Kaplan discovered tarot at a German toy fair in 1968 and soon acquired the rights to the Rider-Waite game designed by Colman.
Kaplan, who started out on Wall Street and died last year, saw the company become a global leader in tarot publishing. He chose the game madman Rider-Waite as the company logo. The Fool, usually portrayed as a wanderer, can be read as innocently hopeful or dangerously aimless.
Araujo said owning the (now expired) rights to the game was roughly equivalent to owning the Beatles songbook.
“Just think of how many people have covered Beatles songs,” she said.