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Title: Haunted Cottage Oracle
Created by: Sirian Shadow
Publisher: Llewellyn
Price: $24.99
Number of cards: 45
Card size: in
Box size: 2 in approx
Guidebook pages: 153
Purchased or gifted?: review copy gifted by : Llewellyn
Absolute favorite card: Crossroads
Other favorites: (in order from most beloved): Bonfire, Thunderstorm, Boat, Basket, Squirrel, Crossroads, Bramble Bush, Axe, Garden, Well
Notable detail: gilded edges
Season: Autumn
Sabbat: Samhain
Sign: Scorpio
Element: Spirit
Deck compliment: Golden Botticelli Tarot
Collective Pull: Spider

Add to Your Altar

First Impressions

I could not wait to get my hands on this deck. I’m kind of obsessed with ghost art. I love these white sheet ghosts doing very domestic things. I find it so endearing and fun but much of the ghost artists are almost cartoonish whereas this is moodier and darker. I genuinely love that blend of spooky things that are still beautiful. In fact, I am literally in the middle of writing a new oracle deck that is exactly that; hauntingly beautiful which I can’t wait to share more about that in the coming months. And I also really love this idea of a ghost going about his everyday life as though he/she/they still exist as a living person.

I specifically kept this deck on the shelf until the darker months and I’m so happy to finally review it. And as always, there are things I loved, things I could do without and a ton of photos to go with my opinions. So let’s take a look and don’t forget to tell me if this one resonates with you or you feel like it's a pass. Telling me which decks you love really helps to know what you’d like to see more of. I don’t review every deck that’s offered so if there’s a deck you like to see or a type of deck you’re interested in then make your voice count and comment below.

The Packaging

Oh My God!! Oh My God!! Oh My God!! Llewellyn gilded the edges of these cards. I have been complaining about the lack of gilded edges from Llewellyn for years!!!! And finally, FINALLY, they have gilded their cards. I really hope this is something they plan to continue. For one, so many other publishers are doing this now and we know Rockpool never puts out a deck without gilding. I’ve never understood, other than money of course, why Llewellyn wouldn’t add this feature. Secondly, decks are getting expensive as is everything else. I don’t know that I feel comfortable purchasing a deck that costs $25 and doesn’t have some kind of special thing. I’m sorry but you have to do a little bit more than naked edges for that cost.

Speaking of more, the box is lovely too. It’s Llewellyn’s typical book fold style with the card platform inside but I have noticed their boxes are much smaller now. I don’t actually mind that as Llewellyn’s boxes are definitely some of the larger ones that I have. The smaller boxes are easier to store and frankly, a lot of the inside is wasted space. It also seems like Llewellyn is trying to make their boxes much more consistent where before, I feel like the sizes were pretty random.

The box features some foiling details and is printed in full color inside and out. I especially love the ghost on the swing inside of the box cover. It’s such a perfect image for this part of the packaging. It almost looks like a photo in a frame.

One thing Llewellyn is really good about is making the guidebook look different from the box, which is something I’ve always appreciated. Most publishers have the same image on the guidebook that exists on the box cover, my publisher included, and that has always struck me as a bit lazy or at the very least, a wasted opportunity. The only thing I wish could’ve been different is the back of the cards. It’s just a pattern and it's pretty dark. This is something many if not most of the publishers do but I wish more effort could be spent in this area.

The Guidebook

The guidebook is pretty nice. It is full color and true to Llewellyn, the cards' meanings have full page images of each card. I think that’s important because it makes it easier to see more of the card’s details. Card artwork is gorgeous but often so much of the finer details are lost once scaled down to card size. Having a slightly larger image allows you to see things you might otherwise miss and if nothing else, it makes it easier to find the card inside of the book. In the guidebook you’ll find:

An introduction
How to use the deck
Three spreads
A conclusion
And space for notes

For each card entry you’ll find some keywords, a short phrase or description of the oracle meaning, a description of the card, and finally the oracle message. I do think you should read through the card description at least once as there’s some useful information there. It explains more about the motivation of the card’s meaning and the symbolism too.

In the How To Use The Deck section, you’ll find an oracle attunement which is always nice to see. I love that there’s no mention of daily pulls. I feel like every deck in the past ten years has said pull a card each day and at this point, it feels unnecessary. What do you think? Is it important to have or should we continue to leave that one out?

As for the cards themselves, I really like Sirian’s writing. I don’t know him personally as we’ve only spoken a handful of times, maybe once or twice, but I do think he’s a good author. I didn’t resonate with his deck Earth & Bone Oracle when I reviewed it a couple of years ago but that was more about the artwork than his writing style. The art really wasn’t for me but I do think everything else was great. I also like the card names that he chose. Some of them are pretty familiar like the ones for mountain or snake but there are also some unexpected ones. I especially like the meaning for Bridge and Magnifying Glass.

Theme

The theme is more unexpected than I was expecting. Sirian uses the ghost in his home as a metaphor for being in your own shadows. I really like it. In the introduction, I said I loved how the ghost is going about life as though it’s a living person. And now understanding the theme, I feel like a ghost is the perfect vessel to work through your shadows. Honestly, that’s what a shadow or inner demon is right? Something from your past that you’ve been carrying you that is haunting you. It may not involve spooky voices or lights flickering but it's disturbing you all the same. Sirian also likens a ghost to the hermit archetype which also makes sense. The idea of being in this sort of purgatory, going on a spiritual journey and working through all of what you’re carrying is right on point for the hermit. I think the theme is so much deeper than it appears on the cover and quite profound really.

The Artwork

I love the artwork so much. I will admit though, I started to get worried about the Ai thing. I reviewed the Witch Whispers Oracle a few weeks ago and there were some comments about this deck being Ai. I fully admit, I never really thought it was Ai while reviewing it but I took a quiz about a week later to see if I could identify which photos were ai and which were real and I pretty much failed. Which is insane to me because I have taken sooo many courses on Ai over the last three years. I wanted to know more about it before making a judgement call so I researched and I think I have a pretty good grasp on Ai. But I honestly couldn’t tell with most of the images so now, I’m second guessing all images.

I don’t think this deck is Ai just because Sirian has created decks for a while and I’ve never seen anything that suggests his art is Ai but frankly we just don’t know. What I do know is that I like the art. I love the moodiness, I like the tones, I love the shadowy nature of the ghosts. I think this is just so beautiful.

“The Haunted Cottage Oracle speaks through poignant metaphors, reflecting the unresolved aspects of our lives. Like the lingering echoes of the past events, the spectral presences throughout this deck urge us to confront our fears and embrace the shadows within.”

My favorite card is Crossroads. It was actually Bonfire until I took images of the cards. I see things differently in a camera. Oftentimes I won’t notice a detail until I’m looking at a card through the camera screen which is what happened with Crossroads. I think this card is so gorgeous. I love that on one side of the crossroads it’s light with a dark ghost walking that way and then on the other side, it’s dark with a light ghost. Was the light ghost left behind? Is that a part of the dark ghost? Were they one at some point and split up? It’s a beautiful image to contemplate. I have a card called crossroads in the deck I’m writing now that I told you about earlier and I really wish I had thought of something like this for the imagery.

One thing I found interesting was the presence of so many animal cards. I’m not sure that I love that just because I wish there had been more focus on the ghost. Are the animals ghosts too? Are they contributing to the haunting? I guess I’m just not seeing how things like pumpkin pie and bees contribute to a haunted cottage. The images are still lovely and I do like animal oracle cards. I tend to use them as altar cards to bring in animal energy but I think there are other darker energies that could’ve been explored here instead.

Reading With this Deck

I love reading with this deck. I think shadow energy, especially in oracle decks, is what resonates with me most. It might be my heavy scorpio and 12th house influence or maybe that’s just what I enjoy but either way, I love exploring dark, taboo or fearsome subjects and this deck gives me exactly that.

It’s not all dark though. I’ve pulled cards about a variety of things but when I pulled cards about a project I’ve been working on, this deck was super encouraging. It basically gave me the thumbs up that I was looking for/needed and really made me feel like I’m making the right choices.

I also pulled a lot of cards about my personal shadows and I will say it's been pretty spot on. It didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know but it did confirm a lot of things for me which I appreciate.

I pulled Stream for the deck’s personality which means let go and surrender to what’s happening. I’m not sure that’s the right card to describe this deck though. I haven’t done a full interview spread but I’m going on my upcoming trip to get a full sense of how this deck wants to be used. But so far, it hasn’t told me to let go at all. If anything, it’s told me to do more, take more action.

Ready to get this deck?

Season, Sign, Element and Sabbat

I chose Autumn, Scorpio and Samhain because I mean what other choice was there? You can’t talk about ghosts or death or shadow energy without talking about Samhain and Scorpio. This is their domain, 100% so that was an easy choice to make. Likewise, Autumn holds both Samhain and Scorpio along with all of the themes you’re going to encounter in this deck.

I went with spirit for the element. While the deck appears earthy in its imagery, it's really about being in your psyche and spaces that live beyond the physical realm. It really is about self-connection and turning inward and exploring all of those spaces where our spirit is needed to navigate the journey.

Collective Pull

I pulled Spider for you. The spider encourages you to trust in what you feel. To listen to your gut and your instincts rather than questioning what feels real or true for you. Sometimes you have to listen to what your inner knowing is saying even when it doesn’t seem to match the situation. Sometimes there’s a little niggle telling you something isn’t right or to take a different approach or to avoid going down that street. You may never fully know or understand why something felt off and perhaps you don’t need to. Sometimes we’re guided in ways we can’t understand, saved a hundreds times from threats we didn’t even know existed, all because we listened to that inner voice. This is one of those times. You need your intuition right now, more than you might realize.

Deck Companion

I chose the Golden Botticelli Tarot for the companion deck. This is a deck of Botticelli artwork so of course there are some obvious religious imagery throughout the deck and I have always thought of this as my shadow work deck for that reason. I think the church brings up a lot of shadows for many of us so whenever I’m contemplating things like grief, death, fear, anger, sadness and the like, I grab Golden Botticelli Tarot. So I knew that was going to be the companion I’d use for this deck right from the start. Do they match aesthetically, no, not really and they don’t need to. For me, they carry the same inner shadow energy as least the way my inner shadow feels. I’ll be out of town when this review goes up and I’m planning on using both the whole time.

My Final Thoughts
I have really been looking forward to reviewing this deck and I’m glad I did. I felt an instant connection to it just from seeing it online and even more so once I got it in person. It really resonates with me on a lot of levels. The artwork, the ghosts, the shadows, and some of the themes feel right for me.

I don’t think this is a deck for everyone. I don’t see it being a super mainstream deck, not because it's bad but because people really do fear their shadows. It's not an easy thing to work with. I suspect I enjoy it so much because I didn’t have a choice. Shadows and inner demons have been a part of my life for the entirety of my life so I guess I just learned to embrace it rather than fear it. But that’s not everyone’s experience. It can be really tough facing those dark corners of yourself.

But if you’re willing to do it then this deck is a must have. And to be honest, there is a lot of shadow energy here but I don’t think you’re going to feel devastated by working with it. It’s a very shadow-light sort of energy although it still offers some powerful messages.

This is one I’m adding to my altar for sure. How about you?