Les Vampires by Lucy Cavendish

44 cards with a 136-page guidebook. Full interpretations, spreads, and exercises.

Jasmine Becket-Griffith's artwork. The distinctive wide-eyed gothic style she is known for.

Shadow work, plainly. The deck is built for the harder questions rather than the reassuring ones.

• 44-card oracle deck with 136-page guidebook
• Author: Lucy Cavendish; artist: Jasmine Becket-Griffith
• Box measures approximately 5 1/2 by 3 3/4 by 3/4 inches
• SKU: DLESVAM

The vampire is a useful figure for shadow work precisely because it is uncomfortable. It stands for hunger, for what drains, for the thing that cannot come in unless invited, and for the parts of a life that feed on you with your own permission. Cavendish's deck turns those images toward discernment: what is draining you, what boundary has gone unspoken, what you have been avoiding looking at directly.

Shadow work is the Jungian idea that what we refuse to face does not go away, it simply operates without our knowledge, and that meeting it honestly is how it stops running things. An oracle deck is a mirror for that, and a good one gives you a question rather than an answer. This is a deck for the difficult reading rather than the comforting one, and it is worth knowing that going in.

1. Cleanse the deck on arrival if that is your practice: smoke, moonlight, or a rest on selenite.
2. Ground yourself and choose the question, especially if it is one you have been circling.
3. Shuffle and draw a card, or a small spread from the guidebook.
4. Read the guidebook entry, then sit with what the card actually asks rather than what you hoped it would say.
5. Write it down. Shadow work that is not recorded tends to be quietly forgotten.

• Blank Journal: for the writing-down, which is the part that works.
• Black Obsidian Worry Stone: the mirror stone, for the same register.
• Black Chime Candles, Set of 20: the banishing and shadow-work flame.
• White Sage Smudge Stick: to clear the space before and after a hard reading.
• Black Obsidian Scrying Mirror: another tool for looking at what is not obvious.

What is in the set?

44 oracle cards and a 136-page guidebook with interpretations, spreads, and exercises.

Is it a dark deck?

Yes, deliberately. It uses the vampire as a figure for what drains and what we avoid, and it is built for the difficult reading rather than the reassuring one. If you want a gentle deck, this is not it.

What is shadow work?

The practice of facing what you would rather not look at, on the Jungian premise that what is refused does not disappear; it simply runs things from out of sight.

Who made it?

Written by Lucy Cavendish and illustrated by Jasmine Becket-Griffith, whose wide-eyed gothic style is distinctive.

Do I need to know tarot?

No. Oracle decks are self-contained, and the guidebook explains each card.