So hi, I’m Klaus Pierhotski.

I’m an illustrator and writer, and last year I published my first tarot deck, The Hierophanies Tarot.

I’ve always been fascinated by archetypes, and Jungian Psychologists such as Caroline Myss and Clarissa Pinkola Estes who use archetypes to decode and examine myths and stories.

I have a BA in Film, where I loved my film theory lectures, and I also have an MA in Creative Writing. My professional background is in Film, Academic Publishing and Higher Education.

The Queer Uncanny is a subset of the Gothic genre, with a queer theory focus.

The Uncanny is a phrase coined by psychologist Sigmund Freud in a short essay he wrote in 1919. In it he describes the heimlich, which is the familiar, and unheimlich, which is the unfamiliar, and the sense of unease when these both overlap.

Common examples of uncanniness are zombies and realistic robots, which are both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. It’s the uncanniness of what we preceieve as human, but there also being something off, or not quite right, present as well. When this happens we tend to feel unsettled. That’s the realm of the uncanny.

We often see the uncanny in gothic and horror films and books, as monsters are often uncanny by nature. But we can also see the uncanny in other films and books, such as in novels by Japanese author Murakami.

An archetype is a universally understood symbol, term, or pattern of behaviour. Archetypes are often used in myths and storytelling across different cultures.

For example, we may say a character is a ‘princess’, because we think they behave in a way that we associate with princesses. We say things like this because we have a strong cultural idea of what princesses look and sound like, and how they behave.

We may call someone an ‘energy vampire’ to suggest someone is draining the life out of us.

Not that we think we’re actually being drained of blood, but using the metaphor of a creature that sucks out our life force is a useful shorthand.

Language is a place where we often notice archetypes, and Jungian psychologists call this ‘speaking archetypically,’ or more simply, speaking in symbols or metaphors.

Archetype means ‘original pattern’ in ancient Greek. Psychologist Carl Jung coined the term in his theory of the human psyche. He identified twelve universal archetypes that he thought resided within our collective unconscious.

He felt that all humans shared a ‘collective unconscious’, in which we all share understanding of symbols and ideas about the world. Almost like a worldwide telepathy.

There are many archetypes that very much feel universal, such as the prostitute and the victim, however many archetypes vary across cultures and communities.

As a white British person, I’ll be predominantly looking at archetypes from a Western lens, which means my findings may not resonate with people from other cultures, particularly cultures and communities in other hemispheres.

I’ll be using many strands of queer theory, film theory, cryptology, and literature theory, particularly looking at the Gothic and the Uncanny in both 19th century and modern literature.

I’ll be casting a wide net by looking at pop culture such as books and films, and other media such as comics or video games that I think contain gothic and/or uncanny elements.

Short answer- no! :)

I want this project to be as accessible as possible. I aim to write as plainly as I can and will provide a glossary and further study links as I go.

I may mention academic theories and use occasional academic language, but I’ll always explain myself when I do, so everyone can follow along.

Yes!

I intend to publish this as a deck in the near future, though I may not use the same archetypes I publish in this blog.

As a deck takes a long time to research and illustrate, this time I’m bringing you along with me and sharing much more of my process.

Hopefully this means you’ll enjoy the deck more when it’s published.

I’ll be releasing the Centaur blog on June 22nd for free, and after that I’ll be releasing an archetype illustration and article every month on the 22nd.

You can pay monthly or yearly to access all the upcoming blogs, either on my website here or on my Substack.

Or you can follow along for free to see every illustration and a short excerpt.

I’ll be publishing a new archetype every month in the 22nd, and intend to publish Season 1, which will be 12 archetypes in total, between June 2026 and June 2027.

Everyone will be able to read the first archetype, the Centaur for free.