Wow, this is so neat. There is a new Transparent Tarot that is (as the name implies) on transparent cards. As a result, you can overlap cards either fully or partially to alter the meanings.

Here’s a three-position spread, with 3 cards overlapped in each position:

(thats Q Cups + 2 Cups + Lovers, and Hierophant + 3 Swords + 5 Swords, and Emperor + 3 Cups + Tower)

Isn’t that neat? Even without stacking cards, I love that in a traditional celtic cross, the first two card images meld together. Also, you can do partial overlaps, so that if you are doing (for instance) a 6-month spread, each month can blend into the next.

Anyway, when I heard about this deck, I wondered how well the overlapping images would work. Now that I have it in my hands, I’m extremely pleased with the execution. As you can see in the above example, the images generally overlap cleanly (the lightning bolt disrupts the third position, but it’s the freaking Tower card, after all). And, building up unique compositions of imagery really opens up the creative side of my mind. You can’t give some pat textbook reading for a card you’ve never seen before! That’s my favorite thing about this deck so far.

It comes with a white cloth to do readings on, which was a nice touch. I haven’t spent any time with the book yet, but it’s thick and has examples of interpreting card combinations, and example spreads that only this deck can do!

I was browsing Aeclectic, and came across a thread on “dark decks.” I was looking through the decks offered, and two really stood out to me. One is the The Dark Grimoire Tarot. Here’s the four of pentacles:

Isn’t that an interesting take on the 4? I like it! It comes out September 1st, I think.

The other was the savage tarot, which I think is a wee bit too dark for my tastes… here’s Temperance:

It’s different, anyway… won’t be doing any readings for my mother with it…

Yeah, I know, it’s been a while since I have made many updates… my other businesses (futures trading, and software development to support said trading) has been keeping me busy lately… not to mention my rather full social life as of late. I’m trying to re-orient myself to get regular updates done here and elsewhere… we’ll see if I can manage that!

Anyway… lately I’ve been trying to give equal time to my tarot readings, my lenormand readings, my other random oracles, and my cartouche readings. I know I love the lenormand cards, and associated similar systems… I’m still on the fence for the Cartouche cards, but I have the book now, so I can delve into them further.

For tarot I’ve recently fallen in love with the Secret Tarot (formerly known as the Renaissance Tarot, but changed names due to copyright I assume… although there is another Secret Tarot, so these poor people just can’t win!). It has a very 3-D look, as I think it is photographs of crafts/sculpture. Here’s an example card:

The book it comes with is also very good, I think… it points out every feature on the cards, and tells you why it’s there and what it means. For the majors, they even point to the symbol they are describing on a picture of the card.

I’ve also started doing some readings with my MAAT tarot. I’ve been staying away from it because it is based on a lunar system that I haven’t had time to study. But, the large borderless cards and beautiful imagery finally drew me in, and I have been reading them just from the images alone. And, despite the moon-based system, and the paganized Air/Fire swap for Wands/Swords, I find I can read them pretty well. Only problem is that the huge cards are at odds with my predilection for laying down lots of cards at a time! I need a mini-MAAT

I had a 15%-off coupon, so I went on a little shopping spree at Half Price Books last night! I picked up The Golden Dawn: The Original Account of the Teachings, Rites & Ceremonies of the Hermetic Order, and I was hoping to find The Tree of Life: An Illustrated Study in Magic, by the same author, since I had noticed it there before. But, I didn’t see it last night. I also would have gladly picked up a copy of 777 And Other Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley, but I didn’t see it either! Oh well.. I did grab a copy of Tarot Talismans: Invoke the Angels of the Tarot. All of this is primarily to further my study of tarot as a metaphysical/magical device, rather than a simple divination tool.

So, not the best luck in books, but not bad. I also got three oracle decks:

• Gypsy Fortunes: Use the Magic of Romany Cards to Foretell the Future. These are clearly a close cousin to my Lenormand deck. Fun! Also, the book gives simple tarot correspondences, and I was just telling someone yesterday that I want to do a serious Tarot-to-Lenormand mapping. More on that in another post!
• Cartouche Cards. I’m very excited to learn more about these egyptian-themed cards! And when I do, I’ll either love them or hate them… don’t know which, yet. The artwork is primitive, which usually does not appeal to me.
• The Well Worn Path deck. Sadly, I got the cards but not the book in this set. But, from what I can tell, they are a pagan/wiccan-themed 40 card oracle… once again with clear connections to tarot and gypsy cards, but with some twists. I may not take any time to try to learn about these, but rather use these cards more intuitively.

I’ve been mostly trying to steer clear of buying more tarot decks, as I find I keep coming back to just one or two decks that resonate with me. So, other than to appreciate the art, more decks don’t really mean much to me. On the other hand, I find learning about various gypsy/oracle systems to be kinda fun… and I think it may make me a better tarot reader in the process.

Anyway, I had a great time, and expanded my deck collection in the process.

BTW I know I said I’d have my notes from my recent Living Tarot talk up here by now… sorry… I’ve just been terribly busy lately. Notes are still coming…

Sorry I haven’t written much in the last few days… I’ve been busy with other business activities. But, I did pick up this fun deck of 45 Cat Wisdom Cards, today!

If you do a reading with them, make sure you factor in enough time to pause and say “awwwww” a lot.

I expected the book to explain the meanings behind the colored dots on the cards, but there is no explanation… I guess the colors were chosen at random or something. Lame! But the pictures are cute, and for fluffy questions you can get adorable answers. What more could you ask for?

I had noticed that on the pre-order page, the date was pushed back to September… it was August, before. Now, I’ve seen an email from an inside source, indicating that the deck was cancelled at the last minute.

I hope it’s not true, but it seems to be pretty reliable info. *sigh*

[Edit @ 3pm: well, now the pre-order page linked above goes to a "product not found" page... I'd say this deck has been slain.]

[Edit 2008-06-05: now I have secondary confirmation from another source. Looking more solid, now, that the deck will not see the light of day.]

I used my Osho Zen Tarot today at the Tarot Talk Dallas meeting. I hadn’t been using the deck much, and wanted to play with it.

I gotta say, though the pictures are beautiful, I didn’t enjoy it much. It’s possible for a deck to be too zen. You know what I mean? The readings I did kept boiling down to “the answer is: it doesn’t matter” That may be true on a deep spiritual level, but it’s not that satisfying when you are doing a reading to locate your car keys….

A smaller issue: The cards are just similar enough to RWS that I want to read them like RWS… but they are just different enough that it doesn’t always work smoothly to do so. I need to get over that and simply go by the pictures, I think.

Anyway, I haven’t written off the deck, but I think it will be relegated to internal, self-transformation kinds of meditations. I’m sure some people out there probably disagree with me, but that’s the conclusion I am coming to.

I have been looking around for more fun decks for purely intuitive use, and I fell in love with the idea of the Lenormand oracle decks. They are typically 36 cards, modeled after a deck that famous French fortune-teller Marie Lenormand supposedly used. You can see a list of suggested meanings for the 36-card version here.

Only problem is, the versions of this deck that I really like are all playing hard to get. I eventually ordered this “French Cartomancy Mini Kit,” which I think looks pretty good…

… and the name will no doubt inspire me to tell fortunes over wine and cheese.

But, I’d much rather have the deck simply called “Lenormand Oracle“….

You can see that the pictures on this unavailable deck do not have the playing card inset. I find that to be ten thousand and three times more appealing. Though, perhaps I will assign meanings to the playing cards in the deck I bought, and eventually be glad I have them.

Who knows?

There are others available, which have poems or something on each card, but I would probably find that more distracting than the playing card inset, so I chose against it.

A gracious tip of my hat to Mary Greer for pointing out that Dark Horse has an information page for the Buffy Deck now! I see that the release date is August 13th, and the price is slated to be $14.99. Not bad. Plus, we have small versions of three cards I haven’t seen yet:

That Wheel card is really interesting! Is that the Master presiding over it, or is my mind playing tricks? Will have to ponder that.. if you look closely you can see a faint crown over his head. There’s some of the classic wheel imagery on there like the ROTA TARO, and the snake. But there’s also things I’m not used to seeing on the Wheel, like mountains in the background.

When I stare at this card from the Chaos Tarot…

… the hole in the middle seems to deepen and starts to devour the rest of the card. That’s freaky with a capital freaky. I hope this happens to everyone, and not just me!

The name of the card is “Eschaton,” which refers to the end of existence as we know it on Earth. I’d say that makes this optical illusion rather apt! I think I will have no choice but to buy this deck very soon.