Tarot/Oracle Decks

The Mystic Faerie Tarot

The Mystic Faerie Tarot
by Barbara Moore, art by Linda Ravenscroft
Llewellyn, 2007

 

It’s not every day that a Tarot deck as beautiful as this one crosses your path. This will be no surprise to fans of fantasy illustrator Linda Ravenscroft. Her sensuous watercolors of the Fey are wildly popular, and the Mystic Faerie Tarot is bound to become a well-loved deck. Linda’s gorgeous art makes it an absolute joy to use for divination and meditation.

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Bird Cards: The Healing Power of the Bird Kingdom

Bird Cards:  
The Healing Power of the Bird Kingdom  
by Jane Toerien
Altamira-Becht, 2007

 

Toerien has created a deck of fifty-five cards which uses bird energy as a self-help and self-discovery tool. Each bird represents a different focus for an individual to work with. This is a gentle book filled with positive energy and an earnest desire to help the reader.

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Tarot of the Elves

Tarot of the Elves
by Mark Elroy and Davide Corsi
Lo Scarabeo, 2007

 

Tarot of the Elves is an unexpected deck. My first thought upon hearing about it was “So will this involve elves in some traditional lore slapped into Tarot symbolism, or something airy-fairy and New Agey and utterly fluff?” Thankfully, it was neither. Instead, what I got was a beautiful story coupled with a practical divination and pathworking tool.

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Graven Images Oracle

Graven Images Oracle
by Natalie Zaman
Galde Press, 2008

 

With the mass popularity of Tarot decks and other deck oracles, it’s rare that a deck comes out that is truly original, something you’ve never seen before. The Graven Images Oracle by Katherine Clark and Natalie Zaman is such a deck. Beautiful, mysterious, impeccably constructed and executed, this deck is unlike anything I’ve seen before.

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Konxari Cards

Konxari Cards:
A Supplement for Your Ghost-Hunting, Séance, or Spirit Communications Experience

Paul Michael Kane, IRM Foundation, 2009
3/5 Broomsticks

The Konxari (pronounced kon-zar-ee) Cards set is a new spirit-focused divination deck. An updated version of the popular ouija board, these cards use evocative photographs, words, and symbols to give you many ways to connect with spirits. The publishers of the deck claim that Konxari has roots in ancient Egypt — roots the system shares with the more familiar Tarot cards. Erroneous information aside (at least as far as the Tarot goes), the set sparked my interest. Curiosity got the best of me, and I had to check it out.

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Cheesy, Bloody Bacchanals

Tarot of the Vampyres

IAN DANIELS, LEWELLYN, 2010

I am so damn sick of vampires.

Still, there’s much we can learn from these overplayed monsters. “Monster,” after all, translates in its Latin root to “portent, warning, revelation,” and it’s appropriate, therefore, to use the vampire archetype as a focus for Tarot-based divination. It’s rather cheesy, though… and The Tarot of the Vampyres is both enjoyably cheesy and surprisingly appropriate.

To be honest, I opened my review deck expecting to hate it. I didn’t open it, exactly — I unwrapped the plastic and the flimsy box fell apart in my hands.  

Dear Llewellyn: If you’re going to charge people 30 bucks for a set of Tarot cards, please get your game up regarding your production quality. The shoddy packaging was inexcusable. Okay, so what about the set itself?

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