About our tarot design:

When we chose to make a tarot deck, we did not do so lightly. Between myself (your humble artist) and my cohort Inara (photographer/belly dancer/consultant), we've over thirty combined years in studying and using the tarot. We wanted to create a deck that was beautiful, and useful at the same time.

To that end we did make some changes where we felt they were appropriate to modern times. First and foremost, it's always been our opinion that the Golden Dawn (and we mean the original Golden Dawn and not any of the current extant chapters or offshoots thereof) did more than any other group to shape the way tarot looks currently. Many folks still only use the Rider Waite pack.

We tried to achieve a balance between A. E. Waite and the Marseilles style decks, while eliminating as much of the overtly Christian symbology as possible. We did the later not because we don't like Christians, but because the world is a much different place than the era of the first Golden Dawn. There are so many religions in the world, and thank largely to the internet, it's become a much smaller place. Therefore we wanted to create something that would still reflect the roots of the tarot while freeing it from the bonds of organized religion. Still it's damn near impossible to completely do this. Take the card judgment for example, and you'll see what we mean.

We could ramble endlessly on, but it suffices to say we chose images that we did because we felt they go to the heart of what a particular card represents. Take our death card for instance. Anyone whose used the tarot for a while knows the meaning of this card and while it would have been easy for us to use a skeleton on horseback or show a belly dancer lopping off the heads of kings and paupers we chose not to do so. We went with a simple masked figure with a sword in front of the setting sun. Permanent change and new beginnings are nicely summed up without excessive gore. We also restored the numbering of the strength and justice cards as Waite's' reasoning never convinced us. Some cards will be completely different than what your used to, while others will contain the exact symbology you're accustomed to seeing.

We'll be putting out a booklet to go with our deck, but anyone could use whatever interpretations they're used to and get along fine with our deck. Due to the fact that we're slow getting our booklet up, we've decided to put this link here.

Sacred Texts Online Tarot Section

This is one of my favorite sites. Here you can download (for free) three of the major works on the tarot,by Papus, Waite, and Mathers. Check it out, and feel free to donate to these folks for all the kind work they do on making free texts available to scholars and students.

As we said before, if you've any questions at all feel free to email us, and we'll answer them as soon as possible.

Tarot Questions

Thanks for checking us out

Fergus Drexel IV (Jan 2006)