This small black-and-white tarot deck was originally produced by the Church of Light in 1936.  It has been around since then.  This is not a reproduction of an older deck but the same one that has been in circulation since its inception.  This is a historically significant deck for a couple of reasons; one, it is one of the very first decks designed in America, and two, it is one of the first decks of Egyptian styling and design.

Unlike most other black-and-white tarot decks, this one would be ruined by coloring it.  The images are rather light looking, delicate really, and don't provide a lot of field area to color in.  If one were to color them, it should be with delicate soft colors.  However, I prefer them the way they come out of the box.  The image area is also rather small on the face of the card and so a lot of details, which are hard to see anyway, might be obscured altogether by coloring them in.

This is a traditional tarot deck in the way it is set up.  Major and Minor Arcana, four suits, courts, etc.  None of the cards are titled.  Not the Majors, not the Minors.  None.  Each Major Arcana card is labeled with a Roman numeral at the top center, its Arabic counterpart in the upper left corner, Hebrew letter in the lower left corner, its English counterpart in the bottom center.  The upper right hand corner has an astrological symbol, and in the lower right corner there is a corresponding Greek Letter.  This deck came with no little white booklet, only a recommendation to purchase The Sacred Tarot by C.C. Zain which is illustrated with these images and upon which this tarot is based.  Additionally, in this deck, the Fool is placed at the end of the Majors and numbered 22 instead of 0.

In the Minor Arcana, the numbered cards are mainly plain pips, with four symbols in the four corners around the edges of the image.  Two of them I can recognize; the upper left corner bears the Arabic numeral, and the lower right corner has a little symbol of the suit itself; i.e. wands, cups, etc.  The other two corners bear what appear to be astrological and zodiacal symbols.  Looks like (for the pips) two zodiac signs in the upper right and a planetary sign in the lower left; (for the courts) a single zodiac sign in the upper right.  Additionally, in each of the numbered cards, the pip illustrations of the items in the suit are accompanied by what looks like arrangements of stars, perhaps constellations.  There is no explanation for any of this with these cards.

In the court cards, the left hand numeral is replaced by the English letter which represents the card itself, K for King, Q for Queen, but the Knight is represented by an H and the Page by a J.  The lower left corner bears the symbol which the suits have come to be known by in playing card decks; hearts, clubs, spades and diamonds.  Without the book to explain all this mysterious symbolism, I don't feel this deck is terribly useful to anyone.

The cards are a nice size, slightly smaller than average, but the image area is rather small and hard to see, and the ink used is light so there isn't a great deal of contrast.  I can recommend this deck for anyone who collects tarot in general, especially those who are interested in historical decks.  Collectors of Egyptian paraphernalia will also find these cards of interest.  Since you need to have the book to get anything much out of the deck, I don't recommend it for beginners.

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Review Copyright 1998 by Gina M. Pace