Bill's mom gave me this deck for Christmas.  The artist, Hermann Haindl, drew upon many native cultures, including Native American, Egyptian, Indian and Celtic, in order to design his deck.  The artwork is strangely inspiring, although I don't think beautiful is a good way of putting it.

The deck uses the suits of Stones, Cups, Swords and Wands, and relies heavily upon the elements and the directions they correspond to.  Each of the numbered cards has a keyword meaning on the bottom of the card which sums up the basic thought behind the whole card.

Cards are larger and longer than usual and are slightly more difficult to work with.  A two-volume book was written by Rachel Pollack (author of Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom, among other titles) to accompany this deck; a newer, smaller book by Pollack is now available with the deck as a set.

This is a fabulous deck for working with the inner self through meditation upon the meanings of the cards and their application to our lives in general.  However, I feel as a deck for doing readings with, the Minor Arcana lack imagination and really only the Major Arcana cards are useable.

It is worth getting for personal use, though.  Sometimes
it's just inspiring.

Click here for pictures

or here to buy the deck-and-book set, or just the deck here

also check out:
Volume One and Volume Two of The Haindl Tarot by Rachel Pollack

or here to continue

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also by Hermann Haindl:
The Haindl Rune Oracle

Review Copyright 1998 by Gina M. Pace