This tarot deck is really colorful and appears to be an avant-garde, postmodern version of Crowley's Thoth Tarot and other Golden Dawn influences.  It is also a really weird and ambiguous deck, perhaps that is why there is no credit taken anywhere for its design.  I haven't been this confused since Mummenschanz.

I have so many questions that I don't know where to begin, except with a plea that if anyone out there knows any of the answers, please fill me in!  First of all, why is SEA capitalized in the title of the deck, implying an acronym which is never explained?  Why are all the figures in this deck pretty much genderless, hairless naked persons all in brilliant colors of red, green, gold, blue and purple?  Why is the Hermit wearing a g-string with a keyhole in it?  Why are the Wands these space-age versions of tiki torches?

The deck is a standard size and the cards shuffle about normal for a tarot deck.  The suits are the traditional Swords, Cups, Wands and Pentacles.  Court cards are King, Queen, Knight and Page.  As the deck owes most of its symbolism to the Thoth deck, I was surprised that they didn't use King, Queen, Prince and Princess.

The booklet which comes with this deck is actually fantastic.  The explanations and interpretations for each card are highly insightful and it leaves me all the more mystified as to how the reader is supposed to learn to associate all this with each card.  I suppose one could constantly refer to the book, but that is distracting when giving a reading.  The cards are not intuitive at all as far as I could tell.  I kept looking at them over and over with this feeling that I was missing something but it just didn't come to me.

I suppose for the reader who is adept at reading with Golden Dawn traditional symbolism, this deck might pose an interesting alternative.  And, like I said, it is bright and colorful.  The artwork is superb in quality, just..... weird.  There is a book available for this deck, which I did not have access to.  I am given to understand that buying the set together, or buying them both separately, makes a world of difference to the use and understanding of these cards, so I would recommend buying the book if possible.

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Review Copyright 1998 by Gina M. Pace