This is a weird deck.  Nice, but weird.  The artwork is done exremely well, but seems to be kind of dark.  The concept behind this deck-and-book set (the deck is not available for individual sale) is to bring the symbolism of the Tarot into the next century and make it universal to all cultures.  This is done by artfully blending in symbology from every major religious culture on the planet.

The Major Arcana have four cards which have been renamed to fit the understanding of these cards which the new age consciousness has given birth to.  The older titles were appropriate four hundred years ago, but Mr. Miller thinks new ones are in order.  The Strength card is renamed Desire, Justice has changed to Karma, Judgement to The Revelation, and Temperance is now called Time.

In the Minor Arcana, the single biggest change that I noticed was the removal altogether of one of the court cards, leaving just the King, Queen and Knave of each suit.  This brings the deck total to 74 cards instead of 78.  This has been done to bring the tarot in accordance with traditional playing cards, as well as the Zodiac, which has only twelve signs and so having sixteen court cards poses a problem when you assign them astrological signs.

Suits are Disks, Cups, Swords and Wands.  As stated above, courts are King, Queen and Knave.  The cards themselves are laminated fairly heavily and tend to stick together somewhat when shuffling.  They are slightly larger than standard.  The dekc-and-book set is packaged very tightly, with the deck being split in two sections and the book, a 144-page deal, being slipped in on top of them so it presents a smaller, but nice, package.

I recommend this deck to anyone who is looking for a unique modern, yet multiculturally diverse, deck to read with.  The book's meanings are very well written so even a beginner should have no trouble learning with this system.

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Review Copyright 1998 by Gina M. Pace