My friend Jay has this tarot and I had seen it a long time ago and I remembered being impressed by it.  When I finally got a copy of this deck for review, I was impressed anew.  Photomontages dominate the entire deck, but they are done in striking color and seamless integration.  Even the laminated cardstock serves to bring out the life in these collages more.

The cards are bordered in a light beige color and the titles and keywords are in white against the beige, making it difficult but not impossible to read.  This is one of the few drawbacks to this tarot.  Some people have expressed the belief that the collages are too "busy" but I don't see that at all.  Rather, I find that the images that have been montaged together all follow a theme which works for each card.

The Major Arcana have been slightly renamed to fit the theme of the deck, which is self-awareness and empowerment.  This deck is geared not so much towards reading for others as for yourself, as a tool of personal transformation.  The cards which have been changed are Fool-Child instead of Fool, Balance instead of Justice, Fortune instead of the Wheel, Art instead of Temperance (owing to Crowley perhaps), Devil's Play instead of the Devil, Time-Space instead of Judgment, and Universe instead of World.

The Minor Arcana have also seen some changes, for example the suit of Pentacles is changed to Worlds and Swords to Crystals.  Cups and Wands remain unaltered.  Court cards are Sage, Child, Woman and Man.

The deck itself is large and heavy, almost cumbersome to hold at times, especially for someone like me with very small hands.  The cards are printed on this laminated cardstock which makes them stick together and shuffling is difficult.  However, Jay has no problems, so it must break in well enough.  I just can't get my hands around them enough to break them in.

If they ever publish a miniature version of this deck, I will be on it so fast the dust won't have settled on it yet.  This is, like I said, an excellent deck to use for personal transformation work, but the photography work on it is just gorgeous.

Click here for pictures

or here to return

Please use your browser's back button to return from pictures

Review Copyright 1998 by Gina M. Pace