Decks 1 - 10

1) Rider-Waite-Smith:

The first deck in my collection is the classic deck of the modern-day Tarot revival, the ubiquitous Rider-Waite-Smith deck. Often known as the Rider-Waite or the Waite-Smith deck, this has been used as the basis for many decks since its first publication back in 1909, so much so, that the Rider-Waite-Smith deck (or RWS, as it is know in Tarot shorthand) is the foundation for one of the two major Schools in modern Tarot thought, the other being propounded by The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and represented, in its most popular incarnation, by the Thoth Tarot of Aleister Crowley. In all fairness, the RWS is also developed out of the Golden Dawn's original theses on Tarot, but differs in both focus and symbology to the Thoth deck (more of which later.)

As the name implies, the RWS was developed through a partnership between Arthur Edward Waite and Pamela Coleman Smith, both members of the Golden Dawn. Waite provided Smith with narrative descriptions of the cards he wanted her to develop, and she, in the main, faithfully produced the images we see today. Waite drew the content of his instructions to Pamela from a number of esoteric sources, including the Golden Dawn's own documents on Tarot, and numerous older decks and arcane offerings around Tarot, and eventually he gathered these together into his book The Pictorial Key to the Tarot.

When I was first given my RWS deck and the basic rules for studying, learning and using it, I had no idea that there were other decks or schools of thought within Tarot, and happily assimilated and used my deck for a number of years. When I eventually discovered there were other decks and traditions, I understood that Tarot was going to be much more than just the RWS incarnation for me, and have spent the time since learning as much as possible about older versions, and welcoming new interpretations as they become available. The last 40 or so years has seen an incredible explosion in the number and variation of decks available - a by-product of the New Age phenomenon - yet many are still derived from the RWS foundation, so this deck is a must in any serious Tarot student's kitbag.

A first glimpse at some of the RWS cards shows the archetypal nature of the deck, leading off with The Fool (shown above) and The Magician (also shown above). As with most (but not all) Tarot decks, the RWS has two sections - The Major Arcana and The Minor Arcana. The Minor Arcana closely resembles the sequence of cards in an ordinary playing deck, with the addition of Pages alongside the usual Kings, Queens and Knights (Jacks), and the pip cards from Ace to 10.  In the case of the RWS, each of the pip cards also has an image to it, providing the opportunity to the reader to develop more detailed narratives and interpretations when doing a reading.

(It was with much disappointment that I later learned that the pip cards in some decks are not illustrated, but just have representations of the Suit, such as 10 Swords or 8 Cups. These less symbolic decks make readings much more difficult, and the traditions harder to maintain, and, from a personal point-of-view, much less entertaining than a fully-illustrated deck! However, I also learned subsequently that these undecorated pips cards are representative of the Tarot de Marseille (TdM) tradition, where the pip cards display the number of tokens that the card counts for, in much the same way as normal playing cards display 5 Spades or 10 Clubs, and so on. This will become more important when we get to discussing Marseille, Trionfi, Minchiate and other older decks! Any-hoo!)

The Major Arcana, often called the Trumps, sits, as the name suggests, above the Minor Arcana, and provides the map or framework along which the Journey from Ignorance to Mastery will take place. Because of its popularity, the RWS provides the de facto standard for the Major Arcana within its tradition, so familiarity with the deck will reap rewards later when you start to explore other decks and traditions.

Given its pedigree and proliferation, the RWS is probably the most accessible and documented deck available today, and is a more than excellent place to start your Tarot travels, for that's what they will be. While the deck comes with its own Little White Book (LWB), there are many much more informative books available that explain the deck in detail. One of the best of these is The Secrets of the Waite-Smith Tarot by Marcus Katz and Tali Goodwin, shown below. The book goes into great detail over the relationship between Pamela Coleman Smith and Arthur Edward Waite, and provides a prolific amount of background to the development of the deck, and the relationship between many of the characters in the cards and people (and pets/animals) in Pamela's own circle of friends (including Snuggles the cat!) 

More info:

Link to the Wikipedia page for the Rider-Waite Tarot

 Link to Aeclectic Tarot page for the Rider-Waite Tarot

Since the copyrights to the original deck have expired, there are numerous variations of the RWS deck available from almost any bookstore, and online through your favourite retailer, however, be aware that many of these editions are often of inferior quality to those published by U. S. Games or Rider themselves! 

April 2025 Update: So, following on from the "Clone" discussion, I just bought a deck of the Weiser Tarot - an undoubted clone of the RWS with enhanced colourisation - to use as a replacement for my original 1910 edition of the RWS, which is showing real signs of wear and tear, and which deserves its long rest. I did a lot of investigation before opting for the Weiser deck, and even bought some "official" RWS decks made by U.S. Games, but found their quality to be sub-par when compared to other versions available, and I was looking for something that would be as durable as my original deck. I've noticed that the trend over the last few years is that the major deck manufacturers - U.S. Games and Llewellyn - really don't put the effort or investment into producing products to the higher level of quality that many of the independent producers do. Thin card stock, cheap LWB's, weak and inferior boxes are all indicative of mass production driven by profit than for the love of both Tarot and art that radiates from many of the other decks I have collected. As I transition this blog into my New Tarot Logic website, I will have more to comment on these findings and where they are leading Tarot in the 21st century. 

2) Celtic Tarot (Davis/Paterson):

It was a long time before I even considered buying another deck of Tarot cards, during which I studied the Occult, Witchcraft, Shamanism, Druidism, as well as many of the World's "official" religions - Christianity, Buddhism, Tao, Islam, Mormon, Hindu, etc, etc, etc, - and their many variations, seeking the Truth behind the force that urges us to Believe!  The only thing that eventually impressed me about all of these "major" delusions was the breadth and variety of their fantasies! But my studies of numerous pagan and Wiccan theories brought me full circle to The Key - which is what the word 'Tarot' means - and I began to study the cards and their symbology in much more depth.

 A logical place to start my more serious investigations into Tarot seemed, to me, to be the elder mythologies of Europe - Greek, Roman, Norse, and, of course, the ancient race and religion of The British Isles, the Celts, and their pagan religion, Druidism. So I invested in the Celtic Tarot deck developed by Courtney Davis and Helena Paterson, under the erroneous assumption that there would only be one!

Almost immediately on opening out the deck I learned two important facts about modern Tarot (i.e. Tarot as developed from the late 19th century onward) that I hadn't previously been aware of:

1. A lot of modern tarot decks are based on the Rider-Waite deck, while another significant portion are based on the Aleister Crowley / Golden Dawn Thoth Tarot, while yet another large group are true individual decks, and
2. Disappointingly, the "Pip", or number cards, of the Lower Arcana suits are not always illustrated in the same way that those of the Rider-Waite deck are.

Having said that, this Celtic Tarot is beautifully illustrated in a style similar to that used in The Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne gospels, which Davis mixes with other Celtic styles such as La-Tène.  The Major Arcana are richly bedizened in Celtic and Arthurian heroes, heroines and warriors, fitted into the roles of the cards. Here we encounter Arthur (The Emperor) and Merlin (The Hermit), with Danu playing the role of Justice, Covetina starring as The Star, Cuchulain riding The Chariot, and so on. While the deck follows the Rider-Waite standard, it is difficult to use for some aspects of reading, such as reversed cards, as the Pip cards do not allow for that type of use, so not really a deck for Beginners, although experienced cartomancers will be able to draw insights from the scenes of the Major Arcana and Court cards.

Having decried the lack of illustration on the pip cards, the deck is still beautifully presented and detailed, and, for lovers of the Celtic and Ancient British pagan artwork, is a truly collectable collection of images. (How’s that for hyperbole!)

Read more about this deck at the Celtic Tarot page on the Aeclectic Tarot site, where a superb and detailed review by Steve Winick is also available.

3) Mythic Tarot:

In continuing my research into the symbology within Tarot cards and its relationship to the archetypes that populate our collective unconscious minds, I next turned to a deck that was tied closely to the classic mythology of the Greeks - aptly named the Mythic Tarot.

I was glad to see that this deck was one where all of the pips are also illustrated, depicting scenes from various Greek legends, such as Jason and the Argonauts finding the golden fleece, or Perseus confronting Medusa and the other gorgons. Perhaps these attachments to external stories make the deck more difficult to learn from for the unpracticed reader, or make it harder to see the relationship between the esoteric meaning of a particular card and the image depicted, but I find this deck is more interesting because it doesn't directly apply the image to the proscribed meaning. To me, this makes the deck more useful for the practiced reader, as it gives them greater room in which to develop their own understanding of the cards and their interpretations. Tarot is, after all, a matter of bringing your individual knowledge, intuition and experience to divine the relationship between the cards in the spread, and not what others might expect or want you to see and say.

Anyone who is familiar with Greek Mythology will easily identify each of the tales woven into the deck. Being a fan of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, I also was pleased to see how many of those tales found their way into this collection of artwork. The ability to tie these images back to something as familiar as the Gods of Ancient Greece helps to build that psychic relationship between the cards and the reader's emotional involvement, making for a better reading experience.

One of my favourite cards in this deck is The Star, from the Major Arcana, which shows the erstwhile Pandora, kneeling naked before the box of evils which she has just unleashed upon the World.  Above her shines the beautiful, radiant Star of Hope, which, if you remember the legend, was the only thing remaining in the box when everything else had fled. You may find, as you wander through this blog, that I hold great interest for The Star cards in any deck.  It is the great card of Hope, bringing a successful outcome to most readings. Other cards that tend to grab my attention are the Ten of Swords, with its abrupt and often gruesome connotations, The Devil or its representation, and, naturally, the great leveller, Death! The last two cards are, of course, some of those that, for many, tie Tarot back to the dark side of the Occult, with its black magic connotations - more of which I will touch on in other blog posts.

As far as Tarot Tradition, I feel this belongs in the RWS camp, although there is nothing specific that would indicate so other than the assigned card meanings themselves. Others have deemed the deck to be of “mixed” tradition, so, as always, the decision is in the eyes of the beholder.

Read more about this deck at the Mythic Tarot page on the Aeclectic Tarot site.

4) Royal Tarot:

So, I bought this deck, like most of my purchases, on a whim, just to see what the artwork was like. It was relatively cheap, and very colourful, maybe even garish, which is what really caught my eye.  One aspect of the cheapness of the deck was that it appeared to be a mass-produced deck, with an inferior card stock and package, and another aspect was the fact that the pip cards were not illustrated, which, as I've already mentioned, is always a bummer when investing in a Tarot deck, although I did discover much later that a lot of early Tarot decks, based on the Marseille Tarot tradition, do not have specific illustrations on the pip cards.

Still, the deck is relatively easy to use, and follows the Rider-Waite-Smith tradition.  The lack of illustrations on the pips allows the novice to get used to the Major Arcana and Court cards more quickly, and will also spur interest in acquiring more detailed decks once this one has been mastered - so pros and cons all around. Another interesting discovery was the re-use of images, such as the Queens shown below, where they are obviously the same image with slight modifications to distinguish the suit each Queen belongs to. While this is most likely done to speed up development of the deck, it speaks more to an interest in generating a quick income than in producing a worthwhile work of art. I encounter this in other decks that I will describe later.

One interesting fact about this deck is that, because it apparently is no longer available in standard print, it is now classed as a rare deck, which, for its actual production value, is rather odd.  I did see this deck on sale in a book store recently, so I suspect it has now been reissued.

Read more about this deck - apparently also known as the Mystic Tarot - at the Royal Tarot page on the Aeclectic Tarot site.

5) Renaissance Tarot

Returning from my expedition into the unknown, my next deck was once again derived from mythologies of the past, this time depicted in an art form reminiscent of wrought metals. Like the Mythic Tarot above, the Renaissance Tarot draws on Greek mythology and standard Tarot symbology, to produce a deck in the Rider-Waite tradition. The characters that populate the cards appear to be made of wrought gold or silver

 

I liked the unique style of this deck, and its uncluttered representation of each card makes it an easy deck to learn with. The symbology is clearly represented alongside the mythological root of the card, especially in the Major Arcana. Because of the simplicity of the art form used, the pip cards are not illustrated with significant scenery, but they at least have some depiction related to the theme of the suit, and are not just basic pip counts. This makes them more useful than undecorated pips for large spreads.

 

Read more about this deck at the Renaissance Tarot page on the Aeclectic Tarot site. This is the second Renaissance deck described on the Aeclectic site, and is also known as the Secret Tarot.

6) Tarot Nova

So, one day, a wee while ago, there I was, wandering around my local Chapters (used to be an awesome book store, until they "Indigo-ed" the crap out of it!) Anyhoo, there I was, minding my own business, standing in the queue for the registers, when I saw this little display of small box sets, one of which was this sweet, dinky Box of Tarot. So - of course - I just had to buy it.

 

Turned out, this little Tarot deck is actually called the Tarot Nova, and it is really quite a fun, yet serious deck. Sure, the cards are small, although there is an even smaller version than the one I have! The artwork is somewhat esoteric, as one would expect for a Tarot deck, but does follow the Rider-Waite tradition. It's simplistic imagery makes it an ideal and interesting deck for younger students, giving them a surreptitious introduction to the arcane aspects of Tarot in a more user-friendly form.  The backgrounds are all black, making the simple, almost childish imagery standout, and the cards are finished with a high gloss cover, that makes them easy to shuffle, even thought the cardstock is quite thick and rigid.

 

To be honest, it's the joy and wonder that a deck like this can instill in youngsters that makes it such a worthwhile addition to any collection. There's nothing more satisfying than knowing you've started an acolyte on their journey into a higher plane of interest, where nothing is a given and everything is open to self-interpretation. And this is exactly the type of tongue-in-cheek deck that will inspire them along their way!

Read more about this deck at the Tarot Nova page on the Aeclectic Tarot site.

7) Golden Tarot

So, not surprisingly, gold pays a significant role in Tarot symbology, and there are quite a few decks that, because of some usage or affinity to the precious metal, are deemed to be "Golden Tarot" decks floating out there in the Tarotsphere. This particular version by Liz Dean, is Golden by virtue of the colouring used for the framing of the cards, rather than for the use of gold leaf to decorate the cards, as in The Golden Tarot of Klimt and the Tarots of Nefertari (see below!)

The imagery in this deck is very medieval/Renaissance based, getting close to the kind of imagery seen in illustrated manuscripts, and showing scenes of knights and maidens, surfs and royalty, in activities of the time, with a touch of the art deco in the framing. Overall, the artwork is simple but effective, not overly ornate or distracting.

While this deck is another that is based on the Rider-Waite-Smith deck (see #1), it draws heavily on the Visconti-Sforza imagery, again, apropos of the Renaissance setting. Sadly, it is yet another deck that has undecorated pip cards. Again, while this makes it easier to learn Tarot with, and is picturesque enough to be a good springboard into decks with deeper symbology and artwork, it lacks that overall completeness that fully illustrated decks bring.

 

Read more about this deck at the Golden Tarot page on the Aeclectic Tarot site.

8) Egyptian Grand Trumps

While the true origins of Tarot are lost in the mysterious depths of antiquity, some experts in the history and research of these occult tools believe that there are correlations to Tarot design and usage in artifacts found in ancient Egypt, and specifically in 22 decorated panels carved into the stone walls of the grand gallery of the Great Pyramid that can be equated to the 22 cards of the Major Arcana.  While, undoubtedly, with it’s plethora of gods and demons, it is highly likely that many forms of divinatory tools were used in Ancient Egypt and in other middle-eastern nations at that time, and that these could easily have been adapted over the millennia to provide the foundation of what we now call Tarot, there is still no real proof that Tarot itself existed at that time.

 

A short time after I had bought the Golden Tarot discussed above, I saw this Egyptian Grand Trumps deck in a book store, and felt an empathy with the illustrations that prompted me to buy the deck - even though the Grand Trumps designation meant that the deck was only the 22 cards of the Major Arcana, and not a full deck.  Naturally, I had read much of Egyptian archeology and mythology, and found the deck fitted in well with what I had learnt over the years. (As a side note, one of my most-favourite novels is Ancient Evenings by Normal Mailer, which is based in Ancient Egypt and well worth a read!)

 

The 22 cards are beautifully illustrated in the Egyptian Mythological tradition by Silvana Alasia, and the deck is actually a large-scale version of the Major Arcana from her full 78 card Egyptian Tarot deck. I was resisting (and eventually failed miserably!) the very strong urge to buy a copy of Silvana's Golden Tarots of Nefertari, which is a richly decorated Egyptian deck with beautiful gold foil accents. One of the cards illustrated here is, naturally, The Star, which is depicted in the usual naked female format, pouring water onto both land and sea.

 

Read more about this deck at the Egyptian Grand Trumps page on the Aeclectic Tarot site.

9) Fenestra Tarot

 The best experience when discovering a new Tarot deck is that accidental find that just sort of speaks to you as you pass it by in a book store or arts and crafts shop. That is how I can across the Fenestra Tarot, its imagery seeming to draw me in from the first moment I clapped eyes on the deck. The next thing I look for, after that initial attraction, is what I call the Power Cards. These are the cards in a deck that really speak to you as you work through the imagery - the cards that you, as the reader, identify most closely with.

I always approach a new deck with some a tremble and some trepidation - maybe that's the Romany in me, feeling its way across the generations, reminding me that Tarot is not the mere toy that many believe it to be - a quaint way of telling tales about the Past, Present and Future. Tarot is, indeed, never a toy to be fooled with, but but a tool for the guiding of life!

The designer of this deck, Chatriya Hemharnvibul, has developed a rich tapestry of an art deco touched with manga style, giving her characters attractive large doe-eyes and wistfully appealing physiques, many of them androgynous, married to the deeper symbology of the RWS tradition. Fenestra is latin for windows, and this deck is designed as a series of windows filled with Chatriya's enchanting images. Her use of sheer fabrics to bring a slight touch of decency, maybe, is warming, or even stimulating, too. But for me, among the many powerful images in this deck, the most powerful is that of the Ten of Swords. 

Every time I look at that image, it totally engrosses me. Unlike the usual 10 of Swords, where a man is typically shown, Chatriya portrays a beautiful woman, almost naked, prone and pierced with the ten swords that give the card its name. But it is more than just an image. It has beauty and passion on a number of levels - in the artwork itself, in the female representation, in the care taken in developing the image, in the beauty showing the love the artist has, and the viewer sees, for the victim. The woman seems to be floating, suspended by the Swords piercing her, showing both Power and the Passion - Power in the sense of absolute ownership of that woman - ownership enough to give the owner the right to do to her what they have done. Passion in both the will to perform those actions, and the need to do them. What could possible have driven the perpetrator of those act to even want to do that? What has the victim done to deserve such atrocities enacted upon her? And why are the swords driven into the locations they are? Some are definitely sexually driven, while others are positioned to cause pain and suffering - but none to distract from the lissome beauty of the victim. It speaks to so many powerful emotions - Love turned to Hate, Passion turned to Anger, Vengeance, and, yes, even Desire! This is a masterful piece of art in its own right, let alone as part of a deck of Tarot cards.

Check out the Fenestra Tarot page on the Aeclectic Tarot site to learn more about this beautiful deck.

10) Necronomicon Tarot

Like most of us (I assume), I first came across The Necronomicon as a child when reading the enthralling horror stories of H. P. Lovecraft, especially those now included in what is called The Cthulhu Mythos. Those stories, and the book itself, are used as the background for The Evil Dead series of movies, and numerous other ventures into the realm of Horror. I had a copy of The Necronomicon itself - the Simon version from 1980 - that, while interesting, was somewhat incomplete, yet still interesting. And the question always remains - did Lovecraft actually invent The Necronomicon, or did he "discover" it in some arcane, unknown collection from the very distant past? Hopefully, we will never know!

Nevertheless, my experience with the story remained relatively passive until, one day, trolling my local Chapters (a Canadian bookstore chain,) I came across The Necronomicon Tarot by Donald Tyson and Anne Stokes, and bought it on the spot. What better way, I reasoned, could there be to bring together the mysterious occult world of Tarot - let's face it, half the reason why people want to have Tarot readings is because they want to experience that little fear of the Unknown, the Mysterious, the ominous dark magic that sends shivers down the spine - and the tales of evil gods and monsters from Lovecraft's spine-tingling mythos?

And, within the deck, I became re-acquainted with those characters and places of my youth - Yog-Sothoth, The Hounds of Leng, Shub-Niggurath, Nyarlathotep, Cthulhu himself - and even a few gods from other pantheons, such as Bast and Ishtar. What a scintillating collection of demons and terrors indeed with which to populate the Major and Minor Arcana of Tarot!

Upon further investigation into Tyson, I found out that he had "completed" The Necronomicon of the mad arab Abdul Alhazred, as well as written a biography of the writer in the form of an occult fantasy novel, detailing his mad meanderings through the Arabian deserts and the monsters, demons, Old Gods and learning he encountered there.

Wandering through the deck - truly so, as each card is a rediscovery of tales and terrors from my teenage years - I encountered beautiful and horrific imagery, tied back to Tarot symbology, linking it with the Mythos and the powers of the Old Ones. Entertaining food for thought indeed. Each of the four suits of the Minor Arcana tells a tale of the consequences of humans encountering and mingling with demons and powers beyond their comprehension or ability to control, as frightening now as it was back then, but nevertheless thrilling and enthralling. A journey well worth travelling on.

As always, some cards stand out more than others to me. The Hermit is as frightening now as my childhood tremblings were then, and Bast is as enticing as she was meant to be millenia ago to the ancient Egyptians. But the card that stands out the most to me is the Ace of Swords - a screaming face with glowing, fiery eyes that pierce through everything else in your soul! A truly awesome card.

I will be writing a blog post on Donald Tyson and his work in the near future, so stay tuned. In the meantime, I finish this page with my favourite verse from Lovecraft's Fungi from Yog-Sothoth:

XVI. The Window 

The house was old, with tangled wings outthrown,

Of which no one could ever half keep track, 

And in a small room somewhat near the back 

Was an odd window sealed with ancient stone. 

There, in a dream-plagued childhood, quite alone 

I used to go, where night reigned vague and black; 

Parting the cobwebs with a curious lack 

Of fear, and with a wonder each time grown. 

One later day I brought the masons there 

To find what view my dim forbears had shunned, 

But as they pierced the stone, a rush of air 

Burst from the alien voids that yawned beyond. 

They fled—but I peered through and found unrolled 

All the wild worlds of which my dreams had told.

Read more about the Necronomicon Tarot on the Aeclectic Tarot site.

So - we have come to the end of the first page of my Tarot collection, and I invite you to wander (and maybe wonder) on through to Page 2...