Association for Tarot Studies

1701 Dodal restored!

Jean-Michel David
www.fourhares.com
I like to imagine what it will be like in 300 years hence: perhaps one of Flornoy’s decks survives, having been found in one of Melbourne’s museums, and perhaps a mastercraftsman has picked it up, obtained high resolution images thereof, and seeks to remake it afresh for all to enjoy. Some of the colours [...]

A Century with the Waite-Smith Tarot (and all the others…)

K. Frank Jensen
When the French author, priest and Freemason Antoine Court de Gebelin (1719-84) in 1781 advanced the allegation, that the tarot deck constituted the Egyptian god Thoth’s ‘Secret Book’, he cast a seed to something, which during the next couple of centuries should grow to immense heights. Tarot was an ordinary card game in [...]

Christ, the World and Sin

Jean-Michel David
www.fourhares.com
Unless living in continental Europe and knowing what to look for and where, it is only since the nineteen-eighties that images from older decks became easily accessible with Kaplan’s first volume of his now four volume (and I hear soon-ish to be five) Encyclopedia of Tarot. Even with the first two volumes available by [...]

Review: Jean Payen Tarot 1743 / 2008

Jean-Michel David www.fourhares.com
There are a small number of decks which many amongst us have longed to see re-printed or make it to publication. The Jean Payen Tarot is one of those, and that for a variety of reasons, not least of which it forms an important link in the lineage of tarot during one of [...]

Jordan Hoggard – The Mystereum Tarot

review by Bonnie Cehovet www.tarot.thecrystalgate.com
“Form Follows Priority”
Jordan Hoggard is an architect (principal for J. Jordan Hoggard Design in Denver, CO), artist, and creator of “The Mystereum Tarot”. Definitely a Renaissance man! I had the privilege to meet Jordan while taking a teleclass given by Tarot author/artist Robert M. Place. I was very excited to hear [...]

A History of Egyptian Tarot Decks

Mark Filipas
In 1781, the French author Court de Gébelin referred to the Tarot as a book preserving the pure wisdom of ancient Egypt. This is the first written suggestion that occult wisdom had been encoded in the cards – in spite of the fact that they had already been in use for over 300 years.
It [...]

Whither Directing Your Course?

Jean-Michel David
If the ‘Whence come you?’ can be said to often be asked of tarot, its complementary question seems often overlooked.
Painting upon a broad canvas the development of tarot, we find its genesis in the region that is now Northern Italy, amidst influences from neo-platonism and neo-aristotelean thought. During the 19th century, its adaptation [...]

A House of Tarot Cards

Craig Conley
"Life is only comprehensible through a thousand local gods. And not just the old dead ones with names like Zeus—no, but living Geniuses of Place and Person! And not just Greece but modern England! Spirits of certain trees, certain curves of brick wall, certain fish and chip shops, if you like, and slate roofs—just [...]

Journeys in Tarot Creation

by Lee Bursten
My friend Jean-Michel David has asked me to set down some thoughts on my experiences as a tarot deck creator and author. During a three-year period, from 2003 through 2006, I authored the Zodiac Tarot (art by Luca Raimondo), the Gay Tarot (art by Antonella Platano), The Tarot of Dreams Guidebook, and The [...]

The Jean Noblet Tarot,
restored by Jean-Claude Flornoy

by Robert Mealing
Over 350 years ago, in the fashionable Faubourg Saint-Germain section of Paris, France, a cardmaker named Jean Noblet produced what was probably considered a fairly ordinary deck of tarot cards. Tarot historian Michael Dummett suggests that “A million is probably a highly conservative estimate for the number of Tarot packs produced in France [...]