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 [...]

Review: Encyclopedia of Tarot vols I-IV

Jean-Michel David
www.fourhares.com
When I first obtained volume 1 in 1985, it had already been in print since 1978, the internet did not yet exist, and the variety of tarot decks available in any location was a [...]

Magic Manga Tarot

Dan Pelletier
I had a problem with reviewing the Magic Manga Tarot.
It kept reviving the ‘What is Tarot’ topic, a topic commonly bandied about on the electronic forums.
Then there was an evening here a while back when I sat with Robert Place discussing, “What is Tarot”. With his knowledge of symbolism, it was a great in [...]

Visual Tarot Program – Caveat emptor

Spam or Scam – or a review of ‘visual tarot’ activities
by Jean-Michel David
www.fourhares.com
Some time back, I was alerted by other Tarotpedia users that a new contributor to our wiki-based Online Encyclopedia of Tarot [...]

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 [...]

Twenty Years of Tarot:
The Lo Scarabeo Story.

Pietro Alligo et al, 2007 - review by EC

Publishers Lo Scarabeo arouse a variety of feelings among tarot aficionados. Their decks are immensely popular, but have their detractors; some feel they are too “commercial”; some feel their decks “stray too far” from “true tarot” – whatever that is; some feel their decks are too much alike [...]

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 [...]