Tarology: The Poetics of Tarot

Review by Bonnie Cehovet www.bonniecehovet.com A documentary is something that, to my knowledge, is very new to the Tarot world. As the Tarot is considered best viewed as a story, this documentary becomes an oral history of present day Tarot. No, it does not delve into Tarot history. What it does is explore the [...]

Review: The Secret of the Tarot

How the Story of the Cathars Was Concealed in the Tarot of Marseilles Review by Bonnie Cehovetwww.bonniecehovet.com Author: Robert Swiryn Pau Hana Publishing 2010 ISBN 978-061530438-0 The history of the Tarot is quite an interesting one, and one that is often traced by the imagery in the cards. In The Secret of the Tarot, Swiryn [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 reflection of the views of those in that region: in France, basically only the playing cards, the Grimaud [...]

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 [...]

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 was replacing entries – and at times a whole page – with simple links to the ‘Visual Tarot’ programme [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]