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 [...]

Kabbalistic Tarot
Hebraic Wisdom in the Major and Minor Arcana

by Dovid Krafchow …being an introduction to the ancient kabbalistic origins and meanings of the tarot __________ Newsletter foreword by Jean-Michel David When I first came across Dovid Krafchow’s book, its description intringued me, not so much because here was another title that was going to present some kind of relation between Tarot and Kabbalah, [...]

Beginner’s Eyes: Looking at the Jacques Vieville

by Debra Rosenthal© 2007 Sometimes the best way to see an image is to just look. Beginner’s mind means trying to stay completely open to the reality before you, and coincidentally not bothering with a lot of tiresome research. A beginner in the eternal "now" can blithely ignore history in order to truly appreciate appearance. [...]

As Time Goes By…
or my adventures with the Tarot Lovers’ Calendar

by Major Tom Schick My experience with the calendar has as much to do with my experience with Aeclectic as to be inextricably linked. I joined Aeclectic in Spring 2001, keen to talk about the photo-collage deck I was creating, that is, Major Tom’s Tarot. So named because it was all about me but that [...]

Of Mice, Monkeys and Men
writing the Fantastic Menagerie book

by Sophie Nusslé Once upon a time, in the early spring of 2005, I was exchanging private messages on Aeclectic Tarot with Karen Mahony of Magic-realist Press in Prague. We were discussing their latest deck project. I had long been a fan of the Tarot of Prague, and like a good fan, had written gushing [...]

Orphalese Tarot – PC Software Review

by Linda Atkinson (purple_scorp on aeclectic) I first discovered Orphalese about 18 months ago, when I was researching the different types of Tarot Card Software for comparison and review for a magazine article. Orphalese compared reasonably well, though it lacked some features that were available in a competitor’s software (albeit for a much higher registration [...]

Robert O’Neill’s Tarot Symbolism

Book review by Michael J. Hurst This bookreview is abridged from its first appearance on Michael’s Carte da Trionfi site Tarot Symbolism By Robert V. O’Neill, Ph.D. Robert V. O’Neill wrote what is probably the most interesting of all the historically oriented Tarot books. It is 392 pages and expresses the author’s view that early [...]

Review of Kat Black’s Golden Tarot
…a journey in the birthing of a Tarot deck

by Jean-Michel David I must admit that I wasn’t sure what to expect. One can see images on Kat Black’s site, or indeed on various other sites which have used one or more of her designs… but the difference which always arises between the light pixelled electronic version and the printed version can be so [...]

The Tarot of Prague, 1st Edition

by Karen Mahony and Alex Ukolov review by Nellie Levine The Tarot of Prague – The Hanged Man A good number have asked me what my favorite tarot deck is. To this, I have never had an answer, because there are probably at least a half dozen decks that I could think of, none of [...]

Two Tarot de Marseille Deck Reviews

by Jean-Michel David These reviews first appeared on Aeclectic.net – reproduced here with minor modifications. Camoin-Jodorowsky Tarot de Marseille The World, Camoin-Jodorowski Marseilles There are numerous Tarot decks in print that use the appellation Tarot de Marseille. Many, of course, are not published nor printed in Marseille, but follow the designs commonly associated with this [...]