{"id":29423,"date":"2023-09-20T03:00:37","date_gmt":"2023-09-20T09:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/?p=29423"},"modified":"2023-09-19T19:58:53","modified_gmt":"2023-09-20T01:58:53","slug":"5-non-traditional-tarot-decks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2023\/09\/5-non-traditional-tarot-decks.html","title":{"rendered":"5 Non-Traditional Tarot Decks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
One of the first things I bought when I started my magical journey was a deck of Tarot cards. The friend who introduced me to Wicca recommended the Robin Wood Tarot \u2013 it was a good recommendation. Robin Wood follows the structure and themes of the more popular Waite-Smith deck very closely, but it replaces all the Christian and Jewish imagery with modern Pagan images and concepts. It worked very well for me.<\/p>\n
It worked so well that Robin Wood was my only deck for 13 years. Then I signed up for Dolores Nabors<\/a>\u2019 Tarot class, and Dolores taught from Waite-Smith. So I bought that deck and got familiar with it. Again, that was enough \u2013 I had only those two decks for another 11 years.<\/p>\n
In 2017 Kristoffer Hughes created the Celtic Tarot<\/a>. It looked like an excellent deck, so I bought it, and found that it spoke to me very clearly. It\u2019s been my most frequently used deck ever since, including in my annual New Year\u2019s divinations<\/a>. After that I had three decks \u2013 why would I need another?<\/p>\n
Because Tarot decks can be addictive, that\u2019s why.<\/p>\n
Shortly after getting Celtic Tarot, a friend was selling some old decks. I bought Aleister Crowley\u2019s Thoth deck from her because I love the artwork. I struggle to read with Thoth, but there are times when it\u2019s the right deck for the right question. And I do love the Art Deco imagery.<\/p>\n
After that, the floodgates opened. The only deck I bought specifically for divination was Sola Busca<\/a>, the oldest deck for which we have the full set of 78 cards. It\u2019s very hard to read with, although for some questions, it\u2019s the most appropriate deck. Other than that, I bought decks because I liked the artwork, or in one case, because I wanted a connection to a story I found intriguing.<\/p>\n
Occasionally I see debates about which deck is the \u201cmost authentic\u201d or even \u201cthe best.\u201d Those are silly debates. Older and more popular decks \u2013 such as Waite-Smith or Tarot de Marseille \u2013 have residual energies built up in them and can be quite powerful. So can newer decks like Robin Wood or Celtic Tarot. But at the end of the day, the best deck is the one you can get good, reliable answers with. Beyond that, reading with a new and different deck can force you to focus on the images on the cards, rather than trying to recall what the \u201cproper\u201d meaning of that card is supposed to be.<\/p>\n
And sometimes, new and different decks are just fun. We can use more fun.<\/p>\n
Here are five relatively new Tarot decks I find interesting.<\/p>\n
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