Artist speaks on the Thoth deck Friday, July 17 in Brooklyn

July 14, 2009 in Tarot News & Events, Thoth Tarot Deck | by | 1 comment

Phantasmaphile Presents: Layered Orders: Crowley’s Thoth Deck and the Tarot, a personal narrative by artist Jesse Bransford, at Observatory, 543 Union St., Brooklyn.

“In an image-soaked personal narration Bransford, whose research-based artwork has delved into many of the territories Crowley sought to unify, will discuss some of the basic concepts of Tarot symbolism, returning to Crowley’s deck as among the most total example of the cards’ syncretism and as the most controversial.”

Bransford is a Master Teacher and Undergraduate Director at New York University where he has been teaching since 2001, as well as a member of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism. See some of his Tarot and Qabbala-based art here.

Thanks to John Coulthart and his blog, { feuilleton }, where you’ll find an interesting article on the art of Pamela Colman Smith.

If anyone from here goes, please post us a report in the Comments section.

♥

Tarot Passages – Resurrected

July 9, 2009 in Tarot News & Events | by | 7 comments

I know that tarot web oldtimers will be thrilled to hear that Diane Wilkes’ website, Tarot Passages, has been resurrected by Diane, with new deck and book reviews, links and a monthly spread. Those who haven’t been there before—do yourself a treat and check out all the great resources.

The site was originally started in the mid-1990s by Michele Jackson as Michele’s Tarot Page and then expanded when Diane Wilkes took over and it became Tarot Passages. For many years it was “the source” for what was happening in tarot—on the web, in publishing and through conferences. Diane also created the concept for The Jane Austen Tarot (Lo Scarabeo) and wrote the book – a real tour-de-force of Austen research, involving all the favorite books and characters.

Welcome back, Diane! We’ve missed you.

♥

Paul Huson’s Tarot World

July 4, 2009 in Book/Story/Poetry Reports, Interviews & Conversations, Tarot Deck Reports | by | 7 comments

I highly recommend this interview by Arlene deWinter with Paul Huson.

Long ago (1971) Paul wrote a book on tarot called The Devil’s Picturebook: The Compleat Guide to Tarot Cards: Their Origins and their Usage. It was one of my earliest tarot books and gave me a better sense of the true tarot history then most other books of the time. Along with his Mastering Witchcraft, I got a rich sense of classical and pagan witchy lore out of a more sophisticated European sensibility than was usually found in the U.S. Read the rest of this entry »

Secrets of the Playing Card

June 29, 2009 in Playing Card Divination, Tarot History & Research, Video & Audio Tarot | by | 6 comments

The History Channel TV program Decoding the Past produced a 45 minute episode on the “Secrets of the Playing Card” (2006) featuring several well-known tarot historians like David Parlett,  Thierry DePaulis (A Wicked Pack of Cards) and Jean Huets (who was co-author with Stuart Kaplan on The Encyclopedia of Tarot). The  mystical, magical and divinatory aspects of cards begins around 18:00, the tarot around 24:45, and fortune telling at 32:15. There are lots of images of rare cards. Unfortunately, they keep showing modern replacements for missing Visconti cards to illustrate 15th century concepts. The Egyptian, Masonic and Templar role is played up, though they eventually admit that “these theories are generally dismissed by historians.” The images for the fortune-telling section feature the New Orleans Voodoo Tarot (shown over and over again) reinforcing the idea of tarot as a dark, scary medium that belies the far more sensible verbal commentary. They subtly misrepresented modern tarot readers in this part. All-in-all, this video is well worth viewing.

♥

Roseanne Cash – The Wheel

June 10, 2009 in Tarot Music Videos, Video & Audio Tarot | by | 29 comments

Probably my favorite tarot music video. How many  cards can you find in “The Wheel” by Roseanne Cash? List them in the comments.

♥

PCS Commemorative Set Arrived!

April 8, 2009 in Pamela Colman Smith, RWS Tarot, Tarot Deck Reports | by | 23 comments

pcs-set001I’m so excited. My Pamela Colman Smith Commemorative Tarot Set has arrived from U.S. Games. The book of Pixie’s art is delightful—full of colorful images and showing a full range of her work, including a couple of pieces from late in her life. Waite’s Pictorial Key to the Tarot (included) is the same-old book in a new cover but with no pictures (huh?). The postcards are great to have—a very nice bonus. Read the rest of this entry »

Tarot Deck Promotional Videos

April 5, 2009 in Tarot Deck Reports, Video & Audio Tarot | by | 16 comments

More and more tarot deck creators are creating “trailers” promoting their tarot decks and posting them to YouTube. Here’s a couple. Let me know about ones you like and I’ll post more. Read the rest of this entry »

Marlene Dietrich as Tarot Reader

March 28, 2009 in Video & Audio Tarot | by | 4 comments

Tanya (Marlene Dietrich), a cigar-smoking brothel-keeper, refuses to read the cards for Detective Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles) in the film noir masterpiece, Touch of Evil (1958; re-edited/restored 1998). The music is “Tanya’s Theme” by Henry Mancini. It looks to me like a Swiss 1JJ deck.

Check out other tarot media appearances here.

♥

Rossetti’s “The Card-Dealer”

March 25, 2009 in Book/Story/Poetry Reports, Playing Card Divination, Story in a Picture, Tarot History & Research | by | 18 comments

Pre-Raphaelite artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s first published poem, “The Card-Dealer,” was based on a painting by Theodore von Holst (1810-1844) called “The Wish” or “The Fortune-Teller” (1840). The poem, which epitomized Rossetti’s fascination with the theme of the femme fatale, was inspired by the painting that he described as being of “a beautiful woman, richly dressed, who is sitting at a lamp-lit table, dealing out cards, with a peculiar fixedness of expression.” In his poem, the woman (Death?, La Morte, in Rossetti’s Italian) plays with men as she plays with the cards, which, we are told, represent the heart that craves the more it feeds, the diamond that makes even the base seem brave, the club that smites, and the spade that digs a grave.

holst-wish
Read the rest of this entry »

Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas

March 25, 2009 in Book/Story/Poetry Reports | by | Leave a comment

frogpajamasHalf Asleep in Frog Pajamas by Tom Robbins (1994) is about the transformative quest of materialist commodities broker, Gwen Mati, in the days immediately following a stock market crash. It is literally a Fool’s Journey—told in the second person present tense as if it were a tarot spread explained by a reader. Indeed, one of the characters in the book is Gwen’s tarot reader.

In this excerpt the Fool appears in Robbins’ inimitable style: Read the rest of this entry »

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Mary K. Greer has made tarot her life work. Check here for reports of goings-on in the world of tarot and cartomancy, articles on the history and practice of tarot, and materials on other cartomancy decks. Sorry, I no longer write reviews. Contact me HERE.

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