Tarot de la Rea

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 01 Dec 2001, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Talisman	01 Dec 2001
Wow! Tarot de la Rea: Tarot Initiatique et Divinatoire dessine, by Alain Bocher. I have no desire to own this deck. I could never read with it. But I sure would like to have it in hand for 'bout an hour just so I could look through it card by card. I think it would be a most enjoyable hour. Does anyone have this deck? Talisman

faunabay	01 Dec 2001
I don't have this deck but just went and looked at some samples. I have to second your "WOW". This is one bizarre deck!! Very trippy. :P

Jeannette	02 Dec 2001
Talisman: A little feedback from a "de la Rea" fan, if I may: when I first had the opportunity to add a copy of this deck to my personal collection a couple of years ago, I thought twice about it. It seemed nice enough from the pictures in Kaplan and the few I'd seen on the 'Net, but I wasn't sure I liked it enough to invest the money in purchasing a copy of this OOP & HTF deck from 1982. For some reason, though, I was suddenly seized by the urge to just buy it. Period. I'm not sure why, but I just felt like it was the right thing to do. I received the deck a couple weeks later, along with another deck I had wanted for quite a while. As it turned, out, I was shocked by my reaction to both decks. The selection I'd lusted after for so long actually ended up to be rather a disappointment. But the de la Rea... as you say, "Wow!" I was surprised at how quickly I connected with it. Its simple yet colorful imagery was haunting and imaginative, managing to say a lot with a little. Obviously, this is *not* a reader's deck -- I rather doubt the artist intended it to be used in that fashion. According to Kaplan's listing of the de la Rea in volume III of his Encyclopedias, "...The features of the Major Arcana figures are covered with masks. A booklet accompanying the deck explains, 'All that is important must be masked so that the curious will discover it.' The title of the deck refers to a pulley, in reference to the metaphor of truth being like the water in a well, which must be pulled up from the depths of the self. The tarot can provide the 'pulley' by whch the seeker can attain universal knowledge. The presentation card has a quote from Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' (translated into French). The original quote reads: 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,/Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'" From Kaplan's comments, I would infer that the deck was perhaps intended more as a meditation or pathworking tool. If you're interested in seeing a few different scans from this deck than those presented here on Aeclectic, you can view the ones we have posted with the sale copy of the de la Rea in the Tarot Garden boutique, here: http://www.tarotgarden.com/boutique/b5starsalon6.html Hope this information helps to enrich your understanding of this wonderful deck! -- Jeannette The Tarot Garden http://www.tarotgarden.com

The Tarot de la Rea thread was originally posted on 01 Dec 2001 in the Tarot Decks board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Tarot Decks, or read more archived threads.