Deck published in 1968 which is very similar to a more recent deck..

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 23 Sep 2002, and now archived in the Forum Library.

MystiqueMoonlight	23 Sep 2002
Take a look at this deck. http://www.spiritone.com/~filipas/Masquerade/Reviews/wordone.html According to Mark Filipas this deck called "The Word Of One" was previously published in 1968. It has amazing similarities to a very recent "new" deck. If you read the review of this deck the artist seems to have been inspired in the same way as the artist of the very recent deck claims to have received inspiration. There was never any mention of this earlier version when we discussed the newer version with it's "creator". I'd be very interested to hear your comments.....

jema	23 Sep 2002
both the reviews at tarotpassages mentiones thid deck too. one: http://www.tarotpassages.com/one-fj.htm gives the "i am one" tarot a really bad review - but i have to say i do prefer the new one before the older one. the images are much more suggestive and it is one of my fav reading decks. however, the creator of the "i am one tarot" maya britan is nice and all but i really wouldn't read too much into her info on egypt and moses and all that. i don't know why she chose not to mention her "inspiration" in the LWB or in the chat. not very fair of her to copy this older deck so closely and then not even mention it. but, as i said, the deck in itself is a very stunning deck and usefull. it is a shame though... i must say i was surprised when i learnt of this older deck. i think she could just have mentioned her source and we would all still like the deck. this felt a bit like she cheated.

MystiqueMoonlight	23 Sep 2002
Thanks for that Jema, This is an abstract from my earlier interview with Maya Britan which was posted on this forum some months ago. Question: What or who influenced you to create the I Am One Tarot deck? Answer: The 22 numbers of Hebrew alphabet have been of great interest since I was 19 years of age but, I did not know where to put this knowledge until - an out of print book named "The Word of One" by Rosalind Sharpe & John Cook - came into my life. These people of the Sixties channeled the instruction material for tarot, but couldn’t find the one artist who could actually paint the cards... Rosalind put the work of One in my hands just before she passed away 2 weeks after...you may like to read the whole story of One at: http://iamonetarot.com/review.html Question: The I Am One Tarot is intuitive, provocative, modern, ancient, artistic, surreal. When creating this deck what was your goal and do you feel you have achieved that? Answer: Yes...my goal was to create something that is not found outside of self (as most things of the world we know - are), but is a reflection of all - from within One self...I wanted to find the door that will open a way beyond the prison walls. Have I managed to achieve my goal?...I don’t know...as only time reveals... You may note in this interview Maya mentions Sharpe and Cook, but then states they could not find anyone to actually paint the cards. It may be worth noting that the original 79 card set was published in 1968 and then reprinted in 1992 by Cooke's sister. Read into that what you will. I'm not sure how to bump up the actual full interview here. maybe someone can help me out in this regard.

Liliana	23 Sep 2002
On the website she mentions the connection to the other deck extensively, and in fact was in contact with one of the original channelers, read here http://www.iamonetarot.com/review.htm And I like both decks equal when looking at the majors, but the minors the new one shines out. I agree with another review on tarotpassages iof the old deck, pears look like poopie, literally hehe :THP

jema	23 Sep 2002
i think i might have misread - but i find not a singel reference to the deck on that site. just to the book. and i still think it would have been decent of her to mention the creator of this older deck (or the book) in the LWB or somewhere on the box of the cards. well, at least i, personally, would have liked that.

Lee	23 Sep 2002
Quote: Originally posted by MystiqueMoonlight I'm not sure how to bump up the actual full interview here. maybe someone can help me out in this regard. Preferable to bumping it up is simply to provide a link to the thread like this: http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4015 -- Lee :)

MystiqueMoonlight	23 Sep 2002
Quote: Originally posted by Liliana On the website she mentions the connection to the other deck extensively, and in fact was in contact with one of the original channelers, read here http://www.iamonetarot.com/review.htm :THP Liliana, I'm sorry but I just feel a little cheated here and I shouldn't really be taking this so personally I suppose. On her site (the link you mention above) it says "....Britan realized that she was being mysteriously hunted by an unfinished tarot project from the Sixties. She was getting information from several different sources......She finally made contact with Rosalind Sharpe, one of the last surviving members of the unfinished tarot project from the Sixties...." There is no suggestion here there was ever an original deck of cards published in 1968. There is no mention of Cooke either. I wouldn't have minded if Maya Britan had said it was a re-imagining of the original deck, but that deck has never been mentioned. During our chat session no suggestion or referral was made towards the original deck. IMHO and to me personally it makes the whole incredible story of how Britan conceived her deck quite unbelievable. The reason I am saddened by all this is because I came to know her (well I thought I did) during the interview and chat process quite well. Obviously I hadn't. :( I take my study of the Tarot as a life long, spiritually enhancing journey (as I am sure most of you do) and this type of deception is parallel to that of the carnival fortune teller who makes our knowledge nothing more than a sideshow, money spinner. Sorry guys if I have offended anyone here that is not my intention. I still wish Maya Britan well, but now I have a deck I no longer wish to hold onto.

catlin	24 Sep 2002
Hi Mystique, I can fully understand that you feel very disappointed. Think of what had happened to Kat Black's tarot deck (aka retrokat here) who found out that there was a pirated copy sold without giving reference to her deck. Violation of copy right seems a very common thing. Some ppl also love to pass things for their own which they have just adapted to make themselves look more brilliant. I think this demonstrates only how spiritually "poor" they are. ((((((((((((((Mystique))))))))

Liliana	24 Sep 2002
Aaaaah I now understand what you mean and i agree, this is NOT an unfinished tarot project, it is a reworked project and she really should correct that. :THP

Ravenswing	24 Sep 2002
hey guys-- i found the book of t and the word of one-- complete transcripts of the ouija session: http://members.aol.com/maat0000el/index.htm lots of material off to a corner to read raven

purplelady	06 Oct 2002
I don't own the "I Am One" deck , but it's on my wish list. It looks beautiful and intriguing , and unique..............well , it Did seem unique until recently! I just happened to be reading one of the reviews yesterday when I learned there was an older similar deck. And I must admit this was a surprise and does feel a bit deceptive on the part of the creator to not mention this first deck. However, I feel like defending the creator for some reason also. She says the deck came from inspiration from a book of channeled material. It is possible that she worked with the book as inspiration without paying much attention to the older deck. Some people also claim to channel the same entity or entities and write their own books accordingly. Whether I believe that St. Michael or "Seth" or Jesus channeled through more than one person is beside the point. So..............is the deck a "copy" or not?? There have been various threads on this forum about opinions of copyright and infringement, many of them in the "deck creation" section. People have different opinions on it. I tend to side with the "it's o.k. to use or incorporate other people's art in your own" side (please don't throw tomatoes yet). I've taken a lot of stuff off the internet. Craft patterns , clip art. I use it just to look at for my own enjoyment and haven't Sold anything but..................let's put it this way- all these online images are available to anyone online. There are many artists who use these images for all kinds of art projects and things. Then there is the problum of the art or pattern being taken from the internet and Mass produced in china or japan. That's pretty blatant copyright infringement. But then there's so many shades of in-between. What if I take a clip art image off the internet and incoporate it into a tarot card I create? I think that in some cases people and artists go too far and expend too much energy worrying someone might steal an image they created. I think it's unfair when someone puts up a site of great craft patterns and Also a bunch of threats to sue someone if they dare use any of the images. Oh well, I don't think knowledge that there was an older deck will detract from my liking the "I Am One" . I judge the deck purely on it's own merits. Not what I may think of the author or creator personally , or their personal life or anything. After all, the Thoth deck stands on it's own, no matter what I may think of Aleister Crowley or his infamous personal life.

truthsayer	07 Oct 2002
i don't know much about copyright law but if the creators of the first deck are deceased, maya britan may be within her right to use that deck w/o reference to the previous one. i know how it is losing faith in a deck b/c of it's creation. i still can't use the osho zen b/c of the bhagwan ragneeshi giving me the creeps. i used the thoth for 15 years w/o worry about crowley. at first when i heard about crowley i couldn't read my thoth for a year or 2. but the thoth is also the work of lady freida harris and that mellows out the darkness i might relate to thoth. i can read thoth again now. before you stop using a deck you liked b/c of finding out the truth about the creator, i suggest just sitting on your feelings for a while. sometimes the negative feelings we have about the deck has more to do w/ what's going on inside us than the deck itself. if maya britan plagarized the deck, we don't know. in all fairness, someone should ask her if there are doubts about her integrity. she seems to have been honest in the past w/ us. there's no reason to think she wouldn't be now. it's a good deck that she revived out of obscurity. what about all the rider waite smith clones out there!!!!!!!!! do we think any less of the ppl who use rws as an example to go by? No.

faunabay	07 Oct 2002
I don't think MystiqueMoonlight is saying anything about the copyright issue. I think he's just personally upset because he interviewed the artist for use here on our forum and she either skirted the issue or blatantly lied about the previous deck. I've also read the review on Tarot Passages about the first deck and it's sooooo close to this one that IMO it's pretty impossible for her not to have had access to and used it extensively as she created her deck. Now I don't think there is a thing wrong with doing that!!! - but I do think it's a huge mistake to tell people you didn't use any previously done artwork as inspiration when you obviously did! That's what it seems to me MystiqueMoonlight is trying to say. Correct me if I'm wrong Mystique!! :)

truthsayer	07 Oct 2002
i understood what he was saying but i thought she might be protected by some lapse in copyright protection of the original deck. i hadn't thought about the issue deceit or evasion that was probably going on. if she lied about it, it's not okay to lie but if she hadn't done a revision of the deck it might have died out early. i can't understand why she'd lie about it b/c i read the review at tarot passages and i got the feeling that it was common knowledge that others knew the idea was gained from an earlier deck. she might be able to fool some ppl about it's true origin but the tarot online community isn't that big. "you can fool some of the ppl some of the ppl some of the time but you can't fool all of the pp all of the time." that's why i suggested going straight to her and asking instead of speculating. we don't know the story from her point of view.

MystiqueMoonlight	07 Oct 2002
You are quite correct Faunabay..... I came across the site about the older version by accident. During my discussions with Maya (and if everyone takes a look at the previous posts including interview) no where did she make reference to this particular deck... the only mention of anyone associated with the original was Maya saying she met Rosalind Sharpe to discuss an "unfinished tarot project" I don't know about you guys but this suggests to me there was never a Tarot deck published originally because it was "unfinished". Even when mentioning Rosalind Sharpe no connection is made to an original deck in any way.... Sorry guys....

The Deck published in 1968 which is very similar to a more recent deck.. thread was originally posted on 23 Sep 2002 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.