Golden Dawn Tarot VS Golden Dawn Magical Tarot.

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 18 Nov 2004, and now archived in the Forum Library.

mercenary30	18 Nov 2004
Golden Dawn Tarot as presented by Israel Regardie & Robert Wang Golden Dawn Magical Tarot as presented by Chic Cicero & Sandra Cicero I did a side by side comparison between these two decks. The Cicero’s took on the GD Magical project because they were not happy with the tarots available on the market for use in their Golden Dawn studies. They proceeded to create enough cards to present to Israel Regardie, who was the lead man of the Golden Dawn at the time. He gave the official GD approval to complete the project. Interestingly enough Israel died 10 days later. So I wanted to find out what made this deck different from the previous version created by Israel himself; especially considering the fact that they were both created from the same Golden Dawn manuscript (Book T) describing the correct symbolism for their tarot. To begin with the GD Magical has a much more stylized type of art work then the original GD. Although from the few cards I compared to Book T, they both meet the requirements of the Golden Dawn. The Golden Dawn tarot has a more realistic feel to its art. Many consider the GD tarot to be artistically poor and symbolically rich. I find the quality of the facial depictions leaves a bit to be desired, but other than that I find the art to be acceptable. The GD Magical has incorporated a number of additional symbolisms in their deck in addition to fulfilling the Book T requirements. To start with they have incorporated a triangular symbolism on each of the minors that can identify both male or female influence and which suit the card is. The GD tarot does not have those. The GD Magical also has labels and key words on cards. They also have the decans symbolized on the card. Golden Dawn tarot labels the courts and the majors but not the pips. According to the Cicero’s Book T calls for the hands displayed in the pip minors to be a specific color, and different for each suit. The GD Magical has this coloration in it but the Golden Dawn tarot does not. I have not validated that in Book T, myself. The GD Magical has also incorporated a color scheme used for the backgrounds in each minor card that associated the elements assigned to that card. The Golden Dawn tarot has backgrounds that are artistically appropriate for the card. The Golden Dawn tarot cards are quite a bit bigger than the GD Magical and they have a less polished feel to them. Neither one of them have a reversible backs on them, but the Golden Dawn doesn’t do reversals. They talk about cards negative connotations being utilized when they are poorly dignified based on the cards around it. The Golden Dawn tarot had an elemental cross on the back with a Tree of Life in the middle. The Tree is surrounded with the Hebrew alphabet. The lower half of the long end of the cross has a red cross with a white triangle attached to the bottom. The GD Magical has the red cross with the white triangle depicted for its back. Inside the white triangle the beginning of a sun is showing as if it were hidden by the horizon. The last big difference is that the GD Magical tarot has not one but two Temperance cards. They claimed that to correctly display all the symbolism for the fourteenth card it would require two cards. One of them should be pulled prior to divinatory use, but for spell or ritual use both will be needed. The Golden Dawn tarot has but one Temperance card and it very closely resembles one of the two found in the GD Magical. Has anyone found any other differences?

Annabelle	25 Feb 2005
Oh, thank you for this careful comparison! Thank you a million times over. I've been wondering about the differences between these two decks, and this is precisely what I needed to know. Sorry I can't shed any more light on the differences (as I don't currently own either deck), but this will help me make a decision on which one to purchase....

Lillie	25 Feb 2005
Oh yes. I second that. So many things that I have wondered, but have never got round to asking, and you answer them all for me before I have even thought of the right questions. You are indeed a most wonderful person. Can I ask, Which of the two decks do you prefer?

mercenary30	25 Feb 2005
I prefer the Magical one, it is my favorite reading deck!!

Cerulean	25 Feb 2005
based on the two decks that you compared... http://www.jwmt.org/v1n4/gdtarotbooks.html I was wondering if you agree or think this above review is also worthwhile. I like your descriptions of the two decks that you posted. Thanks, Cerulean P.S. There's an older deck called Book T as well that I was going to look at carefully at some point...this weekend might be a good time.

fyreflye	25 Feb 2005
The basic similarity between these decks is that they're both crudely drawn and ugly to boot. But at least Wang's has an outstanding companion book for someone who wants to learn the Golden Dawn system. If you have any aesthetic sensibility get the black and white Hermetic Tarot by Godfrey Dowson. Dowson went back directly to Mathers' "Book T" to create his own version (which was Mathers' intent) and it's fabulous. But it's getting expensive. Less costly but also less beautiful than the Hermetic but not as ugly as the first two is Anthony Clark's Magickal Tarot. I don't like it a lot but the esoteric symbolism is more clearly delineated on this than on any GD based deck other than the Hermetic. The greatest deck to come out of this tradition, of course, is the Thoth. Most of its imitators are just fashion accessories.

mercenary30	26 Feb 2005
Cerulean wrote: based on the two decks that you compared... http://www.jwmt.org/v1n4/gdtarotbooks.html I was wondering if you agree or think this above review is also worthwhile. I like your descriptions of the two decks that you posted. Thanks, Cerulean P.S. There's an older deck called Book T as well that I was going to look at carefully at some point...this weekend might be a good time. Ihave not read any books for the original Golden Dawn by Wang, but I believe that the book that came with the Magical was one of the best tarot reads I have read in quite some time. I especially liked how they described the Tree of Life. I learned more from this book than any other about that. As for Book T, I have read parts as I looked that up in the current Golden Dawn book (The really thick one) and read a few sections, just to see. I have yet to decide to purchase it. I wish I could find Book T without all the other stuff. Many people complain that these two decks, although symbolically rich, are artistically parochial. My personal take is that is a part of what makes these decks work for me. It really helps to keep ones focus on what these decks are trying to portray, and although certain symbols and details might capture your attention, you are not likely to be distracted by the beauty of the work. Some of my decks are so attractive, that I have a hard time reading with them, because I am too busy being entertained by the scene……

Sulis	26 Feb 2005
Thought you may want to see the decks: Golden Dawn Magical Tarot: http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/golden-dawn-magical/ Golden Dawn tarot: http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/golden-dawn/ Love Sulis xx

Lillie	26 Feb 2005
About these books. I would like a book about the golden dawn system. I believer that THE book is Mathers Book T. But I am having trouble finding it. Searches are difficult as they bring up anything with the letter T! I saw a couple on abe, but the prices, £80 upward were way out of my league. I know that some of the book T information is in other books, but I am not sure which. Any help or advice? I am after the general golden dawn information, not a book that is specifically about a single deck (such as the one for the magickal tarot) Also, is there a book specifically for the hermetic? I know that this should reallybe in the books section, but it does connect with stuff already in this thread. If the moderators think I should take my questionsto a different place Iwill happily do so. Thanks

fyreflye	01 Mar 2005
Lillie wrote: About these books. I would like a book about the golden dawn system. I believer that THE book is Mathers Book T. But I am having trouble finding it. http://www.private.org.il/GD/Book-T.html p.s. The complete text of Book T is reprinted in Robert Wang's Introduction to the Golden Dawn Tarot.

Lillie	01 Mar 2005
Thank you. You are most kind.

Lillie	05 Mar 2005
Well, I got that book, I wanted The Complete System of Golden dawn Magic', but at £50... well you can get a lot of curries for £50, and we have a very good balti house near here. So, Wang and the Introduction to... It6's got the cards pictured in it. What's with them then? This is how it seems to me. Mathers designed a deck, wifey painted it. Then copies were made, and copies of the copies. Then the Felkins came along with their GD off shoot, and made a newcopy, but changed some of the symbols in the cards. Then Regardie made a quick copy and 40 years later tries to reconstruct the original deck from memory and guess work, and gets Wang to paint it. Mr Wang is very good at drawing hands. I'll give him that. Have I got all that right, or is someone having a laugh? Has any living person ever actually seen Mathers original? or is every one just shooting in the dark and supporting it with stuff like 'I had dinner with Crowleys cousin (twice removed). So I really do know the truth.'? To be honest, I thought that the 'Golden Dawn Tarot' was actually the Golden Dawn tarot, not somebodys reconstruction of what it might have been. Forgive me for my innocence.

fyreflye	05 Mar 2005
There was never supposed to be an "official" Golden Dawn Tarot and there never has been. Every member of the GD was supposed to design and color his own tarot using the guidelines set down in "Book T;" Mathers' deck was no more than his own version of "Book T," not something meant to be copied. Interestingly enough, not a single one of any GD members' decks has survived. We even learn from Kathleen Raine's book on Yeats and the GD that the only tarot decks found in the estate of the Yeats' were a Marseille and an Italian deck - no GD deck at all. And Raine, the chronicler of Will and Georgie's life in the GD, seems to have had no idea there was supposed to be one. Could it be that most or all of these great occultists were too busy, too lazy, or whatever to actually create their own decks? And why didn't Regardie still have his deck - you know, the one he had to "reconstruct" from memory? Since Regardie lived much of the last years of his life trading on his second-hand association with the GD it's possible that in fact he'd never actually painted his own deck either and made up the whole story. "Book T" is in fact all we have of Mathers' brilliantly conceived (if crackpot) set of tarot correspondences. Since GD members seem not to have taken it all that seriously why should we? Lillie wrote: Well, I got that book, I wanted The Complete System of Golden dawn Magic', but at £50... well you can get a lot of curries for £50, and we have a very good balti house near here. So, Wang and the Introduction to... It6's got the cards pictured in it. What's with them then? This is how it seems to me. Mathers designed a deck, wifey painted it. Then copies were made, and copies of the copies. Then the Felkins came along with their GD off shoot, and made a newcopy, but changed some of the symbols in the cards. Then Regardie made a quick copy and 40 years later tries to reconstruct the original deck from memory and guess work, and gets Wang to paint it. Mr Wang is very good at drawing hands. I'll give him that. Have I got all that right, or is someone having a laugh? Has any living person ever actually seen Mathers original? or is every one just shooting in the dark and supporting it with stuff like 'I had dinner with Crowleys cousin (twice removed). So I really do know the truth.'? To be honest, I thought that the 'Golden Dawn Tarot' was actually the Golden Dawn tarot, not somebodys reconstruction of what it might have been. Forgive me for my innocence.

Rusty Neon	05 Mar 2005
From amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=1558183361/ref=nosim/aeclectic/ Quote: Golden Dawn Court Cards by W. W. Westcott Editorial Reviews: Product Description: Golden Dawn Studies series number five. For the first time you will see the Golden Dawn's own court cards reproduced from the Westcott originals. Includes the coloring guide and Florence Farr's Second Order notes. Notes by Darcy Kntz. Product Details Paperback Publisher: Holmes Pub Grou Llc (December 1, 1995) ISBN: 1558183361 A small, cryptic, useful book., May 14, 2000 Reviewer: Uri Raz (Israel) This is a small book - just 36 small pages, but is worth it's weight in gold to me. The cards are line drawings, and are not very artistic (e.g. in the Knight of Cups the waves show through the horse's back feet), but along with the appendice very enlightening. I guess Westcott wasnt as good an artist as Pamela Smith or Lady Harris (or wasnt trying hard), so the drawings are not good art per se. Comparing the pictures with the court cards from Wang's Golden Dawn Tarot Deck shows that Wang's minimalistic pictures are faithful to the source - the original drawings dont have a lot of details, though they're a bit more detailed Wang's. The appendie contain such information as tables of colours correspondences to astrology signs, planets, notes, tree of lifes, etc and some explanations of symbols that appear in the cards. This is not an instruction book - it's just card drawings and tables manuscripts, but the information is not widely available elsewhere.

Lillie	05 Mar 2005
OK. The bit what I said about everyone copying Mather's deck. That is pretty much said in Wang's book. I was going by that. But if that is wrong then I bow to your superior knowledge. Quote: At the point of preparation for the grade of Adeptus Minor, the candidate was lent the original deck, and required to copy it as accuratley as possible. Eventually, as the order expanded, members were making coppies of copies. And Regardies own deck. Well, it implies he still had them, and discribes them as hastily made. so I just used my imagination and assumed that he filled in his hasty sketches from memory

fyreflye	05 Mar 2005
Lillie wrote: OK. The bit what I said about everyone copying Mather's deck. That is pretty much said in Wang's book. I was going by that. The most scholarly treatment of this question, Ronald Decker and Michael Dummett's A History of the Occult Tarot, 1870 - 1970, repeats the claim, first made I think by Ellic Howe, that Mathers required every aspirant to the grade of Adeptus Minor to "copy" his deck (p. 96) and adds footnote 15 as reference; but footnote 15 does not even address much less support the claim made in the text. It seems obvious that Westcott, as Mathers' co-conspiritor in the GD fraud, would have made a copy, and we know Felkin did; but if it was "required" where are all the others? Wang, of course, at the time of his deck's creation must have believed everything he was told by Regardie. He has since quietly but quite clearly distanced himself from the GD system (though that hasn't stopped him from reissuing his book on the Qabalistic Tarot.) BTW, my previous post here apparently was interpreted as a contribution to the RWS controversy that has resumed in new threads. I haven't been following that discussion, have no interest in it, can't imagine why anyone would think that the RWS was "based " on the mythical GD deck, and was responding solely to Lillie's post.

Lillie	06 Mar 2005
The book you mention, Rusty Neon, I'll have to look out for that, it sounds informative. Thanks. Fyreflye. I take it from your mention of the 'GD fraud' that you are not a great suscriber to the golden dawn system of things? For myself, I don't know where I stand on it all, I'm just trying to find out things. But the idea of all those middle aged victorian gentlemen dressing up in their regalia and thinking they knew the secrets of the universe has allways struck me as amusing. But then I get amused by all sorts of things. On think that really nerked me about Wang's book was that he criticises Pamela Colwan Smith's art! I am not a huge fan of the RWS, but I have always liked the art, that sort of quasi medieval fairytale style she had. Lovely. And when you compare it to the strange and stilted thing Wang made, I don't know how he thinks he has the right to speak. I can't find the quote right now,and if I seem a little confused, it's cos the monitor is giving me hell, I can't see what I'm reading and can't see what I'm writing!

fyreflye	06 Mar 2005
Lillie wrote: Fyreflye. I take it from your mention of the 'GD fraud' that you are not a great suscriber to the golden dawn system of things? For myself, I don't know where I stand on it all, I'm just trying to find out things. It's not a matter of opinion; the collection of forged letters, fake cipher manuscripts and fraudulent "permissions" used to certify the legitimacy of the GD was was exposed by some of its own members near the beginning of the last century and was one of the primary reasons for its dissolution. There was no excuse for Wang not knowing this and even less for Regardie passing himself off as some kind of authority. Decker and Dummett's book cited in my previous post is a must-read for anyone interested in the "occult" tarot and its sorry history. That said, there's no question in my mind that the GD system, assembled by Mathers from years of study in the British Museum library, is a brilliant construct that's very useful in making tarots designed under that system able to be "read" consistently. You don't have to believe in the system or even believe in "reading' in order to admire the products of this marvelous but fraudulent fantasy.

Frank Hall	06 Mar 2005
fyreflye wrote: That said, there's no question in my mind that the GD system, assembled by Mathers from years of study in the British Museum library, is a brilliant construct that's very useful in making tarots designed under that system able to be "read" consistently. You don't have to believe in the system or even believe in "reading' in order to admire the products of this marvelous but fraudulent fantasy. Very well put. The analogies thought through may have some validity : astrologic, kabbalistic, numerologic,Tarot titles, illustrations, colors. A "brilliant Construct." The vanity is only empty fantasy. We still work with the system, what lives in it in meaningful ways. The Wheel of Fortune takes care of those who "reigned" awhile. It's strange how truth and trick mix in occult schools -- Justice with Magician, as performer. Hopefully, we will do better. Or will we?

Fulgour	06 Mar 2005
Tarot, in the whole of the activities of the Golden Dawn, hardly mattered to them. It was a convenient bit of fluff. Everything was geared to worldly personal attainments, and they used all the tools available to show superiority. Seeking for answers to the Tarot from the Golden Dawn is like trying to guess what deck of cards was in a movie: Forget everything, just figure out one flash in one frame.

The Golden Dawn Tarot VS Golden Dawn Magical Tarot. thread was originally posted on 18 Nov 2004 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.