Archangel Power Tarot Cards

My deck came in today.

I am disappointed in the quality. Although thick, the cards are very delicate. They are already peeling.

The cards are too big for my short fingers. All Dorian Virtue decks are too big for me. I might just try and trim this deck. I'd need pretty heavy duty scissors, but the lines I would want to cut on are nice and crisp and all the cards look the same size.

I don't love or hate the pictures. The art work is consistent, which is important to me. I do like that the pictures are not totally traditional, for sitters that are familiar with the RWS and don't like my sometimes unfamiliar interpretations. The pictures are untraditional enough, that it'll make it hard to guess which trimmed card is which without some study, though.

I'll probably end out just using the book with my stealth tarot deck made by combining 2 sets of playing cards.

I kinda like the deck. The archangel theme is interesting. The deck would be useful for prayer type tarot "spells". The system the deck is based on seems organized and consistent, and to include traditional archangel lore.

In my opinion, the total boycott and extreme mocking of this deck is unfounded. I'm not excited by it, but…it's just not THAT bad. Really!

I respectfully disagree. Doreen's incorporation of archangel lore in her particular Angel Brand is often inconsistent with what's provided in her previous offerings. It also urges readers to dismiss occult sources from where she received such correspondences as astrology and gemology with her angels as dark and malevolent.

But one thing I do admire is that the Two of Gabriel [Wands] depicts two men walking on a beach, one with an arm over the other's shoulder, and a rainbow behind them. I believe one of the models is Radleigh Valentine himself, who is openly gay.

The card's message implies any and all kinds of relationships, and the men could arguably be platonic friends. I've never particularly felt that the 2 of Wands stood for relationships. But I'm happy that the card shares a place in the deck alongside the traditional Two of Raphael [Cups] that shows a straight couple.

http://spiritcardreadings.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/two-of-gabriel.png

Aeric said:

I respectfully disagree. Doreen's incorporation of archangel lore in her particular Angel Brand is often inconsistent with what's provided in her previous offerings. It also urges readers to dismiss occult sources from where she received such correspondences as astrology and gemology with her angels as dark and malevolent.

But one thing I do admire is that the Two of Gabriel [Wands] depicts two men walking on a beach, one with an arm over the other's shoulder, and a rainbow behind them. I believe one of the models is Radleigh Valentine himself, who is openly gay.

The card's message implies any and all kinds of relationships, and the men could arguably be platonic friends. I've never particularly felt that the 2 of Wands stood for relationships. But I'm happy that the card shares a place in the deck alongside the traditional Two of Raphael [Cups] that shows a straight couple.

http://spiritcardreadings.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/two-of-gabriel.png

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I really like that card too!

Thank you for the history lesson. I really don't know anything about all that.

From images on the web the collage type artwork looks a lot better than the previous decks, still somewhat kitsch but not repulsive. I could probably bear to use this one although some of the titles are now some way from the traditional Tarots - 13 Peace, 14 Solutions, 15 Decision, 16 Change Your Life. It's quite interesting though to look at the image and text on these to see where they've come from. I like the quality of the Hay House Oracle decks I've had, maybe going up to 78 cards has been a problem for them - are they thinner than the Oracles?

2dogs said:

From images on the web the collage type artwork looks a lot better than the previous decks, still somewhat kitsch but not repulsive. I could probably bear to use this one although some of the titles are now some way from the traditional Tarots - 13 Peace, 14 Solutions, 15 Decision, 16 Change Your Life. It's quite interesting though to look at the image and text on these to see where they've come from. I like the quality of the Hay House Oracle decks I've had, maybe going up to 78 cards has been a problem for them - are they thinner than the Oracles?

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I think the cards are thinner, but it's the shiny paper that is delicate. Pretty can often be delicate. Also, no one would try to riffle shuffle the thicker cards, so, I guess the more delicate paper wouldn't be put to the same tests–maybe.

I have no trouble with retitled cards. I know what the card is. And I don't think the sitter needs to be slapped in the face with some titles. I'm thinking of trimming all the text and titles off the cards anyway.

I don't think this is a GREAT deck by any means, but because it was so universally hated, I just had to see if hate was warranted. I just don't think it is. The deck is pretty much what I thought it was going to be. A mediocre deck, like SO any other mediocre decks.

Bah, there are far too many card images from this deck on the Web; I’ve spent too long looking at them and am now suffering from some strange hypnotic attraction to their bizarre pink chocolate box world. In an attempt to regain control of my mind I’ve pulled a card from each of my decks to see what they have to say about it, with some interesting results:

As you might expect I got the Priestess (from the Voyager Tarot), which in this deck includes a dolphin as shown on the Sirian Starseed 4 of Chalices where it brings yet another chalice to a woman who already has 3 lined up behind her and is gazing miserably up at the sky in hope of inspiration. It may just be numerical coincidence that a search on Amazon UK for “doreen virtue tarot cards” brought up the “Archangel Power Tarot Cards”, the earlier “Angel Tarot Cards”, the “Guardian Angel Tarot Cards” and the “Fairy Tarot Cards”, as the last two haven’t been published yet. I also drew a blue and white card containing similar looking elements to those in the Priestess card - “Winter Solstice (Reflection)” from the Earth Magic Oracle. This shows silver birch trees reflecting in a icy lake but the strange thing about this is that when looked at closely the reflections are wrong - the details of the reflections don’t match the details of the original trees.

One of my “cards” is actually produced by a random shuffle of the 3500+ tracks on my iPod. This time it threw up “Oslo IV” by Henry Cow. There is no singing on this, so no lyrics to interpret; the only option for interpretation lies in the title. I looked Oslo up in two volumes of my collection of circa 100 year old books, but it wasn’t in the indexes. Luckily I remembered the city had at that time been known as “Christiania”, which is an interesting link to the theme of the cards, particularly as “Cassell’s Encyclopaedia” went on to say the town was founded by Christian IV on the site of the ancient capital “Oslo” (presumably pagan) which was now “a mere suburb”. My other book, “The Gallery of Geography”, calls it “Christiana” and describes it as “remarkably clean, free from indications of squalor and vice” and talks of a great fire which destroyed “many antiquated and irregularly-shaped buildings”. It also mentions that in the tower of the principal church is posted a “fire guardian” who calls out from the four sides for God to protect the town from fire. Another of my cards, “Solitude” from the Enchanted Map Oracle, shows such a four sided tower alongside which stands a cast iron lamp post of a similar age to my books outshining the Moon to the rear. The only fire card I drew was the Knight of Wands from the Sacred Circle. Rather pagan looking he strides determinedly forward across a hillside carrying a spear and holding up a brightly blazing torch. Presumably then this is who the “fire guardian” is trying to protect against. I should mention here the keyword on this card, which is “Adventure”. In contrast to this fire, the card I drew from “The Secret Language of Color” was “Emerald”, green water dripping into a green pool like the water surrounding the tower of “Solitude”. The sub title on this card is “Calm Your Mind, Body & Soul”. My cards here seem to be offering their opinion of the deck as a sanitised, calming and Christianised version of Tarot, removing any elements of negativity, paganism or indeed any complicated components that may have build up over time, and with the additional promise of actually protecting the reader from such dangerous things, as you would prevent a child playing with matches.

From “The Photographic Card Deck of the Solar System” I drew “Titan”, a large moon with a thick murky atmosphere in which hydrocarbons such as methane and ethane, described as “organic matter sloshing around”, substitute for the water we have on Earth. The question is raised whether there could be any life there. Perhaps this is saying the previous depictions of water aren’t real water able to support life.

The card from “The Photographic Card Deck of the Elements” worries me the most - Tellurium. The write up on the reverse points out that it forms beautiful, slender crystals but “research is hindered by the fact that if you absorb even tiny amounts, you smell of garlic for months”.

I’m not too sure where my final card fits in - from the “Mystic Dreamer” I drew Justice. A woman stands between two pillars at the bottom of a long flight of stairs. In one hand she holds a pair of scales and with the other supports a sword whose point rests on the ground. She gazes down at a seething pool of water covered in mist as if trying to weigh it up. In places this water has definite brown and yellow tinges. Well, it’s natural to assume this is in fact water - there’s also the possibility it could actually turn out to be hydrocarbon sludge.

You are funny!

Credit has to go to the Oracle Fairy - I couldn't make this up.