Tree of Life Tarot

I picked up one of these recently:

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/tree-of-life/

It's bilingual English/German and made by AG Mueller. In some ways it's more like a set of flash cards than a Tarot deck but it is a fantastic study aid. Along with showing the path on the Tree of Life that the card relates to (or the Sephirah for the Minor Arcana), it has the astrological attribution, the Hebrew letter, the elemental sign and the Golden Dawn name for the card - basically all the standard Golden Dawn attributions.

One anomaly is that Judgement is called The Aeon and the World is called The Universe following Crowley's Thoth Tarot but in every other respect it follows the Golden Dawn system with Tzaddi corresponding to The Star IIRC. Temperance combines both titles and is called Art of Temperance.

I doubt I would do readings with it unless I used it in a very different manner to my other decks but it is a very useful deck to have.

I've looked at these before. I think I might buy some blank cardstock and make my own set. I have the artistic skill and the time, so it would be a fun project. Thanks for the inspiration!

Although attributions are a big part of my reading, I couldn't do with such a dry depiction of them. I need at least some kind of visuals because they do end up coloring and adding to the reading.

Barleywine said:

I've looked at these before. I think I might buy some blank cardstock and make my own set. I have the artistic skill and the time, so it would be a fun project. Thanks for the inspiration!

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There is a very similar deck that I am trying to get hold of called 'Tarot Cabalistico' by Fournier. One interesting difference I like is that the top left corner of the card has the traditional Marseilles image, which would make it much better to use as a reading deck. You might want to incorporate something similar into your project.

There is also another similar deck on sale at Gamecrafter or some such site. I think it's called the Hemetic Kabbalah Tarot and would be interesting to recreate using Photoshop or Gimp or some such.

closrapexa said:

Although attributions are a big part of my reading, I couldn't do with such a dry depiction of them. I need at least some kind of visuals because they do end up coloring and adding to the reading.

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Yes, that's partly why I'm trying to get hold of the Tarot Cabalistico by Fournier, but it is very difficult to get hold of. A number of Latin American websites have it but don't offer postage to the UK.

Yup, I feel the same. This type of decks can be easily drawn and made by anyone from books.

Now I try to base my Thoth decks on Qabala and Astrology as well as colour schemes and symbolism, so there are always BoT, LMD, Banzhaf and Snuffin books stand by beside the deck.

My aim is to be able to memorise all of them in my head, so one day I can use any Tarot decks such as TdM, Thoth or RWS, and refer to them without having to look at the symbols on the cards.

Sorry, the point of my post was that symbolism based on the traditional art and colouring is more important than mere lettering symbols in Tarot readings to me.

Barleywine said:

I've looked at these before. I think I might buy some blank cardstock and make my own set. I have the artistic skill and the time, so it would be a fun project. Thanks for the inspiration!

Click to expand...

I've been mulling over doing a similar project. My plan is to do series of cards in flashing colours inspired by the book "Western Mandalas of Transformation" by Soror A.L.

I bought blank cards and doing such a project right now Looks much less professional but is a great way of working from the cards and with the cards. I write all the associations, path, planets, decans, title, Hebrew letters etc on the blank cards, in different colors for each suit.

Then my daughter stole the colored pens right under my nose.... but I'll buy a new set and continue. Maybe I'll add a drawing of the path....

I've been experimenting with gematria as a way to turn the occult significance of names into a kind of personal esoteric heraldry (my forum avatar is one example). If I'm going to add pictures to the cards, they would probably be of the same type; there are many ways to attack it, but I might start with Godwin's Cabalistic Encyclopedia and 777.