The Complete New Tarot - Docters van Leeuwen

Truth and Intuition? It sounds like some what modern concepts to me. After all, you would not need to cards to represent the entire deck. Anyway, I don't like being told that I was always wrong and they were always right, and I'm tired of people saying that theirs is the "definitive" something or other, be it Tarot decks or moning cereal.

I found The Complete New Tarot yesterday at B & N and couldn't resist it.
It is quite a comprehensive work, formatted like a college text book with tables and charts and photos. The scholarship is very impressive, an exhaustive study. Contains much historical data, astrological connections and some very interesting and new (to me) card interpretations interjected among the traditional.

Anyone else perusing this one? What do you think?

Onno and Rob Docters van Leeuwen, (Sterling Publishing Co., New York) 1995, 2001 (463 pp.)
ISBN 1-4027-0087-3

Bumping this - just want to know if anyone else has investigated this and what you may think of it. Seems like a valuable resource to me.

~B~

Basically, I totally disagree with his historical claims.

That there are early decks that have, instead of the Papess and Pope, Juno and Jupiter is well known, and accounted for by the latter used to replace the former in Besançon-type decks, in the same way the 'Belgium' decks also replace these two cards with the 'Spanish Captain' and Bacchus.

If he had used the variety of tarot related materials to present his views as simply that, it would have amounted to an interesting and fascinating read. As it stands, it makes claims after claims that may certainly be worth considering as long as one does not take him as though he is presenting history.

If nothing else, the anachronistic enlisting of Harris's multiple renditions of card I (the Magician) in the eventual printed deck is irrelevent that the point he makes.

Also, despite the fact that early decks did indeed have small variations in their numbering, the suggestions he makes have no historical validity.

It would, again, be a wonderful book of a VERY personal exploration and alternative suggestion were it not for claims made as though historically accurate.

It sounds like a great book (thanks jmd) and one
that dares speak its mind without asking permission.

Acquired both the book & the deck whilst at the Melbourne International Tarot Conference last year. & met Rob Docters van Leeuwen, the co-author.

The book seems a scholarly endeavour & fascinating for the wealth of material.

I like the deck, though its 're-ordering' of the Majors confusing so ignore the numbering. Its style of the RWS.

See this thread in Tarot Decks:

Has anybody ever seen a deck that actually includes the Truth & Intuition cards?
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=46629&highlight=Tarot+de+Herstelde+Orde

* * * * *

The Complete New Tarot

by Onno Docters van Leeuwen, Rob Docters van Leeuwen


Editorial Reviews, Amazon:

Four-hundred-eighty beautifully illustrated pages, filled with fresh information and eye-opening explanations, will bring Tarot enthusiasts more knowledge and understanding than ever before.

This illuminating guide begins by restoring the cards’ authentic order, which opens up new philosophical possibilities in interpretation. The meanings of the two blank cards traditionally added to every deck are revealed, and two of the Major Arcana— Truth and Intuition—appear once again after centuries.

These restorations make the Tarot complete, and more clearly reveal its structure. Learn exactly what the Tarot is; how it can serve as a path through life; the meaning of all the cards in the Major and Minor Arcana; how to use the Tarot as a tool of divination, and more.


Paperback: 480 pages
Publisher: Sterling (May 28, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN: 1402700873

Not to dredge up a really old thread, but my understanding was that Jupiter and Juno cards were generally a bit later than the Renaissance, and did not in fact constitute "extra" cards. I thought they replaced Pope and Papesse cards in countries undergoing the throes of the reformation, when decks needed to avoid taking sides, and later in confirmed Protestant countries, where Catholic tendencies were frowned upon if not illegal.

Later esoteric interpretations made these cards "hierophant" and "High Priestess" and they do indeed mean "Truth" and "Intuition," although they mean a lot of other things too...

As there were two threads on this book, the later one also addressing points made by Nerd, the threads have been merged.

Nerd said:

Not to dredge up a really old thread, but my understanding was that Jupiter and Juno cards were generally a bit later than the Renaissance, and did not in fact constitute "extra" cards.

Click to expand...

The basic premise is:

1) There were originally 80 cards, which included both
Juno (Intuition) and Jupiter (Truth) plus cards 2 and 5.

2) Juno and Jupiter were supressed to render the Tarot
incomplete and impede its true power to work properly.

3) Two "blank" cards were then included with all decks,
a tradition going back many centuries, to make up for
the missing Juno and Jupiter, to be used in their place.

There's lots more, and it has merit, essentially because
the creators of the deck and book believe that it does.

How many viewers "feel" that the programs and people
on TV are real, and talk about them like they are alive?

Onno and Rob Docters van Leeuwen are suggesting we
look again, that we laugh off the muddled history that
presents Tarot as an Italian game, and find truth anew.

It's a beautiful thing, born of love.