Zodiac Tarot

Hi all,
I stop by Border's book store yesterday and they had the Zodiac Tarot so, of course, I bought it. When I got home I looked through the cards and....WTF? Why is a radio broadcast tower the Fool? Very few of the cards have pictures that make sense to me. I haven't read the little white book yet so maybe there is a reason for this madness. Anyway, I'm just wondering if anyone else has taken a look at this deck.
http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/zodiac/

The LS book mentions this one. I am guessing that it seriously needs a book.

The LWB will make it all clear! I really like this deck. My only quibble is I think the courts could have been more creative. Here's the down and dirty:

Using Golden Dawn attributions, the majors that are planets are people (Magician is Mercury is the Child, etc.). Majors that are signs are places (The Hierophant is Taurus is the Church, etc.).

The minors each have a planet in a sign, so show the person in the place: The Child in the Church (not that I can remember which minor card this is!!). Oh, it's in the AT sample: 5 Stones! You can tell she's not very happy to be in that church!

These come up with some interesting combinations, like Grandpa (Saturn) at the Airport (Sagittarius) and the Son (Mars) in the Library (Gemini).

The Fool, the Hanged Man, and the World are assigned to the "outer planets" so they are unique illustrations and don't show up elsewhere in the deck.

As I said, I'm a little disappointed with the Courts. They follow the GD elemental attributions, so, say, the Princess of Torches shows a big torch on a background of stones (earth for princesses). In the AT sample, the court is the King of Waves, which just shows a wave over a background of flames (fire for kings). So no people for what are usually the people cards.

All in all, I like the systems approach. As I said the LWB has good info in a small space. And I like the "modern" (as in 1940s and 1950s) illustration style.

Enjoy!

The courts did not please me...sigh....

...and I found if the courts in a deck just are not pleasing, I'll not use the deck. I didn't mind, almost liked the different way of reading this astrology and tarot system...But the courts had me yearning for the artist's Pagan Tarot illustrations or Olympus. I thought I could 'team up' what I consider the less pleasing Zodiac deck with a more-pleasant-to-me and slightly nostalgic suburban and sometimes festive scenes of the Pagan deck.

A booklet, such as the one for the Marseilles, might make this more interesting...but I am still not a fan of the Zodiac deck alone.

There was a U.S. Games deck coupled with astrology called One World Tarot that I could almost like because the small format of the deck design...but the computer-generated art was not my favorite. Too many of the cards were the same thing replicated in different numbers in the pips...and the courts seemed to be not interesting to me either. Just my opinion...

http://www.tarot.com/tarot/decks/index.php?deckID=82

And even though there's a book for the One World Tarot, because the designs
didn't work for me, I never would use the book as well.

But maybe if I doubled the Zodiac with the Pagan, I'll grow to find it useful.

Best,

Cerulean

Thanks Rachelcat for the excellent summary!

Also thanks Rachelcat and Cerulean for the feedback on the Courts. Just to explain my thought process on the Courts, I felt a different approach was called for, because so many of the Majors and numbered Minors showed specific characters in specific settings. It seemed to me that a traditional approach to the courts would have resulted in card images which would have been too similar to the Majors and Minors.

Also, I wanted to bring out some of the importance of elemental considerations in western astrology and in the GD's use of astrology in particular. I thought it might be a good way to help tarot readers see the court cards in any deck in elemental terms. However, I do understand that the end result is not necessarily the most intriguing from an aesthetic perspective.

-- Lee

Hi all,
Thanks for all the wonderful comments! I hope to have some free time this weekend to spend with this deck. There is something about it that has me intrigued. If the little white book has some explainations then I'm sure it will start to make sense.

Hi,

Has anyone done readings with the Zodiac? How do you feel about them? I have not used this deck so I'm curious to see how readings go.

Looks like this deck has gone OOP in the past few months. There are still a few reasonably priced decks on Amazon thorough independent sellers.