Ok.. My copy arrived today.
This is an odd deck. I have a soft spot for odd decks. The odder the better. I don't mean deliberately eccentric, I mean just - well - odd. Visually this deck is probably one of the most bizarre deck I have seen. But I like that. The composition, the arrangment of suit symbols, the figure drawing. I can't put my finger exactly one what it is that strikes me as bizarre.
However, the important thing is that I feel the deck has something. It is a deck I would like to use. It lacks the androgyny and psychedelic futurism of the Navigators of the Mystic Sea. They're not in the same league, but I like it nonetheless.
Oh but the book. I hate to say this (but at least I can be positive about the deck and I
do mean it), but the book is the worst companion book I have ever come across. I have been reading it (trying to) this afternoon but I challenge anyone to read it from cover to cover. Really. I have an urge to hide the book somewhere "safe" so that I shalln't be tempted to keep reading it and have it taint the deck. Sorry to say this but this companion book would surely mean nothing to anyone outside Santa Fe meditation circles. I wonder who Schiffer thought the target public would be? I would say I know "something" about tarot but there's still loads I want to learn and this book would be utterly hopeless. I can't imagine what a beginner would make of this book. And all the wrong punctuation, weird grammar and *off* syntax makes it exhausting to read as you have to read so much of it twice or more. It is simply not well written hence very taxing to read.
From the Empress meaning;
I give you the golden glow as your [sic] bring your ideas to life. Crayons are a great way to begin using your new Imagination tool. Tell my son The Hanged Man, hello with love when you meet him. His heart grew from these trees when he followed it.
from Ace of Cups
I give you bright eyes to trust and flow through your ideas. Bright eyes and wide, ear to ear, grins. They prevent fresh things that rejuvenate things you already have. You may already know this.
Two of Cups.
Feel the differences between things joined and things in union. This is a Mystereum perspective... This feels muddy like an average. (
) Union feels to average them both and reduce the individual strength they bring. Union feels to settle and erode...
On and on it goes, 191 pages...And yet I feel like using the cards but the book is - sorry to say this - painfully pretentious.
Just glancing casually at the cards on the cover of the box (the box was laying perpendicular to me), I could easily see the people of the Mystereum inhabiting the same universe as the people of the Navigators.... I prob won't have time to do a true comparison between the two decks until this weekend though.
