Talisman:
A little feedback from a "de la Rea" fan, if I may: when I first had the opportunity to add a copy of this deck to my personal collection a couple of years ago, I thought twice about it. It seemed nice enough from the pictures in Kaplan and the few I'd seen on the 'Net, but I wasn't sure I liked it enough to invest the money in purchasing a copy of this OOP & HTF deck from 1982. For some reason, though, I was suddenly seized by the urge to just buy it. Period. I'm not sure why, but I just felt like it was the right thing to do.
I received the deck a couple weeks later, along with another deck I had wanted for quite a while. As it turned, out, I was shocked by my reaction to both decks. The selection I'd lusted after for so long actually ended up to be rather a disappointment. But the de la Rea... as you say, "Wow!" I was surprised at how quickly I connected with it. Its simple yet colorful imagery was haunting and imaginative, managing to say a lot with a little.
Obviously, this is *not* a reader's deck -- I rather doubt the artist intended it to be used in that fashion. According to Kaplan's listing of the de la Rea in volume III of his Encyclopedias, "...The features of the Major Arcana figures are covered with masks. A booklet accompanying the deck explains, 'All that is important must be masked so that the curious will discover it.' The title of the deck refers to a pulley, in reference to the metaphor of truth being like the water in a well, which must be pulled up from the depths of the self. The tarot can provide the 'pulley' by whch the seeker can attain universal knowledge. The presentation card has a quote from Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' (translated into French). The original quote reads: 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,/Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'"
From Kaplan's comments, I would infer that the deck was perhaps intended more as a meditation or pathworking tool. If you're interested in seeing a few different scans from this deck than those presented here on Aeclectic, you can view the ones we have posted with the sale copy of the de la Rea in the Tarot Garden boutique, here:
http://www.tarotgarden.com/boutique/b5starsalon6.html
Hope this information helps to enrich your understanding of this wonderful deck!
-- Jeannette
The Tarot Garden
