About this item
- The Terrestrial Tarot has 82 non-traditional cards of insectoid and alien-looking Tarot imagery. Each card has a
- symmetrical image of animal parts in a predominant colour. The deck also has four extra cards for Fire, Earth, Water and
- Air.
Specifications
Name
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Terrestrial Tarot
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Creators
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Ara Gerhardt,
Ad Zeeuwen
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Publisher
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US Games 1996
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Deck Type
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Tarot Deck
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Cards
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82
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Major Arcana
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22
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Minor Arcana
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56
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Deck Tradition
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Unique
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Minor Arcana Style
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Unique Scenes Without Suit Symbols
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Suits
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Cups, Swords, Wands, Coins
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Court Cards
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Page, Knight, Queen, King
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Strength
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is 8
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Justice
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is 11
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Card Size
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3.00 x 4.63 in. = 7.62cm x 11.75cm
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Card Language
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English
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Card Back
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Unknown
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Reviews
Published by US Games in 1996, it came during a relatively dry spell in the world of tarot – the period just before lo scarabeo began publishing their 78 card decks (bless their cotton socks for keeping my tarot fetish satisfied, despite their oft-repeated mangling of what constitutes a tarot deck).
Watkins, my London source for tarot in the last 17 years, didn’t have samples of this deck, but I bought it sight unseen anyway. What a shock! The images sent me reeling, knocking over a pile of self-help books, buddhas and joss-sticks.
The LWB explains that the images are from nature, however these images have been mirror-imaged so the end result is disturbing and mutated. Despite this, there has clearly been some effort to find images which in some way express the meanings of the cards – the forlorn looking mutant on the 5 of Cups, the expansive, benevolent creature on the 6 of Coins.
It’s been out of print for a long time, deservedly so. However, on the positive side, it presents a challenge to attempt to make a relationship with the images and discover how they express the meanings. And despite the weird imagery, this was one of a limited number of decks that were published in the late ‘90’s that challenged the RWS clones, without changing (in most instances) the traditional meanings of the cards (by traditional I mean those agreed by the Golden Dawn, and expressed in the Thoth and RWS).
If you find a copy, I hope you have fun with it – and not too many nightmares!
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