I heard about the Haindl Tarot not too long ago through the grapevine of tarot readers I know. Yet this deck was first published back in 1990. Hermann Haindl (1927-2013) is a German artist known for his surreal art and incorporation of mythology.

Rachel Pollack has penned companion books for this deck that come highly, highly recommended by pretty much every tarot practitioner I know. I haven’t dived into them yet, but will. At this stage, I’m interested in connecting with the deck directly to see what I can glean, and then I’ll be consulting Pollack’s books on the Haindl.

The Haindl Tarot is a truly remarkable deck for any tarot enthusiast to work with.

For the Majors, each card corresponds with a letter in the Hebrew alphabet per Qabalistic tradition, from The Fool as Aleph, Key 1: The Magician as Beth, Key 2: The High Priestess as Gimel, and so on. Each card also corresponds with an Anglo-Saxon rune. At this point in my personal tarot practice, I don’t work much with Hebrew alphabet or rune correspondences in tarot, but the astrological correspondences on the bottom right corners of the cards excite me.

The paintings are surreal with subdued, subtle coloring. I’ve filtered these photographs to add greater contrast for clarity purposes, but in hindsight I wish I hadn’t. Now you can’t see the light, ethereal quality of the original coloring. In person, the art is not quite as bold as they seem to appear in these photos. The art seems to mirror the stream of consciousness of our minds, which results in an incredibly powerful and evocative tarot deck to work with.

You do see the influence of the Waite numbering in the Majors, with Key 8 here being Strength assigned Leo and Key 11 being Justice assigned Libra. Haindl also appears to order The Fool first, as Key 0, rather than last, at the end of the Majors after Key 21 (as it was in some older traditions).

Yet the abstract imagery here has a Thoth vibe to it. Also, while this deck certainly incorporates darker energies and addresses destructive forces head on, the art itself isn’t immediately daunting to a client, so it would in fact be a pretty good deck to work professionally with. For practitioners who integrate I Ching divination into their tarot readings, this is a great deck for that. More on such a hybrid practice later.

I know everyone disagrees on the directional correspondences in the suits, which is why it’s often left out of decks so that each practitioner can use his or her own correspondences. Here, you see directional correspondences written onto the four Aces. Haindl’s directional correspondences in the Minors differ from mine:

Suit Name	Haindl Tarot	My Personal Approach
Wands	East	South
Cups	North	West
Swords	South	East
Stones (Pentacles)	West	North

If Haindl’s directional attributions reflect your own, then that’s even more reason to get this deck, because of its convenience of references written right onto the cards. I’m also really liking the keywords. Usually, keywords on contemporary tarot and oracle decks bother me, but here I really like it, like in the Thoth. You’ll also see I Ching attributions in the Minor pips.

However, some of the I Ching correspondences in the Minors caused me to scratch my head. The Seven of Swords, for instance, accompanied by the keyword “Uselessness,” is assigned Hexagram 36, Earth over Fire. In terms of elemental dignities, Papus attributes the Seven of Swords with Air over Fire. Now, granted these terms here sound like we’re all talking about cardinal elements, in the I Ching, we’re talking about 8 trigrams versus the 4 elements in Western tarot.

Hexagram 36 as I interpret it is the “Darkening of the Light,” which in many ways is more Ten of Swords to me. It suggests a transitory period, one where a period of darkness, of inferior overtaking superior forces, of the noble being wounded, is coming to a close soon, and there is light along the horizon. The text for Hexagram 36 sounds very RWS Ten of Swords, if you ask me.

Then others match really, really well, and got me excited. Most of them, actually, worked out really well. Here, for example, Hexagram 35 is assigned to the Eight of Wands. Hexagram 35, Fire over Earth, denotes signs of progress and advancement, and is an auspicious omen for manifestation. You get those same energetic themes in the Eight of Wands.

The Eight of Stones (or Eight of Pentacles) is assigned the keyword “Knowledge” and Hexagram 62, Paying Attention to Details. Hexagram 62 is about laying a strong foundation of knowledge to build upon, focusing on the details and being a perfectionist, being humble about your craft and seeing yourself as an apprentice, with prosperity coming from perfecting what you have, rather than trying to expand at this time. These are all messages I would deliver from the Eight of Pentacles (or Eight of Stones as it is in the Haindl). So for many of the cards, after the tarot reading part, I’d love to note the hexagrams corresponding to the cards drawn for the reading and look them up in the I Ching to offer further insights to a seeker.

The I Ching correspondences are a bit inconsistent, however. I am intrigued by the correspondence of Hexagram 1, Heaven or the Divine Yang to the Two of Cups, Love.

Speaking of Love, in the I Ching, there are four hexagrams commonly associated with romantic love, Hexagrams 31, 32, 53, and 54. Hexagram 31 seems to be about young love, chemistry, and mutual attraction, which I correlate with Two of Cups energy.

Or look at the Eight of Cups, which is assigned Hexagram 27: Corners of the Mouth; Nourishment. Hexagram 27 is considered an auspicious omen, and yet it’s hard to reconcile that, um, auspiciousness, I guess, with the keyword “Failure” written across the bottom of the Haindl Eight of Cups. Hexagram 27, in practical application, often refers to matters of health and wellness, whereas here, I never really got that sense from the Eight of Cups, but hey, that’s just me.

I do love the artwork, however. For those who like to read the cards like a storybook, the imagery here may be a bit tough for that particular technique (whereas the RWS lends itself really well to story reading). Those who interpret the cards either by emotion or by esoteric analysis are going to love this deck.

The suit of Pentacles (or Coins) has been renamed to Stones, which in my opinion works better for the suit and its correspondence with Earth anyway. So I like the Stones.

Let’s choose a card at random to look at for I Ching correspondences. Two of Stones. There you see Hexagram 16: Enthusiasm; Motivation. The Two of Stones seems to be more about harmony, balance, the endeavor of equilibrium. Hexagram 16 is Thunder over Earth, which is about preparing to advance and maybe even auspicious for a hostile takeover. In fact the six lines of Hexagram 16 takes us through the rise and fall of ambition and conquests. It’s very Swords energy, if anything, or maybe Wands. For the Two of Stones, I might opt for Hexagram 42, which is about cooperation and harmony to bring about material gains, and juggling various opportunities while you figure out which one you want to take. That’s very “Two of Pentacles,” wouldn’t you say, RWS readers?

Now we get to the courts, which I love, love, love, love. In the Wands court, we see Hindu (I’ll even say Asian) influences and in the Cups, European, for lack of a better label. There’s Austrian, Norse, Irish, and Germanic influences there.

Wands Court

RWS	Haindl
Page of Wands	Princess of Wands	Daughter of Wands in the East	Radha
Knight of Wands	Prince of Wands	Son of Wands in the East	Krishna
Queen of Wands	Queen of Wands	Mother of Wands in the East	Kali
King of Wands	King of Wands	Father of Wands in the East	Brahma

Cups Court

RWS	Haindl
Page of Cups	Princess of Cups	Daughter of Cups in the North	Brigid of Ireland
Knight of Cups	Prince of Cups	Son of Cups in the North	Parsival
Queen of Cups	Queen of Cups	Mother of Cups in the North	Venus of Willendore
King of Cups	King of Cups	Father of Cups in the North	Odin

The court cards are one of the main reasons the Haindl Tarot shines. I love how multicultural it is and how it brings mythological interpretation into the court card interpretation fold.

The court cards in the suit of Swords is expressed through Egyptian mythology and the Stones (Pentacles), Native American.

Swords Court

RWS	Haindl
Page of Swords	Princess of Swords	Daughter of Swords in the South	Isis
Knight of Swords	Prince of Swords	Son of Swords in the South	Osiris
Queen of Swords	Queen of Swords	Mother of Swords in the South	Nut
King of Swords	King of Swords	Father of Swords in the South	Ra

Stones Court (Pentacles)

RWS	Haindl
Page of Pentacles	Princess of Stones	Daughter of Stones in the West	White Buffalo Woman
Knight of Pentacles	Prince of Stones	Son of Stones in the West	Chief Seattle
Queen of Pentacles	Queen of Stones	Mother of Stones in the West	Spider Woman
King of Pentacles	King of Stones	Father of Stones in the West	Oldman

I’m interested in how the creation myth of the spider woman is incorporated into the Queen of Pentacles, or how Kali is the Queen of Wands (maybe it’s just be, but isn’t Kali more Queen of Swords to you?). Although the goddess Nut works, too, for the Queen of Swords, association Air or sky.

Let’s talk about the little white booklet (LWB). It’s a little white booklet. It suffices. But if the Haindl is going to become one of your staple workhorse decks, then I would suggest looking into Rachel Pollack’s books on the Haindl Tarot.

I’m really liking the Hagall Spread that’s taught in the LWB, however.

The deck comes with two blank cards. That’s interesting. Typically, the extra cards have publisher advertisements on them or serve as a cover deck for the deck in question. Here, I feel like I want to do something with the blank cards, maybe incorporate it into the deck and use a deck of 80 instead of 78, with the 2 blank ones.

That’s exactly what I did and lo and behold, in the very first reading I did with the Haindl deck, I draw one of the blank cards:

In Hexagram 11, which corresponds with the Two of Swords, titled “Peace,” we see Earth over Heaven, a hexagram about harmony, balance, prosperity, a major synthesis, or holy and auspicious unions. In Hexagram 11, there is a sense of upper and lower classes uniting in concord. It’s the intercourse between heaven and earth.

I think my personal interpretation of the Two of Swords would be better reflected in Hexagram 12, which is Heaven over Earth. In Hexagram 12, we get a plateau, stagnation, stalemate, an impasse. Hexagram 12 indicates small gains at the price of significant losses. I often get that vibe from the Two of Swords, at least more so Hexagram 12 energy than Hexagram 11, which feels like too harmonious a hexagram for a Swords pip.

The Haindl Tarot has quickly risen to be one of my all-time favorite decks. There is so much here to work with, even if some of the correspondences don’t resonate with my own personal practice.