Robert M. Place’s Tarot of the Sevenfold Mystery

On By benebellIn deck review10 Comments

The card back design of the Tarot of the Sevenfold Mystery features the Staff of Serapis, Serapis being a principle god in Egyptian mysticism. The staff features the head of a wolf, a lion, and a dog, representing the three Platonic souls and also, the past, the present, and the future heads of Cerberus. During the Renaissance, this imagery was associated with Prudence, who is featured on The World card.

That Staff of Serapis card back design was the first thing I saw of this deck, and I was immediately intrigued. Years ago a friend of mine gifted me with the Sevenfold Mystery deck, believing this was a deck I’d love, and he was right.

Creation of the Tarot of the Sevenfold Mystery by Place began “at the dawn of the 21st century” and was initially inspired by the Pre-Raphaelite paintings of Edward Burne-Jones. Burne-Jones himself was inspired in large part by Botticelli and Michelangelo’s depictions of human figures and expression of Neoplatonic themes.

The unnumbered Fool card is Stultitia, featuring a woman with ass ears symbolic of the Soul of Appetite. She is blindfolded, symbolizing ignorance, and the dog at her side represents instinct. And of course, The Magician card is Hermes, and the High Priestess is Sibyl. Note that Key 9 is unnamed, for The Unnamed Seeker, The Hermit. This is “a mystic who has a vision of the sevenfold mystery. . .  He has no name because he represents silence and meditation.”

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Rota Mundi Tarot: The Rosicrucian Arcanum by Daniel E. Loeb

On By benebellIn deck review15 Comments

The Rota Mundi Tarot by Daniel E. Loeb, published earlier this year by Red Feather, is a tribute to the original Fraternity of the Rose Cross, and at its core, a tool for studying theosophy (theos = god, sophia = wisdom). The Rosicrucians integrated Western occultism with the tarot, a deck of playing cards, and through this medium, found a way to reconcile alchemy, Kabbalah, and the Arcanum Sapientiam Deum, or the Secret Wisdom of God.

The Rosicrucians were Christian mystics that formed a secret society to protect themselves from being burned at the stake for heresy. They embraced a divine feminine with parallels to the Shekinah (indwelling glory), a feminine word referring to the Spirit of God or the Holy Spirit. Rosicrucians believe this divine feminine to be “the Breath and Power of God, and an exact mirror of His goodness.” There is an oracle that can be used to consult this divine feminine form of wisdom called the Rota Mundi, or Wheel of the World, which is this deck’s namesake.

Eliphas Levi made the connection that the Rota Mundi of the Rosicrucians was the Tarot, and that theory stuck to the point where now, ROTA is inextricably tied to TAROT in Western occultism.

Loeb’s Rota Mundi Tarot seeks to convey Rosicrucianism in a coherent oracle system to clarify that theoretical connection between ROTA (i.e., the Spirit of Wisdom) and TAROT as an oracle for consulting that divine feminine form of wisdom.

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Star Child: Joyful Parenting Through Astrology by Briana Saussy

On By benebellIn astrology, book review2 Comments

Star Child is a fun, light read that introduces astrology to the lay, with a particular focus on reading birth stars for children. Based on your child’s sun sign, what are the key personality traits they are most likely to develop? How will they do in academics? How are they with friends, play, and social situations? Are they more creative? Are they more athletic? What will be the best extracurricular activities to introduce to your child based on sun signs?

Briana Saussy is the author of Making Magic: Weaving Together the Everyday and the Extraordinary, a storyteller, writer, teacher, spiritual counselor, and ritualist dedicated to the field of Sacred Arts. She leads community rituals and ceremonies, is a professional astrologer and tarot reader, and most notably, is a general practice spiritual counselor. Basically, you can go to her for pretty much anything and everything magic and spirituality related.

Saussy wrote this book with two objectives, as set out in its Introduction, and both objectives center around rectifying glaring problems in conventional astrological practice.

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SKT Revelation Pre-Orders Update: Bill of Lading

On By benebellIn Spirit Keeper's Tarot8 Comments

Just a super quick update that really doesn’t contain any substantive content with regards to your pre-order, but some of you might find a look-see at the Bill of Lading to be interesting. So here you go. With personal info redacted. =)

A Bill of Lading, or B/L (you can also see it in shorthand as BoL) is used in import-export, to acknowledge and document cargo on board. I’m sharing what ours looks like in case that’s something you were curious about. Haha. I dunno. I think this is something I’d find interesting if I pre-ordered a deck. So here you go. In case you’re like me.

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DruidCraft Tarot: Meeting of Wicca and Druidry

On By benebellIn deck review, tarot community8 Comments

A while back Lisa, Dani, and Dustin of Three Fat Readers talked about the DruidCraft Tarot, and that inspired me to chat about the deck here in a blog post. This isn’t a deck review. It’s me sharing my personal experiences with the DruidCraft. Another reason I wanted to go out of my way to post this is as a bit of a passive-aggressive defiant response to a recent “most influential” or “best of” publication on contemporary tarot decks where the DruidCraft Tarot by Philip and Stephanie Carr-Gomm, illustrated by Will Worthington was noticeably missing from that “best of” list. Like… whut?!

This was one of my go-to public reading decks from back in the day. When I was in my 20s, I did countless parties and social events with the DruidCraft. Some of the cards in these photos are going to be upside down because I wanted to show you my copy of the deck straight out of its tattered old box and I read reversals with the DruidCraft. What you’re seeing here is the exact order, upright and reversed, that the cards were in the very last time I used them… which was about a decade ago.

Click on photos for high-res, close-up viewing.

The premise of the deck is to be a synthesis of Wicca and Druidry, to express a path that the guidebook calls “The Old Ways.” The deck is also inspired by the Golden Dawn, which united “many of the disparate strands of the Western Magical Tradition . . . A quantum leap in the understanding and application of the Tarot occurred thanks to the stimulus of the Golden Dawn, and so we have drawn on this in The DruidCraft Tarot Deck for its intrinsic worth, and for its historical connection with the evolution of Druidry and Wicca” (cited from the guidebook).

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Tazama African Tarot by Abusua Pa

On By benebellIn deck review7 Comments

The Tazama African Tarot by Chiria and Bjorn Franklin with art by Sagara Wanjagi is beyond luxe. It comes in this rose petal velvety matte box, the cards are that rose petal velvety matte finish, and it’s got stunning accents of gold leaf. The first thing you’ll notice is the intricate layers of detailing on the box design, and we’re just getting started.

It’s a classic Rider-Waite-Smith deck with no barrier of entry when it comes to learning how to read with these cards. The cardstock is really thick, with a good weight to the deck. Incredible attention to detail is devoted to production value, and it shows.

Psst… per the guidebook, the artist says her favorite card is the Wheel of Fortune. Also, the first three cards she started on are The Magician, The High Priestess, and The Empress. These are fun-to-know tidbits that give you a more sentimental insight into the deck.

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Kosmos Oracle Deck by Carmen Bello

On By benebellIn deck review, oracle deck9 Comments

The Kosmos Oracle by Carmen Bello was published earlier this year and so far it’s flew a bit under the radar. And I’m not entirely sure why, because it’s a marvelous, delightful, and very accurate reading deck. The namesake comes from the Greek term Kosmos to indicate the universe as a harmonious, orderly system, a deck that will help you to regulate Chaos.

There’s a 1970s pivot-of-change aesthetic here, or at least that’s what comes across to me. The 70s was this decade of social progress in the form of civil rights and sexual revolution, individualized spiritual awakening, both coups and efforts at decolonization in many of the developing nations, genre fiction getting a spike in the publishing industry, and the hippie subculture.

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The Distant Past Tarot by Jeri Totten Flip-Through

On By benebellIn deck review, tarot2 Comments

Here’s a quick flip-through, rather than an in-depth deck review, of The Distant Past Tarot by Jeri Totten, who now goes by Jae Larson. The deck comes in standard tarot size, large size, and what you see here– a petite poker size. The Distant Past Tarot is an RWS-based digital collage tarot deck in a classical art style.

This deck seems to have flown a bit under the radar, while still being available for purchase direct from the artist, so that’s why I thought I’d share this flip-through. It’s actually a surprisingly delightful and enchanting little deck– I say “surprisingly” because I don’t hear a lot of fanfare about it.

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SKT Pre-Orders Update and Some More Good-to-Know Tidbits

On By benebellIn create your own deck, Spirit Keeper's Tarot18 Comments

Deck Delivery Dates: Shipping Begins October 7, 2021

Printing and production completed on July 21, 2021. You might recall from an earlier update, the projected completion date I had gotten from the factory was July 19 at the latest. So we are running behind schedule.

2021 SKT Revelation Box Design

The decks then had to go through one final quality assurance check at the factory before it’s packaged and prepared for overseas shipping. The shipping time is between 45 and 50 days.

We’ve been assured by our factory that the decks are shipping out this week, but as of this precise moment that I’m typing, it has not been shipped out yet. Just to keep the numbers and projection on the conservative side, let’s assume the factory isn’t ready to ship until Friday, which means it actually ships next Monday, August 3. Sigh. Okay.

We’ve been told shipping by sea takes 45 to 50 days. If it arrives in port on the 45th day, it’ll be on US soil on September 16. If it’s the 50 day mark, then that’s September 21.

It then has to go through US customs. The last time we went through US customs for a large shipment was pre-pandemic, and it took about 7 to 10 days. I heard from other business owners who import goods that right now it’s closer to 14 days.

So let’s just assume my shipment arrives on September 21 and takes 14 days to go through US customs. We’re now looking at actual receipt of the decks around October 5.

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