Witches Tarot Review

By Misha

     From the size of the envelope that arrived from Llewellyn , I was sure it was a newly released book. I was pleasantly surprised to see the Witches Tarot and the illustration immediately had me in a hurry to open it up and see this deck. I was so anxious to get it open that I dropped it on the ground and since it landed standing up, the bottom of the box and it’s corners are now squished.

      It contains a 312 page book which is why it’s in a large box. The cards themselves are packaged in plastic only. This means if it turns out to be a deck I want to use regularly I have to now purchase a tarot bag to put them in. You simply can’t travel to do readings with lose cards or with a box this large, it doesn’t work. I am not sure other then to save money why the deck was not packaged in its own smaller box or come with a bag.

      As I start to go through the cards one by one I know this will be a deck that will get a lot of use. You know the expression “Never judge a book by it’s cover”; this is a case of never judge a tarot deck by it’s name. With the name Witches Tarot you would probably expect this to be for Wiccans/pagans and witches with lots of obvious symbolism that the majority of clients, especially Christian clients would be uncomfortable seeing preventing a lot of usage. You wouldn’t be more wrong and the average person would not have any idea that this was a witches deck especially since it will be put in a bag nobody will have to know, they won’t see it’s name. I see no reason why anyone would be offended by this deck at all or any of it’s illustrations.

     Going through the deck I start to realize that instantly my eyes are automatically being drawn to a specific thing/area in the illustrations. In a lot of the cards I notice that clothing seems to be more colorful and that is where my eyes go with the initial glance. A few examples of this from the majors are The High Priestess, the Empress, The Emperor (except it’s the 2 children and not the Emperor himself), The High Priest, there are plenty of others especially with the court cards.

     Did I say The High Priest in the above examples? Yes I did and that was not a typo; Ellen Dugan has changed the names of some of the majors. Those changes are as follows: High Priest (Hierophant), The Wheel of The Year ( Wheel of Fortune), The Shadow Side (The Devil), Judgement (Karma). The newly named cards all made sense to me except for The Wheel of The Year, which I had to look up in the companion book. The explanation made sense and I would have gotten it on my own if I took the extra time to think about it. If one knows basic Wiccan beliefs the changes to the names makes full sense. If someone knows nothing about Wiccan beliefs I don’t think it would even enter their mind that a witch deck is being used. The illustration on the box that got me so excited is The Moon card.

      The Lovers card was the first one that got my attention first, with the lovers in shilhouette with an angel in the sky faded and her hand reaching out to the couple. The only card that stands out as being Pagan is The World card with the Green Man portrayed in it. The Moon caught my eye already from the box. Eight of Cups was another one because of it’s soothing relaxing nighttime scene at the edge of a beach. There is a dolphin that has popped out of the water as if to say hi to the young lady on the sand.

     The 5 of swords was one that I paused because at a quick glance it could be mistaken for the 3 of swords. The points of the 5 swords are gathered right at a dragonfly’s head and flying around the swords are 5 glowing fairies. The book explains that one is having feelings of embarrassment and what one feels humiliated about is just an illusion.

        This deck follows the traditional Rider Waite and is a great deck for beginners to learn and everyone that enjoys the Rider Waite style. The design on the back of the cards also matches my theme for the most part. It also allows for reversals as they are the same regardless of how they are turned. I thought that this deck would be one of my halloween decks; I couldn’t be more wrong. It is a deck I will enjoy using year round.

Witches Tarot

Ellen Dugan

Illustrated by Mark Evans

Published by Llewellyn

You can see a visual of the book and deck and also hear Isaac Grant’s video review here

Filed under: All Articles, Deck Reviews by Misha