Supernatural Tarot Deck and Guidebook by Minerva Siegal and Matthew Skiff

The long-running television series Supernatural is now an illustrated tarot deck! Featuring original artwork inspired by classic tarot iconography, the 78-card deck includes all your favorite characters from Sam and Dean to Bobby Singer to Castiel to Crowley. The deck also comes with a helpful guidebook explaining the meaning of each card as well as a few simple spreads for easy readings. It’s the perfect gift for Supernatural fans and tarot enthusiasts alike!

 

(Please note this review is image heavy.)

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A quick history lesson before we get into the review. Tarot began as a card game, no different from poker or Go Fish, in Europe in the 15th century (ish, dates are hazy.) It didn't start being used for predicting the future until around the 18th century. The most popular version is the Rider Waite Smith; most decks use those ideas, interpreted to suit the theme of the deck. There are plenty of non RWS decks out there, but beginners are usually advised to start with RWS as they can then apply their skills across literally thousands of decks.

A tarot deck is divided in 22 Major Arcana cards and 56 Minor Arcana cards divided across four suits. Cards in the Minor Arcana can be pips...so the seven of wands would literally show seven wands...or pictorial...so the seven of wands would show, probably, someone defending themselves against seven wands. Beginners are advised to chose a pictorial deck, as they're easier to learn, but of course they don't have to.

I'm leaving out a lot of nuance, but this is enough for our purposes today.

Specific to this review; Supernatural is a TV show about two brothers who travel America fighting demons, ghosts, witches and other creatures. It ran for 15 seasons so there's a lot of backstory, recurring and one off characters, themes and images  repeated across the years - enough for a fantastic tarot deck!

Let's start with the presentation. The box is a little larger than standard Tarot card size, with a lid that slides down over it. It lifts on and off without difficulty, but wouldn't come loose if it were being rattled around. So far, so good.

The cards themselves nestle in a cut out shape, with a ribbon to help get them in and out without having to turn the whole thing upside down.

The inside of the cut out is decorated with sigils drawn from the series. A lot of work has gone into the presentation of this set, I'm really impressed. It's lovely to look at before you even get to the cards.

The back of the cards features the Devil's Trap, a recurring element of the show. The Trap isn't symmetrical, but close to; someone who studied it very closely would know what cards are reversed before turning them over. That doesn't matter to me personally, but some readers find it impacts their reading.

As in all decks - all decks I'm aware of, anyway - the major arcana are completely illustrated, mostly with major characters from Supernatural. A lot of effort has gone into finding characters who match with the theme of the cards; this isn't just a deck with a Supernatural veneer, it's really been thought about. This goes right down to the suits, which have customs names; Bones for Wands, Pentagrams for Pentacles, Blades for Swords and Goblets for Cups. Weirdly (or maybe not) Bones was the one that took me longest to get used to; the others were close enough that I barely noticed the difference.

This card jumped out at me when I first looked through the deck. I was surprised, because it doesn't normally entice me like this, but this version of it just really struck me.

As you can see, the cards are all printed in combinations of black, white, red and blue, and shades thereof. Initially I thought this palette would be limiting, but it actually works really well, drawing attention where it's needed and really highlighting the important parts of each card. I can tell they're going to hold up well to a lot of study over a lot of time.

Unusually in my experience, the minor arcana is a mix of illustrations and pips. The court cards are all fully illustrated; then two of the suits are half and half pips and illustrated, one is six pips and four illustrations and the last is four pips and six illustrations. It's a strange but not insurmountable thing. One touch I did love, but it only happens in the Pentagrams suit; the pip cards all look like a slightly different style. On one they're drawn in chalk, another looks like smoke, another shiny metal like a car ornament. It's a really cute detail, and the other suits don't have it; the Goblets are all the same, the Bones are all the same. The Blades have a little more variety; the Blade in the Ace differs from the Blade on the Two, but then those two plus two more show up on the Four and those four plus two more on the Six. Still a nice detail, but not quite the same.

The booklet accompanying the cards talks briefly about the structure of the deck before jumping into meanings. The Majors get a two page spread each; on one side is an image of the card and on the other the meanings. I love this because it means I can read the meaning and study the image without necessarily searching through my deck for the right card. The Minors get one page each, still with the image but now smaller to fit the meaning on as well. Be aware that the guidebook puts the court cards before the numerical suit cards. Each card has reversed meanings as well as upright.

Talking about the court cards; I love that this book describes them as situations. A lot of guides only talk about them as people and it's lovely to see the other side of them described so clearly and simply.

After the meanings there's a short piece about caring for your cards - I love that it emphasises that Tarot should work for you, whatever that means, and that there's no need to follow someone else's rules if they don't suit you.  Then there are three spreads designed to work with the deck; the Apple Pie Spread, Lucifer's Cage Spread, and the Team Free Will Spread. My skills are not quite at spread level yet but I'm looking forward to trying these out!

A couple of general points:

* The cards had a tendency to cling to each other when I first took them out of the box, making shuffling tricky. On the advice of a friend I rubbed a little baby powder on them, and that plus a lot of shuffling has mostly dealt with that problem.

* The cards are illustrated with drawing, not photos. I'm mildly face blind and it made it harder for me to recognise some people, I had to check the book to see who they were. (Still not sure about the Queen of Bones, her entry doesn't say!) (I've since been informed that it's Lilith in her adult form) I'm sure this won't be an issue for most people, the drawings are really very accurate, but it was for me.

* This is a great deck for a Supernatural fan who won't want to use the cards as Tarot, or an experienced Tarot reader. It's not a great first deck as the images don't match well to the traditional ones and may confuse someone with no experience. The ideal recipient knows both Tarot and Supernatural at least a bit.

* After several days of heavy usage, one or two cards show small signs of peeling. Gentle usage shouldn't affect them.


Overall, I love this deck. It fits nicely in my hand, the cards feel good, I like looking at the pictures and remembering the show. It's definitely a deck that I will return to over and over again to use and handle. I look forward to spending a lot of time with it in the future.