Arcanum Tarot deck by Renata Lechner

Mystical insights await within the stunning imagery of the Arcanum Tarot. From the creator of the Thelema Tarot this deck features realistic figures set among lush and magical landscapes. Designed to connect the deepest parts of your soul to the highest realms of the divine, the Arcanum Tarot will show what you need to see in order to move forward toward your destiny.

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The Arcanum is a fabulous, lush deck, perfect for beginners or those seeking to broaden their knowledge a little. The wonderful colors and borderless cards will invite you in as you flick through or study the deck.

The box is designed differently from any other I've seen. Rather than the whole front lifting off or the box opening like an envelope, the top lifts off, as you can see above. The box is really strong, sturdy cardboard and protects the cards very well. They are standard tarot card size. The cards have a glossy sheen and slide over each other very easily when shuffled.

Although the back looks completely reversible, it's technically not. You see that lighter patch down one side? That's not a camera artifact; it's part of the design. If you know which side of the card that is, you'll know whether your cards are reversed or not. This doesn't matter to me, but I know that some readers feel that knowing about reversals beforehand sours the reading. The design itself is amazing, I could spend hours lost in the twists and coils.

When I first got this deck, I thought there was a slightly uncanny valley effect on some of the cards...look at that Magician's face! However, that wore off very quickly as I handled and studied them, and there's no effect at all on me now, so even if they do look off to you they should normalize quickly.

Here are some of my favorite Majors from the deck...it was difficult cutting it down to even this many, but I thought this gives a good idea of the range of colors and depth of backgrounds. Look at those blues and greens! The skeletons piled up under Death! That fantastic Hermit, looking out for others to show them the way!

The Minors are fully illustrated, with their names printed at the bottom of each cards. These are RWS cards, so if you have any familiarity with that deck, you'll be able to read these. Even without it, I think a lot of these meanings are clear from context.

Look at that Prince Caspian lookalike on the Five of Swords, and the Page who's ready to learn but has a long way to go (don't hold the sword by the blade, love!) Look at that kind King of Cups, ready to hear all your woes and help out with them. Sturdy Seven of Wands ready to protect you, and Three of Pentacles giving his all to his craft. (Quick note in case you're silly like me; it's snow on the Five of Pentacles, not dust or dirt!)

Although you'll see from those examples that the colors do alter a bit in different cards, in general each suit tends towards the same color. Wands are bright reds and oranges, Pentacles lush green, Swords somber grey and Cups rich, deep blue.

The book of words looks substantial, but lo Scarabeo are an international publisher so their books are printed in multiple languages. There's a quick intro to the deck and then a key phrase, a description of the card and some keywords, both upright and reversed. There are no images, but the description does point out some of the symbolism on each card. Majors and Minors get about the same amount of description. The book is a lovely smooth (and as you can see below, quite shiny!) paper.

Overall I'm really happy with this deck. I think that studying it and working with it will help my understanding of the cards a lot. I often find myself just paging through and choosing a card to look at! They really are beautiful and I'm very happy with them.