Lo ScarabeoBesprekingen

Not much of a book - a basic pamphlet in 5 languages is included, but the attraction here is the whimsical artwork. And it is delightful. All of the cards are rendered as Da Vinci paintings or details thereof, for example, the High Priestess card is the Mona Lisa in a pope hat! My only ding is the size - when they say "mini" they mean it - each card is barely longer than my thumb. At my age it almost requires a magnifying glass, but get it out - the art is worth it!½

I enjoyed this book more than Tarot Fundamentals, the first book in this series. This probably says more about me than it does these books: I'm not a beginner, and much of Tarot Fundamentals was stuff I already knew. Here, more was new to me, so I was more interested.

Tarot Fundamentals introduces you to the tarot and familiarizes you with the cards and the whole idea of reading them. Tarot Experience assumes the reader has that foundation, and focuses on using tarot cards. The first section of the book discusses different ways to use the cards: for ritual, magic, dream interpretation, and so on. After that, we get into the main part of the book, which is an in-depth work on reading the cards. The authors take several approaches. One section explains the differences for the reader between giving five-minute, twenty-minute, and sixty-minute readings. It's pragmatic as all get-out, and I really appreciated it. There are chapters on designing your own spreads, reading reversals, handling scary cards, how to read for friends & family/strangers/skeptics, the differences between predictive and advisory readings, psychological and philosophical issues, and doing readings on the topics most people ask about (love, career, and money). There's also a section on card meanings: one page per card, with the meanings worded for readings on personal life, psyche and soul, and divination. And of course, in a book focused on doing readings, there are spreads scattered throughout.

This is a good book, but I just can't bring myself to give it the fifth star. The proofreading is as atrocious as in Tarot Fundamentals if not more so: misspellings, missing words, homophones, punctuation gone awry, odd grammar, strange syntax. While there are several good spreads in this book, there's no index to them. Be prepared to bookmark your favorites. And at least twice I saw a spread referred to as an example, but the page on which to find the spread had been left out: "Acknowledging this, the Reader should select a spread such as Looking for Love on page __." Gah.

This book would probably be most useful to advanced beginners and intermediate tarot readers. It's not a necessary purchase, but it'd be interesting, and I'm glad I read it.

Beautifully illustrated, however, the cards are provide no clue whatsoever as to their meaning. The little white booklet must be consulted in able to read them.

This is my favourite Tarot deck, and the first one I learned to read effectively. The art is fairly dark and sober, ranging from comic-book style to cards that look like beautiful paintings. There is definitely a gothic feel to this deck. Female nudity predominates, but doesn't detract from the art. I've found it to give accurate, if melancholy, readings. Card-stock is the high quality typical of Lo Scarabeo and easy to shuffle.

The cards in this deck are the traditional Rider-Waite images seen from the rear. For instance a monkey can be seen hiding behind the magician and we can see the faces of the audience, as if we are standing behind him.

These were rather disappointing. It does not seem like the artist took as much care, or thought, creating the pip cards---in fact, it appears that a different artist did them entirely. The Majors for the most part are beautifully drawn, with the exception of the cards with nudes, due to the fact that the breasts have a plastic appearance...maybe the artist never saw real ones!

These are just as beautiful as the full-size Tarot Art Nouveau (if not more so, since the nudity was not so graphic in detail), but I found the card stock to be a bit flimsy.

Ochres, sepia, dark yellows and greys - an unusual but overall eyecatching palette that works. My only quibble is the mouths on a number of face are drawn irritatingly just enough oversized to be awkward - but given the theme, this may be deliberate. On the other hand, the deck is quite different and some of the cards stand out (Sun, Priestess, Death) in a way the empahasises the 'different take' of the deck. Overall, a nice addition to the 'tarot decks as art' collection.

This is a fairly faithful translation of a traditional Rider-Waite-Smith deck only using cute animals in place of the human characters.

The art is both cute and quirky with a few images that border on the creepy, just enough to keep the deck from getting somewhat saccharine.

As I said the deck is a fairly faithful take on a standard RWS deck, though there are a few differences that I found a bit off putting, though I do have to say they match the overall feel for the deck and the images are close enough to the standard RWS deck that one could easily use them in a reading and stick to the definitions you are already familiar without having any conflict with the deck itself.
As I bought this one more for the art than for it's practical tarot application the differences don't really bother me, though I don't feel I'll be using it for readings very often if at all.

Beautiful artwork, you know instinctively that the artist is a cat lover. The cards are loosely based on the standard Rider-Waite set-up, making reading very clear. The quality of the cards is superb, as usual from Lo Scarabeo (they have not disappointed me yet). I am extremely pleased with this deck and believe it will become a definite favorite.

love Klimt (although incorporation into traditional imagery isn't the greatest.

not as well done as i would have liked½

kind of cool

I bought the kit because of the booklet included, which - short as it is - is an excellent and outstanding companion to understanding and reading Marseille-like tarots.

A wonderful, deep, well researched "follow-up" on the Thoth tarot. Due to the very lean LWB it is not well-documented, but it is based on some serious study of ancient Western esoteric (Liber Hermetis, Picatrix, Agrippa's occult books to name a few). One of the few "serious" tarot decks in my view. To learn more you might want to follow discussion threads on Aeclectic tarot ( http://www.tarotforum.net/ )

Gorgeous deck with a really good layout, however next to impossible for me to use to read as many of the images have nothing to do with the meaning of the card and some seem to imply just the opposite of the card, which I found very distracting and off putting.

A surprising deck that can go from cartoonish on one card to sexy on the next. All in all a lot of fun and highly accessible.½

One of the most beautiful decks I've seen. Great for divination with clients who may be put-off or "spooked" by the imagery of more mainstream decks. The gold leaf effect and iconography lend an air of respect and mystery to a reading. Even if not for divination, just beautiful to look at in its own right.

Very pretty cards! The creator of this deck also has created the Fenestra Tarot, which I am looking forward to. Lovely imagery here, but I haven't used it much I'm afraid. The cards are small and thin and because I'm used to much bigger decks, I have a hard time shuffling them. Worth the price for the art.

Interesting take on the traditional RWS symbolism. But not many of the cards have anything terribly interesting to reveal. Alot of them are the same scene, but now you can see a face. Certain cards do have interesting things going on, though. Not really a reading deck (not for me anyway) but an interesting bit for the collector.

Not a deck for the beginner, but the artwork is fascinating and lovely. I enjoy reading with this one alot. The backs are the same images as the fronts, but in black and white. Gives a whole new layer of meaning to reversals. There are so many permutations possible with this deck.

Nicely illustrated, but in the pip cards it is difficult to tell which suite they are to represent.

A beatufiul deck, but I didn't connect with it enough to use it for readings.

This tarot deck is a fun, good basic deck, based firmly and easily within the Ryder-Waite school of reading, but with a fanciful comic-book gothic style that makes it fun to read.

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