NewRAW Tarot

Back in April 05 NonProphet suggested making a RAW Tarot along these lines:

A combination of ideograms / thinkers / art work from MLAers - based

Could be based around the eight circuit and Quantum Psychology

Orson, Joyce, Bucky, Leary, Pound, Reich, Buddha, Lao Tse, Emperor Norton, 23, 5, pyramids
Golden and noon blue apples, Sacred Chao, laws of cosmic schmukery, Hagbard... you get my drift

'IS' as the hanged man
Ol' Bob as the Fool
RAW as the Heirophant

Then Bob himself chipped in on 14th April 05

i wd like 93 cards [for thelema and agape]

5 suits [for law of fives]
wands
cups
swords
pentagons
apples

23 trumps
22 as before
+ Sacred chao

Much lively discussion has continued for the best part of a year, mostly suggesting types and characters for a Tarot, like RAW as the Hermit (say) or Emperor Norton as the Emperor – or themes and subjects we would like to see referred to, from Bucky to Korzybski.

Meanwhile Bobby has started releasing his creations. He offered an Ace of Apples in the forum, in response to Bob’s preference for that as the fifth suit.

Zach offered a Sacred Chao.




Since then, Bobby has released 4 cards through the OM blog: The Fool, A Magician, The High Priestess and An Empress(just today!)

Currently Antero Alli approaches the end of his first course here - planning to repeat it in the Autumn (Fall) and in Angel Tech you will find a specific section on Designing Your own Tarot. (check out this article on the NeuroTarot from his website).

He also offers Vertical Oracle, which you can preview here, for inspiration perhaps? He has encouraged us to make our own set of cards up for the 8 Circuits model. You can see my own work-in-progress here.



Throughout the year people contributed some interesting links, some for people who know little about the Tarot, and some for enthusiasts.






Zach recently offered a Moon card in the forum.

From NonProphet:

Conceptualist Tarot
Le Palais du Tarot
Tarot Reference
Mantegna's Prints in Tarot History
Housewife's Tarot (!)
Magical Omaha

The Collectors: The Love of Tarot
About Tarot

The sarcastic but useful JK site
21. Can I (and should I) design my own Tarot deck?

Can you? Sure. While you at it, go design (or doodle) a starship, or a nuclear reactor, or paint the 21st-century Mona Lisa, or write a great novel or just do something really useful with yourself and cure cancer. Because, if you're just starting out with Tarot, or if you've only been at it using the blind-alley affirmation method, you don't have a clue about what you're doing or what Tarot is about. Isn't that correct? So, why do you figure you'd be any good at designing an example of something you know little or nothing about? But, lots of people do figure just that, aiming to reach the heights by expressing the depths of arrogance and absurdity. And they inevitably end up with muck that only vaguely makes sense even to them. The greatest Tarot deck ever designed, the Thoth deck of Aleister Crowley, was the culmination of a long and interesting life spent absorbing and processing huge amounts of symbolic data. Now, that's what we all do of course, process symbolic data. It's just that some of us are artists at it, and those people not only can but SHOULD make Tarot decks (and that doesn't require a pack of cards), and some of us can't process our way out of a wet paper bag, and those people should spectate (not speculate).

This guy - Lee Heflin - rectified the colours for Crowley’s Thoth Deck, and also did some amazing fractal variations. [2009 update: sadly, the link we had here, to lots of the images, has broken. You can see fragments here. And, for contrast Atu XVII on Flickr

If anyone can find a better online set, then let us know.]

For an exoteric and detailed 'true' history of the Game of Tarot, check out "A Wicked Pack of Cards" and/or other books by Ronald Decker (what a great name for a playing card historian!).