Customer Reviews

The Osho Transformation Tarot: Insights and Parables for Renewal in Everyday Life

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'll start with a warning that, in contrast to the Osho Zen tarot deck, this deck is NOT a tarot deck in the traditional sense - it is a set of less than 78 cards, not divided into major arcana and 4 suits of minor arcana.

Some versions of this deck feature an extra card with Osho's picture, which is missing from this version. Personally, I dont like this card as I feel as if it encourages a personality cult.

This set includes 60 cards. The art is beutiful and simple - no heavy symbolism (= no astrology, numerology, cabbala, etc) as in decks like Crowley Thoth or Rider-Waite-Smith.

The book gives for each card a short explanation and a story from which the scene on the card is taken. The stories are multi-cultural (zen stories, jewish stories, chrisitian stories, etc), feature known figures (e.g. Moses, famous zen teachers), and are very enlightening.

The stories themselves are interesting and readable enough to make this deck worth it's price just for the value of the book as reading material.

The deck leads to a warm and personal reading style - both the reader and the readee can relate to the stories and figures in the cards. The reading session has more in common with story telling than with horoscopes (a la 'you'll meet a tall dark stranger') which is different from, and to my taste favourable over, that encouraged by other decks.

All in all I highly and warmly recommend this deck.

Maybe even cooler. :)

Really, the book is what attracted me to this collection. I saw it a few weeks ago, started reading the back of the box and realized that the book was pretty much what I'd been wanting for a while: a book of parables. I'd had a fondness for mythology since middle school, but rarely indulged to this degree. The stories are from different paths (Sufism, Islam, Hinduism, Christiantity, etc.), and each corresponds to one of the 60 cards ... except when the cards double up on a story to impress an opposite meaning. This deck, as is the Osho Zen Tarot, is named for a man who loved to tell such parables to his followers, the Bagwaan Shri Ragneesh (remember that old dude who led the commune in Oregon?), but he's only really mentioned in the intro and closing of the book.

Not having read many parables, I find this book utterly charming. The cards and illustrations I find a bit less so, but I think that for the first time since collecting divination decks, the artwork is less important to me for understanding the meaning behind the cards.

The cards measure 5.25" x 3.25", and are bordered with a grey pattern on the picture side. The backs feature an orange circle painting that is also shown on the box. The artwork is amazingly colorful and, while I've seen decks that are visually more appealing to me I will say that the drawings are very skillfully rendered and fairly often get across the point of the story. I've been told that I have big hands for a woman, but I'd find this deck little tricky to shuffle playing-card style (which doesn't seem to suit the mood of the deck anyway). The cards are covered with a semi-glossy and not terribly slick coating.

This deck is probably one of the best divinatory systems I've ever picked up. The book is gripping, so as to not force memorization of the cards as much as to make reading them intuitive. I feel as if I know -- a little bit -- the people portrayed in the stories ... and many of the meanings behind the cards are things I've consciously pondered on my own.

Aside from the word "tarot," I feel that this deck is exactly what it's title claims it to be. If you learn well from stories, I highly recommend this deck.

This ended up being my favorite Tarot deck - each tarot card comes with a teaching story - often a little story of the life of an enlightened Master, like Gautam the Buddha, Jesus.....

If you pick the tarot card with sincerity and are open to the message of the stories, it can change your life....

Just reading the stories on the tarot cards reminds me of the possibilities of meditation and awareness. Even just glancing at a card during the day can shift my mindset. Great stuff.

These are not a full or typical tarot deck. stories relate to different ideas like "no-mind", "non-attachment",etc. the stories are nice and are illuminating reminders, and some of the cards are beautiful in their simplicity, but i don't think these cards can compare to the other set of osho tarot cards, which are strikingly beautiful and insightful. i would recommend the other osho tarot deck.

Firstly this is a great wee book of short stories, with excellent narrative and meaningful messages, it's profound, easy to understand and fun.
Unfortunately I only got the book, with no cards! So beware, make sure it says 'book with cards'.

There are a couple of rewritten stories, done to illustrate the point Osho was aiming for. The most glaring of these is Chuang Tzu's 'stink tree'. He calls him Lao Tzu and gives a different interpenetration, however if you imagine you're sitting around a fire listening to some tales from the ancestors, you will really appreciate this book. It's a real treat.

These are a great resource for spiritual teachings from multi-religion backgrounds. The paintings are inspirational and the stories a delight to read. I use them as a daily reminder to think outside the box.

I was struck by the really wonderful drawings, colors and representations that illustrate the insightful but straight-forward stories for each card. ...Thank you for the presentation!

I've owned this deck for five years and I have the Osho Zen Tarot also. I really like both of them, but anyone who owns the Osho Zen Tarot deck should know that this deck is much more difficult to "weave together" when laying out a spread for insight into a relationship. It is especially difficult (for me at least) to use the "choiceless awareness" layout. The interrelationship of the cards, which seems so easy to build with the Osho Zen Tarot, never seems to gel with these cards. For me, it is because the cards are representative of stories, not emotions or other states of being.

One of the ironies of this deck is that it hopes to inspire you to transformation, with that transformation being one of total immersion in the moment, with what is going on, with reality. Yet this deck, unlike the Osho Zen Tarot, does not speak to the user in the here and now--it seeks to draw you to where you can be, to transform you.

I gave the product four stars because the stories with their explanations *are* inspirational and useful. I have considered Osho one of the greatest, if not THE greatest spiritual teacher I have had over the past nine years, but when the usefulness of "throwing the cards" is removed from this product, it becomes "just" another one of Osho's books: highly inspirational, highly illuminating, highly useful, but not a present-oriented divinatory tool.

Same great teaching stories, but different design and Osho's picture not on the first card like on the original deck. Seems like the deck was redesigned for mass consumption, and not just friends of Osho.
My friend, who used my original deck for years, however was so pleased to have her own copy that she didn't seem to mind the changes.