Customer Reviews

Tarot of The Imagination

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

 

 

Before commenting on the Tarot of the Imagination, I must qualify my review. I am not a professional cartomancer and only have limited abilities in tarot reading, although I would assume that we all are continuously learning more everday about the art.

This is a fascinating deck and is a serious departure from the classic Ryder collection, which is much more accessible for most readers, novice and professional alike. These cards are like some phantasmogoric landscape, utterly captivating, but often opaque in meaning. The card faces literally beg the reader to feel meaning, rather than to analyze it.

Some of the cards are more literal than suggestive, such as the King of Pentacles. Most, however, are highly evocative and demand the reader work his or her own imaginative and intuitive powers to derive sense and value from them. Many even seem to echo the absurdism of Salvador Dali, such as the portrait of the Hanged Man, who seems to drip like nasal discharge from the gigantic head of another figure.

Many of the cards have historical contexts as well. Several are set in times of crisis, revolution, and war, chiefly found in the Sword suit, which seems appropriate enough. The artist, Ferenc Pinter is to be commended for his breadth of imaginative topics, which, like the tarot itself, ranges from passion to pain, from illusion to stark reality. The deck has urged me to learn more about this talented artist.

On the downside, the deck has some serious flaws. Perhaps it is my easy familiarity with Ryder, but some of the illustrations simply have no relevance to me with traditional interpretations. For example, the Ten of Pentacles displays what appears to be a typical American couple before the great Sphinx in Egypt. They are on holiday and snapping photos with their 35mm cameras. Perhaps I am misguided, but I thought the general divinatory intent of that card was to signify family prosperity and wealth.

Last, the guidance provided by the boxed set insert for general card meanings often departed from most commonly accepted interpretations. Again returning to the Ten of Pentacles, the brief commentary observes that the card signifies " Understanding. Returning to where one once was afraid to go." The artistic rendering for this card does not suggest that meaning at all, unless I am simply not seeing what the artist saw from the card.

I awarded this deck four stars because of its graphic quality, but it is not a tarot for the beginner. It is more useful for advanced readers, who, when throwing down a spread, are interested in not only answering a critical question, but allowing their minds to run free in this imaginative playground.