Fantastical Creatures Tarot [With Instruction Booklet] [Cards]

This is a wonderful, mystical deck. I almost did not buy it because other reviews warned "this is not a beginners deck" and that it did not line up with traditional decks. However the deck kept calling out to me so I purchased it off Amazon. I am a beginner and I find this deck teaches me and leads me to greater understandings.

I would have to agree that this is not a "beginners deck" because it is the most slippery, tricky, insightful deck I have come across. It has a very definite personality. Where other Tarot decks will give you accurate, pedantic readings. This deck, for me anyway, gives deeply incisive readings full of sassy and sometimes humorous insight.

If you want just the facts get another deck. If you enjoy a deck with personality and are not put off that it has a mind of it's own (very stubborn! - it keeps saying what it wants when it wants!) then this deck is wonderful. It will show you deeply (too deep for most people as it shows stuff you don't want to confront or admit even to yourself!). But beware - this deck is sassy!!!

The artwork is absolutely gorgeous. It does not try to follow tradition, but I find they speak wonderfully to my intuition. The only real break is with arcane 15 which is renamed "chains" but I personally like this change and find it consistent with the readings.

One final warning: those that want to keep their belief in the lie of the material universe walk away and do not purchase this deck. As Friedrich Nietzsche so eloquently says: "When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you."

It may seem that the world of Tarot is entirely overrun with copy-cat decks and deck "creators" who barely know a thing about magick and mysticism. That is not the case with this deck (nor is it ever the case with D.J. Conway!).
First of all, this deck is really original. It's not a remake of a bajillion other decks. The Fantastical Creatures are not ones you have heard of, at least not most of them. But that is only part of what makes this deck so exciting. The fact is that after more than a decade as a Tarot reader, a Witch, a Ceremonial Magician, and a student the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, I see in this deck that Conway grasps the underlying mystical, magickal sense of each card more fully and deeply than, really, almost anybody else out there who has produced a Tarot deck. I feel that the Fantastical Creatures Tarot is comparable in depth to the Haindl. And the artwork is just gorgeous; the scenes are enthralling, and the quality of the cards themselves is excellent, too. I also like that the cards are sized for a normal person's hands, not sized as though they were created for some giant! Another great thing about this deck is that if you have older children or teens, they can use this as a great deck which will capture their imagination and "grow" in meaning as the young people grow in their ability to understand. Such is not the case with other decks that children are typically introducted to, such as the Whimsical, the Hello Kitty, or the Starter Tarots. And, of course, the Fantastical Creatures has no "blinds" to deal with like the Rider-Waite. All in all, a great deck.

If you love fantasy, it's hard not to fall in love with the imagery on this lovely deck from the illustrator Lisa Hunt and writer D.J. Conway. The Fantastical Creatures Tarot features beings of myth and legend from all over the world. Stock fairytale figures such as dragons and unicorns rub shoulders with more obscure creatures like the Simurgh, a half-bird, half-mammal creature from Persian lore. Pagan deities, including Neptune and Circe, and legendary figures such as the Sumerian hero Gilgamesh also make an appearance in this eclectically-inspired deck.

Hunt also successfully varies mood and atmosphere. Cards like the Page of Pentacles, featuring a cute flower fairy, have a whimsical feel, while the hunched gray figure of the Minotaur on the 10 of Wands gives a suitably solemn feeling of weary oppression. Others are somewhat frightening or disturbing, such as the the glaring figure of Medusa as the Hanged Man. Still others shine with an surreal beauty, such as the wise Russian Firebird in The Star card. (Tip: Search for the deck's official website. There are images of all of the cards.)

This deck shares some of the peculiarities of previous Hunt/Conway collaborations, including a stated Air/Wands and Fire/Swords association and retitling The Devil card as Chains. In other respects the deck follows standard R-W structure, but does not echo R-W in the illustrations. There is no nudity, and this should be an inoffensive deck for all audiences.

Some have stated disappointment that the deck did not come with a full-sized guidebook. However, the LWB provides more information than many similar booklets, and I think the limited size may have cut down on the filler found in many larger books. For each card Conway provides a brief description of the creature featured, a divinatory meaning, and a magical use. The magical use is a one or two sentence suggestion (i.e. "Use in protection spells.") which leave room for creativity for those who want to use this and is unobtrusive for those who don't.

I did have some problems with the LWB. The divantory meanings were often trite and less useful than the description above them. They also sometimes clashed with the description or even with the brief "cheat sheet" cards that come with the deck. Some of the descriptions also seemed to substitute personal or modern interpretations for traditional lore, which was not always immediately obvious. For example, The Lovers features a faun, which Conway describes as having the legs and ears of a deer, and more gentle temperament than the Greek satyrs. Other sources I've checked describe fauns as looking and behaving exactly like the goat-hooved satyrs. Conway seems to mistakenly be associating the words faun and fawn and also providing her own interpretation of the creature.

Overall, however, my disappointments with book did not lessen my enjoyment of the deck enough to warrant docking a star. I highly recommend this deck to all fantasy lovers and to any fan of Hunt's previous work.