The Tarot of The New Vision is a very stunning, and different take on the imagery of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. See, with the RWS images, you are seeing something – but the Tarot of the New Vision images show you what is on the other side of that image.

Makes for a pretty interesting learning and reading experience, if you ask me. The deck features artwork by Raul and Gianluca Cestaro. If you buy the book and deck kit, then you will also get a fully illustrated book that was written by Giordano Berti, Tiberio Gonard, Raul and Gianluca Cestaro. So lets have a look at this wonderful deck created by Lo Scarabeo.

The Cards

As Tarot cards go, these cards are a decent size to hold and shuffle. And the back of the deck is reversible, which is good for those of us who also do readings with Reversed cards.

As I mentioned before, these cards show us the RWS images from a totally different perspective. For example, we’ve all seen The Magician from the front in the RWS imagery. But, did you know what was behind him? Well, this deck shows you that, and much more. Naturally, the imagery is based on intuitive inspiration of the Deck’s creator, Pietro Alligo.

The LWB and The Book

The deck also comes packed with a LWB (Little White Book). As is the case with every Lo Scarabeo deck, the LWB looks bulky because it has the interpretations in English, Italian, Spanish, French and German. Honestly speaking, there isn’t much that one can gain from the LWB. If you really want to gain more insight into the imagery of the card, and learn more about what the artists were thinking of while creating this deck, then I suggest that you get the ‘Tarot Of The New Vision’ book.

The book is really well written with some very interesting articles written at the beginning (in the ‘Presentation’ and ‘Foreword’ sections, along with an article titled ‘Analyzing the Major Arcana’). At the end of the book is a section titled ‘Divination and Awareness’ which talks about several interesting things like Ethics for the Diviner, and interesting takes on the ways to interpret the cards. This section of the book also has some interesting spreads for readings.

The book talks about each card from the deck (with a bunch of more stuff included in the Major Arcana descriptions) and gives both the ‘Main Meanings’ (for Upright meanings) and the ‘Opposition’ meanings (for Reversed meanings) for that card. I really liked the way the details of the imagery used were explained. It made the images really come alive for me.

If you want to buy this deck, then I would strongly suggest that you get the deck along with this book (a kit is available). The book really is useful and helpful.

The Majors

The Major Arcana of the Tarot of The New Vision deck are really interesting to look at: they provide a very interesting take on the scenery we have become so accustomed to with the RWS. For example, The Magician card has a monkey tugging at the Magician’s cape, while The Chariot has two prisoners tied up at the back! Another insight is that the hands of The Hanged Man are tied and he is looking on at a very displeased crowd that is pointing and shouting at him.

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  1: The Magician

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The Minors

The Minor Arcana of the Tarot of the New Vision are also very good. Did you know, for example, that what the lady in 2 of Swords cannot see is a white horse that is coming towards her? Or how about the two people who walk away from the person in the 5 of Cups card, leaving him sad? Or the sculptor working away at a statue while the apprentice in 8 of Pentacles chips away at the pentacle he is carving?

Each of these cards presents a picture of the Minor Arcana which is astonishing and surprising – and when you first see it, you are simply caught unawares at the different ways you react at each image. At some of the depictions, I found myself smiling and nodding, while some of these images had me wondering and thinking.

Reading with the Tarot of the New Vision Deck

Naturally, I had to test this deck out for myself. And so I sat down to do a reading for myself. I found myself easily slipping into the interpretations – I had only just finished reading the book over the past couple of days. But even if I might not have recalled every intricate detail from the book, looking at the images made the process very smooth. I easily found myself doing a reading with some interesting insights.

I think that those of us who are very familiar with the RWS imagery, reading with the Tarot of the New Vision won’t be such a hardship. In fact, I have a feeling that this deck will interact very well with the RWS, especially while doing a reading using two or more decks in combination (something like a ‘what is in front of you – what is going on behind the scenes’ reading comes to mind)!

The Cards I Liked

Now lets look at some of the cards from this deck that I really liked.

The Temperance card is a very beautiful card. Under normal circumstances, all you think about when you see this card is the way the Angel is pouring the liquid from one cup to the other. You even see his toe dipped into the pool of water. Or you might end up focusing on the Iris flowers, or maybe the golden crown behind him. But with this card in the Tarot of the New Vision deck, we also see something new – some kind of a strange alchemical apparatus. The book says that this is an ‘athanor’ – a coal oven through which warmth reaches a distiller whose contents then evaporate and rise, and depending on their weights, get caught as deposits in one of the 3 vases of the athanor.

The Star card from the RWS has also always fascinated me. I have always had some really interesting encounters with this card – especially when I meditate with it. And every time I used to meditate with it, I used to see myself walking towards the person in the card. The image from the Tarot of the New Vision deck actually shows a person walking on the other side of the water pool. The book calls this man ‘a pilgrim, a Gnostic, searching for answers to life’s questions’.

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  17: The Star

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The Moon card, has always managed to confuse me. Sometimes I felt that the card talked about facing inner fears, while at other times I thought it meant just plain confusion. And most other times, I feel it means both these things. And while it may be true, The Moon card from the Tarot of the New Vision deck is also a pretty interesting picture. Now we see a Knight holding a knife and heading out from the waters towards the path that will lead him from fearfulness to fearlessness. (Somehow I can’t stop thinking of a scene from the ‘Children of Dune’ miniseries where Leto II stands in the desert facing one of the storms reciting the Litany Against Fear).

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Your Turn

Do you have this deck? What were your experiences with the Tarot of the New Vision deck? Did you like the interpretations of what was going on behind the scenes? Or did you have some other interpretations? Which cards were they?

Do write about your thoughts and ideas in the comments section below, and lets talk about it.