Tarot Lesson 2: How to choose your deck?

Dear Tarot Readers,

if you are new to Tarot you would probably find hard to choose the right deck when you go shopping for a tarot deck. I did not know how to get the most suitable deck for myself for years when I was doing tarot as a hobby. 

For a beginner is important to know that there are mainly 2  Golden Dawn- type decks:

- the Rider Waite Smith deck and those that follow them with slight re-interpretations and 

-the Thoth deck  and those that follow the  Hermetic Order Qabalah deck and have astrological signs and planets as well as planets in signs depicted in the tarot cards.

As a general rule the Rider Waite Smith decks are easier to understand and use than the Hermetic Order Qabalah decks.

There are also all sorts of tarot decks that do not follow either of these 2 currents and therefore need to be learned and understood by themselves. I have a number of these decks I purchased at the time and then got not to use them too much, with 2 exceptions: the Tarot of Sexual Magic by Laura Tuan and  Tarot of Jane Austen by Diane Wilkies.

One point I want to stress out, if you are a beginner in tarot just stay out of Tarot of Marseille type decks, which have no pictures on the pip cards - 1 through 10 Minor Arcana Cards. It will be very difficult to read with those. 

Please find below some of the decks I use and I find very easy to read with, followed by a short review of each deck. Please note I am not getting any commissions or advertising fees for recommending these decks. The decks I included in the list below are decks I found very accurate after many trial and error searches I made over 20 years of  my tarot experience. 

#1 Modern Witch Tarot Deck by Lisa Sterle

- this is RWS (Rider Waite Smith) inspirational deck very feminist (all people in these cards are women only). I am neither a feminist nor a witch but this is a very good, modern RWS deck, very easy to read with especially if you are familiar with the RWS card meanings.

#2 Dame Darcy Mermaid Tarot

- this deck I ordered online, and it was shipped promptly and arrived in just a few days, even though was a storm in Savannah, USA. 

I watched a review video awaiting my delivery of the deck and I was disappointed to find out that no bonus drawing/ sketch was included in my delivery. The reviewer surprisingly received a sketch, and I kind of expected one also, but of course no promise of any sketch was made from Dame Darcy at the time of order. 

Again is a RWS inspired deck, easy to read with and has an online guide that can be downloaded and printed from her website. I found the guide very shallow, insufficient to read the cards but I think at least you get an idea of the interpretation of the cards given by the creator/ illustrator of the deck. Please note that for this deck the author and the illustrator of the cards is one and the same person.

#3 Everyday Witch Tarot  by Deborah Blake

- this is a fairytale type deck and again you do not have to be witch to use this deck. I am certainly not a witch and I find this deck very enjoyable. I got the set that includes a very colorful, glossy book with one page explanation of each card. Again the book is not enough to give good readings, but is a start and gives a gleam into the thoughts of the cards creator.

#4 Universal Tarot by Roberto De Angelis

- again a RWS deck with subtle re-interpretation 

- for this deck there is a very comprehensive guidebook in the book Tarot for Writers by Corrine Kenner

I bought this deck in a bookstore and my latest deck addition to my collection. I found readings with this deck together with Corrine's  book explanations extremely accurate

#5 Tarot of Sexual Magic by Laura Tuan

- lovely amazing deck for love readings

- please be aware is an 18+ deck as the pictures on most cards are erotic

- this deck is not a RWS deck and needs to be learned by itself. Unfortunately there is no guidebook for this deck at this time, however there is a LWB ( little white book) that comes with the deck that gives an idea of how to interpret the cards, unfortunately largely insufficient from my point of view.

#6 Tarot of Jane Austen by Diane Wilkies

- an excellent tarot deck, does not follow RWS and requires to be acquainted with Jane Austen's 6 novels. As I read all of them I found it easy to read the cards. I used this deck so much that is almost unusable at the moment. Out of print at the moment and selling on EBAY at the moment for ridiculous amounts of money.

- it has an accompany guidebook which I found very well written and very comprehensive. The book is also out of print. I actually have this book in fair condition, the cover is a little used, but inside is in mainly good condition.  If interested to buy it, you can write me in comments or email me at

bzellag at @ hotmail dot (.) com

Happy shopping guys! 

Love and Light