The Goddess Tarot Deck

There are a lot of beautiful decks out there, but not all of them are great for reading. I was not sure if I would connect with this deck. Yes, it is beautiful. Yes it gives beautiful readings. It has become my go-to deck. I cannot express in words how much I love it, but here is my review. The Minor Arcana have blended goddess imagery with traditional Tarot perfectly. I've found a lot of "theme" decks can get gimmicky and try to fit the theme to the very specific situations on the cards, making the messages murky and readings are clunky. The Minor Arcana in this deck, not so. The characters have just been replaced with goddesses, a different goddess corresponding with each suit. The suit of Pentacles is especially beautiful and rich, with Lakshmi being the protagonist and gorgeous lotus imagery throughout. You still get some masculine energy as there are Princes and Kings in the court cards. The Major Arcana does deviate from traditional Tarot as each are represented by a different goddess. However, the theme of each Major is still intact. In total, you get beautiful artwork of 21 goddesses from different cultures and I have really enjoyed learning about each one. People have complained that the cards are thin, but as a small-handed shuffler, I appreciate how manageable the cards are. I am going to trim the white edges off. I have also put them in a nicer box, as I feel the one they arrived in didn't really do them justice. I hope this review was helpful and if you order this deck, that you enjoy it as much as I do. Peace and love!

One of my favorite decks

Excellent large cards! The details are perfect! Many different and new Goddesses to meet!

Very nice goddess deck.

I have only minor quibbles with this deck; otherwise it is a pleasure to work with. As other reviewers have said it has a serene, gentle quality and gorgeous artwork. I've been working with Tarot for years and I don't find the deck oversized at all. I can only guess that those reviewers who make that claim are new to Tarot in general. The deck uses the 8 Justice/11 Strength configuration, which I prefer and was happy to discover here. Each card has an intricate border that adds to the overall feel. The border on each Major card is unique and related to its Goddess. For example, Tradition/Juno is surrounded by two peacocks and little olive trees. Beginnings/Tara is bordered by a thick green forest with a tiger peaking out. There are 4 types of borders for the Minors related to its element. Pentacles have flowers with doves flying above, cups have rough blue waves, staves (wands) have a red and orange volcanic landscape. I just wish the border for swords had a more prominent feeling of air. It's a landscape of arid, craggy mountains, with a waterfall to one side. Only the very top of the border shows a few clouds. I love the inclusion of Goddesses that are less "popular" in today's Pagan community as well as drawing from multi-ethnic backgrounds. Personally I think Waldherr does a richer, more evocative job with her non-European subjects and those cards tend to be my favorites. I don't like Gwenhwyfar being included on the Judgment card, as she is a legend, not a Goddess, though her card is very beautiful. My biggest problem with the deck is that the little white book strikes me as being written after the deck was completed and tries to paint the deck as being more feminist than it really is as well as being more imaginative in scope. The booklet claims the deck's intention was to tell "women's" stories instead of men's. This claim breaks down for me when it comes to the Minors. They are all based on the images in the Rider-Waite deck and the Court Cards depict men where traditional. There's nothing new or particularly more feminist than usual going on here. Yet the LWB says the Minors are dedicated to 4 Goddesses and depict women's journeys related to those Goddesses. So the book's claims bug me a little. I also prefer more symbolism depicted in the Minors to give depth to a reading but if you are familiar with Rider-Waite, these are easy to pick up. Swords are supposed to show the Path of Isis and all cards have an ancient Egyptian theme given to the traditional poses. Pentacles are the Path of Lakshmi. I consider these East Indian pictures to best of the group. Cups are for Freyja but show generalized Medieval-ish figures with pale blond hair. Staves are supposed to show the Path of the Roman Goddess Venus but instead of having a Roman theme, there are Medieval-ish redheads in each scene. These issues related to the booklet are minor though compared to the cards themselves. I expect to get many years of enjoyment working with this deck.

I've been collecting tarot decks for a very long time. This year I've been splurging left and right adding new decks to my collection. This deck is gorgeous. The cards are on the large side. They have a nice thickness. The artwork is rich in detail. it does take some getting used to since they use various goddess issues for the Major Arcana. The Minor Arcana is a bit more traditional; yet, it still stays with the Goddess theme. A great deck.

....First, I expected your average sized pack of tarot cards. No - The Goddess Tarot is a big, beautiful tarot - with a high glossed finish. The colors are gentle, swirling, and yet such a warm, comforting feel flows from these cards. The suits (swords, wands, cups, pentacles) have been arranged according to : The Magician (1 - Magic) ISIS takes you through the suit of Swords, with The King of Swords as Osiris, although the swords represent thought and communication, the goddess brings her own love story and experiences with her in the suit The Emperor (4 - Power) FREYA takes you through the suit of Wands, with her fiery, warroress energy The Lovers (6 - Love) VENUS takes you through the suit of cups which is so flowing and romantic with its seaside art Wheel of Fortune (10 Fortune) LAKSHMI and her consort Vishnu takes you through the suit of pentacles, with its lovely scenes of India. The deck is like sitting having hot tea in a cozy kitchen with a gentle and wise old grandmother. I love the personable energies of the deck, and also to its credit, the card meanings and presentation are in standard RWS format which translates well from the standard RWS pack to The Goddess Tarot. In a nutshell? This tarot deck is a sheer joy to own and has become among my top 3 personal reading decks. Worth every penny plus so much more.

Beautiful deck and booklet!

Purchasing this tarot book was so rewarding as I got to understand the story behind this deck. It is a well worth addition in my collection of tarot decks and I am very happy with it.

カードデッキじゃなくて独立したガイドブックです。全て英文です。カードデッキは付いてません。 私、間違って買っちゃって返品するハメになりました(>_<)

The Goddess Tarot (U.S. Games, 1998) by Kris Waldherr is in some ways a fairly traditional RWS clone. However, many of the Majors have been renamed, for example Death becomes Transformation. And all of them have been attributed to a Goddess, such as Isis for Magic (the Magician), and Inanna for the Star. Likewise, all the Minors have female characters on them, instead of a mix of men and women. Almost the only male figures are the Kings and Princes. In addition, the suits also have "cultures": Staves (Wands) are all shown as red-heads (Celts?); Cups are blondes (Anglo-saxons?); Swords are Egyptian; and Pentacles are Hindu. Despite these "themes", the deck works well, and is very readable. I like that there are myths attached to each of the Majors. For example, I can see why Isis was chosen for the Magician, as she worked magic to bring Osiris back to life (twice) - using the resources she had to hand, and her own focus. I also like that the Courts are Princess, Prince, Queen and King. It's a ranking I appreciate, with its gender balance, and the mix of youth and maturity. Obviously, a Princess doesn't necessarily denote a female in real life when it comes up in a reading - I think we all have aspects of any of these archetypes, no matter our apparent gender. Still, it brings a better equilibrium to the depictions. So, in this Princess of Cups, I see a somewhat immature energy, willing to sip from life and explore the emotions around them, yet not ready to plunge deeply into anything, though they may think they are. The Aces don't have the traditional RWS hands in the sky offering the suit symbol. However, they are otherwise quite standard, with nicely illustrated elements, such as the upright wand with lively green leaves seen on the Ace of Wands. I like that there is also a large sun shining brightly behind it (plenty of energy), a soft green field with flowers at its base (a good basis for growth), and hills in the background (challenges, but not overwhelming ones). The cards have plenty of symbolism to make them easy to read. As for the pips, these continue the cultural theme of their suits, and certainly the colour schemes used in them. In addition, all the male figures in the pips are replaced by females, or left out entirely. So, for example, the Five of Wands shows five women holding wands aloft. In the Six of Cups this isn't as apparent, given that it has simply removed the human figures entirely. Still, the traditional house and garden, little stairway, and flower-filled cups are still there, and I think the notion of an idealised past is still available from it. All the Tens also have the human figures removed, making the Ten of Wands and Ten of Swords rather less "negative" than they tend to be. Yet, the meanings are still available, in the way of semi-illustrated pips, from the colour schemes and the shapes formed by the ten objects. Overall, it's a pretty, pleasant deck, with a woman-centric focus, easy to read, and fairly "gentle".

This deck...I was drawn to it immediately and Im not disappointed. It's my favourite deck for sure! The artwork is stunning, but out of all of my other decks, I find I really love the guidebook and the meanings. Like some decks their guidebooks aren't detailed enough and I have to use a tarot app to like get more detailed meanings. But this deck gives me amazing readings.

Beautiful deck with awesome guidance book