The Book of Shadows Tarot | Andrea Aste

The Book of Shadows

I decided to throw caution to the wind on Friday and make a proper video deck review for this deck, The Book of Shadows Tarot.

Dear Reader, I kid you not, it took HOURS and you would NEVER know that from the 7 minute offering that I made on youtube.

I shall look at even TV adverts with new-found respect ….

Anyway, the deck that I reviewed was The Book of Shadows Tarot by Andrea Aste.

I had the good fortune to meet Andrea last year when I visited Italy with a group of nefarious ne’erdowells  Tarotists on Arnell Ando’s Tarot tour.

Andrea Aste

I was hugely impressed by him.  And not just that moustache.  His drive, vision and illustrating skills fairly whipped me along with him.  So, when the kickstarter was launched, I was there, pledging.

As is my habit, I am now reviewing the court cards from the deck.  To see my review of the whole shebang about the deck, go to my youtube channel. Yars.  I haz one.  I do rabbit on somewhat …. so take a coffee and something to keep you awake.

There are two pages in the book that comes with the deck that focus on the hieroglyphs found on the cards; thus the symbols act as titles and keywords.

Initially, I thought that there was nothing to decode the symbols on the court cards.  BUT I AM MISTAKEN!!!

The Magician’s decoded glyphs show me the four symbols that signify each suit. Wands is represented by a stylised two-branched tree, Coins by a spiral, Swords by three wavy lines and a scimitar and Cups by a cup.

Through additional Sherlockholmesian shenanigans, I can see that the symbol for Woman and Man and the symbol for Power show up on the Queen and King cards

Power + Man + Wand/Cup/Sword/Coin = King of suit
Power + Woman + Wand/Cup/Sword/Coin = Queen of Suit
Horse + Human Being + Wand/Cup/Sword/Coin = Knight of Suit
Human Being + Wand/Cup/Sword/Coin = Page

It’s that simple.  And that clever.

The Suit of Swords

Alternative career as fashion designer entirely feasible!

The Suit of Wands

I don’t know what went wrong with my scanning – too much gin, maybe?