Tarot Thrones | The Court Card Blog

Tag: Tarot Marseille Sophistique

  • Marseille Sophistiqué | TPC Games | Review

    So, I decided to hazard another foray into the Dark Arts of Imovie, this time with the Marseille Sophistiqué.  The MS is a rather gorgeous little deck from those clever comic book artists at TPC Games.
    click on the photo to visit TPC Games
    Before we get into the review, I know that there are a couple of glitchy things there in the video, but it takes about an hour for me to load up a video of this teeny tiny size to youtube. Fibre optic? I think we’ve got string here …  
    As you can see from the photo, the box is a sturdy lift-top box that depicts 4 cards from the deck – a Major and a Minor, flanked by a King and Queen.
    The cards themselves are 4 3/4″ tall x 2 3/4 wide and printed on a linen-effect card which results in delightfully slippy shuffling.
    It’s a 78-card deck with Justice at VIII and La Force at XI.  Yes, the titles are in French.  It’s a Marseille, so, yanno – get over it 🙂  The deck is based (fairly faithfully, I think) on the Conver Marseille Tarot (1760s).
    The Unnamed Chappie
    First up, this is a Tarot that has been created with GAMES in mind, not divination.  There IS a LWB with the deck, but it is stuffed to the gunwales with rules for game playing and details of games, such as Baronetti and French Tarot.  They do mention divination in an Appendix at the back of the LWB, but there are no card meanings included. 
    The first thing you’ll notice are the non-traditional hues of the colour-scheme. If the primary colours of a traditional Marseille have you reaching for your sun-glasses, then this might be the deck for you.  It’s in muted shades of green, gold, blue and red, with white highlights.  Very tasteful!
    The colouring-in is deliberately quite scrappy – like an old deck – with lines clearly visible. However, although you can see the ‘pencil marks’, they colour outside of the lines just enough to be attractively arty and not so much that the untidy artwork shifts the gear-stick on your OCD into overdrive.  

    Scribbly colouring.  I like it.

    It’s a 78-card deck, with traditional Marseille pips.  The suits are Deniers, Epees, Batons and Coupe.  The Minors have coloured borders – Cups is red (more like pink, really), Deniers are gold, Swords blue and Batons are green.  These borders also go around the Courts.  The Majors don’t have such a border.

    Above are the four 10s of the deck, to illustrate the Minors.  There is a X symbol for 10 in the top left, bottom right corners.  Where the X coloured yellow is in the bottom right, the card is right-sides up.  Where the yellow X is in the upper left, it is upside down. 
    The back (shown at the end of the video above) is suitable for reversals.
    So, what do I think? It’s a nice size for handling and it shuffles beautifully.  It’s easy to distinguish Swords from Wands thanks to the colours selected.  The muted, almost sugar almond, shades are delicious. And of course, the design is a proven classic.
    I think this deck is gorgeous and a worthy addition to anyone’s collection. 
    Do you have the Marseille Sophistiqué – what do you think of it?
    Do you use it or just admire the artwork?
    How are you at reading with unillustrated pips?
    Want more games to play with it? 
    Click here for game variants not in the LWB
    Update 31/3/17 – the deck can be purchased here  but only US sales, alas!

  • Strength | Summer Solstice | Blog Hop

    Welcome to the Midsummer
    Blog hop! If you’ve happened here by chance, then you are in for a
    treat if you follow the links below to all the other blog hoppers who
    are providing a chain that runs from 0 The Fool through to XXI The
    World.
    My card of choice is
    Strength.
    Most decks published today show
    Strength as Major Arcana VIII, however this wasn’t always the case.
    In older Marseille-style decks Justice is found at position
    VIII.
    So why the switch? Well, Back in the early 1900s, The Golden Dawn’s 
    A
    E Waite (the creator of the Rider Waite Smith Tarot) was keen to add
    astrological references to the Major Arcana.  But if Strength (Leo),
    kept her position at Major XI, then pesky Justice (Libra) would disrupt
    their plan to show all the Astrological trumps in their correct
    order. 
    And Lo! The switch was made!  Righting some ancient Tarot wrong, no doubt 🙂
    Aleister Crowley, another but more notorious member of the Golden Dawn, stuck resolutely to the traditional
    numbering for his Thoth deck. But changed the names of the cards – Strength became Lust.  Contrary ol’ coot!
    Does this order-switching matter? Probably
    not really, because back in the day, the old decks didn’t have numbered
    Major Arcana cards. 
    Why were numbers added? I fondly imagine that the various City States of Italy – each more powerful and vainglorious than the
    next – ended up with different cards in different orders.  It’s easy to imagine courtly gents in tights arguing heatedly about whether Temperance scored more points than Justice in their card game.  That’s the sort of argument that can get you run through with a rapier….
    But I digress, what I REALLY wanted to share with you is the evolution
    of the image:
    Visconti Sforza – 1451

    Hercules giving the Ebil Nemean lion a jolly good thrashing.
    Pretty danged violent to our contemporary eyes, isn’t it? 
    The Sola Busca Tarot – 1491

    A completely different viewpoint from a completely unique deck.
     This is Tulio, meditating on the night

    Don’t mix up card VIII which shows a child being dismembered over a fire by Nero – that’s Justice, not Strength!


    This is a deck crammed with alchemical symbolism 🙂
    Tarot del Mantegna – 1470(ll Meneghello version)


    A woman holds a club and wears a lion’s mask.
    There is also a lion behind her and a broken column.
    The broken column is traditionally the symbol for Forteza.


    BTW – this deck doesn’t actually have anything to do with Mantegna 🙂
    The Rider Waite Smith – 1909

    The combination of lion, woman and physicality that we strongly associate with this card makes an appearance.

    Tarot Sophistique – 2014

    A contemporary version of a Marseille Tarot image 
    Woman and Lion
    we can see the nascent leminscate of the RWS in the circle of her hat.

    Strength earned her place in the Tarot deck by dint of being one of the four Cardinal Virtues: Fortitude.

    The other virtues are Prudence (The High Priestess), Temperance and Justice (represented by, erm, Temperance and Justice).

    I like the virtue of Fortitude being part of the Tarot deck.  But Fortitude and Strength have slightly differing meanings:

    Fortitude means courage in
    pain or adversary.
    Strength means:
    a) the
    quality or state of being physically strong
    b) the capacity of an
    object or substance to withstand great force or pressure
    The subtle difference is that Fortitude brings a moral strength, a valour (indeed a Virtue!) to the heart of the card, which Strength alone does not.
    And there endeth the Lesson on Strength!
    Hope you’re ready to hop onwards to the next card?

  • Full Moon | Leo | February | King of Wands

    As the moon trundles around its orbit, we find her passing through Leo for February’s full moon tonight (3 February).

    This means that we shall find ourselves acquainted with the energies of that most magnetic of the Tarot court personalities, the King of Wands.

    Someone who is working their King of Wands energy is someone whose inner life and outer life are as one – there is no conflict between what’s going on in his head and heart and what he is called to do. And, by Jingo – they are called to be active in the world!

    His appearance in your life encourages you to take action in those matters that you feel passionately about.  And you don’t take action in a small, quiet way – my goodness no! The King of Wands is someone that you can see for miles off!  Let people see you walking your talk with confidence and enthusiasm!

    This character likes people to look at him! He’s fond of nice things and doesn’t mind showing them off.  That could make him a royal pain in the arse, but fortunately his show-off gene is accompanied by a generous gene too – so if you hang around with King of Wands people, there’s a good chance that you will benefit from their largesse!

    King of Wands people are very good at seeing the Big Picture in a situation.  They seem to be able to rise above the fray and see all the horizons with clarity.

    All the Wands Courts are forwards-looking energies and this King from the Kickstarter-funded Marseille Sophistique is pictured looking off to the right.  For me, the right is the direction of the future.

    It’s a good time, says the King of Wands, to take action and get moving towards your bright and beautiful future!

    Here in the King of Wands from the Tarot of Metamorphosis, we see clearly how he is associated with the strength and growth.  There are smokey grey and pink clouds behind this King – makes me think that there is a forest fire somewhere!

    That reinfoces the idea that when this King catches fire, you can see the results from quite a distance!

    Today the King of Wands asks:

    What do you feel passionately about? What BOLD steps can you take today that move you towards that passion?

    Are there any confusing situations that can be grasped with more clarity right now?

    The King of Wands says:  It’s time to look forward with confidence!