Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} of the Silicon Dawn by Egypt Urnash Pursuing a Philosophical Paganism. That quote above is by Margaret Trauth, or Egypt Urnash. It was the first sentence I read as I hurriedly started to read what the artist behind this beautiful deck had to say. And, upon reading it, I burst into laughter. This was the start of a beautiful relationship. My boyfriend purchased this deck for me because he wanted me to have a more sci-fi and modern tarot deck. He knew I already liked Tarot, so, in his words, he "got me something [he] wanted me to have." I don't know how he did it, but he found one of my favorite decks. One that I didn't know existed until he gave it to me. (This makes me wonder now if there is some truth that one shouldn't purchase one's own tarot decks? Hm. But that is a digression. ) Let's start with the booklet. Urnash knows about Tarot. The history, the symbolism, the progression. It seems obvious that this quote is serves first to draw in the reader ("What the hell is a tarot artist saying about tarot. "), and second to set up the introduction: She doesn't like how Tarot has been handled by many artists: "[How] I see Tarot: A historical trainwreck, pulled by about twenty-two decontextualized images. It's a big pile of symbols that you shuffle and free-associate over to try to connect with the Random Factors. Whatever it meant to an Italian noble doesn't really matter anymore; it's a snowball of symbols rolling through history. Throw it against a wall and divine meaning from the shape of the splatters" (pg. 8.) Urnash loves Tarot. In fact, she seems deeply annoyed that the cards haven't updated their symbolism ("Why is there a dog with ?") and that people just seem to repeat symbolism without caring for the reason. But with the harsh introduction Urnash gives to Tarot, she does care about the artform and the divination style. Prior to the introduction, she writes: "We live in the beginning of an age transformed into near-magic by the advent of microelectronics and the Internet. Some of us hope for the stars--and yet most tools for fortune-telling look exclusively to the past. This deck is a cartoonist's dreams of the future" (pg 5.) After, she goes into explaining how her views of Tarot is similar to a conversation between two people: only one person in this case is a deck of cards. A secularist view on Tarot, and one that I myself often agree with. It shouldn't be surprising then that her take on the symbolism has a very obvious modern flare. The Magician, for example, is sitting at a computer desk. Other pip cards involve space, aliens, or even some fantasy elements (there's a dragon on the Ten of Wands.) But there is so much more that I'm excited about in this deck. So. Much. More. For starters, there is a layer of varnish on some cards that can only be seen in reflected light. For example, the Fool cards have fairy wings that are only seen when reflecting the cards. I feel that this adds a literal unseen meaning when dealing with the cards. Also, there's additions to this deck. 21 more cards added, in fact. Right away there are three version of The Fool. Five (VOID) cards: a Queen, a King, a Chevalier, a Progeny, and "0 of (VOID)". The (VOID) cards are completely black (save 0) with varnish, and 0 just has a small butterfly-- and no varnish whatsoever. There is also a card titled "History" which is grouped with the . Each traditional suit (Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles) has an additional card called "99 of ___" Two blank cards: one black, one white. And then five additional "extra" cards that don't quite fit in the Minor or Major Arcana. The range of characters in the deck are worth noting too. There's plenty of feminine, masculine, and "ambiguous" people. The Court Cards at 50/50 women and men: with half the Chavaliers as men and the other half women, and two princes and two princesses. But also worth noting is the range of ethnicities in the cards. Not every single person is white. In fact, I'd say most aren't. Actually, the Ace cards I posted at the top of this review is a good indicator of the range. There are definitely quite a few cards that aren't "human" colors--like green or red. There are actually a few cards with no humans on them, but humanoid figures: with horns, or wings, or fur. My favorite part of the people shown is that there are two cards distinctly genderqueer. They are VIII: She is Legend and 8 1/2: Maya: Given this description, I think it's fair to speculate that She-Is-Legend is genderfluid. The switching pronouns are on purpose. I love it. On the right, we have Maya. This card is intriguing just by the overt sexual nature, but the description even adds more story behind the picture: I can't speculate to preferred pronouns here, but Maya indeed is a hermaphrodite: possessing both sexual organs. And none too shy about it. Another point I want to address about this deck and booklet is the Unmush's writing style. As already touched upon in the quotes, the text itself is very. Meta? I don't know the exact word I want. Urnash seems to take on the voice of the card, emulating the emotion and tone. The clearest example is the description of Chevalier of (VOID), mainly the last two paragraphs: This writing really draws me in as a reader (both of the book and of the cards.) The last thing I want to mention is the blank cards. They aren't mentioned in the booklet, but there's two of them: one of the card's black back design and one that the same only is inverted white. I want to include them with the rest of the cards, but I don't know what exactly they'd mean. I guess I'll find out when I do a reading and draw one. All in all, if this wasn't clear: I love this deck. Everything about it. From the card descriptions, to the fact the Queen is after the King (so Queen, King, Chavalier, and Princess/Prince are the order), the various genders, the various ethnicities and alien humanoids, the sci-fi, the extra cards, the (VOID) court, the fact the Fool is has three different interpretations, all of it. The artwork is gorgeous too. This deck fills the itch I thought I could only get with an oracle deck. I wanted something different, not the same o' Major/ with a slightly different art style. Or simply Tarot but stylized following a mythology or theme. This deck is truly unique. Review: Tarot of the Silicon Dawn Deck and Guidebook. I got Tarot of the Silicon Dawn a little over two years ago, and wrote an initial review then on my old blog. This review will be partly my old review (copied verbatim in some cases) as well as some new thoughts I’ve had since then. “Tarot is a big pack of lies and misinterpretations.” This is the first line in the guidebook by Egypt Urnash (Margaret Trauth). It was the first sentence I read as I hurriedly started to read what the artist behind this beautiful deck had to say. And, upon reading it, I burst into laughter. This was the start of a beautiful relationship. I didn’t pick out this deck myself, but my fiance (who at the time was my boyfriend) gifted it to me for my birthday. He knows I like cartomancy, so he wanted me to have a deck that reflected some of his interests in sci-fi and cartoons. And since I like sci-fi and cartoons, this plan worked really well. I really took to this deck when I first got it. The colors, the art style, the deck’s philosophy… I liked it all. And yet, I couldn’t quite understand this deck. And that was probably for a few reasons. First off, I was trying to read the deck with reversals. At the very least, I should have waited until I understood the upright meanings more before diving into reversals, but I didn’t so I was overwhelmed. Secondly, Urnash’s writing — while wonderful — doesn’t lend itself to easy understanding of the cards. And thirdly, I didn’t have a firm grasp of what the traditional meanings of Tarot cards meant and so I struggled to understand how Urnash interpreted the cards since I didn’t understand the source material. The philosophy behind the deck is something I agree with, though. Urnash basically writes that she doesn’t understand why people use symbols of the past to understand the future — instead, let’s implement futuristic ideas and science and aliens and etc, as well as things of the present. It’s a deck concept I definitely can get behind. So the booklet. It’s both wonderful and awful, in my opinion. It’s wonderful because it’s full of personality and snark. Urnash has a very educated perspective on Tarot. She obviously has spent some time at the library looking over the histories and contexts for tarot’s imagery. She discusses the loss of context and the way the meanings changed throughout time. In particular, I think about how she taught me that The Magician was originally a trickster-type card, while now it usually means someone who is very knowledgeable. But it’s awful for understanding the individual meaning of the cards. I feel as though Urnash is giving me so much information that I didn’t know how to siphon everything into a meaning of the card. It took me two recent afternoons of sitting with the booklet, the deck, and my knowledge of tarot cards to come up with a cheat-sheet for the deck that has enabled me to connect with the cards in a way I couldn’t before. Let’s talk about the cards. They are smaller than your typical tarot card, but about the size of a . There is varnish on some of the cards to give subtle imagery when reflected in the light. The images range from humans to aliens to humanoid monsters. There are 85 cards — which should tell you that there are more than the traditional cards in this deck! For starters, there are four Fools. Each Fool card explores a different aspect of The Fool, in a way that I think is helpful. One Fool is about starting from scratch and beginning with a basic understanding of everything … another Fool, while still beginning with naivety, is choosing to begin her adventure. It’s very interesting! There are also the additional cards added to the pip cards: the 99 card. Urnash describes this card as being the respective suit’s plenitude, although it started out as a joke. But at the heart, the 99 cards are about what happens when you have so much of something it’s absurd. What would it be like to have 99 cups? Speaking of the suits, it is important to note that Urnash changed the elemental correspondence for the suits as follows: Cups (Water), Swords (Air), Pentacles (Fire), and Wands (Earth). Astute tarot readers will note that pentacles are usually earth while wands are usually fire. Urnash changed this due to her personal associations with pentacles being more fiery and wands being more earthy. Other additional cards include the VOID cards (five total), X: History, 8 1/2 Maya, XIII: Vulture Mother, VIII: She is Legend, and Aleph4: November. There are also a blank black card and a blank white card, which I also incorporate into my readings. The VOID cards meditate on the idea of nothingness — of the void of space. They have no traditional orientation, and also lack pictures. The only way to “see” the scene on the first four cards is to reflect light off the varnish on the card. The last one doesn’t even have varnish, but it does have a singular butterfly among the darkness of the void. 8 1/2 Maya is a card that is described in a very sexual way. Maya is an intersex person (Urnash uses an out-dated term to describe Maya that most intersex people now find offensive). The card is very sexual as it depicts Maya pleasuring their body. As Urnash writes, “Forcing a bit of smut into your face. Here’s a meditation on duality, in the language of porn.” It’s here that I will mention that Urnash likes to discuss sex a lot in this book. Not the heteronormativity or cis-centric stuff, though, but she loves to discuss genitalia and the act of sex. Like she taunts the reader to guess what genitalia the people on card are hiding behind their hands. While I am still able to derive non-sexual meanings from all the cards, I understand that the language the author uses may be triggering to some. The Vulture Mother is a card I always struggle to understand, but basically it’s about salvaging and scavengers. She is Legend is an interesting card. The person pictured is genderfluid, I am guessing, because Urnash switches pronouns every other time, eg: “She’s drunk on himself, besotted with love — love for himself, love for everyone around her.” As someone who is nonbinary, I really appreciate the inclusion of this card and discussing how gender is fluid. But more broadly, the card is about how everything is fluid. Then lastly, we have Aleph4: November. This card is again hard to really decipher, but I believe it to be about transcending the cycle the Fool goes through all together. Going to an entirely new galaxy, so to speak. So while I really love this deck, I don’t think this deck is for everyone. The booklet’s inclination to discuss sex and genitalia may make people uncomfortable. The fact that Urnash twisted most of the card meanings may throw a lot of people off balance. I definitely don’t think this is a beginner’s deck given that I got it while I was a beginner and struggled. But I still really enjoy this deck. I still love the cartoon imagery and the philosophy behind the deck. Now that I am able to pick up meaning from imagery, I connect easier to the cards — even the added cards. I am hoping now to read with this deck more and more and I am proud to have it in my collection. Tarot of the Silicon Dawn. The companion book begins with the words, "Tarot is a big pack of lies and misinterpretations" and proceeds to rock the foundations of Tarot, in a style that reveals the authors deep love and knowledge of the art, history, and the images of Tarot. The deck is composed of 96 cards -- all 78 of the "traditional" majors and minors are there, but there are 18 additional cards included as follows: - A "99" card for each of the four standard minor arcana suits (positioned above the "10" card) - 3 additional variants of The Fool card (the four total versions are each numbered "0" with subscripts 0, 1, 2, and -1) - Another extra major arcana card titled "History", numbered as "X" and positioned between the "10" (Fortune) and "11" () cards - A fifth suit of five cards, titled (VOID) [sic], consisting of the court cards plus a "0" (zero) card. - An assortment of five additional cards, with the following titles: 8-1/2 Maya, XIII Vulture Mother, VIII She is Legend, Aleph (subscript 4) November, one untitled. In addition the creative and sometimes whimsical illustrations, many of the cards are subtly embossed, such that potions of the image do not reveal themselves until held correctly in reflective light. In the (VOID) suit, the cards are almost entirely black, with the images of the court cards only made visible by positioning them so as to expose the embossing. As such, this is not a good deck for low-light-level "bar" readings. Now out of print, this deck was sorely overlooked during its brief appearance on the general market. Buyer Advisory: While not an "erotic deck" per se, a few of the cards contained in this deck include sexually explicit elements. Abundance. Two’s company, three’s a party. The wives from the Two are joined by a third, coiling and swirling merrily through space. Drinks of red, green, and blue recall the Lovers. There’s no worry about spilling the drinks; there’s always more to be had. Which one are you – the fertile, never-ending serpent, the dark lady, or the normal human? Maybe you’re all three. Who’s riding who in this wild night under the stars? The night sky is endless, and full of resources if you know how to look for them. Let’s go have some fun up there. (Later on, we will.) Top 50 Essential Tarot Decks. If you ask any reader for their essential decks, you are going to find yourself quickly experiencing what we call the diversity of divination! Every reader will tell you that if you’re asking them, you really must have a Thoth deck – or a Waite-Smith deck – or a Fairytale Deck suitable for younger people – or a Marseille deck … and before long, you’ll wonder why you asked! So we gathered our Tarot Association Facebookers together and asked them – all 35,000 of them – to tell us their essential decks and then we collated the results together. The results are as divserse as you might expect, even though we clipped the list at the most commonly mentioned top fifty. We could easily have made it the top one hundred, or maybe two hundred and fifty. We’ve grouped decks together into historical decks, Lenormand, Oracle decks, etc., and realise that each of the categories could also have a Top Fifty. This list is intended to represent a fair collection of diverse decks, giving you a good idea of what other readers may have on their tables. Cutting Edge Decks. First, a brand new concept in design; the ANIMATED TAROT. It works by tilting the physical cards to animate several overlaid ‘holographic- like’ layers. This deck – part of a D&D 5e ‘spell-deck’ campaign succesfully raised over $1million on Kickstarter and is now available here for pre-order. Tarot Decks. 1. Waite-Smith Tarot by A. E. Waite & Pamela Colman-Smith (US Games) – produced in different editions, such as Commemorative, Radiant and Original. Also small and large sizes. 2. The Thoth Tarot by & Frieda Harris (US Games & Others) – produced in different editions and sizes. 3. The Mythic Tarot by by Juliet Sharman-Burke, Liz Greene and Giovanni Caselli (St. Martin’s Press, 2011) – originally produced by a different artist, the older version is now scarce. 4. Deviant Moon by Patrick Valenza (US Games, 2008. Also borderless edition, 2014) 5. The Wildwood Tarot by Mark Ryan, John Matthews, Will Worthington (Sterling Ethos,2011) – a popular revisiting of the Greenwood Tarot, which is now extremely rare. 6. The Druidcraft Tarot by Stephanie Carr-Gomm and Will Worthington (St. Martin’s Press, 2005) – a popular pagan-themed deck. 7. The Morgan Greer Tarot by Bill F. Greer (U.S Games, Inc., 2012) 8. The Golden Tarot Deck by Kat Black (U. S Games Inc., 2004) – an incredible collage work of art. 9. The Gaian Tarot by Joanna Powell Colbert (Llewellyn, 2011) 10. The Gilded Tarot by Ciro Marchetti (Llewellyn 2012) 11. The Steampunk Tarot by Barbara Moore and Aly Fell (Llewellyn, 2012) 12. Tarot Illuminati by Erik C. Dunne and Kim Huggens (Lo Scarebeo, 2013) 13. The Enchanted Tarot Deck by Amy Zerner and Monte Farber (Connections, 2009) 14. The Mary-El Tarot by Marie White (Schiffer, 2012) 15. The Jungian Tarot Deck by Robert Wang (Marcus Aurelius press, 2001) 16. The Lo Scarabeo Tarot by Mark McElroy (Llewellyn, 2007) 17. The Hanson-Roberts Tarot by Mary Hanson-Roberts (US Games, 2012) 18. Tyldwick Tarot by Neil Lovell (self-published, 2013) 19. Osho-Zen Tarot by Osho with illustrations by Deva Padma (Newleaf, 1994) 20. Housewives Tarot by Paul Kepple & Jude Buffum (Quirk Books, 2004) 21. The Hermetic Tarot by Godfrey Dowson. New On The Scene. 22. Tarot of the Zirkus Magi by Doug Thornsjo (Duck Soup Productions, 2014) 23. Chrysalis Tarot by Toney Brooks & Holly Sierra (US Games, 2014) 24. City Mystic Tarot: NYC by Virginia Jester & Chris Hopkins (Self-Published, 2014) Oracle Decks. 25. The Psycards by Nick Hobson & Maggie Kneen (US Games, 2002) 26. The Philosopher’s Stone by De Es (Currently out of print) 27. Oracle of Visions by Ciro Marchetti (US Games, 2014) Historic Decks. 29. Grand – produced in different versions, for example, The Book of Thoth: Etteilla Tarot (Lo Scarabeo, 2003). 30. Visconti Sforza Tarot – produced in different versions, for example, the Visconti (Lo Scarabeo. 2000). 31. Sola Busca Tarot – produced in different versions, for example, the Sola Busca by Wolfgang Mayer (1998), offered by Giordano Berti. 32. The Minchiate Tarot – produced in different versions. A deck of 97 cards running parallel to the development of Tarot. Marseilles decks. 33. The CBD Tarot de Marseille by Yoav Ben-Dov (2012). A version of the Conver (1760) deck with clean lines and colours. Lenormand Decks. 34. The Original Lenormand (Forge Press, 2012) – based on the original Game of Hope located in the British Museum by Marcus Katz & Tali Goodwin. 35. The Blue Owl (Blaue Eule) (US Games, 2011) and in different versions. 36. The Gilded Reverie Lenormand by Ciro Marchetti (U.S. Games Systems, 2013) Experimental Decks. 37. The Transparent Tarot by Emily Carding (Schiffer Books, 2008) 38. The Tarot of the Nine Paths by Dr. Art Rosengarten (Self-Published, n.d.) 39. Tarot in the Land of the Mystereum by Jordan Hoggard (Schiffer, 2011) 40. The Voyager Tarot by James Wanless & Ken Knutson (Fair Winds Press, 2008) Our Picks. 42. Tarot of the Silicon Dawn by Egypt Urnash (Lo Scarabeo, 2011) – there is no other deck like this. 43. The Alice Tarot by Karen Mahony & Alex Ukolov (Magic Realist Press, 2013) – head down the rabbit whole. 44. Darkana Tarot by Dan Donche (Self-published, 2013) – Tarot with a Grunge Vibe. 45. Sun and Moon Tarot by Vanessa Decort (US Games, 2012) – Simple and Profound. 46. Tarot de St. Croix by Lisa de St. Croix (Devorah, 2014). 47. The Aquarian Tarot by David Palladini (US Games, 1988) – or the later New Palladini Tarot (US Games, 1996) 48. The Burning Serpent Oracle by Rachel Pollack & Robert M. Place (Self-published, 2014) – a modern interpretation of antique oracular systems. 49. Tarot by Dennis Fairchild (Running Press, 2002) – a mini-deck with simple but universally accessible symbolism. Good for travel. 50. Revelations Tarot by Zach Wong (Llewellyn, 2012) for its take on reversals, or Tarot of the New Vision by Pietro Alligo, Raul Cestaro & Gianluca Cestaro (Lo Scarabeo, 2003) for its reversal of perspective on the Waite-Smith design.