Author: Tania Ahsan
Illustrator: Paula Zorite
Publisher: Arcturus Publishing Ltd.
Purchase links at the end of the review.
One could easily argue that after Arthur Edward Waite and Pamela Colman Smith, the most influential tarot deck collaborators are Aleister Crowley and Frieda Harris. I have always been very grateful that the Thoth Tarot was Crowley’s final magickal project. After a rather daring life of what I would probably term “mistake after mistake” and he would call “experience after experience,” the Thoth Tarot really is a crowning achievement for a man who had concentrated so much of his being—to both the enlightenment and detriment of himself and countless others—to his perceived magickal purpose. Because the Thoth Tarot is an extraordinary esoteric accomplishment, we should not be surprised then to find more than a few writers or artists inspired by Crowley’s intense study and writing and Harris’s magnificent watercolor extrapolations from those writings.
One of the newest entries into the Thoth-inspired arena is Arcturus Publishing’s The Aleister Crowley Tarot. Before I found the deck, I had seen one picture of the box. I liked the imagery: the newly interpreted Hierophant and the similarly colored word “Tarot” practically glowed against the darker colors of the preview image. The release date was November of 2023, and so I resigned myself to months of Augustine patience. A few weeks later, as I was about to exit my local Books-A-Million, I turned to leave, and there were four of the boxes: over half a year early, in the wrong aisle, and on sale for half price. Done. My wife loves it when I surprise her with a new tarot deck for me. The furrowed brow and frown are what I now call her “giddy” face. She was that excited.
The box, 13 cm by 20 cm, is a sturdy book-sized holder. Inside, we first see the accompanying book, whose cover mimics the lovely box. The Aleister Crowley Tarot by Tania Ahsan is a very nice introduction to Aleister Crowley, Frieda Harris, and the supporting ideas behind much of the deck itself. The author admits forthrightly that she does not consider herself a direct student of Crowley’s, focusing more on the Eastern influences of his work while avoiding some of the more obtuse or technical language of High Magick. She writes as a curious third-party onlooker and researcher who is grateful to other authors for breaking Crowley’s exhaustive writing down into more digestible pieces. Not only does this give the book a much more welcoming and informative tone, but I find my own feelings about Crowley running parallel to Ahsan’s. We can admire his contributions to modern occultism and tarot while still acknowledging that we would likely not have wanted to be friends with the man.
After the Introduction, the first section of the book is “How to Use the Cards.” She explains a few traditional spreads (Three-card, Relationship, Celtic Cross) and very helpfully goes card by card explaining what the readings mean. My only confusion here is why this section of the book is first. I can’t help but think that a beginner picking up this book-deck set would find these readings practically impenetrable with many of her explanations seeming to come out of nowhere. Certainly, the explanations come from the rest of the book, but the book’s arrangement still strikes me as odd.
The Major Arcana, Courts, and then Pips follow. The visual set-up of the book is nice. For the Majors, one sees the card in color and a series of keywords giving both positive and negative associations to the side of the card in question. Ahsan then does an admirable job of explaining Crowley in what I consider a very well composed, comprehensible way. Every once in a while, the reader does run upon nuggets of random, unexplained esoterica like this point of interest in The Fool’s description: “[The rainbow] symbolizes the Three-fold Veil of the Non-Matter manifesting, through his intervention, in divided light” (33). Ahem…OK. Of course, as someone who has studied this Woo for over three decades, I get it, but for a newcomer purchasing this as a first or second deck, I am glad the author provides references in the back to a few other books by Lon Milo Duquette and Mogg Morgan that might be more enlightening. Additionally, Ahsan does something I’ve not noted too many other books doing: in various discussions of the minor arcana, she refers people to the RWS Tarot to get a more understandable visual impression of the meaning of the card before coming back to the Aleister Crowley Tarot. This practice appears both direct and refreshing.
Overall, the price I paid for the set was justified by Ahsan’s book alone. With rare exception, I found her interpretations of Crowley’s work to be relatable and justifiable, and I appreciated the tone of her additional commentary on the cards. On one hand, in her description of the Sun, she notes Crowley’s unwavering faith in human progress: “Those unaware of the extent of Crowley’s writings may well be surprised at how sunny and optimistic he is about our ability to move beyond our archiac [sic] ideas, but he was always more than the 2D evil villain painted in the tabloid press” (71). On the other hand, when the author discusses Crowley’s take on the Fives of the Minor Arcana, she states Crowley’s position and then very politely but definitely puts Crowley’s snobbery in its place (104). Again, for all that I have read both about Crowley and by Crowley, I still find Ahsan’s descriptions of this new tarot to be a very worthwhile read.
As for the cards themselves, I like them a lot. I don’t love them; I don’t hate them. I like them…a lot. Physically, the card stock is thin and feels weak. Thin cardstock is not always a problem; Baba Studios’ decks are also rather thin, but they are not weak. As the cards have already started to warp a little bit, I wonder how much worse the warping may get after a bit more riffling, but we shall see. The cards are standard tarot size (70 mm x 120 mm), but sadly, they have an additional five millimeters of white border around images that already contain four to eight more millimeters of decorative border. What this means is that the actual tarot image on the card is 53 mm x 97 mm. The images on the Aleister Crowley Tarot feel small. As compared, perhaps unfairly, to the mass-market standard, the images alone of the Large Thoth, minus a still hefty border remain roughly 73 mm x 114 mm, as big as the entire standard tarot deck.
The real star of the card show, however, is Paula Zorite, the illustrator who created these beautiful images. The cards appear to be digital imagery with strong, solid shapes and silhouettes. This linear quality combined with the artist’s vibrant, beautiful colors remind me of late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century illustration and animation. The cards are dazzling and imaginative, and more than that, they are a wonderful interpretation of both Crowley and Harris. The figures in the cards look as though they are poised for movement, modern icons, powerful in their stillness. Also, throughout the deck, the pupil-less eyes of the figures impart an otherworldly, celestial quality that underscores the archetypal nature of the images. With some hesitation, I will note that I am more averse to the verso. The back of the cards is Crowley’s Unicursal Hexagram in pink against a starfield of breezy, pastel cuteness whose treacly nature would likely make the younger Crowley retch and the older Crowley giggle.
I could, of course, comment on every card, but I will content myself to mention a few things here and there. First, the artist makes the exquisite decision to use Thoth, the god himself, as the Magician. On the Emperor, we find the lamb intact sitting contently beneath a warm, masculine, front-facing ruler. The regal purple hues of the Hermit’s robes and more distinct depictions of Adam’s two wives make The Lovers card one of the most beautiful in the deck. On the Art (Temperance) card, Zorite’s divine androgyne is stunning and so much more inviting than Harris’s. The Court Cards are beautiful without exception even down to the little details throughout the cards like the strands of beads hanging in the horns of the Queen of Disks. The pips, likewise, are flawless interpretations of the Harris originals. (Pay attention, Liber T: Tarot of the Stars Eternal!)Zorite even introduces a beautiful color scheme for the suits: the Wands glow in reds and oranges; the Cups swim in shades of green and blue; the Swords hover in blue and purple; and the Coins bloom in yellows and browns. Paula Zorite has taken Harris’s foundational watercolor images and infused them with a neon life.
Other than the aforementioned card stock and card backs, are there any other downsides? Well, yes, but no deal-breakers for me. Image-wise, the Lion of the Strength card has not a bone in him, and that bothers me for some reason; however, if there be any single grievance about the whole endeavor, Arcturus Publishing alone is to blame. Given a well-written and insightful book coupled with truly exciting tarot images, the overarching fault of this set is simply timidity of execution. Create larger cards with a thicker cardstock; change or minimize the border (actually “borders” if one considers the excessive white border a second one) to something that will contain the incongruous black lettering stamped on the images; put the zodiacal and kabbalistic associations on the cards. These images deserve a second, more ambitious edition, and I am here for it. As is, I am still terribly grateful to Tania Ahsan and Paula Zorite for producing the text and images that I have enjoyed so much! Thank you again to these and to all the scholars and artists for your contributions to our ever-widening world of tarot!
(I do apologize for the terrible pictures…)
If you would like to purchase this set, here are some links:
The Tarot King of Mississippi 