The TABI Tarot

reviewed by Larry Gregg (lgregg on the Forum)

TABI decided to create its own Tarot Deck. Volunteers were asked to design cards for the Major Arcana only. There was no physical copy of a Little White Book (LWB), but a PDF with card images and descriptions were provided to those who purchased the deck.

Each card is 112 x 85 mm. My CBD Tarot de Marseille is 112 x 67 mm. So, the TABI deck is about 18mm (0.7 in) wider. The card stock is good quality, although, as expected, a bit stiff at first. With so few cards (22), a riffle shuffle is a challenge. Hand over hand or stir shuffles work fine.

Below, you will see the front and back of the card box, and the back of an individual card. Notice that the back of the card is symmetrical, disguising whether a card is reversed.

TABI Tarot Box Front
TABI Tarot Box Back
TABI Tarot Card Back

The card images themselves are a wild, imaginative mix. Three of my favorites are:

TABI Tarot Wheel of Fortune, The Devil, and The Sun

Wheel of Fortune – I love the waves. I can imagine the turning of the Wheel causes ripples to flow outward, not only to the present, but to the past and future. And then it occurs to me that the present is impacted by future
events, not only those from the past.

The Devil – I get the sense that we are enslaved to our possessions and our
place in the world. How do you unbind yourself from them?

The Sun – I get a feeling that the Sun finally illuminates all aspects of life. To me it is bright, cheery, hopeful.

I find that doing readings with this deck are easy. If I spend a little time with
the images, new ways of interpreting the cards come without too much effort. Other times, the images are so radically different from what I normally see, that I must work hard to get a feeling for them. I think this extra work is valuable. It keeps me from interpreting the cards from rote memory.

If you have ever wanted a Majors only deck, this one is certainly worth a try.

There is a limited supply of TABI Tarot decks still available for purchase. If you are interested in one, please email TABI's chairperson at chairman@tabi.org.uk.

2 Comments

Rebecca · May 28, 2020 at 4:05 am

Nice review

Katalin Patnaik · May 29, 2020 at 5:45 pm

Thanks Larry for the nice review! ^_^

Comments are closed.

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