Now the secrets of the Tarot are brought to light so that anyone can clearly hear the powerful messages that will resonate with one’s soul through the Clarity Tarot. We all have unique challenges in this 21st century and, with this deck, you have a way to navigate those complexities for yourself as well as for friends and family. Each of the 78 cards has correspondences for yes and no as well as keywords for Love and Money, some of the most-asked questions in cartomancy. You’ll not only know what the cards are trying to tell you, but how to say it in a way that is completely unbiased, centered, and supportive for oneself or for someone who may be needing direction. You can also learn mediumship using this deck, if desired, in order to communicate with those beyond the veil. It’s a deck which celebrates all cultures with its rich images, to reflect the diverse world we live in today.
This deck releases on the 1st of December, 2023, from redFeather/Schiffer Books. You can see the unboxing and flickthrough videos on TikTok.
I've been looking back through some of my reviews and they're very clinical! I always wanted to be informative but also fun. I'm going to try and be a bit chattier this time around, I'd love to know what you think of it.
So this deck comes in a box with a lift off top. It's a lovely black and gold colour, with an image of the Hermit card on the front, a couple of different cards on each side and the blurb on the back. It's a neat package.
The cards are about standard tarot size, gilded on the edges. After a good bit of shuffling and handling and rubbing off each other, there are a couple of nicks and chips in the gilding but nothing serious. They have a lovely feel in my hand, I like shuffling them and holding them. The book is a little narrower than the cards and quite thick.
The author of the deck, Debra, is a professional Tarot reader and teacher, so we know we're in good hands here. The artist, Kait, is Canadian First Nations and has done lots of illustrations already. We're going to start with the book and come back to the cards in a little bit.
Like most books, it starts with a description of what the deck's about and a bit of an insight into the ideas behind it. Each section has a full colour reproduction of a card on the header page, which is lovely!
After the design section it talks about numberology in tarot (Ie "Fours usually mean..." "Nines are often understood to be..." and so on.) It talks a little about the suits and then jumps straight into the descriptions!
Now I have to mention this for clarity's (ha!) sake; the readings are only given for the upright position. There is a brief mention near the beginning that a lot of reversed cards often means a blockage, but that's all, although it is noted that the deck is deisgned for upright readings. This isn't a huge deal to me personally, as I don't always read reversals anyway, but I know some people who always read them who may be put off by this.
Each card has a short description, keywords for love and money and a Y or N - we'll get to those when we discuss the cards.
Descriptions run from Ace to Ten in each suit, then go into a lot of detail for each court card, looking at the positions, then the suits, then specifics for each card. From there we move on to the Majors, which have roughly a page of description, keywords and Y/N. I love the amount of detail on the courts, as they're one of the trickiest things to grasp - for me, anyway - and this has given several great handles to use with them!
The last section is 'How to give Awesome Readings' and covers a few practicalities, as well as things like how to trust your intuition in a reading. There are three spreads, also called throws here; our old friend the Celtic Cross, a five card Yes or No spread that's specific to this deck, and a timing spread, which leads me to the only real problem I have with this package (and even this is not that serious in the grand scheme of things!).
The timing spread directs the reader to go through the deck until they find a Major, look at the number on it, and intuit whether that's days, hours or any other measurement of time. The problem is that these cards don't have numbers on the Majors.
I've looked very carefully at my deck, and I've also watched unboxing videos, in case it was just a problem with my deck. As far as I can tell, no copy of this deck has numbers on the Majors. Obviously a miscommunication somewhere along the line, but for a spread that's mentioned twice in the book you'd think they'd have checked!
Anyway. That doesn't affect the deck itself, which is where we're going now - after a quick note that after the spreads/throws, there's a cheat sheet, which I adore. The cheat sheet uses the same keywords and Y/N that are listed on each page.
On to the deck! As stated above - you've probably forgotten because I've been whittering on for so long - these cards are standard size, with gilded edges. They shuffle and come together beautifully, with no catching or stuttering. The pictures are illustrations rather than photos, with multiple levels of details layered in. The colours are bright and vibrant. The beautiful back design is almost fully reversible, there's a slight difference in the placement of the gold beads, but I think if you do read reversals this deck will work fine for you.
Majors have the name printed at the bottom; Minors have number and suit, ie Five of Swords. They're all very clear.
Before I go any further, let's talk about the keywords and Y/N. Per the author, the two most common things for Tarot readers to be asked about are Love and Money. Every card in this deck has two sets of key words, one set for love issues and one for money issues. So the keywords don't relate to the standard meaning of the card, but only what it would mean for those issues. I hope that makes sense! For instance, the Three of Swords, which in general means heartbreak; the Love keywords are "quarreling but union worth saving" and and the money keywords are "loss of trust/unhappy job".
Each card also has a Y or N mark in the top left: if your querent simply has a yes or no question, you are encouraged to lay out an uneven number of cards, count the Ys and Ns, and use the cards themselves to interpret why it's Yes or No. There's a very good sample of this technique included in the book.
There's no theme or colour scheme running through these cards, as there is in some decks. Some of them are kind of steam punk, some are sort of fairy tale, some are 'normal'.
Some are kind of horror!
There is a good range of cultures and genders and body types, though, and many of the cards have very clever details in them; the King of Swords is clutching a legal scroll, and the Two of Cups has the symbols for hetero, lesbian and gay relationship imprinted faintly in the background. Every time I use these cards I notice more details along those lines.
Here's a few of my favourites:
As a deck, I've found this accurate and very clear - it doesn't pull punches, it tells you exactly how things are. I'm really enjoying working with it, and I'll definitely be using it when I need a quick, concise reading! Although it is nice sometimes to linger over a reading and wrinkle out the meanings, sometimes you just want to get through and done, and this is the deck for that, no doubt. I'm so glad I've been able to use it!
As I said above, this deck is planned for release on December 1st and can be preordered in all the usual places. Support small booksellers if you can, especially this time of year!
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