Deck review: Tarot of the Divine by Yoshi Yoshitani

Take a step forward on your spiritual journey with this gorgeously illustrated celebration of deities, folklore, and fairy tales from all over the world.

The path to enlightenment is unique for each of us, but many of the lessons we learn are shared stories passed among cultures and generations. With rich, vibrant art and a keen understanding of traditional tarot archetypes, illustrator Yoshi Yoshitani infuses Tarot of the Divine with worldly insight and an intriguing selection of fables and folktales from cultures across the globe.

The Major Arcana cards are brought to life with characters from beloved stories who embody the fool's journey, from the Danish fable of the naive Little Mermaid (a character who represents The Fool) to China's Beauty and the Beast (The Lovers) to the Maori legend of Hinemoa and Tutanekai (The World). The archetypes of the Minor Arcana--focused on suits of cups, coins, swords, and wands--are made richer with diverse cultural fables, ancient mythologies, and spiritual legends like the Crane Wife (Japan), Aladdin (Persia), Jack and the Beanstalk (England), Fenrir (Norway), Oedipus (Greece), the Pandavas (India), and dozens more.

As you acquaint yourself with your cards, a 44-page guidebook illuminates how these fables support traditional tarot imagery and themes. With fables from more than forty countries, this spiritual journey is a worldly experience like no other.

Tarot of the Divine is published by Clarkson Potter Publishers, part of Penguin Random House. You can see the unboxing and flickthrough videos on TikTok.

Tarot of the Divine has very quickly become one of my favourite decks, as I adore folklore and legends and love to expand my knowledge of them. Growing up, it was basically all either Greek and Roman or Grimm Brothers - maybe occasionally some Egyptian? - so I especially love finding tales from other countries. Just from the cover of this deck, with it's Japanese stylings, I knew I'd love it. The deck does have a companion book featuring all the legends for each card, but I haven't been able to track it down yet, so this review will focus only on the deck.

The box features several images of cards and beautiful gilt highlighting. It hinges on the left to allow easy access to the cards. The LWB sits on top of the cards, which are nestled securely in a well with a ribbon to help get them out.

LWB first.

It's a lovely comfortable size to hold. It gives a brief introduction to tarot, a quick rundown of what the suits and numbers mean generally, and emphasizes that whatever the reader connects to in a card is completely valid, even if it contradicts the 'established' meaning.

It offers a few spreads - one card, a couple of variations on three card, and a five card. Then there's a sample reading of one card - the Lovers - looking at details like colours, symbols, and the story it came from to reach different levels of meaning.

Now we're into the card descriptions! With two per page we're not getting a lot of detail, but it's plenty enough to get started with. Each card has a picture, the story and region it comes from, a quick description of how it matches the meaning, and upright and reversed keywords. I love when a guidebook has an image of the cards, because it means that if I want to look something up quickly I can go through the book, where I know roughly what page it's on, rather than shift through the whole deck.

The cards themselves! They are standard tarot size, with a unique (to me) linen texture. They're a beautiful deck to shuffle, with no catching or stuttering - even I, not very good at shuffling, can handle this one. Pentacles are rendered as Coins, but otherwise the names are standard. The back features this beautiful (and reversible) design.

The cards have a white border, with Celtic-ish knotwork at the sides and top. The card name is written in a font designed to look like handwriting at the bottom. Majors also have their number at the top. 

The colours are striking, pairing bright, deep colours with pastels to great effect. As I went through the deck and book, I recognised just about all the stories I knew already before reading their name, which shows how clear they are!

Here are some favourites:

I use this deck with the traditional meanings and I've found it clear and insightful to read with. I really enjoy using it and it's definitely going in my regular rotation!