Everything you need to know to read Tarot like a pro! Tap into your inner powers and explore your psychic potential with this palm-sized, 78-card deck and guidebook. The Zerner/Farber Tarot helps you understand the present, predict the future, and manifest your goals. There’s nothing for you to memorize, since all 78 cards are interpreted for you in both the upright and reversed positions. Each card includes a “Quick Read” if you are in a hurry, “Keywords” that trigger intuitive associations, plus the “Secret” of each card that sums up what you need to know right now. You’ll learn how to ask the right questions, so you receive clear answers, while 12 Master Spread layouts show you how to answer any question. No matter what your skill level, you can use this deck and guidebook to become aware of unseen influences, patterns of behavior, obstacles, and strengths to achieve success and expand your mind to new possibilities. It’s fun, it's fast, and it works!
The Zerner/Farber deck is available now from Schiffer Books. You can see the unboxing and complete flickthrough videos on tiktok.
Amy and Monte have been reading Tarot for forty years or so and have created several decks together in that time, with Amy providing the art and Monte the interpretations. The Zerner/Farber is an RWS-based deck using every bit of the experience they've gained over that time.
It comes in a box about the size of a hardback novel, with a magnetic fastening on the right hand side. The cards, which are smaller than average tarot cards, closer to regular playing cards, rest in a well underneath a chunky LWB. The book is chock-full of useful and interesting information; I've already read it straight through once and will no doubt be referring back to it over and over in the future!
Starting with an introduction by Monte, there's some general information on tarot before getting straight into the good stuff; keywords for the suits, keywords for the numbers, and tips for shuffling and framing your questions. Everything you need to get started!
Now we're into the good stuff, the card pages. Every card - yes, including the Minors! - gets two pages. The first page has the card image, title and keywords; the second page has upright and reversed meanings, including a quick meaning, a detailed read and a section headed "Secret" which is kind of a mix of both, a bit more than the quick meaning but less than the detailed. It's a fantastic mix and would suit just about any kind of reading.
After the meanings, we're into Spreads. The book features twelve Spreads ranging from three to thirteen cards. I've tried a couple of these and really enjoyed them! There's some great insight here, and the Spreads are described simply enough for anyone to follow (it may have taken me a while the first time through, but that's just the learning curve!)
My favourite thing is that each Spread is laid out twice, once with just 'Card One' 'Card Two' and so on, and once with sample cards in each space to give an example of how they could be interpreted. I had a lot of fun looking at the Spread, writing down my ideas and comparing them to the 'official' interpretation - it really helped to show that intuition matters as much as the 'real' meanings.
After the Spreads are a few short articles about Tarot - I enjoyed reading the Spiritual Journey Through the Major Arcana. I've seen it in other places but the detail here was really something else!
Now, let's talk about the cards. As I said above, they're smaller than average Tarot cards, about the size of regular playing cards, which makes them really comfortable to hold and shuffle. Suits are Wands, Swords, Hearts (Cups) and Pentacles. They're gilded on the edges and feature this lovely, simple, reversible design on the back (it looks blue here but is much more purple in person):
Amy created the cards by making fabric tapestries which were reproduced onto the cards. It means the cards are very intricate, with lots of layers and symbolism. It can take the eye a little while to adjust - I'd been mostly using the Clarity Tarot which is a very simplistic deck, so it took me a little bit to get used to this much busier one, but after a little bit of work I started to see the layers of meaning in each card. It's definitely worth sticking with it and working with them, even if they seem initially not to suit you. The amount of work that went into each card is clear and breathtaking - they are definitely a labour of love.
Majors have the names and numbers in Arabic numbers on the base of the card. Minors have the names written out. There's a vaguely Asian or folktaley feel to the illustrations. The cards are borderless, but most of them have a kind of frame as part of the image, helping to direct your attention. Courts are King, Queen, Prince and Princess. There isn't a strict colour scheme, but the suits tend towards specific colours; Wands are yellowish, Swords mostly blue, Hearts pinky purple and Pentacles tend to greens.
Here are a few examples of each suit:
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