Deck Review: Total Tarot's Egyptian Tarot

Made in tempera on papyrus, these cards are partly inspired by the Tarot devised by the famous occultist Jean-Baptiste Pitois in 1870. According to Pitois, the Tarot descended from the legendary Book of Thoth, a work of wisdom that supposedly guarded all the mysteries of Egyptian magic.

You can see the complete flickthrough on TikTok. I also posted an interview spread. See the video version of this review on Tiktok or youtube.

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Total Tarot is a bimonthly magazine designed to help teach anyone how to read tarot. With every two issues, readers get a complete tarot deck from Lo Scarabeo, one of the major Tarot companies on the market. The art of these decks is true to the originals, but they have frames where the originals don't and the LWB is not included, instead there is some information in the magazine about the history of the deck and the specific meanings attached to cards. This is a great collection if you want to try a lot of styles of deck at very reasonable prices - I'm learning a lot about my preferences!

I. First Impressions

Unboxing Experience: As a Total Tarot deck, this was presented in a simple tuck box with art from the deck on each side.
Artwork Style: These are based on the typical Egyptian style drawings we've all seen in movies and on TV; flat, heads pointing to one side, little cartouches with hieroglyphs. The images are designed to look as though they're printed on papyrus, complete with frayed edges and thin spots, which is a great touch.

II. The Cards

The cards feature this background:

Technically it's not reversible as the background images don't line up, but you'd have to be looking really closely to notice that. If you don't like to know if your cards are reversed before turning them over, I think you'd be safe with this one. 

Major Arcana: The Major Arcana has Strength at 8 and Justice at 11. Major Arcana cards have their numbers, in Roman, at the top and bottom of the cards, but no titles. This led to a couple of problems for me; I mostly know the numbers, but occasionally have to think a little which isn't great in readings. The deck mostly follows the RWS in the Majors, so I could figure most of them out by 'reading' the picture, but two gave me trouble; the Death card has a scales in the background, so I initially thought it was Justice; and the Hanged Man shows a perfectly upright man, preparing to butcher a cow that's upside down. When I thought about it, Death made sense - in Egyptian mythology, Anubis weighed the hearts of the dead against a feather to see if they were worthy to move on - but I still can't figure out that Hanged Man! I'm sure if I was stronger in my Egyptology I'd understand it better.

Minor Arcana: The Minor Arcana are pips, with a small amount of illustration added to some cards. The colours are mostly muted and faded to maintain the illusion of these being old, aged cards, but there are some lovely blues here and there. Minors have their numbers, in Arabic, at the top of the card and their suit symbol across the bottom. 

The Court cards are quite similar, I found - all the Pages are doing the exact same thing as each other, and the Knights are all in the same pose, with only some mild differences in skin colour and their suit item to tell them apart. There's a little more variation in the Queens and Kings, but I found it wasn't always immediately obvious which were Queens and which were Kings - Court cards are denoted by a small symbol at the top of the card, a normal head for Pages, a horse's head for Knights, a crowned head for Queens and a different crowned head for Kings. I couldn't always tell the difference straight away.

Queen on the left, King on the right

Card Stock and Size: This is a Total Tarot deck, so the card stock isn't the same as the standard issue.

III. In Use

Intuition and Connection: It wasn't exactly intuitive - because there's no names, I had to study the cards carefully - but I did get the hang of it after a while, and the readings were good. Meanings seemed to mesh well in spreads, and single card pulls were always clear. 

Clarity of Readings: My Querants thought the meanings were clear and they knew what they were about, but there was no 'gasp!' moment where it hit something deep as we've had with other decks.
Suitability for Different Skill Levels: This isn't a beginner's deck. I'm sorry, but it just isn't. It's a pip deck for starters, which I never think are good for beginners, and the Majors don't have their names printed on them, just their numbers, which would make it much harder for beginners. However, once a reader is a bit more confident, this is a good deck - it reads well, and I enjoyed picking out RWS details that had been 'Egyptianised' !

V. Overall Impression

Strengths:

• Reads well
• Cards are nice to look at
• Some clever changes made to the RWS to fit the theme

Weaknesses:

• No titles on the Majors
• Pip deck
• Imagery may be confusing to start with  

Final Thoughts

The changes to the imagery really are clever. The Fool is harried by a crocodile; the Tower is a pyramid; the Chariot is drawn by two Sphinxes. This isn't just a tarot deck with a theme slapped onto it; the artist has thought carefully about what's going to suit. I still don't recommend it for beginners, but if you like the art style or feel like stretching yourself a bit, this is a great choice.