by Morgan Drake Eckstein

Created on: April 05, 2009

The biggest question that one must ask about the Initiatory Tarot of the Golden Dawn is: "Is it really a Golden Dawn Tarot deck, or merely a Tarot deck labeled Golden Dawn' in an effort to sell more copies?"

To answer that question, first one needs to know the background of the design and preparation of this particular Tarot deck. Giordano Berti says in the instructional booklet that accompanies the deck that it was "decided that the artists should know nothing about the previous versions of the deck". Berti seems to find it wrong that Golden Dawn Tarot decks are "derived from previous decks".

The goal was to have an artist design a new deck merely from the descriptions of the Major Arcana contained in the Tarot Trumps document that was issued by GH Soror QL (Quaestor Lucis; Harriet Miller Davidson; Mrs. Felkin), and the divinationary meanings from Book T. Exactly how any artist could accomplish this task from just those two documents is beyond me; I suspect that a third document must have been consulted.

Berti feels that the resulting deck is better than previous published versions of the Golden Dawn Tarot. "[T]he painted version by Patrizio Evangelisti expresses a new vision that is in any case coherent with the tradition of Golden Dawn and with the needs of the contemporary public."

This attitude is going to put off many students of the Golden Dawn Tradition; it is a blatant misunderstanding of how an esoteric Order operates.

Traditionally, the Tarot deck of a Golden Dawn member is supposed to be modeled on a Master Copy (the official version) of the Order's Tarot deck. The member, who has been a member of the Order for several years, is not only supposed to have access to the Master Copy, but to have also undergone the initiation rituals and studied the instructional material of the Order.

The previous published versions of the Golden Dawn Tarot were never meant to break new ground; they were meant to restore access to a Master Copy that few had actually seen. The decks were designed for a niche audience and not for the general public. While there are many who believe that Golden Dawn should be open to everyone, and that Golden Dawn is a religion, it is not; Golden Dawn is an esoteric lodge based system with a (more or less) limited membership.

There is also the little fact the GH Soror QL's descriptions of the Major Arcana was unofficial. This is a minor issue compared to the fact that the Initiatory Tarot of the Golden Dawn's Minor Arcana includes "56 new figures

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>