Quick Specs
- Format: Boxed tarot deck with guidebook
- Card Count: 78 cards
- Guidebook: 128 pages, English
- Author: Anna Oginski
- Illustrator: Catherine Asterdis
- Brand: Llewellyn Publications
- ISBN: 9780738784779
- Box Size: 3.25 x 5.00 x 2.16 inches
Inside the Anima Tarot
Anima Tarot draws on four sources at once: alchemy, Jungian psychology, popular myths, and the Kabbalistic and astrological correspondences of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The Golden Dawn built a web of those correspondences in the late nineteenth century, and many modern decks still carry it. Here the web sits beside alchemical signs and mythological figures, so a single card can point in several directions. Anna Oginski, a teacher at the Lenormand Academy and the author of the Romantic Lenormand Oracle, wrote the text. Her guidebook sets out the light and shadow traits of every Arcanum, which gives you two readings of each card before you add your own. You will find alchemical emblems, astrological attributes and figures from myth on the cards, and Oginski explains how those threads connect to each meaning. That makes it a deck for reading slowly and with attention, where one card can fill an evening of study. If you like to read a deck the way you would read an illustrated volume, with the symbols as the text, this one rewards that habit.
Catherine Asterdis sets every figure inside a curling gold frame in the manner of an Art Nouveau poster, with a numeral at the top and a cream name plate at the foot. The Fool, numbered 0, is a red-haired figure in a teal patterned coat, with a tiger at their feet, a gold sunburst behind and mountains below. The Empress, numbered III, sits in golden robes among red roses, a pink-haired figure with doves overhead and a rabbit curled at the base. The card numbered VIII shows a woman holding a lion close, with sunflowers at her side, a green serpent coiled to one side and an infinity sign above. On the box, a red-haired figure in a white tunic and a red cloak stands inside a ring of lilies and red blossoms, with a chalice, crossed swords and a pentacle around the lower edge and alchemical symbols along the base. Warm golds, corals and reds run against teal and slate across all of it, and the effect is rich and slightly theatrical, a deck made to be studied for a long time.
Practical Ritual Applications
Layered symbolism suits slow readings. Draw one card in the evening, give the image a few minutes before you open the guidebook, then read both the light traits and the shadow traits and note which side your day resembled. A three-card spread of situation, obstacle and outcome lets each position draw on both sides of its card, and a longer spread gives you room to follow a recurring symbol such as the serpent or the rose from card to card. Reversed cards belong in these readings: when one lands upside down, keep its upright image in mind and ask what the turned position adds. Because the deck rests on Golden Dawn thinking, a shelf of my tarot and divination books helps when you want to read further on a correspondence. Keep a journal beside the deck and record the card, the guidebook entry and the symbol that held your attention.
How to Read with the Anima Tarot
Begin with the imagery, then let a first spread show you how this deck speaks.
- Study the Imagery Before You Ask
Go through the cards face up, slowly, and notice the numerals, the name plates and the gold frames. Watch for symbols that return, such as serpents, flowers and animals. Pick three cards that catch your eye and read their guidebook entries, noting which symbols Oginski points to that you had missed. An evening spent this way makes your first question feel less like a leap.
- Cut, Turn, and Draw with Reversals Included
Shuffle as you normally do, then cut the deck in two, turn one half around 180 degrees and shuffle again, so some cards land reversed without your choosing which. Hold your question in mind and draw one card for a quick answer or three for a fuller picture. Lay each card down exactly as it falls; a reversed card is part of the reading and stays reversed.
- Read the Light and the Shadow
Look at the card first and write down your own impression in a sentence. Then read the light traits and the shadow traits the guidebook lists for that Arcanum. Ask which side your question touches and whether the answer needs both. If the card is reversed, read the same entry with that position in mind and note how it shifts the emphasis.
The Tarot Fellow Standard
I stock Anima Tarot because it names its sources and then gives you the means to follow them. When I look at decks built on esoteric systems, I want symbols that are explained, and this deck pairs ornate art with a guidebook written card by card, with light and shadow traits for each Arcanum. If your taste runs to symbol-rich imagery and you like to study what you draw, it belongs on your table. You can find it beside the others in my tarot decks collection.
Frequently Asked Questions
The publisher lists alchemy, Jungian psychology, popular myths and the Golden Dawn's Kabbalistic and astrological correspondences as its sources, and doesn't mention Marseille. The pictured cards show the lion card numbered VIII. Marseille decks number Strength XI and Justice VIII, while the Rider-Waite-Smith deck swapped them to suit the Golden Dawn's astrology, and VIII on the lion card matches that later order. The numbering is the main clue, so check a card list before you follow a Marseille-based book.
Anima is Latin for soul. Carl Jung began using the word in the early 1920s for the inner feminine side of men, and the masculine side of women is called the animus. The publisher says this deck is inspired by Jungian psychology, and the guidebook is the place to see how the deck puts the idea to work.
No. They are two separate 78-card decks with similar titles. Anima Tarot is by Anna Oginski and Catherine Asterdis and draws on alchemy, Jungian psychology and the Golden Dawn. The Anima Mundi Tarot is a nature deck of hand-painted acrylic illustrations that blends medieval iconography with ecological themes. Anima mundi is Latin for world soul, the idea that one soul connects all living things, which explains the shared word.
It can be if you enjoy studying symbols. The guidebook explains each card's meaning, including the symbolic background. The imagery draws on alchemy, astrology and Jungian psychology together, so readers new to those subjects will have more to look up than with a plainer introductory deck. If you want the quickest route into tarot, a simpler deck serves better; if you like layered art, this one rewards the extra reading.
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