Quick Specs
- Format: Oracle deck with guidebook
- Card Count: 60 cards
- Guidebook: 192 pages
- Publisher / Manufacturer: Watkins Publishing
- Creators: Balázs Tátrai (author), Lilla Bölecz (illustrator)
- Deck Structure: 10 thematic suits based on spiritual alchemy
- Weight: 1.1 lb
Inside the Oracle of Forgotten Witches Deck
Oracle of Forgotten Witches gathers sixty women and beings that most history books never got around to naming. Author Balázs Tátrai has spent years studying folklore, alchemy, and seventeenth century iconography, and that scholarship shows in how the deck is organized. Rather than sorting cards by suit of cups or wands the way a tarot deck does, this oracle groups its sixty cards into ten thematic suits: curse-bringers, shape-shifters, survivors, avengers, mesmerizers, well-wishers, alchemists, revenants, nature witches, and fate-turners. Each suit corresponds to a stage in the alchemical process of turning base metal into gold, so moving through the deck mirrors a personal transformation rather than a fixed fortune-telling formula.
Illustrator Lilla Bölecz brings the cast to life. Her background in book illustration and graphic art, paired with an interest in mysticism and folklore, gives the deck a cohesive visual language across witches, familiars, spirits, deities, magical objects, and the places where folk magic is said to happen. The cards do not limit themselves to the familiar cauldron-and-broomstick archetype. You will meet shape-shifters from Eastern European tales, alchemists who guarded forbidden knowledge, and revenants who refused to stay buried, each one drawn from myth and legend rather than invented for the deck.
Tátrai and Bölecz previously collaborated on The Book of Forgotten Witches, a folklore collection built around the same alchemical structure, and this oracle turns that same material into a deck you can actually shuffle and draw. The included 192-page guidebook tells the story behind every card and walks you through the spreads, so you are never staring at an unfamiliar illustration with no context for what it means.
An oracle deck works differently than tarot, and that difference is part of the appeal here. Tarot ties you to a fixed structure of seventy-eight cards split into major and minor arcana, which takes real study to read fluently. An oracle deck like this one carries no such requirement. You can pull one card each morning and let the guidebook’s entry set the tone for your day, or lay out a full spread when a question needs more room to breathe. Because the deck leans into darker material, curses, revenants, and avengers among them, it rewards readers who want their divination tools to hold some shadow alongside the light.
That makes it a natural fit if your practice already includes shadow work or if you are drawn to decks that treat difficult material honestly rather than sanding it down into pure affirmation. The ten-suit alchemical structure gives you a way to track where a reading falls on the path from raw instinct to something closer to wisdom, which can be useful whether you are examining a single card pull or working through a full multi-card spread. Reversed cards remain fair game here too, and nothing about this deck’s format asks you to skip that layer of meaning if reversals are already part of how you read.
Because every witch depicted draws from documented folklore and myth rather than a generic archetype, the deck also works as a starting point for further reading if a particular figure catches your attention, and you can treat the guidebook as your first stop for digging into the folklore behind whichever suit speaks to you.
Practical Ritual Applications
Pull a single card each morning and read its entry before you leave the house, letting whichever suit shows up (curse-bringer, well-wisher, alchemist) frame how you approach the day. For a deeper session, lay out one of the guidebook’s spreads when a specific question needs more room, then journal about which stage of the alchemical process the reading reflects. The deck pairs naturally with other tarot and divination books if you want to compare how different systems handle similar archetypes, and it sits comfortably alongside a broader witchcraft and spellcraft practice if you already work with folklore-based magic. Because the cards draw on figures from real folk tradition rather than invented lore, you can use a pull as a prompt for further research into whichever witch, familiar, or deity appeared. Shadow work sessions benefit from this deck’s willingness to sit with curses, revenants, and avengers instead of only pulling toward comfort. If you keep an altar space, the deck works well set out during a reading rather than tucked away, since Bölecz’s illustrations reward a slower look rather than a quick shuffle-and-draw.
How to Read the Oracle of Forgotten Witches
Here is a simple way to start working with the deck once it arrives.
Here is a simple way to start working with the deck once it arrives.
- Handle and Cleanse the Deck
Before your first reading, spend a few minutes simply handling the cards so they start to feel familiar in your hands. Many readers cleanse a new deck before using it, whether that means passing it through incense smoke, setting it in moonlight overnight, or simply shuffling it slowly while holding a clear intention. None of these steps are required by the deck itself, so choose whatever cleansing method already fits your practice, or skip straight to shuffling if that is how you prefer to work.
- Pull a Card and Read Its Suit
For daily use, draw one card and note which of the ten suits it belongs to, whether curse-bringer, mesmerizer, nature witch, or one of the others, since the suit tells you where the card sits on the path from raw instinct toward transformation. Turn to that card’s entry in the 192-page guidebook and read the story behind the figure shown before you interpret what the pull means for your day. Reversed cards carry their own weight here too, so read them as you normally would rather than reshuffling until you get an upright draw.
- Lay Out a Full Spread
When a question needs more than one card, turn to the spreads section of the guidebook and choose the layout that matches your question. Place each card according to the spread’s positions, then read them in relation to each other rather than in isolation, paying attention to which suits repeat or which stage of the alchemical process the overall reading favors. Journaling the result afterward makes it easier to track patterns across multiple sessions, especially if you return to this deck regularly.
Tarot Fellow Standard
I brought Oracle of Forgotten Witches into the shop because I wanted a deck that treats its witches as real folklore figures instead of a single recycled archetype. Sixty cards across ten suits is a real commitment from a publisher, and Watkins Publishing backed it with a 192-page guidebook instead of the thin insert card that ships with plenty of oracle decks. I stock this alongside my witchcraft and spellcraft selection for readers who want their oracle work to have some depth of research behind it. If you already gravitate toward shadow work or decks willing to sit with the uncomfortable parts of a story, this one earns its place on your shelf. You do not need tarot experience to start pulling cards from it, just a willingness to meet the figures inside on their own terms.
Frequently Asked Questions
You do not strictly need one since intuition carries a lot of weight in oracle reading, but a guidebook makes a real difference while you are still learning a new deck’s visual language. This particular deck ships with a 192-page guidebook that tells the story behind each of the sixty cards and walks you through several ready-made spreads, so you have real context for figures you likely have not encountered before. Once you know the deck well you can lean more on intuition and less on the book, but there is no downside to using both together from the start.
Tarot follows a fixed structure of seventy-eight cards split into major and minor arcana, and reading it well takes real study. An oracle deck like this one has no such fixed format. It groups its sixty cards into ten thematic suits built around an alchemical journey rather than the cups, wands, swords, and pentacles you would find in tarot. That makes it easier to start pulling cards with no prior background, since each card’s guidebook entry gives you what you need to interpret a draw without months of memorization first.
Plenty of readers do, though nothing about this deck requires it. Common methods include passing the cards through incense or smudge smoke, leaving them out under moonlight overnight, or simply shuffling slowly while holding a clear intention. Pick whichever method already fits how you practice, since the goal is just to make the deck feel like yours before your first real reading rather than following one prescribed ritual.
Yes, if reversals are already part of how you read. Not every oracle deck writes reversed meanings into its guidebook the way some tarot decks do, but reading a reversed pull as a blockage, an inward-facing version of the upright meaning, or simply an emphasis on that card is common practice among oracle readers. Nothing about this deck’s structure asks you to reshuffle until you draw upright, so keep reversals in your practice here if you already use them elsewhere.
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