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Magicians, Martyrs, and Madmen Tarot, by Travis McHenry

Magicians, Martyrs, and Madmen Tarot, by Travis McHenry and illustrated by Cristin Gottberg
Rockpool Publishing, 1922785849, 128 pages, 80 cards, October 2023

Travis McHenry has created an awesome tarot deck for those who love dark history. Magicians, Martyrs, and Madmen Tarot opens the portal for modern readers to reach into the depths of the past and gain wisdom from the life journey of those who have dared to push the bounds of reality, ultimately becoming enlightened or losing themselves in the process. As someone who thoroughly enjoys delving into the biography of my magical role models to glean insight into the circumstances that shaped their body of work, this deck is a treasure trove of interesting characters to learn from!

McHenry is a detail-oriented creator who brings new life to arcane occult knowledge, and for this I immensely appreciate his work. His previous decks Angel Tarot, Vlad Dracula Tarot, and Occult Tarot have a palpable energy to them, and this deck is no different. Once again, Henry has ventured afar and gathered what he’s learned for others in a dually gruesome and glorious deck.

Magicians, Martyrs, and Madmen Tarot casts a wide net in regard to the people included. While some might be considered unsavory, McHenry reassures readers “even the most terrible person in the deck had one or two redeeming qualities.”1 In his desire to bring these stories to life again, he sticks to the facts, though it becomes clear some of these characters’ realities are stranger than fiction. 

This being said, the first entry in the guidebook, The Fool, features James Douglas, who “was discovered roasting the cook’s body parts over an open fire and eating pieces of the meat.”2 Instant stomach turn, right? But if you’re like me and also feel utterly fascinated by the story, then it’s worth continuing on in your work with this deck!

McHenry is true to his word about finding the redeeming qualities, writing in the description of the card “As the first card in this deck James Douglas represents brash behavior, jumping without thinking and the folly of committing acts of violence. However, it also shows a person who knows themselves, knows what they want in life and just goes for it. . . James Douglas knew from the start he wanted to be a cannibal killer. He didn’t wait until he was old enough to pursue his dream and he didn’t wait for somebody to give him permission![/efn_note]page 12[/efn_note]

“Hopefully when you read the short biographies of these historical figures you’ll discover that it doesn’t take noble birth or divine favor to transform yourself into a magic, martyr, or madman!”3

For every entry in the guidebook, there is a short biography of the person or people featured, highlighting their ultimate acts of magic or madness, and then a few lines tying in the traditional meaning of the tarot card with the story of the characters’ lives. And overall, McHenry does a REALLY great job matching the person of the card with the card’s meaning, conveying the message of the card in a way that brings a trio of scary shivers, enlightened new perspective, and dash of humor. Nothing elicits a laugh like the true utter depravity and darkness of humanity, nor prompts self-reflection as a magical practitioner like reading about the escapades of both con artists and true mystics, who often end up vilified regardless.

Illustrator Cristin Gottberg has done an exquisite job in the design of these cards. The cards themselves are a deep blue with a red sigil on the back and golden tinted edges. Her original paintings in this deck are primarily darker colors – reds, oranges, browns, and blacks – and there’s a slightly blurred quality to each image, leaving room for the imagination to creep in and fill in the gaps. Gottberg has infused the images with a sensual and fluid feeling, perfectly capturing the essence of the person on the card.

And it’s worth noting there are plenty of women featured in the deck too, despite the title of the deck which seems to focus primarily on men. The reason Henry chose the title is because it was the name of the book consulted by the Ghostbusters in Ghostbusters II as they hunted fictional Vigo Carpathian. Disappointed the book did not exist, Henry “vowed to someday bring it into reality.”4Some of the women Henry includes are Catalina de los Rios, Agnes Bernauer, Catharina de Chasseur and Eva Courier and Juliette Bisson.

Speaking of the last two, another neat feature of the deck is the inclusion of three Lovers cards: a female/female card, a male/male card, and a female/male card. This allows for customization of one’s deck based on personal preference; it also gives us more interesting stories to read!

Overall, Magicians, Martyrs, and Madmen Tarot is absolutely a worthwhile collector’s deck for those with an interest in dark history. There’s so much murder, mayhem, and mysticism to revel in while working with this deck. This deck will not be everyone’s cup of tea, but the unique flavor of the deck absolutely has its time and place and is a macabre delight for the resonant audience. Sometimes we all need to teeter on the edge of wrong and right in our magical practice, and finding out more about the path of others can certainly help to clarify your own boundaries.

 If you’re seeking more of McHenry’s work, you can also check out Magicians, Martyrs, and Madmen: A Compendium. He wrote this book using primary sources, often the words of the person themselves or sources from the time period they were alive. The biographies in this deck are condensed versions of longer entries featured in the book.

A Walk Through the Forest of Souls, by Rachel Pollack

A Walk Through the Forest of Souls: A Tarot Journey to Spiritual Awakening, by Rachel Pollack
Weiser Books, 1578637708, 288 pages, May 2023

Award-winning science fiction author, comic book writer, tarot expert, and trans activist Rachel Grace Pollack passed away on April 7th, 2023, at the age of 77. Born Richard A. Pollack on August 17th, 1945, in Brooklyn, New York, Rachel came out as a transgender woman in 1971, at the age of 26. During this time, Pollack discovered tarot and broke into publishing with a science fiction short story titled “Pandora’s Bust,” which appeared in New Worlds Quarterly.1

Pollack had an impressive literary career, publishing four short story collections and seven novels, three of which received awards. Unquenchable Fire won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1989, Temporary Agency (1994) won the Nebula Award, and Godmother Night (1996) won the World Fantasy Award. Pollack also blazed a trail through the DC Universe by creating Coagula, aka Kate Godwin, the first transgender superhero, while writing issues 64-87 of the rebooted DC Comics series Doom Patrol (1993-1995). However, it was the classic tarot tome Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom (1980) that was the most influential work in Pollack’s oeuvre, and established Pollack as a leading authority on tarot.2

A Walk through the Forest of Souls: A Tarot Journey of Spiritual Awakening is a revised version of the out of print book titled The Forest of Souls: A Walk through the Tarot, first published in 2002. In this updated work, Pollack’s approach to reading the cards is innovative, intuitive, and imaginative. Rather than a cookbook of interpretive meanings, A Walk Through the Forest of Souls is a guide to using the tarot as a spiritual tool to expand consciousness and open one’s mind to new possibilities. 

“This book contains some outrageous ideas and questions,” Pollack says. “We will play with the idea that the Tarot images existed before the creation of the universe, that God somehow consulted the cards to make the world, and even that we can use the cards to find the very reading that God received.”3

Pollack is Jewish, but mischievously identifies as a heretic. The idea of God making a card game of creation is not meant to be taken as literal truth, but to be regarded as serious play. “God in these pages becomes a way to express our universal desire to know and comprehend the sacred,” says Pollack.4

Unlike an ordinary book, “the pages of the Tarot are not bound in any real order.”5 Through the act of shuffling, a new deck is created, and we are given the opportunity to turn over a new leaf, so to speak.

“In this book readings do not reveal a fixed future,” Pollack says. “They become a means to gain new perspectives and explore possibilities outside our normal ways of thought.”6

Pollack’s science fiction background shines through this book’s non-linear approach to the concept of time. “The future can ‘cause’ the past as much as the past causes the future,” Pollack says. “In fact, neither one causes the other, they exist in a relationship that goes in many directions at once. Imagine a web with a vast number of points, all connected to each other, with no single point as the origin or primary cause of the others. Our consciousness places us in one point, convincing us that a single line from the past has caused our current situation to come into being. But this may be an illusion.”7

Tarot reveals possibilities, not an immutable fate, and Pollack even goes so far as to say that since “divination creates new possibilities, it liberates the Creator from a universe where everything is planned and known ahead of time.”8

I recently rewatched the original Star Trek movies, and Pollack’s concept of nonlinear time being an elastic web in which the future can influence the past brings to mind a particular scene in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986). In this film, Admiral Kirk and his crew time travel to late 20th century San Francisco on a mission to bring two humpback whales back to the future in order to repopulate a 23rd century Earth where they are extinct.

Chief engineer Montgomery Scott and Dr. “Bones” McCoy visit a Plexiglas factory seeking construction materials for a whale tank. In exchange for the glass, Scotty gives the proprietor Dr. Nichols the formula for transparent aluminum, a futuristic construction material that is lighter and stronger than the Plexiglas he is currently manufacturing.

“You uh, realize of course if we give him the formula, we’re altering the future,” Bones says. “Why, how do we know he didn’t invent the thing?” says Scotty. His response implies that their need for Plexiglas is part of a predestination paradox, or causal loop, in which the invention of transparent aluminum depends on the necessity of their time travel in the first place.9

I’m a fan of non-linear thinking, and it’s mind-blowing to apply the predestination paradox to tarot reading. Perhaps the guidance we receive from the cards comes from our future selves, who, like Scotty, plant ideas in our minds that may not otherwise have come to us10

Pollack suggests using the cards for “Wisdom readings,”11 which transcend personal concerns by seeking deeper meaning with universal questions like “What is the soul?”12 According to Pollack, the tarot is an instrument we can use to communicate directly with Sophia, the divine personification of wisdom, and we limit its vast potential when we only focus on personal questions.13

The title of this book, A Walk through the Forest of Souls, was inspired by Pollack’s first Wisdom readings, using the Shining Tribe Tarot, a deck created by Pollack. When Pollack asked, “What is the soul?” the Ace of Birds (Ace of Swords) appeared, depicting an owl, the animal familiar of Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom.14

Pollack then asked the cards, “What is Tarot?”15 The answer was the Six of Trees (Six of Wands), which depicts trees with owl eyes. “If the soul is an owl,” Pollack says, “then these woods become a forest of souls, and the Tarot, as the title of this book says, is ‘a walk through the forest of souls.’”16

In my own readings, I have found that lately, I tend to ask fewer personal questions and more cosmic ones, such as, “What will be the influence of the Full Moon in Cancer?” or some other upcoming astrological transit. Inspired by Pollack’s “Wisdom reading” method, I decided to ask questions about the symbolic language of mythology.

The first question that entered my mind was: “Why does the goddess Demeter carry two torches when searching for her daughter Persephone, when one would provide sufficient light and a free hand?” I knew that the twin torches symbolized some sort of celestial light, perhaps the horns of the night-wandering moon, but I wondered specifically why there were two of them. The answer I received surprised me, yet made so much sense. 

I drew three cards from the Crow Tarot: The Star, The Empress, and the Four of Wands. Venus, as the Morning and Evening Star, immediately came to mind. In her dual forms as herald of dawn and dusk, she represents two lights, or two heavenly torches. The astrological association for The Empress is the planet Venus, and the Four of Wands is associated with Venus in Aries.

Reading the cards like a sentence, I was moved by the heartwarming message I received: She is the Mother Star (Empress + Star), guiding her children back home (the Four of Wands represents the home and is a card of celebration, and the astrological association of Venus in Aries reminds me of Demeter and Persephone’s springtime reunion).

In retrospect, I used to be confused by The Empress being associated with both Venus, the goddess of love, and Demeter, the goddess of the harvest. I didn’t think of Demeter as being Venusian, since she is so often depicted as wandering in grief, searching for her lost daughter. After contemplating these cards, I now link Venus, the Heavenly Mother, and Demeter, the Earthly Mother, in the following way: When we are born, we descend into matter, like Inanna, the Sumerian Venus, descending into the Underworld.

When we get lost in the trappings of materialism, we can lose touch with our divine mother, and without her guidance, we may feel as though we are wandering alone in the dark. But she also descends with us, as chthonic Demeter, an earthly manifestation of Venusian energy. When we realize that the Goddess is simultaneously here with us on earth, as well as in heaven, we are reunited with her, just as Venus, the Morning Star, (or in the case of Demeter, a star of mourning) is reborn and emerges from the Underworld, and Persephone is reunited with Demeter. When we see and feel the presence of the Earth Mother made manifest in the physical realm, we are blessed by her with fertility, wealth, and abundance. When we are depressed and feel separated from her, the world in turn feels cold and barren. 

The leaves of tarot whisper to us all in unique ways, and the possibilities for interpretation are limitless. Pollack’s work encourages us to tap into our intuitive creativity and experience the tarot like we never have before. Experimenting with Wisdom readings has shifted my perspective on how to use tarot, and I plan on exploring Pollack’s techniques further in my personal practice.

Beginners may get lost trying to follow Pollack’s twists and turns through the Forest of Souls, but this thought-provoking guide will be a breath of fresh air for intermediate to advanced tarot enthusiasts, opening them up to expansive new ideas regarding what tarot is and how to use it. This final work will no doubt be a classic in Pollack’s enduring tarot legacy.

The Wanderer’s Tarot, by Casy Zabala

The Wanderer’s Tarot, by Casey Zabala
Weiser Books, 1578637597, November 2021

There is room for everyone to improve in life, but sometimes we don’t know where to start. The Wanderer’s Tarot by Casey Zabala appears to be an amazing jumping-off point for this particular activity; only time will tell, and I doubt time will prove this observation wrong. Casey Zabala is a creator after my own heart, believing in divination as a means of healing self-discovery and personal empowerment. Her deck, The Wanderer’s Tarot, is a tool I will be keeping in rotation for a long time.

This box is just superb! The design is simple, but the sleek all black design with white text is inviting. The artwork present is barebones, but alluring. The picture on the back made me immediately paw through the cards to see which card art inspired it (it’s the Wanderer of Stones).

The spine is completely blank: there’s no name, no doodles, just black inky nothingness, which I only see as an issue if you display your decks on a shelf of any kind with spines facing out. But then again, you could resolve this issue with a sticky tab or, dare I say, writing on the box yourself! The opening mechanism is a hinge style clam-like lid. Now, I wouldn’t go shaking it about, but it stays quite secure. I would trust this box to protect the cards on the go if you take a deck with you.

Now onto the cards themselves. The card stock is great. They have a good amount of give without feeling thin and aren’t obnoxiously thick, I have small hands so card sizing is very important to me in a deck. If I can’t shuffle the deck, I’m less likely to use it and will then feel bad about neglecting it.

The cards were thankfully held together not by plastic but rather by a simple black paper band that I was able to slide back on after removing if I was careful… up until the point where I stepped on the band like a goofus. Off topic, so let’s get back on track with the edges of these bad boys. They are so shiny! I have in the past gone out of my way to color the edges of some of my other decks, but these cards came pre-treated with a shiny silver, and I am in love to a degree.

On flip through, the cards stuck together much more than usual, and my hands came away with a faint dusting of silver the first few times of handling. This silver is a gorgeous contrast to the solid black background of these cards. The backs lend themselves well to reading reversals. The circle in the middle with lines radiating off of it gives me “light at the end of the tunnel” vibes, and I like that a lot. These cards are a bit wider than your standard deck but it is still very shuffle-able.

Reading with these cards is a bit tricky though. The numbering for both the majors and the minors are not consistently placed, so I find myself looking for the numbers or names on some cards. I do, however, appreciate that the majors don’t use the traditional roman numerals and the minors are denoted by tally marks only.

It makes you think a little when doing a reading, and that’s kind of the whole point of the deck: diving deeper into the mind and self to better your existence. The minor arcana is drawn in a very pip like style which, in my mind, would prove a bit hard for a new reader to understand as there isn’t any of the traditional RWS context images to help them out.

We’re gonna talk about that smell now. This is my biggest problem with this deck. Trying to riffle shuffle them the first time made it more obvious than when just holding it. If smells trigger any issues of yours, let these cards air out. Set them on a window sill or a table spread out for a few days, otherwise you will not have a fun time. Do the same with the box, leave it open before storing them.

Enough tough talk, let’s look at the guidebook. The book isn’t so much a book as it is a pamphlet with quick info on the cards. Zabala makes it pretty clear that we’re supposed to sit with these cards and come up with our own personal meanings and really suss out how these cards make us feel when they come up, rather than treat the guide like it’s some kind of god.

Our major arcana cards get a few keywords apiece, which is pretty standard fare. The minor arcana got an interesting treatment though. The only bits that get any kind of in-depth meaning is the suits and court cards, as they were changed for this deck. Pentacles are now Stones, Swords are Knives, Wands to Feathers, and Cups to Moons. There is a short explanation of each of the suits on their own panel.

But the truly interesting part is how the numbered minor arcana are treated. We get a numerology cheat sheet of sorts that we have to pair with the traits of the suits to get our meaning. The courts are a bit tricky; they feel like their own entity completely divorced from the RWS courts. I couldn’t figure out a one-to-one correspondence, so here they are for you to decide: Philosopher, Goddess, Prophet, and Wanderer. I won’t say anymore on them as I feel you should pick up this deck to sate that curiosity and support the creator yourself.

There is an option to purchase a more in-depth book from their shop for $20 USD. I would suggest picking up the book with this deck, even though I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. In the description of the item it says there are spreads, in-depth meanings plus reversals, and a brief history of the tarot in the big book. As of writing this, the full guidebook is out of stock on Zabala’s shop, but here’s a link to the book itself anyway for your viewing pleasure.

The sheer amount of self-reflection I’ve been forced to do with this deck is unreal. From the moment I pulled my first card, it was already reading me to filth. There is a brutal honesty in these cards that most of my other decks also have with me, so I guess that’s just how I get messages best. Tell me straight up — no sugar coating, hit meh!

While I don’t feel any more connected to the wider world around me through the work I’ve done with these cards, I feel more grounded in myself. I’m setting down roots that I need to start reaching for the cosmic truths this deck wants to throw at me. So, if you pick this one up, get ready for a journey cause you’ll be going on one whether you think you want to or not.

The Wanderer’s Tarot holds lessons that I think everyone should hear regardless of how you identify, and I would love to say everyone should pick up a copy, but I can’t. Are you open to looking into yourself? Can you admit to yourself that things need to change and are you capable of enacting those changes? If the answer to any of those questions is “no”, then this is not for you at this time. This change is what the deck wants for me and what it will want for you. It will make you think, it will tell you the same thing as many times as it takes to get you to do something about it. It will fight you FOR you to ensure growth is happening.

Advanced Tarot, by Paul Fenton-Smith

Advanced Tarot: An In-depth Guide to Practical & Intuitive Tarot Reading, by Paul Fenton-Smith
Blue Angel Publishing, 0648746829, 556 pages, May 2021

The next time someone asks me for a book recommendation about reading tarot, I am hands-down suggesting Advanced Tarot: An In-depth Guide to Practical & Intuitive Tarot Reading by Paul Fenton-Smith. I keep wanting to refer to this roughly 3.5 pound book (yes, I weighed it on my scale because I was curious) as a “tarot bible” because it is one of the most all-inclusive guides I’ve ever read on reading tarot cards. Even as a professional tarot reader for nearly a decade, I am gleaning pieces of wisdom from this book, rejuvenating my skill set, and incorporating new perspectives into my readings.

Within this book, Fenton-Smith has crafted a handy and resourceful guide to the entire tarot deck for beginning or deepening one’s practice. While this may seem like his magnum opus, he is already quite the renowned author and teacher who has been sharing his practical insights for over forty years. In 1985 he created the Academy of Psychic Sciences and has been teaching for decades on topics such as palmistry, astrology, clairvoyance, and hypnotherapy in addition to his work with tarot. Needless to say, Fenton-Smith has a large repertoire in a variety of metaphysical topics, and it clearly shines through in Advanced Tarot.

What immediately stood out for me with this book is the way all the information is organized and presented. Pages four through twenty-one feature the striking imagery of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, sorted into the Major Arcana and Minor Arcana suits. I absolutely loved looking through all the images: though I know them by heart, it’s always pretty to see them all lined up next to each other. I liked the way it was arranged by suit so one can see the storyline within the Major Arcana and get a visual of all the cards in a suit together. As I gazed at the images, I thought how helpful this would be to a beginner just familiarizing themselves with the cards to have this for references.

Now here is where we get into the heart of the book, which at 556 pages you can imagine there’s a lot to absorb. The first 176 pages of the book are dedicated to the art of reading. Fenton-Smith addresses many topics that I feel other tarot books gloss over or neglect to include, such as answering yes/no questions, giving distance readings, what to do when more clarity is needed, and how to read well under pressure. I think what I enjoyed reading about the most is Fenton-Smith’s acknowledgement of the limitation of tarot:

“It is important for a tarot reader to resist the temptation to override the free will of a client. Professional readers predict the future, detail the past and illuminate the underlying causes of events but they don’t dictate what a person should do. Everyone has free will in choosing a preferred destiny.”1

In this beginning section, Fenton-Smith also includes a variety of different layouts. For each one, he gives immense clarity about the position and meaning of each card. It was very easy to follow along with the spreads, and many were ones that I had not tried before. My favorite was the horoscope spread, which is a 13-card spread to give insight into different areas of life and the year ahead based on the house placements in astrology. I loved how he was able to translate the house system into an information tarot spread, perfectly blending astrology and tarot. Additionally, there is information on how to create one’s own layout, which is beneficial for those who are ready to try this out.

What I liked most about this introduction section is all the examples Fenton-Smith supplies. I always enjoy hearing about others’ experiences as a reader, such as what clients ask and how the reader handles the different questions of the client, which he has provided in spades. Reading how he interpreted the cards in his layouts, or handled the self-denial or conflicting feelings emanating from his client, really helped me to think about how I can handle situations more skillfully.

This method of teaching through example also really resonated with me because it built a sense of relationship between Fenton-Smith and me, the reader. It was as though his wisdom was streaming through in all these stories of the experiences he’s had, and I for one very much appreciated being on the receiving end of this storytelling, intently seeing it in my mind’s eye and learning vicariously through him. It’s something used through the entire book that remains useful as we enter the next section of delving into card meanings.

Now, keep in mind we’re only about a fifth of the way through the book at this point – and so much has already been shared! The heart of the book is what comes next: the Minor Arcana, Court Cards, and the Major Arcana. For each and every card, Fenton-Smith provides a predictive meaning for a general reading, career layout, relationship question, and health query. I cannot even begin to express how helpful it is for a specific message to be provided for all these domains, especially health which has been the focus of my questions recently, and had me searching for guidance in other books.

Not only is Fenton-Smith’s interpretation provided for upright cards, he provides just as much information of every card reversed as well. This is yet another humongous bonus to this book, which greatly sets it apart from (and above, in my opinion) other tarot books. And let me tell you, he does not skimp on his interpretation. Each card’s description is detailed, clear, and immensely accurate from the readings I’ve done so far.

In the tailend of the book, Fenton-Smith offers guidance on becoming a tarot reader. Then there are handy reference charts for the meaning of cards in combination, the Minor Arcana upright, and the Minor Arcana reversed. 

One thing I like a lot about the way the cards’ meanings are presented is the organization of the Minor Arcana. Rather than going by suit, Fenton-Smith categorizes the cards by number. Beginning each section of the cards, such as The Nines, he provides an overview of what the cards represent. For instance, “The nines in the tarot represent a period of reflection before a final commitment in a goal or purpose.”2 From there, he explains how the message shows up in each of the suits, which provides an interesting compare and contrast between the suits of each number.

For a seasoned tarot reader, it may seem a book like this may not be useful, but I don’t think that assumption could be further from the truth. There’s something reassuring about reading someone else’s viewpoint, particularly when doing a reading for oneself, in order to maintain objectivity and openness to the cards. I also enjoy reading Fenton-Smith’s definitions because they make for good journal quotes and prompts as I log my readings.

Another way I’ve benefited from the book is through doing readings with my husband, who only knows a little bit about the card meanings, and reading the descriptions to each other for discussion after we pull a spread for an inquiry. The book seems to be a leveling ground for us to communicate about the reading, rather than me having to interpret the cards for him, which has been very useful in making some recent decisions. It facilitated a sense of teamwork between us, as well as a stronger connection to the messages coming through the cards.

Overall, Advanced Tarot is a worthy investment for readers, both novice and expert, that is sure to be of great use. Fenton-Smith has packed so much wisdom into these pages that it in many ways reminds me of a tome. However, his direct, relatable, and practical writing style make the information accessible and able to be integrated into one’s reading with ease. As I’ve already said, I highly recommend this book to all tarot readers. I certainly plan on directing everyone to it with the praise that it is a wonderful, foundational book on tarot for those looking to take their readings to the next level.