The Sacred Circle Tarot: A Celtic Pagan Journey - Anna Franklin

My first ever tarot deck was the Rider Waite deck, I found it very hard to interpret the cards for reading as they never spoke to me on a subconscious level. I kept at it for years until I found The Sacred Circle Tarot deck.

Deck
The deck itself consists of seventy-eight cards, twenty-two major arcana and fifty-six minor arcana, made up from the usual four suits -cups, wands, discs and swords, numbered one to ten, with the page, knight, queen and king.
There are a few differences in the major arcana cards; the cards have been altered to fit the pagan theme of the deck.

Card No. Normal deck Scared Circle Deck

0 - The Fool - The Green Man
1 - Magician - The High Priest
2 - The High Priestess
3 - Empress - The Lady
4 - Emperor - The Lord
5 - Hierophant - The Druid
6 - The Lovers
7 - The Chariot
8 - Strength - The Warrior
9 - Hermit - The Shaman
10 - The Wheel l
11 - Justice - The Web
12 - The Hanged Man. - Sacrifice
13 - Death
14 - The Devil - The Underworld
15 - The Tower
16 - Temperance - Initiation
17 - The Star
18 - The Moon
19 - The Sun
20 - Judgement - Rebirth
21 - The World - The World Tree

The pictures on the cards are amazing, they are a mixture of photos scanned into a computer, pencil drawings colourised and enhanced by computer and elements drawn and constructed directly in computer applications. They have used locations around the British isle and Ireland that are sacred to the Pagan tradition.

Book.
You get a 322 page book with the deck, unfortunately only the cover is in colour, but you can still see all the details in the drawings.
On the second page of the book you get to know a little bit about the author and the artist that have created this deck. Next comes the preface and again both the author and artist have a word about their creation.
Contents.
An Introduction: The Sacred Circle Tarot
Is split into several different sections, first there is a few pages on the British Pagan Tradition, it gives you information on the Pagan scene around Britain and a brief view into the history of paganism.
Then there are a few paragraphs explaining what the Sacred Circle is about. Then it goes through the Major and minor arcana giving a brief description of both and the different suits in the minor arcana.
We then get a brief description on the "Journey of the Fool", a meditation technique using the Major Arcana cards to take you on a journey of discovery about yourself.
Then we come across several different types of tarot spreads including the Celtic Cross spread, the Zodiac spread and a few others. We also get told a few more meditation themes for the cards.
Starting on page 39 we have the Major Arcana: The journey of the Fool.
For each card the picture is shown, with a short description of what the card shows. Then it goes on to describe the symbolism of the card, then the divinatory meaning and the reverse meaning. Then a short paragraph on the journey of the fool.
Then we come to the minor arcana, it's much the same layout as the major arcana cards but without the journey of the fool paragraph.

Price -about £25
ISBN - 1-56718-457X