The Cosmic Slumber Tarot

Product Information

Inspired by the magical animations of Studio Ghibli and the enchanting world of manga, The Cosmic Slumber Tarot invites you to embrace the full spectrum of human experience found in the realm of dreams.

You can feel the artwork here paying homage to Pamela Colman Smith, reimagined with a fresh perspective, even richer color saturation, and updated for the 21st century. Tillie Walden is an award-winning American graphic novelist and comic book artist who has teamed up with the incredible small publishing house Liminal 11. She continues positively, as she does with so many cards, that “The Emperor has no shame about armor and shields…the Emperor has no room for shame. The cards and guidebook come in a solid cardboard box which is only a little larger than the cards themselves. At the end of a long day, The Night enables you to slow time and deal with issues that you have been unable to give time to during the day.

The Minor Arcana are mostly illustrated, although there are a couple that are more like non-illustrated pips. Most of the symbolism in the Cosmic Slumber deck is at least reminiscent of the classic Rider-Waite-Smith deck, which means it will be immediately intuitive in many ways to experienced tarot readers. In addition to the deck itself (which has silvered edges; I’m a sucker for silvered edges), there’s a hardcover LWB, a small triptych with images from three of the Minor Arcana, a bag to keep the deck in, a reading cloth, and a certificate of authenticity. Walden pulls off bright colors, hyperactive line work, sharp edges, and allegrissimo pacing and yet is still able to convey dreams and slumber. While the Minors were ultimately a bit simplistic for my taste, overall the deck is beautifully done.

I think this would largely be a friendly beginner’s deck, but it need not only be; I’m sure that experienced readers will also find value in exploring these cards. However, the traditional Wands suit in this deck is named Torches, and with the imagery of torches, I am guessing that suit is still Fire. Because comic illustrators know how to tell a story, possess a mastery over facial expressions and how to use line work and color to forward that story, you get one heck of a theatrical performance when reading with Cosmic Slumber. Overall, consistently quality cards created to be shuffled, spread, and generally handled for quite a time to come.Because I am so inwardly focused most of the time, I never really read tarot for myself, but I think I may start with this deck.

Registered office address: Unit 34 Vulcan House Business Centre, Vulcan Road, Leicester, Leicestershire, LE5 3EF. Both boxes are also papered inside white, with small mauve-coloured drawings of cups, swords, pentacles, and torches.Hand-painted and bursting with colour, The Cosmic Slumber Tarot evokes imagery from subconscious and subliminal states. To enable personalised advertising (like interest-based ads), we may share your data with our marketing and advertising partners using cookies and other technologies. For some this might not be important, but as someone who shuffled cards more than 50 times on Halloween night doing Spirit messages, the ease of shuffling is important to me. Other than the deck and its containers, the custom tin also contains an illustrated 3-panel ‘stained glass’ triptych, tarot cloth, hardcover little white book, and sketch booklet.