tarot
Animal Tarot Cards
Animal-themed cards by Doreen Virtue with oracle-style imagery for beginners.
by Doreen Virtue, Radleigh Valentine, Dan Craig · 2017
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The Canon's read
Tarot Canon's own assessment, written for this catalog.
The same year Animal Tarot Cards appeared, Doreen Virtue announced she was leaving her earlier new age work behind for Christianity, stepping back publicly from channelling, mediumship, and tarot itself. Radleigh Valentine and Dan Craig share the credit, and the oracle-style imagery, easy animal symbolism standing in for archetypal meaning, reads like a deck aimed at the widest possible beginner audience rather than one built to reward advanced study. That gap between a creator's public repudiation and a product still carrying her name is not incidental. It says something about how oracle and tarot publishing can outrun the people whose names are used to sell it.
It suits beginners who want animal imagery as an easy on-ramp into card reading and are not troubled by the contradiction sitting behind the byline. Readers who care about a creator standing behind their own work should read that history before buying in.
From the archive
An excerpt from a review at the Aeclectic Tarot archive, in the original reviewer's voice.
Earlier this year Doreen Virtue announced her conversion to Christianity, moving away from her previous new-age teachings and disassociating herself from practices such as channelling and mediumship, denouncing her own teachings, and repudiating the tarot in particular. It is surprising...
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