Aquarian
David Palladini's influential psychedelic deck blending art deco and art nouveau.
by David Palladini · 1969
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The record
In her book, "Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom", Rachel Pollock relates the story of how in the winter of 1969-70 when she was teaching in upstate New York and it was 30 degrees below zero, she searched for weeks to find her first Tarot deck, finally locating one in a little shop in Montreal. That's how it was back then. No internet, of course. Just a few years later, when I was searching for my first Tarot deck, I had no such problems. I found a little shop that had an enormous selection. They must have had half a dozen different decks. Let's see, there were probably several versions of the Smith-Rider-Waite, the Thoth, perhaps the Morgan-Greer, and the Aquarian Tarot by David Palladini, which I purchased. The little white book, actually a fold-out, that came with the deck, first published in 1970 by Morgan Press, described the Aquarian as an "authentic interpretation of the medieval Tarot". Actually, of course, the deck is an interpretation of Smith-Waite. To give you another touch of the flavor of those times, the fold-out's introduction begins: "In this the dawning of the Age of Aquarius the Tarot cards are enjoying a revival of interest . . ." Although the deck does not seem to
The cards
