Divination of the Ancients

Blue Angel assembled a working trio for Divination of the Ancients: Barbara Meiklejohn-Free and Flavia Kate Peters, the house's shamanic-and-faery author pairing, with Richard Crookes illustrating, forty-five cards surveying the divination methods of the old world, the oracle as a museum of oracles. Each card's frame is a technique or tradition the ancients actually used, which gives the deck a meta-divinatory charm: you are consulting cards about consulting everything else. Survey decks trade depth for breadth honestly, and this one's use follows: a sampler of the mantic arts, a teaching deck for the history of asking, and a practical oracle whose answers arrive wearing period dress. Crookes's illustration, familiar from the Angels of Atlantis, keeps the eras legible. It suits divination-history browsers, teachers introducing the mantic family tree, Blue Angel collectors, and readers who like their practice with provenance footnotes. Specialists in any single ancient method have the deep shelves; this deck is the corridor between them.