Magickal

Anthony Clark and Tony Willis's Magickal Tarot carries the British occult revival's working lineage: Willis wrote the era's practical magick-and-tarot texts, Clark illustrated in the tradition's symbolic register, and their deck was built as the titles suggest, for magickal practice with its k intact, tarot as ceremonial equipment rather than parlor instrument. The record is lean but the school is documented; this is the operative wing the catalog's B.O.T.A. and Golden Dawn decks formalize, in its trade-published British form. Operative decks distinguish themselves in use: cards designed for pathworking, invocation and talismanic focus carry their symbols functionally, every image a working diagram. Clark's execution kept the machinery legible. It suits practicing magicians of the British current, Willis's readers matching text to instrument, operative-deck collectors beside the Temple and Farrell sets, and students of the revival's practical publishing. The strictly divinatory shelves surround it; this deck always intended to do things, k and all.