Tarot Deck and App Reviews

[Violet]

There are so many tarot deck and apps out now, and often each has a different feeling and personality. This is a thread to share general tarot deck and app reviews and impressions.

Here is my review for the Mystic Dreamer Tarot iPad app:

The Mystic Dreamer Tarot by Barbara Moore and Heidi Darras has a unique and captivating way of capturing the human dreamscape and rendering it in tarot form.

The specific questions in the card descriptions were a unique feature of the deck. The questions pointed out features in each picture I might not have otherwise noticed. For each question I was able to provide a response without thinking too deeply or trying to make sense. With each question, I was drawn further and further into the reading and able to make more conscious associations with the reading than I usually do. I would like to enter this level of detail with every deck I use.

I feel that this deck is a great entry place in learning to bring the card images into your interpretation. On my own, I am often reluctant to do so, preferring to rely on and study the traditional meanings in each card. Those traditional meanings alone offer much depth and precision, which I feel I come closer to penetrating with each life experience I bring to a reading. Often, I have felt reluctant to move deeply into the card images for fear of losing the essential traditional meaning of the card. I don’t fully trust my interpretation of the images to penetrate the core messages in the card. This deck’s questions about the images provide a wonderful structure with which to enter this kind of exploration, since the questions are clearly relevant to the cards’ meanings. It gives me more confidence that I can become a more visual card reader and thereby add more dimension to my readings in all decks I use.

The Fool’s Dog app is ideal for journaling about the readings, and the saving and email functions fit perfectly with my needs. The journal entries are able to be shared by email or social network, as are the readings themselves. Emailing readings to myself is a highly useful feature. However, I definitely would not post my tarot readings on my Facebook wall. I consider tarot to be a meditative practice in which I feel free to bring out experiences and feelings in raw form and work with them. That kind of information is not suitable for a Facebook post.

There are many spreads within the app to choose from, some which have come with other Fool’s Dog apps, as well as some which appear to be native to the Mystic Dreamer Tarot deck. One feature absent from this app, which was present on previous Fool’s Dog tarot apps I purchased, was a prompt to type a question before the reading. I found that prompt useful in previous reading experiences to encourage me to pause and move into a more thoughtful state before going forward with the reading. I wish that it had been included with this app.

The imagery and style of the cards inclined to pagan and feminine-based aesthetics. This correlated perfectly with my desire for a deck that had a more broadly pagan feeling, without an overtly religious overtone. The artwork appears to have been rendered in a 3D graphical program. The images were most intriguing. I found the characters highly relatable in a sense that I would compare to characters in Ian Daniels’ Vampyre Tarot deck. The Mystic Dream Tarot is a deck I would be more likely to use when exploring spiritual and emotional realms, rather than realms of power play and critical thinking, for which I prefer the Fallen Angels cards or the Steampunk Tarot.

I have not had a chance to read the included e-book at length, but it looks promising, with many articles and considerations for those beginning in tarot. Barbara Moore’s Mystic Faerie Tarot was my first tarot deck, and her storytelling approach was both simple and inspiring. On the whole, this e-book appears to have much more information than Mystic Faerie for those starting out, and the questions included with each card give a wonderful springboard for intuitive thought.

As a last word, the price point for this and all Fool’s Dog tarot apps is very reasonable for the high-quality cards, as well as the many features included within the app. Much less than the price of a physical deck, the app offers easy ways to save, review and journal about readings, as well as to quickly draw a card on the fly.This is my third app from the Fool’s Dog.

[RosieMoonflower]

Brainscape.com has a great app out to learn the Rider-Waite deck. It's set up to work like flash cards and helps you memorize key words associated with each card. It tracks your progress and reminds you to study. I believe it cost me about $4.99. I wasn't as impressed with the one for astrology that they have. It basically just teaches you which signs are associated with which elements and that fire signs and air signs get along, while fire and water are opposites, and the other relationships of the elements. Pretty basic. I can't remember if I paid for it or not but I wouldn't pay for it again.

Rosie