Synesthesia Tarot Review

Some quick thoughts on a new deck

I don’t often have the opportunity to come into downtown Seattle, so while here yesterday I thought it would be fun to go off in search of a new, and hopefully unique Tarot deck.

I’m pleased to say that my search was rewarded.

I found an awesome gallery, Ghost Gallery right in the heart of downtown, and they had a superb selection of unique Tarot decks. Not a Rider-Waite-Smith in sight, but lots of interesting and unique things. Unfortunately, only a small number of the decks they carry are shown on the website. Best of all, they have a copy of each deck they sell open so that you can browse each individual card.

I ended up with the Synesthesia Tarot, by Jana Walker.

Synesthesia Tarot Deck

To my eye, the deck is truly beautiful. Extremely minimalist, but I believe I can get used to it, and read well with it.

Ultimately it was The Magician card pictured above that convinced me to buy the deck. The minimalist symbolism is just superb.

The deck does have a guidebook, sold seperately, I found it to be extremely basic, and I don’t think it is needed. The cards follow RWS standards quite closely, so any good guidebook to the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot should serve very well.

I’ve been playing with these cards for a couple of days now. Just getting to know them. Shuffling them slowly, looking at the symbolism of each card, catching the details, and doing some basic fun little readings. I’ve got to say that I really love the deck.

I find it quite beautiful, extremely high quality, and the minimalist symbolism well suited to readings. Even the box it comes in is well thought out and of good quality. The cards themselves are much thicker than standard, so should hold up extremely well.

I am certainly pleased with the Synesthesia Tarot, and would recommend it without hesitation. It can be purchased, directly from the creator here.

My only complaint has to do with the finish on the cards. The creator describes this as a ‘soft touch matte coating.’ And I would agree with that. It doesn’t feel like paper at all. It does feel soft and in a way grippy. I love the way the cards feel, in the hand.

But, I can’t shuffle them worth a darn. I’ve never been good at shuffling cards anyway, and the coating on these just makes that task even tougher.

So, that’s my only complaint, and it really is a minor one, because I presume that most folks have less trouble shuffling than I do, and I also presume that these will get easier to shuffle with time and a touch of wear. This isn’t the only deck I have with this particular coating, it feels so good in the hand that I imagine we’ll be seeing it more and more as time goes on.

If you are looking for a minimalist deck that closely follows RWS symbolism, I don’t think you can go wrong with the Synesthesia Tarot.