The Alchemical Tarot: Renewed

Number of cards in deck: 79. There are two Lovers cards.

Measurements: 2.8 x 4.8 inches; or 70 x 122 millimeters.

Back of card: A red rose on a green stem, with two branches with three leaves each. Behind the rose, a mottled gray-green background. The very edge of the card is a dark green border. Inside that is a red frame. Not for inversion.

Booklet included: Yes, 16 pages, 2.45 x 4.5 inches; or 63 x 114 millimeters.

Publisher: Hermes Publications. A professional card printer printed the cards, but I do not know where.

Note on packaging: The very nicely printed cards, along with a very nicely printed booklet, are placed in a very nicely printed box, but the cards are not shrink-wrapped, nor the box wrapped in clear plastic. So the cards may have been handled before you get them, and you should count the cards carefully to determine if they are all there. Hopefully this will be corrected soon.

Note on the Renewed edition: Originally these cards included a book, but the Renewed edition does not. The cards from the original edition had fancy Grecian columns framing each of the illustrations. These have been removed. The backs of the cards are different. Aside from these changes, the cards are otherwise identical.

Comments: If you've not guessed already, this is Rosicrucian inspired alchemy, & the alchemy the book talks about is spiritual, not actual. The physical process of alchemy involves a quantity of white clay, the ash of a particular tree, spring dew, perhaps mercury & sulfur & a few other ingredients, added in the proper order & at the proper time in total darkness. This soup is heated & cooled & heated again over a period of perhaps two years until it slowly becomes something different. Don't try this at home as gunpowder is one of the accidental by-products & the classic formulas heat this right to the point of explosion. The final result is said to be a stable super-heavy element with an atomic weight of perhaps 135. One of the elemental properties of this substance is the ability to transmute other metallic elements into gold or silver, depending on the operation. It can be prepared as an elixir, which is said to prolong life indefinitely. It is this life-enhancing quality, not a quest for gold, that drove would-be alchemists harder & harder as they got older & older. In case you're wondering, the last known successful alchemist completed the work & disappeared around 1920. This was the legendary Fulcanelli. Given what I've heard of Nicholas Flamel, public scrivener of the 15th century, Fulcanelli should still be alive, though given what I've learned of conscious reincarnation, I can't say he would necessarily be in the same body. It would make a lot of sense to stash the stone & take rebirth from time to time.

It was eventually noticed that spiritually advanced students tended to have more success with this process than others, which lead to the Rosicrucian order (17th century or so). So as the early Rosicrucian experimenter purified his physical materials, he purified himself of his lower desires & we all know what those are. Today both the Rosicrucians & the Masonic orders are more symbolic than actual. In crude terms, the Masons were once builders, the Rosicrucians once chemists.

I wanted this deck to show the classic steps in the production of the Philosopher's Stone, but it does not. This is a major failing & is shown in the Knight of Swords card. The image on the card is as close as we get to St. George slaying the Dragon, which secretly shows one of the most important steps in the entire process. On this card the lion on the knight's shield is an indirect hint, but the dragon itself is cold.

Yet the symbolism in this deck, while disjointed, is fascinating & will repay close study. Since there has been a great surge of interest in alchemy in the last twenty years, perhaps a student of the art will someday produce a serious deck. Knowing these guys a little bit, I suspect they may have already & given it some misleading name. After all, what do rosy crosses have to do with feet of clay?

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