Is it for everyone? No. The Horned God guards the gate. But for the witch who has felt that the traditional Tarot speaks about them rather than to them, The Witches Tarot offers a homecoming.
Ellen Cannon Reed succeeded in what she set out to do: she built a bridge between the Qabalistic Tarot and the Circle of the Wiccan. When you lay a spread with these cards, you aren't just divining the future; you are mapping the sacred landscape of a witch’s soul. the witches tarot ellen cannon reed
She didn’t want to rewrite the Tarot; she wanted to re-consecrate it. She famously felt that the traditional Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS) imagery, while useful, was drenched in Christian hermeticism and Golden Dawn ceremonialism. For a witch working at an outdoor altar under a full moon, the thrones and angelic thrones of the RWS felt foreign. Reed set out to "translate" the cards into the language of the Craft. Visually, The Witches Tarot is a product of its era (the mid-90s), yet it possesses a timeless, hand-drawn authenticity. Martin Cannon’s black-and-white illustrations (colorized in later editions) are stark, bold, and unapologetically symbolic. Is it for everyone
In the sprawling forest of Tarot decks, most seek to be universal. They speak in archetypes—the Hero, the Mother, the Fool. But every so often, a deck comes along that refuses to be for everyone. Instead, it speaks intimately to a specific path, a specific practice, and a specific heart. But for the witch who has felt that
Do not look for photographic realism or watercolor whimsy here. The art is scratchboard-esque: high contrast, sharp lines, and a moody, nocturnal energy. The characters are not generic models; they are archetypal witches—hooded, robed, sometimes androgynous, often shown mid-ritual.