Big Love for Tiny Tarot
Big Love for Tiny Tarot
There are plenty of novelty tarot decks that we don’t think of as actually being created for, or appropriate for, conducting serious tarot readings.
My very first tarot deck was a novelty deck. I got “World’s Smallest Tarot Deck” for five dollars from Herman Slater’s Magickal Childe shop in New York City. It was a miniature Waite Rider. I bought it because I felt called to learn tarot but still felt very skeptical about card reading. I simply wasn’t convinced I should invest real money in a proper deck. How silly that seems now!
I soon discovered I couldn’t learn tarot with a miniature deck. I ponied up the money for the standard-sized Rider Waite in the familiar yellow box. This became the first deck I read with professionally eight years later.
I kept the miniature tarot. In fact, I still have it. I used it for tarot magick with good success.
Over the years people have given me novelty tarot sets, many of the miniature. I love to display them in my office and my home.
When preparing to evacuate my home for Hurricane Dorian I snatched Tiny Tarot off the shelf by the door and stuck it in my purse. I was thinking about remedies for boredom during the hurricane and thought that it couldn’t hurt to have a miniature tarot in a little plastic box.
Once I got to the family home further from the flood zone, I had some time on my hands, and started playing with Tiny Tarot for the first time.
I bet you have seen this deck, even if you don’t own one. It is a full Universal Waite in a plastic box with a keychain, measuring all of 1.2” by 1”. It’s published by U.S. Games, Inc.
Here’s what I discovered while playing with Tiny Tarot.
If you really know the card images well, the small cards read every bit as well as normal-sized cards.
You can put the cards in a pouch and reach in and grab the number of cards you want in one hand.
Because you can pull from a pouch you never need to shuffle.
There is something powerful about holding an eleven-card Celtic Cross in your closed fist.
An entire spread fits on a very small surface.
When you come to my office for a reading, I promise I won’t read for you with my Tiny Tarot; I will use normal-sized cards, of course. I also still believe it is very hard to learn tarot with a doll-sized deck.
Yet, doing readings with Tiny Tarot gave this seasoned pro a new perspective on those familiar Universal Waite cards. And new perspective is what tarot is all about, isn’t it?
