The Three Families
The three families do not negate each other. A reader can keep all three, and switch by question type. What follows is each one's brief.
The Marseille
16th–18th century, continuing to this dayGeometric, austere, woodcut — pips carry suit symbols only, no scene.
The Marseille is the oldest tarot pattern still in continuous print. In 1760, the Marseille cardmaker Nicolas Conver engraved the 78 woodblocks that later became the standard reference; his successors kept printing from them, and many later Marseille decks copied his design. The core aesthetic is unmistakable: the linework of the woodcut, flat vermilion-sky blue-olive colouring, Majors with Roman numerals but no astrological correspondence, and — crucially — pips (the 2 through 10 of each suit) carry only the suit symbol repeated the appropriate number of times. Two of Cups is two cups arranged symmetrically; ten of Cups is nine cups in rows beneath one large cup laid across the top. No people, no setting.
That "pips without scene" feature makes the Marseille read more like a semiotic exercise — you combine number, element, and position rather than reading off a picture. It is more abstract than Rider-Waite-Smith, and therefore more demanding of the reader's intuition rather than the page's suggestion. Many experienced readers treat Marseille as the Latin of tarot: not the easiest entry, but once you can read it, you understand the bones of the entire system.
· Exemplars ·
Nicolas Conver · 1760
The engraving that became the Marseille standard
Jodorowsky-Camoin · 1997 restoration
Philippe Camoin descends from the Conver printing family; collaborated with Jodorowsky to restore the original colours
· Strengths ·
- Purest classical bloodline — closest to the popular printed packs of the 17th and 18th centuries
- The Major symbolism is clean — no later astrological or Hebrew-letter overlay
- Empty pips give the intuition room — many senior readers prefer this "the picture does not read for you" tension
· Caveats ·
- Beginners struggle with the pips — no figures, no setting, only repeated suit symbols
- For modern readers raised on Waite's narrative pips, the Marseille can feel abstract and cold
Rider-Waite-Smith
Published 1909, influence still activeFully scenic pips — nearly every minor arcana is a scene with characters and story.
Rider-Waite-Smith (hereafter RWS) was written by Arthur Edward Waite and illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith, published in December 1909 by William Rider & Son of London. Its revolution was not in the Majors (Waite mostly inherited the Marseille archetypes) but in the full scenic treatment of all 40 numbered minor arcana. After 1909, the Three of Swords was not just three swords — it was three swords piercing a heart under storm-clouds. The Eight of Cups was not just eight cups — it was a cloaked figure walking away into a mountain distance. The scenes made the Minors readable, and that readability is why the RWS became the de facto teaching standard of 20th-century tarot.
A century later, the vast majority of modern tarot decks on sale are RWS derivatives — new art style, new characters, localised symbols, but the underlying narrative structure of the pips preserved. The scale of this ecosystem means: any tarot tutorial on YouTube is, by default, teaching RWS; any introductory tarot book you pick up is, by default, referencing RWS.
· Exemplars ·
Rider · 1909 original
"Roses & Lilies" back; first edition issued December 1909
Modern derivatives (unspecified)
A steady stream of new RWS-derivative artist decks every year — pick by your own aesthetic
· Strengths ·
- Beginner-friendly — scenic pips hand you narrative prompts directly
- Largest ecosystem — tutorials, books, community, AI tools all default to RWS
- Symbol density is moderated — simpler than Thoth, more explicit than Marseille
· Caveats ·
- Sometimes feels like "the standard answer" — aesthetic fatigue for seasoned readers
- Some figures carry early 20th-century British bourgeois imagery — modern derivatives often address this
Thoth
Painted 1938–1943; published 1969Kabbalah + astrology + projective geometry — the most systematised deck.
Thoth was Aleister Crowley's text with Lady Frieda Harris's illustrations — painted in wartime London between 1938 and 1943, with Crowley publishing the companion text The Book of Thoth in 1944. But the deck itself was not published until 1969, twenty-six years after the paintings were finished — Crowley died in 1947 and Harris in 1962, neither lived to see the deck in print. Its aesthetic is Harris's experimentation with projective geometry — each card's composition reads like the intersection of mathematical aesthetics and esoteric diagram.
Its fundamental difference from RWS is systematisation. Its trumps carry Kabbalah path attributions and their astrological signs or planets, its small cards their decans, and Thelema-specific terminology runs throughout. Learning Thoth means, simultaneously, learning the scaffolding of Crowley's Thelema system. That threshold is why Thoth is the deck of choice for astrology and Kabbalah enthusiasts — and also why it can feel needlessly severe for a reader who just wants to practice intuition.
· Exemplars ·
Crowley-Harris · 1969 first edition
Issued with the Ordo Templi Orientis's authorisation; neither creator lived to see it
Haindl Tarot · 1988
Hermann Haindl's Thoth-influenced German deck, bringing in Nordic, Indian, and Native American symbols
· Strengths ·
- Most systematic — full correspondences for zodiac, Kabbalah, Hebrew letters, elemental attribution
- First choice for astrology / Kabbalah students — the correspondence scaffolding is directly usable
- Distinctive aesthetic — Harris's projective geometry is a visual language unlike any other family
· Caveats ·
- Steep learning curve — requires learning Thelema-specific terminology on top of tarot
- Crowley's biographical controversy can repel some readers — the deck's scholarly value is independent of his personality
· Comparison ·
Where Lunarcana Sits
Lunarcana inherits the Rider-Waite-Smith substrate — scenic pips, familiar Major archetypes, keyword conventions aligned with Waite — so that any reader already trained on RWS tutorials can start reading here without friction. But visually, we take the route of the manuscript and hand-drawn map: muted ivory ground, gold as a threshold-only signal, thin alchemical linework as ornament — deliberately avoiding the saturation and cartoon-leaning style that dominates contemporary RWS derivatives.
This is not a copy of any family, nor a synthesis of the three. Treat it as a small branch of the RWS lineage — inheriting the readability of the pips, declining the accumulated decorative habits of a century. A digital deck no longer needs to serve the "pretty collectible" function; it should sit quietly in the background so that attention stays on the reader's question.
Buying Guide
If you have been using Lunarcana for a while and want to buy a physical deck too, here is a starting point by reader type. None of these are sole answers; none are rankings.
· Beginner ·
Any RWS derivative you find visually attractive
Largest ecosystem, most tutorials — you can start from any 10-minute YouTube introduction
· Astrology enthusiast ·
Thoth (Crowley-Harris), or the Thoth-influenced Haindl
The most complete zodiac · Kabbalah · Hebrew-letter correspondence — you learn astrology and tarot at the same pace
· Seeking classical bloodline ·
Marseille (Conver or the Jodorowsky-Camoin restoration)
Closest to tarot's popular printed form of the 17th and 18th centuries — right for readers who prefer less on the page
· Jungian / psychology-oriented ·
The Marseille, as used in Sallie Nichols's Jung and Tarot (1980)
Nichols read the Majors through Jung using the Marseille's images — a reminder that a psychological reading does not need the newest RWS derivative
· East Asian reader (optional) ·
RWS derivatives with Chinese or Japanese illustration
Reduces the cultural friction of medieval European costume — several local artists now publish such decks
The Independent-Artist Era
After 2010, Kickstarter and Indiegogo delivered a new wave of independent tarot decks almost every month — illustrators, comic artists, digital artists redrawing 78 cards in their own visual language. This is the largest fork in the history of tarot publishing: a market long led by a few established publishers suddenly produced a flood of new decks.
The boom has a bright side — finally, plural cultural perspectives enter the imagery (Indigenous, Black, Asian, queer, among others). It also has a shadow side — some decks change only the art style without reconsidering meaning, leaving buyers with a deck that reads, underneath the paint, exactly like RWS. When choosing an indie deck, the creator's artist statement matters more than the preview images: are they redrawing the aesthetic, or rebuilding the meanings?
This page does not recommend specific independent decks — new ones appear monthly, so recommendations age fast, and this site tries to stay equidistant from all artists. If you want specific picks, the Tarot Professionals forum and the weekly deck threads on r/tarot are fresher than this page could ever be.
Oracle · Tarot · Lenormand
Tarot has a fixed 78-card structure — 22 Majors + 4 suits × 14 Minors. Whether Marseille, RWS, or Thoth, that skeleton does not change. Think of it as the international reading community's shared "standard deck" — everyone is playing variants on the same underlying game.
An Oracle deck has no such structure — card count varies (often 44, 52, 64), and the theme and symbol system are whatever the author defines. Moon-phase oracles, goddess oracles, plant oracles, animal oracles — this category is closer to "author-designed meditation prompt sets." Oracle and tarot do not substitute for each other. Oracles win on thematic integration per deck; they lose on shared cross-deck vocabulary.
Lenormand is a separate system — 36 everyday-scene symbols from a German parlour game of about 1799, later sold under the name of the fortune-teller Lenormand, read combinatorially (groups of cards modify each other) rather than positionally. It has its own page in this guide.
Physical vs Digital
The unique value of a physical deck is tactile — the rasp of cards against each other during shuffling, the weight of a cut, the faint damp of fingers on a turning card — this bodily memory participates in your reading rhythm over the long term. Many long-time readers describe this in terms of breath: a well-used deck falls into rapport with your breathing cycle, your hand's tempo, even with certain recurring thoughts.
A digital deck's unique value is portability and cross-device presence — in your pocket, never needs cleansing, usable in bed at night and put down without standing up to gather cards. More importantly, digital decks can do things paper cards cannot — animation, transition, instant interpretation, historical traceability.
These are not opposites. Many readers end up with a long-term pattern: a physical deck for major life questions, a digital one for daily emotional tracking. Lunarcana neither asks you to abandon paper nor insists you migrate fully to pixels. Use whichever reads naturally for you at the moment.
Further Reading
Historical context for the three families
Waite · Smith · Crowley · Harris · Jodorowsky
Jungian tarot and Sallie Nichols's Marseille reading
pip card · Conver · Thoth deck · Haindl
Why this site sits in the obsidian-ivory-gold visual lineage — a note from the inside cover.