Deck Review: Austin Osman Spare Tarot

One for the collectors and the Tarot-history enthusiasts is the Austin Osman Spare Tarot, which you can currently order via the publisher’s (Strange Attractor) website for £35. Being a skinflint Trying to control my Tarot addiction in a sensible manner, I only forked out for the deck when I backed the project on Kickstarter, so I didn’t get the accompanying book, Lost Envoy: The Tarot Deck of Austin Osman Spare, or the AOS Tarot Sourcebooks (How to Tell Fortunes by The Cards*, by Rapoza (1906), a key source for Spare’s Minor Arcana attributions, and The Tarot, by S. L. MacGregor Mathers (1888) from which he assigned his Major Arcana meanings). This means I’m kinda on my own for interpretations of the cards, which is not the end of the world, but is nevertheless a bit annoying. It means if you were a beginner and wanted to use this deck you’d have to fork out a fair old sum for the deck + books (and it looks like the sourcebooks are currently out of stock! You can still buy the three books and deck bundled together for a hefty £100). By all means the creators should charge extra for the Full Book Experience (Lost Envoy is a properly nice coffee table book), but I do prefer it when a small guidebook is included in the cost of the deck and/or there is a free online guide available.

The history of the deck is super cool, and it’s the main reason I became a backer. The project’s website explains how in 2013 a 79-card hand-painted Tarot deck, created circa 1906 by the mystic and artist Austin Osman Spare, was (re)discovered within the collections of The Magic Circle Museum in London. Spare lived from 1888-1956, and, while he was originally hailed as an artistic genius, his interest in occultism and sorcery, as well as his frankly quite freaky art, meant he fell out of fashion; with George Bernard Shaw reportedly saying, “Spare’s medicine is too strong for the average man”. A review of an early exhibition of his in The Observer claimed that “Mr. Spare’s art is abnormal, unhealthy, wildly fantastic, and unintelligible” (what a review, lol!) He ended up dying in poverty and obscurity (with a horde of cats 💜), having resorted to making money by drawing portraits in pubs for beer and sandwiches. After Spare’s death in 1956, his friend Kenneth Grant claimed this kind of “intense disappointment” was the way by which Spare attained greater enlightenment (you and me both, Austin, you and me both). For years after his death his name was unknown outside of enthusiast circles (for example, his work was championed by graphic novelist Alan Moore, which is a big plus in my eyes as I LOVE Moore’s books). However, his art has recently enjoyed a bit of a renaissance, and Southwark council has recognised his importance to his South London stomping grounds by naming a new street (just of Walworth Road, very close to where I used to live) in his honour.

While Spare’s life-long interest in cartomancy was well documented, prior to the 2013 (re)discovery it was believed that very few of his personally created fortune telling cards had survived (a lot of his work was lost when his studio was bombed during the Blitz). He probably created his deck as a ‘training deck’ that he drew himself in order to learn the Tarot. The cards are clearly used, but were in relatively good condition when Magic Circle Museum curator Jonathan Allen found them in 2013. Allen recognised that these cards were not only important from an art history perspective, but also offered key insights into cartomancy and Tarot during the early 20th century. Allen and some fellow artists then set about painstakingly restoring and recreating this deck. Their aim was to produce a deck of cards how they “might have looked if a Spare of 1906 had been able to reach through time and hand his newly completed deck to us in 2023”. In the case of the one card missing from the deck (Strength), the artist Natalie Kay-Thatcher was able to recreate it from scratch based on a 1969 photograph from the Museum’s archives. When you hold this deck in your hands it really feels like you’re holding a little piece of Tarot history, which is very cool.

“There are, of course, hundreds of new Tarot decks available today and every artist or designer has something to say about why their deck is different and special. So why is Spare’s deck worth our attention? Each of the contributors to Lost Envoy answers this question […] While Spare’s creative isolation and failure to publish his deck does mean that its influence has been virtually non-existent, Lost Envoy heralds the end of its obscurity and the real beginning of its influence on cartomancy and cartomancy decks.” 

Emily E. Auger, Preternature

The deck comes in a very well-made and sturdy lidded box, with a small booklet explaining some of its history (but no guide). The card stock is equally sturdy and slippery (easy to shuffle), and you can see real care has been spent on the colour and finish quality of the images. Spare used five different colours to paint the card backs, each being assigned a shade according to his own (incomplete?) schema. The backs of the Major Arcana and the Knights and Knaves (Pages) are purple, the Aces are green, and the remaining cards of the Minor Arcana are a mix of black, purple, coral, and grey. The slightly battered, vintage quality to the backs has also been preserved in this printing. Together, this lends the deck an eclectic, magpie air that I really love.

The Majors follow the standard RWS format, but instead of the usual Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pents the AOS deck sticks to the playing card suits of Clubs, Hearts, Spades, and Diamonds. Allen explains that “this hybrid format collapses the clear distinction between playing card cartomancy, which at the turn of the last century was a popular and mainly middle- to working-class pastime, and tarot cartomancy (or taromancy), which at the time was largely the preserve of a small educated elite with esoteric interests”. This is where it would be handy if there was a bit more in the booklet about how to interpret the cards. I’m presuming the suits map on to the Minors in the standard way (Diamonds = Pents, Hearts = Cups etc.) but I don’t actually know, lol. It would be really useful to at least have this kind of basic interpretation explained without having to fork out for a separate coffee table book.

Would I use this deck to read with? Probably not, neither for myself nor others. The Minors are kind of pip-ish (which rules out me using them for others, as I personally like my querents to be able to make their own visual associations with the images on the cards if they want to), and the notes on them are very personal, and often out of step with how I interpret the cards. I dabble with numerology, but wouldn’t consider myself a cartomancer. It’s clear from reading through Spare’s (v attractive) scrawl on the tops and bottoms of each card that he leaned heavily into the predictive and fortune telling aspects of the Tarot (which, no shade, but I really don’t!), and he’s also interested in ‘old school’ cartomancy, i.e. how certain patterns of cards predict very specific things or events (e.g. 5 of Hearts + 4 of Hearts = invitation to a wedding). I’ve had psychic readings done for me and really enjoyed them, but I do not consider myself to have any kind of visionary or psychic gift (just a fairly intuitive sense of empathy), so the idea of confidently predicting querents are going to experience X or Y based on some ink and cardstock gives me a rising sense of panic! However, from a historical and epistemological perspective, I find this deck absolutely fascinating, and have zero regrets about investing in it. I’m sure I’ll study it a lot, even if I don’t use it use it.

And now on to some of my favourite cards in the AOS deck. You’ll see the whole deck is slightly sinister, but in an oddly charming way, and this is reflected right from the get-go with The Fool. I like that he has his whole ass showing 😂. But he doesn’t care! Great Fool energy. And his dog is really going for it. No playful pup in the AOS, that little chap is going to take a solid chunk out of the Fool’s calf.

Most cards have both light and shadow meanings (or upright and reversals if you like) attached to them, but you can see from the text that Spare’s interpretation of The Fool is focused on the more negative aspects of the card (‘folly’, ‘wavering’… I guess ‘expiation’ is a good thing, but as it generally comes in the wake of a major fuck up, it’s kinda a double edged sword). Then you can see all of Spare’s notes about specific meanings when cards come together in a spread (Fool + 6 of Hearts = puzzle; Fool + 6 of Clubs = Rashness; Fool + 2 of Spades = Bluff). I’m clearly not a cartomancer, as I’m not at all certain I’d interpret The Fool and the 6 of Cups as a ‘puzzle’ in a spread (for me that combo would be about recapturing childhood enthusiasm and innocence). And without the book I don’t know what Spare’s rationale was (although I imagine I could read some other Victorian cartomancy texts and get the general drift?) But, hey, I like the card!

His interpretation of The Hierophant on the other hand is very positive (mercy, beneficence, affectionate and forgiving), and I really like the artwork on this card. Spare manages to convey a figure who is both powerful and humble. His Hierophant has a lot of the traditional symbols – the triple staff (representing the rites of passage we must go through to achieve spiritual wisdom; body/mind/soul; father/son/holy spirit), and the “bridging” gesture connecting heaven and earth. Here we can really see the Hierophant as the ‘bridge maker’ (pontifex) who unites outer experience with inner illumination – look at all that  psychedelic energy coursing around him!

The slightly deranged looking Lovers remind me a bit of The Twits 😂, but I’m here for it. I also like The Lovers as ‘trials surmounted’. Then we have the Wheel of Fortune, with its demonic fish person and half-satyr half-merman (and the incredibly specific ‘large yielding at stock exchange’ if coupled with the Ace of Spades in a spread! Like… how? I would assume 99.9% of my querents have nothing to do with the stock exchange, and as I say in my disclaimer ‘I am not a medical doctor nor a financial advisor’).

The Ace and 5 of Hearts/Cups (‘heartsick’) shows how busy some of the cards are, yet they’re also mesmerising. I think part of my appreciation for this deck is rooted in my love of marginalia, and understanding people’s idiosyncratic systems and processes for making sense of the world (one of the reasons I became a psychologist). The 3 of Hearts makes the cut because I’m always going to be a fan of a card that starts out with ‘A KISS. LOVEMAKING’, lol.

Again, I’m really struck by the compelling combination of description and drawing in the below tranche of cards. I particularly like the golden band of energy seemingly connecting the different energetic interpretations of the 6 of Diamonds. And the 4 of Clubs (Wands) has some great descriptors: “Merry making… Gaiety card”.

The colours on the Three of Spades/Swords (‘DARK LOVE CARD’) are gorgeous. And I chose the King & Queen of Spades (Swords), because I think this is one area of my practice that is quite influenced by cartomancy. I do always think of the Queen as embodying ‘widow’ energy – specifically, I think of her as the war widow, someone who has been through many battles, lost a great deal, gained much hard-earned wisdom, and now knows how and when to pick her fights. Ditto the King, though I think of him less as a widower and more as a veteran – he is the master of logic and argument, but he hasn’t always been. Many battles were fought and much was lost before he gained the insight he has today.

And here’s my favourite card from the Austin Osman Spare Tarot, The Juggler. I love how much of an absolute chancer this dude looks, lol. Spare is clearly following in the tradition of the earliest Tarot decks, where The Magician was depicted as a mountebank or a street-performer. Instead of the more straightforwardly magic portrayals we see in many modern decks, this Magician is as a trickster, a con-artist gifted in the art of smoke and mirrors, but lacking any actual substance. An old fashioned swindler hustling for money. It wasn’t until later that Paul Christian renamed The Juggler as The Magus, and changed him from a fairground hustler to a metaphysical miracle worker.

In Wild Card Jen Cownie & Fiona Lensvelt argue that the Magician “harnesses the powers of the universe and manifests that energy how he pleases. You could call it a tricky, but really the Magician represents the privilege of confidence, whether that comes education, wealth, love, someone having your back, or special guidance… He has the ultimate superpower: of not being encumbered by self-limiting beliefs”. And Bakara Wintner reminds us that “the Magician asks us to contemplate the value of using tricks in service of the higher Self…  [In this sense he] toes the line between the true miracle-worker and the trickster.”

The Austin Osman Spare Tarot is a really complex and interesting deck, with a rich and fascinating history. While I wouldn’t recommend it to the casual Tarot user, I think it’s well-worth having if you’re either a collector or a deep-diver, who likes to explore the full scope of Tarot methodology and symbolism. You can buy the deck from the publisher here.

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* I did try to see if I could score these books cheaper via AbeBooks or the like, and in doing so I want to take a minute here to acknowledge how kickass one of the descriptors was for buying a secondhand copy of this book, because it basically explains one of the reasons I got into Tarot: “Enter the tent and take a seat on the floor cushion. Exotic perfumes mingle with the scent of burnt firewood as embers glow and crackle in the dark. A careworn fortune-teller examines your hands and looks at her cards, squinting in the candlelight. Someone is trying to contact you. Could it be your fifth-grade teacher? Your poodle? That man who asked you “Paper or plastic?” mere hours ago in the grocery store? Fighting your instincts to tell her everything, you wait in silence. Finally she gives up and hands you her manual on interpreting tarot cards, tea leaves, and crystals. Do it yourself.”