"Enhancing your Mind, Body, Spirit" Cards - anyone got these?

Aerin

I have just got a little RWS-but-not-quite deck off ebay uk.

The backs are bright yellow and they appear to come from a partwork called 'Enhancing your Mind, Body, Spirit' BUT the ones I can see on the internet have blue backs and are IJJ Swiss.

Has anyone got the yellow backed deck? It has reversible backs using the logo of the partwork.

The cards are quirky in parts: Death looks very polite, the Wheel is sending people tumbling off a cliff and is turned by a blindfolded woman, the High Preistess is 'The Teacher', Heirophant picture is Jupiter I think, 3 of swords has a woman looking down sadly at 3 swords on the ground...

Aerin

rwcarter

Aerin,

I bought a set of this deck off eBay in the last couple of years. I have the yellow back with the MBS reversible logo. What I received was one complete 78 card deck and alternate takes (different images) on various cards:

0 - The Fool, The Pupil and also The Inner Child (3 cards)
1 - The Magician, The Trickster and also The Student (3 cards)
2 - The High Priestess and The Teacher (2 cards)
3 - The Empress and The Gardener (2 cards)
4 - The Emperor and The Soldier (2 cards)
5 - The Hierophant and The Leader (2 cards)
12 - The Hanged Man and Suspension (2 cards)
13 - Death and Transition (2 cards)
14 - Temperance and Temptation (2 cards)
21 - The World and The Universe (2 cards)
Cups - RWS-style pips and TdM style pips
Cups Courts - Page and Princess; Knight, Maid and Suitor; Queen, Dreamer and Mother; King and Benefactor
Pentacles - RWS-style pips and TdM style pips
Pentacles Courts - Page and Princess; Knight and Maid
Swords - RWS-style pips and TdM style pips
Swords Courts - Page and Princess; Knight and Maid; Queen and Rebel; King and Lawyer
Wands - RWS-style pips and TdM style pips
Wands Courts - Page and Princess;Knight and Maid

I'm guessing I'm missing some other alternate cards given some of the ones I do have. But I've never been able to find out anything more about these cards than that they were put out by a UK magazine called Enhancing Your Mind Body Spirit.

Do you have the skeleton Death or Transition? You have an alternate High Priestess card.

Rodney

Aerin

Oh, FASCINATING!

I have the skeletal Death (very cool card), and the pips are all RWS style. Courts all Page Knight Queen King.

I shall have to look out for more now...

Aerin

rwcarter

If you find more, please let me know. I'm dying to see what some of the other alternate cards are.

Aerin

I will.

The only other card I have that's alternate is the Trickster insead of the Magician.

Aerin x

Emily

I had 'Enhancing your Mind, Body and Spirit' for a while and these yellow decks were actually two decks - one was very modern and the other was more like a traditional RWS. I only have a handful of both sets of cards as they used to only put them in occasionally.

Actually looking at what RWCarter has posted, I have most of the same cards but no more, wonder just how far they went with this deck.

rwcarter

Emily said:
Actually looking at what RWCarter has posted, I have most of the same cards but no more, wonder just how far they went with this deck.

So it's possible that I have as complete a set as there may be? That's good news on the one hand, but a bummer on the other since I like the idea of alternate cards that allow one to pick and choose they deck they want to use.

Rodney

Emily

The other deck they gave out was a nice 1JJ Swiss in English - I did manage to collect the whole of that deck.

The magazine ran for at least 2 maybe even 3 years and would give out angel cards, fairy cards, runes, crystals, oils, figures - but they were all spread out over a long period of time - probably to make you collect the whole series. I gave up about 18 months in.

Emily

rwcarter said:
So it's possible that I have as complete a set as there may be? That's good news on the one hand, but a bummer on the other since I like the idea of alternate cards that allow one to pick and choose they deck they want to use.

Rodney

I think that was the idea of these decks - they were also used as a training deck by the magazine and you could swop the cards around - if you didn't like death then use transition or the minors, use them illustrated or the marseilles type.

Edit - well the Minors weren't even marseilles type - they were very basic, just 2 cups, 2 swords etc, no decoration.

Aerin

I wish I had the full set now.

Aerin