Why have no Golden Dawn decks turned up?

Zephyros

It's as BITCH to find

You're right about that, but it is very interesting, thanks.

A thought occurred to me. Does anyone know if Regardie created his own GD style deck? While he was a late joiner near the end of the original GD, he did follow the GD path throughout his life and was an input into both the Wang and Cicero tarots. It seems he was close to the Cicero's up till his death, and initiated them in the order and established them as significant people and leaders in the modern GD. If any deck exists, it seems more likely that the Cicero's may hold Regardie's deck. I wonder...

I don't see any reason why they would keep quiet about it. The Ciceros are naturally egregious what with writing books, creating decks, attempting to bring the GD "Down to earth." If they had a deck I think they would show it as an example somewhere.
 

Teheuti

The Whare Ra (New Zealand) Tarot deck by Mrs. Felkin seems to be the closest to the 19th century Golden Dawn deck created by Moina & MacGregor Mathers and Westcott. An original GD deck has shown up: I have an original B&W printing that was made by the Felkins for members of the Whare Ra Temple to color themselves. The Majors can be seen here: http://hermetic.com/gdlibrary/tarot/whare_ra/tarot1.html

The Westcott Court Cards are available here:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=1558183361/ref=nosim/aeclectic/

This review of three books on the Golden Dawn Tarot gives some interesting background to those unfamiliar with the sources: http://www.jwmt.org/v1n4/gdtarotbooks.html

I have heard rumors over the years from several sources of people having seen a deck drawn and painted by Moina Mathers. I later heard rumors that some of them were stolen from the current owners - who knows?

I highly recommend the Zalewskis' book The Magical Tarot of the Golden Dawn. You could make your own deck from the drawings in their book and color them yourself according to the coloring directions given in book.

Their discussion of some of the issues about an original deck can be seen here: http://books.google.com/books?id=2Z...en Dawn Tarot deck Felkin New Zealand&f=false

The idea that members of the Golden Dawn would each draw their own deck is a misunderstanding. The Tarot materials as a whole were only available to the Inner Order. However, the rituals and teaching papers were to be copied out by hand by each member from the beginning. This included drawings of the implements, Enochian Tablets, and the Trumps as they were revealed one by one in the ritual grades. In existing examples of the manuscripts (I've seen and handled several) the Trumps were not colored and illustrations were sometimes done by a member with better artistic skills for the notebooks of others (Florence Farr was paid by one member for her artwork for the Enochian Tablets). Decks used for divination were purchased on the continent onto which the GD associations were written. There probably were a few hand-made decks, but not by all GD members. (The decks belonging to Yeats and his wife can be seen at the on-line Yeats exhibit of the National Library of Ireland.)

An evocative and colorful version known as the Golden Dawn Temple Tarot is available here:
http://www.wendricharthouse.com/galleryT.htm
www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0ktRSwjA0U
 

JohnMac

I use the Golden Dawn Temple Tarot, it is an excellent deck.
 

Barleywine

Interestingly, I was poking around in Israel Regardie's 1984 Falcon Press tome, The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic, and came across in Volume Two a set of b&w plates showing VERY crudely painted tarot cards that do not appear to be historical, but that also do not seem to embody any unique GD symbolism. There are no attributions for these plates, so it isn't clear whether Regardie painted them or they came from another source. They are definitely NOT professional artwork, even at the level of the Wang deck.
 

ravenest

I only have the Llewellyn Ed. Whereabouts is it, what 'Book' and 'Paper ' is it in?

How many cards are there ?

There is nothing in my Vol. 2 like a tarot card. Just some self explanatory diagrams, temple layouts, etc. The Facing page (to the title) has a double B&W; lid of R+C pastos below ( white on black b/g ) and Path of the Lightning Flash ( black on white b/g) above.
 

Wendywu

Volume 2 of the 1984 brick - immediately before the written section "Tarot Trumps" - pages 10, 11 and 12 and all the tarot trumps are shown. It is obvious they were coloured but the book plates are greyscale and fairly small. From those illustrations they are the same outline drawings as Felkin used at Whare Ra (I have a copy of a booklet detailing the majors and meanings) and which he took over from London to New Zealand.

In that copy that I have, I can see that the images are those used as majors by Dudschuss and sledzinski in the Classic gd deck - and which are also used in the Zaleweskis book, Magical Tarot of the Golden Dawn. Dudschuss also used the Westcott courts as hand drawn by Westcott (as shown in the Darcy Kuntz booklet in that series he produced).
 

Laura Borealis

I'm surprised that more old hand-drawn decks, of any style, have not surfaced. Surely they are out there, stored in trunks in attics somewhere, being nibbled by mice?

There's the Gran Tarot Belline, which was drawn around 1863 by Edmond Billaudot aka Magus Edmond. It was discovered by Marcel Belline, who was a 20th century French seer (and antiques/art dealer, I believe). That one was published by Grimaud and the originals are in a museum in Paris.

It's a sort of Marseilles mixed with the occultism of the time, and obviously pre-dates the GD by quite a bit. If that deck survived then there must be some GD ones around, somewhere! I wonder if many descendants of GD members would even recognize them for what they are, though?
 

Teheuti

It is obvious they were coloured but the book plates are greyscale and fairly small. From those illustrations they are the same outline drawings as Felkin used at Whare Ra
Definitely based on the Whare Ra / New Zealand deck or it's precursor. Perhaps these are Regardie's cards that Chic and Tabitha Cicero used as the basis for their GD deck.
 

Wendywu

Yes. I have a Whare Ra booklet (in-house produced) showing the Felkin trumps together with meanings, and they are exactly as the images in the plates. Of course Felkin would have copied his trumps from his own instructor so the images must have originated in London.