Deck of 1000 Spreads—New Spreadcrafting Tool

schmedrake

In Spring 2013, Llewellyn is releasing something entirely different for tarot enthusiasts—The Deck of 1000 Spreads: Your Tarot Toolkit for Creating the Perfect Spread for Any Situation.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Deck-1000-Spreads-Situation/dp/0738733393/ref=zg_bs_12659_26

Because there's no photo or description up yet on Amazon, I'll tell you what it is. The Deck of 1000 Spreads is a deck of 57 oversized cards, each with a different spread position written on it. These are not tarot cards. They're spread position cards. The idea is that you choose the spread positions (such as "past", "situation" or "underlying influences") you want from the 57 options provided, then you place them in front of you, arranging them and rearranging as you like until you've created your own customized spread. It makes spreadcrafting easy!

THEN, when you've got your spread all laid out with the spread cards, you place a tarot card on top of each one. Since the spread card is oversized, the spread position name will poke out the top. Viola! A labeled spread! You'll never forget where you are in a reading again!

You can use the deck to create your own spreads, as I've just described. Or you can use it to lay out a spread you see in a book. Since the explanations of the spread positions are also written on the cards, you won't have to go back and forth between your book while doing your reading. Just lay the spread out and you can focus entirely on reading.

But here's the really cool part. You can turn all the cards over so that just the backs are showing and choose a handful of spread positions at random. Then you can position them in the order you like. It's like divining a spread!

The deck comes with a guidebook to help you understand the system and the basics of spreadcrafting. If you're new to spreadcrafting, the system designed into the cards will make the process easy for you.

Anyway, I just thought I'd alert you to the tool. There's never been anything like it offered by one of the major publishers before, so it's kind of exciting. And what's more exciting for me, is that I'm the one who came up with it and wrote the book! :)

Feel free to ask questions if you're curious or if I didn't explain something well enough. For the time being, there is no picture to show you and I can't get specific about what the 57 cards are. But I can say that I put a lot of work into researching spreads and finding commonalities between them so that the deck will allow you to craft countless options. Certainly you'll find all the spread positions of tarot's basic spreads in the deck, as well as a number of others just to keep things interesting. The aim was to be highly utilitarian, covering the positions found in the kinds of spreads we do every day, rather than covering every spread we'll ever come across in our time as a reader. Clearly that would be an impossible task. But, as you can imagine, with 57 cards, you'll have a lot of options to play with.
 

tarotbear

Well, it sounds like you found a niche and a way to fill it! Good Luck with it! :party:
 

Chiriku

I have been designing my own spreads for about 13 years, which is only one or two years short of my whole tarot reading life. I will always prefer my own system for designing spreads tailored to a vast spectrum of questions and life situations.

Having said that,

I think the Deck of 1,000 Spreads is a cracking good idea. It's one I can't believe publishers have overlooked until now. Sign me up.
 

tarotbear

BTW, schmedrake ~ who is {physically} publishing the cards? There are so many of us here working on decks and card publishing is something most of us have no clue about. Point us in the right direction, please? Thanks! :D
 

schmedrake

Llewellyn is publishing. :)
 

schmedrake

tarotbear, here is a link to Llewellyn's submission guidelines. The process is that you come up with a proposal based on the guidelines (there are different guidelines listed on the site for books, this one is for decks.) Then you submit the proposal to the address provided. So the effort is all in the proposal.
 

AJ

Well done, congratulations!! It sounds both clever and brainy...those two don't always go hand in hand :) Great job, hope it sells a million sets.
 

schmedrake

Thanks! It's a lot of fun to play with. :)
 

schmedrake

Sorry! Yes!