For Laetitia, the angels and guides are the cards themselves. And their language, their native tongue, is images, which is to say beauty. Look through this book—really, begin anywhere at all and go in any direction at all, and the inescapable message, almost a physical sensation, is that the true language of divination is beauty.
—From the forewords by Rachel Pollack, Author of 78 Degrees of Wisdom

Used for self-exploration or divination, Tarot is undoubtedly the most popular and accessible of all esoteric tools, looming large in today’s mainstream culture. Why? Because of their evocative images, the narrative power they unfold, allowing us to unpack our own story, and their “portable museum” quality—a perfect traveling companion and, therefore, an invitation to a journey inward and out.

Humans are drawn to playing games and feel driven to find meaning in the chaos of paradoxical signs. The vivid iconography of the “arcanas” speak to us like no other language, moving us to the core, weaving through each cards a universal story, a metaphorical pathway of transformation.

This 400 page book presents, for the first time, a close look at 500 years of figurative card decks created or used for fortune telling, divinations, and oracle purposes and will explore, one card at the time, their iconographic roots at the cross-roads of the medieval imaginarium, Western esoteric wisdom, folklore, and also contemporary art and pop culture. From Velasquez to Rihanna, Mademoiselle Lenormand or Renaissance Masters, discover forgotten decks, their lore and practice and how their archetypal echos into our everyday lives.

French born Laetitia Barbier is an independent scholar, as well as professional tarot reader and teacher. She earned a Bachelor Degree in Art History from La Sorbonne University Paris in 2009. Laetitia has worked with Morbid Anatomy since 2012 as a programming director, head librarian and occasional curator. She is the author of Jesus Now: Art + Pop Culture, published with Cernnunos / Abrams Books. She shares her love for tarot and divinations cards on Instagram via @laetitia.cartomancy. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.