The Good Tarot Colette Baron-Reid Review

A Review of ‘The Good Tarot’

The Good Tarot Colette Baron-Reid Review

OK, before I even start… *deep breath* Rarely do you see such utter BS! OK, now on to the review for the Good Tarot…

The Good Tarot by Colette Baron-Reid is hot off the press and arrived in my greedy little hands this afternoon. I loved the look of the artwork I had been able to preview. And the artwork didn’t let me down – This is, for sure, a visually stunning deck… but let’s not fool ourselves by calling this ‘Tarot’ at all. You couldn’t read Tarot with this deck to save your life. There is so very little that is ‘good’ about the Good Tarot that the name feels ironic.

It is very clear that Colette Baron-Reid is very good at writing positive, cliché New Age affirmations which is what we have in place of traditional card meanings in the companion. It is also very clear that she hasn’t the first clue about what Tarot is. Apparently, this deck is supposed to be used to work with positive affirmations rather than readings… but how are you supposed to contemplate the relevant card meanings for the affirmations when they aren’t present?

I know many Tarotists slated Doreen Virtue’s Tarot decks but they actually do read like Tarot… This deck is utterly unreadable… The whole suit of Swords if blue fluff with floating white feathers – zero meaning, zero substance. There aren’t even subtle clues about the original meaning of the cards. My blood is actually boiling now. How can you take away all difficulty from the Tarot when it is supposed to be a reflection of life?

And as you may already have suspected, this is one of those decks where ‘Death’ has been renamed ‘Transformation’ – see the picture of the young girl to the left in the image below… What fresh hell is this?! And let’s say you choose to take out the aspect of physical death from the Tarot deck, transformation still hurts. Death of the ego isn’t pain-free… A young girl doing magic tricks with red sparks of energy relates to this concept precisely how?

The Good Tarot Transformation Patience and Temptation

Temperance is a very important card for me. It’s a card of soul alchemy and the card that resonates numerologically with my name (Lisa = 14). I also happen to be in a Temperance year. This card was renamed patience, a renaming choice which strips away so many layers of meaning for this card and is accompanied by an image that doesn’t fit the context at all. I swear I do need patience now to even continue this review…

Temptation I can almost buy. I get that not many New Age people dig the concept of the devil and at least the imagery carries some of the original meaning about the need to resist materialism.

The Court Cards are another thing about this deck that has my blood boiling. Pages, as we all know, are messengers… But Ms Baron-Reid thought it would be amusing to rename the Knights ‘Messengers.’ I’m not going to question that because overall it is so clear that she doesn’t know anything about the Tarot… But where was the Hay House Tarot expert who was supposed to fact-check these kinds of things hiding?

Court Cards Swords Suit Good Tarot

Above you see the courtiers from the suit of Air/Swords. There is nothing really there to reflect their true nature, except for perhaps the Queen of Air/Swords carrying an owl on her shoulder. The ‘Messenger’ Knight really pisses me off. He is supposed to reflect idealistic outrage… someone questing for the truth… and instead, we have someone who looks like she’s swooning after seeing Ryan Gosling walk past.

I can’t go on, I just can’t… But I suppose I should talk about some of the things I do like about this deck. The card backs are great and the card stock ain’t too shabby either… The Magician is beautiful and I quite like ‘The Call’ for Judgement. Unfortunately, the redeeming qualities aren’t enough for me to want to hold to this deck or to even try reading with it which, to be fair, was never intended for this deck.

So why make a ‘Tarot’ deck?

Finally, I would like to share three lions from the Major Arcana. One would have been enough – In the Strength card. As you can see The Lovers has been renamed ‘Love’ and could very easily be confused with Strength.

The Good Tarot Emperor Love and Strength

I need to go and make myself a cup of tea now. This has seriously gotten on my nerves. There is fluff and then there is the lint that sits on top of fluff – and that, my friends, is what the ‘Good Tarot’ by Colette Baron-Reid is, fluff-lint.

love raven liora

Comments 15

  1. Sigh….this deck is so beautiful, but would be utterly useless for the reasons you have mentioned. Tempted just to have it because the cards are beautiful….but I can’t really afford the cost and space for that in my collection, and it does bother me to have something that I don’t use – I want it to be visually appealing AND useful. Oh well.

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      It’s just another deck by someone seeking to profit from the Tarot without knowing it. There are so many beautiful decks out there to choose from that are not simply a product of greed.

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  2. This deck was on my watchlist until I saw a unboxing on youtube. You just confirmed what I thought about it. Won’t be buying this one. Thank you for your honest review.

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  3. I am laughing so hard right now 😀 and at the same time understanding how much this is not a Tarot deck at all. Now, I have her Wisdom of the Oracle in a red box and I honestly really like it. But yeah, so sorry, and thanks so much for saving our money! 😀

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  4. I really enjoyed reading this review. I don’t have the deck but from what I have seen of it online I agree! The swords suit is just ridiculous.

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