Aetheric Tarot

Description

Byzantia Harlow is a practicing visual artist and psychic medium, and the artist felt the creation of the deck was inevitable.

The images are a re-imagining of traditional tarot iconography, using real people – friends, lovers and strangers – as inspiration for the portrayals. The deck features the traditional 78 Arcana cards, with 7 additional ‘Aetheric’ cards.

Aetheric cards are a notable feature of Harlow’s deck. ‘Aether’ or quintessence, is the fifth element in Alchemy. Unlike the four elements, i.e., Earth, Air, Fire and Water which are perpetually variable, the Quinta essential remains unchanged. It holds the four elements together – a spiritual constant in the physical world. In Harlow’s deck, the Aetheric cards embody the fifth element, which is beyond the terrestrial sphere.

Each Aetheric Tarot deck box is accompanied by a guidebook with channelled interpretations for the cards, handwritten by the artist within a ritual. Despite its small size, the guidebook provides extensive explanations for the deck’s background and significance of each section, element and each card. The Major Arcana section of the guide was written by Harlow’s father, Paolo Guidi, who trained as a Jungian Psychoanalyst. It expresses the traditional divinatory meanings through the lens of Jung’s Alchemical understanding – relating it to the development of the psyche and the process of individuation. Some symbols in the tarot and alchemy share a common metaphysical origin. For Jung, the alchemical texts were part of mankind’s arcane attempt to understand the inner psychic world and the process of growth and development. Guidi has worked as a scientist, physician, psychoanalyst, artist, designer and jeweller.

Image Credit: Alexander Christie