Mick Frankel and James Douglas, 2019
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The deck of Hebrew Letters is truly a hidden treasure in the divination community.
This prototypical 22 card deck was created by Mick Frankel, an astrologer and tarot reader.
I had the pleasure of meeting Mick when he led a workshop for Thoth deck users, about the Hebrew letter correspondences with the tarot. If you're not aware yet; let me try cram it into a nutshell! The tarot is a qabalic system. There are 22 paths in the Tree of Life of the Qabala. Each path, (and each card) corresponds with a Hebrew Letter. The Major Arcana slot beautifully onto these paths, and you can glean meaning from where the cards sit on the tree.
Before meeting Mick, I had noticed the little squiggles on the bottom corner of Thoth tarot cards, and to be honest, not paid them much mind. However Mick beautifully explained the meanings of each of the letters, and to be honest, it blew me away.
The Hebrew letters have a different word meaning; which tie in mind bendingly with the associated tarot card. Am I making sense?
For example, the Aeon or Judgement in the Tarot corresponds with the Hebrew letter Shin; meaning tooth. What does a tooth have to do with Judgement? Mental gymnastics can bring up that it is wise to "chew over" things before making a judgement.
Decks are also entrenched in the letters; which appear as droplets in the background of cards, in the postures of characters, and so on.
So I'm surprised that a search on the internet didn't turn up another deck like this! Mick clearly saw a gap and then created what was needed to fill that space!
The cards are big. Like a large, oracle sized card. That said, the deck is thin because there are only 22 cards, and is is printed perfectly, on shiny, swishy card that feels like it will "snap back" from a bend!
James Douglas has designed these immaculately. There is no fuss at all. You might even say they are austere, but I quite like that because it lends an archetypical appearance. It would be easy to lose the run of yourself while creating a deck; but these are straight to the point.
The back of the cards are relatively plain, a simple, wafer like design covers them.
The card fronts feature a papyrus background; perhaps an homage to ancient scrolls. It features a beautifully detailed border, encompassing a large Hebrew letter, colour coded too. There is a circle above containing the zodiac, elemental or planetary association of the card, and a circle below with the number of the Gematria assigned to each letter. They are deceptively simple looking. But as the guide says "there is no limit to where this may lead you in your search for a deeper understanding of yourself."
While I'm on the subject of the guide, let's have a peek! It is quite simply a large printed poster. Again, no muss, no fuss, but loaded with info. When I bought my deck, Frankel very kindly emailed me his source material; the Sefer Yetzirah to peruse alongside this guide.
The fun really begins when you begin playing with this deck; and I really mean playing!
Because of the amount of info loaded into each card, the clearly communicated correspondences and the colour system, you can really use this to add dimension to that which transcends dimension. These are the perfect visual aid, and the perfect meditation tool. Visual play with these cards can produce the following!
These are the zodiac associations of the cards on the pathways of the tree of life. Because of the colour coding, you can see the masculine and feminine element colours on their respective pillars.
You can also do this with the zodiac pathways, as above. What beautiful symmetry?
The elemental cards. What sublime patterns that I never would have noticed!
You can also lay the cards out on a Rosicrucian Cross, or in order of the Gematria... and I'm sure there are hundreds of similar concepts you could lay out in front of you and get lost in the patterns that show up.
The deck is also an excellent and versatile tool for divination. I mean, good luck reading from it intuitively if you're not familiar with the Hebrew alphabet; but there are so many ways you can use this deck for divination.
You can either:
Refer to the correspondent meaning of the card, for instance Leo could be "be brave"
Look at the word associated with the letter and see what that brings up
You can create an inequality and use the Gematria number value to weigh these up.
You can use the cards for bibliomsncy. The author suggests to draw 3 cards and add the numerical values together and reduce to a total below 150. Use your number to choose a psalm of the day.
What a pocket rocket eh? Using this quintessential, versatile deck will show you so much. Truly. It is a like a teacher in your pocket, able to teach you the ropes with the Hebrew alphabet, deepen your wisdom around the tarot and other mystical teachings, and what's more, it gives the most uplifting and inspiring readings to keep you encouraged each day!