This is a review of Auset Egyptian Oracle Cards by Elisabeth Jensen and Illustrated by Marie Klement. First off I have to say I love the art. The cards are gorgeous. The gods and goddesses are depicted in very traditional, ancient Egyptian styles and motifs. They are absolutely stunning! (I do prefer this art style, so I am completely biased here). The only card I did not like the image of was the Sirius card.
And a note about the skin tone of the images: some gods have brown skin and some of them have white skin in these depictions. Also some like Geb and Osiris have green skin. And Nuit has blue skin.
There are many deities included in this deck who are in a lot of other Egyptian-themed Oracle and Tarot decks (Auset/Isis; Sekhmet: Osiris; Hathor; Set; Nephthys; Tehuti/Thoth; Ra; Anubis; Bast). And there are some not as common ones (Sobek; Seshat/Sesheta; Satis; Khnum; Selket; Ptah; Nefertum; Amun-Ra; Min; Taweret; Nuit; Geb and the deified ancestor, Imhotep). And there are also the Four Sons of Horus, each with their own card (Duamutef; Qebsennuf; Hapi and Imset).
There are also cards of Egyptian monuments and items (Auset Temple; Horus Barque; Sphinx; Nile River; Blue Lotus; Ankh; Cobra). The Horus Barque is the sacred boat of Horus and Hathor for their marriage, if anyone was wondering. There are keywords for each card like Hathor: Love and Music; Auset: Alchemy and Healing; and Nuit: Stars and Timing.
There is a guidebook that comes with the deck. And I have to warn you this is yet again, another deck where Set is vilified as the god of chaos and evil. Also within this guidebook, Nephthys is his poor victimized wife who frees herself from victimhood when she helps Auset. Obviously, this person used Plutarch as a source and stopped there. (I have written two books on Nephthys which has more information about her: here and here). Within the Bast section, the paragraph about her includes that Bast is the soul or daughter of Auset (historically, as a play on of her name Ba-Ast during the Greco-Roman period and to Bast’s association with Artemis and Horus with Apollo). Anyway, each card entry has a paragraph about who the deity is, a channelled message from that deity and a list of divination meanings from 7 categories (Abundance; Love; Work/Career; Family; Travel; Health and Future). And yes, some deity names are the ancient Egyptian ones (Auset; Sekhmet) and others are the Greek ones (Osiris; Satis; Hathor; Nephthys). This may annoy some people.
What I loved: was the art, the guidebook is pretty solid for the divination meanings and the deck works as a divination tool. I did like many of the channelled messages.
What I wanted to be there: I wish there were more goddesses and gods in the deck like Mut, Tefnut, Shu and Wepwawet. I want to see more research and in-depth material written about the deities in these guidebooks. I want an oracle deck for Kemetic gods and goddesses that isn’t relying only on Plutarch and Greco-Roman material.
Would I recommend this deck? I would recommend it as an oracle deck with the caveat that some of the information about the gods is heavily Plutarch based or from the Greco-Roman period.
Fiercely Bright One 