The Deva Tarot is an innovative and beautiful 93-card tarot deck published in 1986 and created by Herta Drnec and Roberta Lanphere. The images are reproduced after oil paintings, and the deck contains an additional Minor Arcana suit, the Triax, as its main innovation. The Triax, along with the traditional, earth, water, fire, air, represents the Spirit, the 5th element. There is also an extra Major Arcana card, the Separator, a threshold between worlds. The images were intended to look as if you are peeping through a keyhole into the “other” world, a portal to the astral, also suggesting you are in a process of initiation into mysteries and turns the moment of insight into a privileged moment when we access a secret channel.
It’s designed around the concept of “deva” - what is unseen, invisible life forces, spirits, supernatural guides, guardian spirits, fairies, deities. Deva (Sanskrit: देव, Devá) means "heavenly, divine, anything of excellence". Author Herta Drnec intends for this deck to be a tool of communicating with the deva and the deeper layers of the psyche.
Another layer of this deck that appeals to me immensely is the vivid color symbolism, which inspired me to use them for insight about chakras and energetic fields, you will find a spread I created for this, because the colors depicted on this deck are very similar to the hues, tints, tones, shades and frequencies of human energetic fields as result of chakra activation, as I see them through astral visualization techniques.
“Most people are familiar with the traditional correspondences for the suits: wands represent fire, swords represent air, disks (or pentacles) represent earth, and cups represent water. The fifth suit is called Triax and represents the etheric or spirit. This suit is the bridge, or continuation of continuity between the earthly and the divine, the physical and the non-physical. When the suit Triax is seen in a reading, it generally refers to events and influences on a higher or soul level. Wands deal with the energies and creativity, swords with intelligence and mind, disks (or pentacles) with the body, finances and physical appetites, cups with the emotions and sensitivity, and now the Triax, which deals with the spirit and higher self or soul. Triax is the binding factor between astral and mental, the pool from which manifestation comes, making the combining of the four divisions possible. It is the bridge between the lower, earthly triad of bodies and the higher, divine triad.”
Herta Drnec
It’s designed around the concept of “deva” - what is unseen, invisible life forces, spirits, supernatural guides, guardian spirits, fairies, deities. Deva (Sanskrit: देव, Devá) means "heavenly, divine, anything of excellence". Author Herta Drnec intends for this deck to be a tool of communicating with the deva and the deeper layers of the psyche.
Another layer of this deck that appeals to me immensely is the vivid color symbolism, which inspired me to use them for insight about chakras and energetic fields, you will find a spread I created for this, because the colors depicted on this deck are very similar to the hues, tints, tones, shades and frequencies of human energetic fields as result of chakra activation, as I see them through astral visualization techniques.
“Most people are familiar with the traditional correspondences for the suits: wands represent fire, swords represent air, disks (or pentacles) represent earth, and cups represent water. The fifth suit is called Triax and represents the etheric or spirit. This suit is the bridge, or continuation of continuity between the earthly and the divine, the physical and the non-physical. When the suit Triax is seen in a reading, it generally refers to events and influences on a higher or soul level. Wands deal with the energies and creativity, swords with intelligence and mind, disks (or pentacles) with the body, finances and physical appetites, cups with the emotions and sensitivity, and now the Triax, which deals with the spirit and higher self or soul. Triax is the binding factor between astral and mental, the pool from which manifestation comes, making the combining of the four divisions possible. It is the bridge between the lower, earthly triad of bodies and the higher, divine triad.”
Herta Drnec
