The Journey Into Egypt App
By Laila Wilson
If you are a tarot enthusiast and have a smartphone, tablet or kindle, you should have a tarot app, or two, or many! If you only want to have one app, I recommend the Galaxy Tarot, as it has all the details for the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, and is accessible to tarotists at all levels. (I am unaware of any similar “friendly to novices” apps that feature the different traditions of the Marseilles or Thoth traditions of tarot.) Tarot apps help you better understand the tarot, and they allow you to work more closely with a particular deck and its internal system. This brings us to the Journey Into Egypt Tarot developed by Julie Cuccia-Watts. I don't recommend this as your first deck, or even your first tarot app unless you already are using the physical cards. The deck does vary from the traditional RWS images and symbolism that most of us are familiar with. However, if you are already grounded in tarot, and want to explore a different system of tarot associations, the JIET is a good choice. The artwork is lovely. The embedded Egyptian stories are fascinating. The price is right, way cheaper than buying the cards and the deck.
In addition to pretty pictures, and a compelling theme, the app integrates the cards with the book, so you are always just a click away from the explanation of the image and its inherent meaning. (Most tarot apps also integrate the card images with the associated writings, making this generally a very big plus factor for having and using apps.) This lushly illustrated deck, by renown tarot artist and creator Julie Cuccia-Watts, has 78 cards. It appears that Air is Wands and Fire is Swords.
The deck is closely related to astrology in non-traditional ways—Cuccia-Watts uses what she calls Real Sky Astrology, but astrologers call sidereal, and sometimes Vedic (Hindu or Indian) astrology. Further complicating the astrology association is that Cuccia-Watts associates cards with the “Full-Moon cycle” of various signs. The Full Moon of Taurus, then, refers to the time of the year when the Sun is transiting the sidereal sign of Scorpio, and the Moon is in the opposite sign of (sidereal) Taurus. This can be confusing to astrologers even, and likely will be too many tarotists. (It’s not “wrong,” it’s just that it’s an unfamiliar perspective.) For this reason, the cards when used for a reading may require the reader to give a long lecture on the development of this deck and “Real Sky Astrology,” which I don’t recommend, or to simply read (and refer curious clients to Cuccia-Watts’s website for more information).
One cannot discuss the JIET app (or the cards or book) without discussing the plunge into Egypt, the mental or spiritual journey you will take, that accompanies the use of this deck. The history of Egypt has changed in recent years as scholars and the informed public has come to know more about the various dynasties of ancient Egypt and the later times when the Roman Empire ruled Egypt. Cuccina-Watts’s highly rated artwork shows an Egyptian history you have not seen before. The individuals look lifelike, natural, unpretentious, and candid. Among my favorite cards are the 8 of Cups, which shows an evocative image of a man waiting with a camel, the pyramids in the background, as you begin a journey. Another favorite is the Lovers card, which shows the affection sometimes lacking in other decks. However, a few images are far from traditional and may distract some of us from the underlying meanings of the cards. I would particularly point out The Magician card here, as the attractive image of a woman nursing a child seems to me to be far from my understanding of The Magician.
I recommend this app to anyone who is a fan of Egyptian history or of Julie Cuccia-Watts’s art.
The cost of the deck at New Moon Trading Company is $85.25.
The cost of the hardback book at Amazon is $57.95. A paperback version is available for $29.00 at Lulu.com.
The cost of the app is $3.99 at the App Store.
You can see more images of the cards, and reviews of the deck, at:
http://www.newmoontradingco.com/journey-into-egypt-review.html or at http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/journey-into-egypt/