Manteia reviewed, in issue no. 9, the excellent Hungarian book and tarot deck by dr. Emil Kazanlar. Kazanlar has now extended the tarot majors into a full 78 card deck, which along with his text is published by Swiss Urania Verlag, AGMüller.
In his foreword, Dr. Emil Kazanlar points to his deck as being a true oecunemical tarot, depicting symbolic elements from a multitude of great religions which, even if various ways are followed, essentially honour the same creator. Emil Kazanlar came to this recognition because he grew up with a Turkish/Persian father and a Hungarian mother. Kazanlar soon realized, that despite their different religions, the sam God was Honoured.
This fundamental oecumenical attitude is very obvious from Kazanlar’s tarot which make use of religious symbols from a wealth of sources. The 78 cards are loaded with symbols and references to the Hebrew alphabet, the Tree of Life, I-Ching, astrology, and the elements are added when appropriate, while the scenes and situations depicted are based on mythological or historical events. The motives for the suit of Staves come from India, ont he coins of Persia and ont he Swords from –egypt. The suit of cup depicts for the first time on a tarot deck scenes and characters from the history of Hungary, who celebrated its 1100 years of existence in 1966. int he 222 pages book, Emil Kazanlar describes the fascinating conceptual and symbolic contents of each card in detail. Only a few pages are used to show a couple of card spreads, so this is not a beginner’s tarot book.
Like the majors that came with the Hungarian book this deck is excellently produced and even tiny details can be seen without problems. The card surface is used for its purpose, the illustration, and not for excessive borders; only a small golden brim surrounds the image. I wouldn’t have minded if the card were larger, but this is not a necessity like in many other cases where details are lost in the reduced reproduction. The excellent rendering of even small details indicate, that Dr. Kazanlar knows the limitations of the printing medium very well. There are two extra cards, a female and a male significator.
The78 images, which immadiately look like a collection of small religious icon paintings, is a storehouse of symbolic information that deserves a close study with Dr. Kazanlar’s text in hand. If you, however, are of the intuitive type that does not care for any deeper meaning of the images, the deck is just beautiful to look at.
The set Dr. Kazanlar kindly sent me is the German edition, the text being translated to German from French. An English and a French edition is under preparation if not already published.
Kazanlar Tarot
Dr. Emil Kazanlar
Switzerland 1996. Urania/AGMuller
78+2 cards + book of 222 pages
In a plastic book cassette.
ISBN 3-908645-02-06.