An old oak reading desk under a mullioned window at night, a closed book, a brass key and a snuffed candle.

The guidebook

The book for the deck

The cover of The Sablerune Tarot Guidebook: the High Priestess seated in the deck’s arched window, by Robert Papson Jr.

Every card of the Sablerune Tarot: its meaning upright and reversed, and the lore behind it.

Seventy-eight cards, each with its path on the Tree of Life, its letter, its slice of the zodiac and the spirit said to answer through it. Read the meaning first when you are learning. Come back to the correspondences when a card keeps showing up and you want to know why.

Download the guideRead the cards online

A PDF, free to keep (17 MB) · the printed edition is to follow

Inside

Before the cards

  1. IHow to use this book
  2. IIHow the deck is built
  3. IIIAngels and spirits: why both
  4. IVAnatomy of a card
  5. VReading the zodiac wheel
  6. VIDay and night spirits
  7. VIIRunes on the trumps
  8. VIIIWorking with the seals
  9. IXThree spreads
  10. XNotes on sources and seals

The cards

  1. IThe Major Arcana · the twenty-two paths
  2. IIWands · Fire, Atziluth
  3. IIICups · Water, Briah
  4. IVSwords · Air, Yetzirah
  5. VPentacles · Earth, Assiah

The keys

  1. IRunes
  2. IIHebrew letters
  3. IIIThe Tree of Life
  4. IVPlanets
  5. VSigns
  6. VIGoetic ranks
  7. VIIGlossary

From the book

The face of IX, The Hermit, engraved in gold on black, with its title, Prophet of the Eternal, Magus of the Voice of Power.

IX · The twentieth path

The Hermit

Prophet of the Eternal, Magus of the Voice of Power

Hebrew letterYod, the hand, value 10
AstrologyVirgo, mutable earth, ruled by Mercury
Show the spirits
SpiritMarbas, president

Appears as a great lion, then a man. Answers truly of hidden things, causes and cures disease, gives skill in mechanical arts, changes shapes. Goetia 5.

Upright

Step back and look inward. A season of reflection, study or spiritual retreat. You carry your own lantern; trust it to show the next few steps.

In print

Bound, and set like the cards. Hear when it’s ready.

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Notes on sources

The meanings and the lore are the guidebook’s own. The paths, letters and astrology follow the Golden Dawn’s attributions; the angels are the Shem ha-Mephorash; the spirits are the seventy-two of the Goetia. The book sets out where each comes from, what is old and what is modern, in its Notes on sources and seals.