Cult of Tarot Forum

This beautiful deck from the late 1980s was one of my first decks, and I still love it. It is often underrated as "gimmick deck" because of its use of "celebrities". I completely disagree (and wrote about the deck in my defunct Tumblr tarot a number of times). I picked it as my Planetary Week deck for next week and remembered what I wrote about this deck in the past.

That's what I wrote then and I still think it's true:


The big hair and fashion clearly date this deck but I was young in the Eighties so that doesn’t irritate me. IMO the Cosmic is a great deck, very intelligent and a reflection of the fact that movies and movie stars interact with our unconscious mind powerfully.

I’ve heard people say that the “celeb faces” are just a gimmick. I disagree. I think the artist saw stars like Garbo, Berman or Bogart as 20th century versions of archetypes, not "celebs". He also used paintings (Bougereau) and ballet scenes for the deck. It’s full of cultural hints and suggestions.

There are some people on the Internet who think Leonardo di Caprio or others are depicted in the deck. As his career only started when the deck was already printed, that's impossible.

The artist is German. From what I read about him, he was not "obsessed with celebrities" but with spiritual search when he painted his deck, and continued his spiritual search afterwards. I think he worked very closely from photographs and took his inspiration from many different sources. I totally agree with him that Greta Garbo is an icon and archetype of the 20th century.

I never read anywhere about the ballet as inspiration for his tarot art although many of his cards show obvious poses and motifs from at least one famous ballet (and probably more - I simply don't know enough about ballet to find more).

Maybe people will appreciate this very special deck more when they see how wide and far the artist threw his net to find inspiration for his archetypes. I certainly did, and I've been hunting down inspirations for his cards for years.

I have distributed my findings: first the majors and the minor suits.


Let's start with the obvious.


The Emperor.



Lösche grew up in Aachen/Aix la Chapelle, and he must have known the golden bust of Charlemagne from childhood. It's in the treasury of the splendid cathedral, and in Aachen, Charlemagne is everywhere. Aachen was the capital of his empire, after all.



Charlemagne is an obvious choice for the Emperor, and for an Aachen native, even more so. You can't go anywhere in Aachen without seeing Charlemagne's image, it's everywhere.



If the inspiration for the Emperor was medieval, his Temperance is probably modelled on 20th century illustrator Warwick Goble's works.



What a beautiful, harmonious image for Temperance. And here is Warwick Goble:




It is possible that the Star card was inspired by Goble, too.





And another Goble illustration:




Mata Hari's poses from the early 20th century also remind me both of Temperance and of Warwick Goble.





Orientalism at its most tantalizing and "exotic"... and as mixture of East and West actually an interesting metaphor for Temperance.



Let's move to Justice.



There are two actresses whose pictures may have inspired this wonderful card with the piercing look.



Billie Burke in her iconci role as Glinda, witch of the North, who sets things to rights again.




Jeanette MacDonald, singing La Traviata in San Francisco, also reminds me of the card, somehow. I'm pretty sure that Glinda is the source, though.



Strength.


I'm inclined to think that this original and interesting concept of Strength is one of the best cards of the deck, and the lady depicted looks to me very much like Hedy Lamarr, the gorgeous, daring and highly intelligent Austrian actress.


It was written somewhere on the Internet that Daryl Hannah, a star of the 80s when the deck was made, was the inspiration. I don't know. I didn't yet find an exact image.


The hair is similar, but the facial expression - Lamarr all the way, imo.



The Lovers.


I'm pretty sure that the inspiration for this card came from the movie Dirty Dancing.




Then the tantalizing question - who is the High Priestess?



Doesn't she look like young Greta Garbo?



Here is Greta Garbo playing Mata Hari:


What do you think? It's her face, isn't it? And who could better personify the HIgh Priestess than Garbo?

And now for some wands.



The Five of Wands is from West Side Story (and I'm sure there are more images inspired by it in the deck).


It's an aggressive image, but the aggression is acted out in dance-like movements.




The Nine of Wands looks a lot like Val Kilmer.


I'm quite sure that this is the exact image.




And the King of Wands



looks a lot like Sean Connery.


A young Sean Connery


or an older Connery as King Arthur.



I didn't find the exact picture, but I'm quite sure it's him.



There are quite a number of candidates for the Queen of Wands.



Elizabeth Taylor?


She's maybe the most obvious candidate.




Hedy Lamarr?


It's possible. And if she really is the model for Strength, then it would fit to see her also as Queen of Wands. Oh the costume




But someow, I think it's Gina Lollobrigida.




Her facial features resemble La Lollo most closely, I think.


Look at her again. That curl, the mouth - somehow, I see Lollobrigida, and personality-wise, she's the perfect candidate.

Now let's look what I found for Cups.

The Six of Cups:



This is without a doubt a scene from the ballet L'apres-midi d'un Faune.



Tanaquil Le Clerq and Jacques d'Amboise. Down to the dancer's tunic. Beautiful!



These roles were danced also by others but you can recognize the scene.



Melissa Hamilton and Vadim Muntagirov:


... and Mireille Hassenboehler and Peter Franc, both in Jerome Robbins' choreographies:



I really wonder that nobody noticed that before, it's so obvious. And it proves without a doubt that Norbert Lösche was not interested in "celebs" but in culture and the way it works on our unconscious.



The Prince of Cups:



I'm sure it's Alain Delon. Again, I didn't find the exact picture the artist saw but different pictures.




The King of Cups is Clark Gable.


I didn't find a picture of Clark Gable with a full beard but look at him.


Aaah, so charming!




The Princess of Cups is without a doubt Greta Garbo.


Down to the pose and her beautiful gaze right into our eyes.



I'm quite sure that the Queen of Cups is the Garbo, too.





And the Ten of Cups



is inspired by Bougerau's Bather.





You wouldn't believe what nonsense people write about this card on the Internet!



And here is the Two of Cups:


I can't believe there have been people who took this couple for Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman!


When it's obvious that this is Humphrey Bogart with his real-life wife and the love of his life, Lauren Bacall. They were a great couple on and off screen, and I'd have loved to see them as Lovers.

The artist really brought out the big guns for the Cups!

Now for some Swords. I found less here but I'll continue to look for hints



The Prince of Swords is a young Tom Cruise.



In Top Gun. It's not a totally convincing likeness but I'm pretty sure it's him.





The Queen of Swords is obvious again.




Of course it's Ingrid Bergman.


Again, I'm flabbergasted to see that people have her mixed up with her daughter Isabella Rossellini.... who resembles her but has not connection to the Queen of Air.





Bergman's personal favourite role that she loved very much (although the audience disagreed) was Joan of Arc...


whose symbol was a crowned sword.


Like on the Ace of Swords.

Now let's see some Pentacles cards.




Rita Hayworth - totally recognizable on the Nine of Pentacles, and what a great choice!


What an unbelievably beautiful woman.




The King of Pentacles - a bearded Gregory Peck.



That's at least what's written all over the Internet and it's probably right... although I couldn't find the exact picture.



The Prince of Pentacles might be a young Charles Bronson.



That's at least what many websites claim - I'm not sure it's true.


The Princess of Pentacles is obvious again.



Brooke Shields of course.





This guy on the Ten of Pentacles has "dancer" written all over him.



I didn't find him yet but Rudolf Valentino



or Roman Jasinski both are possible.

The Cosmic Tarot was my first deck, and I was probably 13 or 14 years old at the time. I found it in a bookstore and I remember being intrigued by the image on the box – and feeling very bold and rebellious browsing the shelf of esoteric books in that little shop in my small hometown. I remember trying to read with the deck and giving up after a while because (as a complete Tarot novice) I didn't know anything about the system and symbols. The cards were beautiful, but I couldn't make sense of them.

I kept the deck - and dug it up from a box in our garage just two weeks ago. I LOVE this thread Makes me want to really study the deck. Thank you

Seems like an old Hollywood deck. GJ Nemia.

The companion book is also available on Kindle. Also, a few sources say this deck is Thoth-based? It's getting more and more attractive by the minute.

My coworker was talking about a deck her friend had that she really liked and how it might not be being sold anymore but she’d love it. She said it had old cinema stars. I asked on reddit and gave her some names and turned out this was it. She’s an older lady with some classy friends so I was worried it was some expensive oop deck, haha. I didn’t know there were actual movie stars depicted. I don’t know a lot of these, but I do know who Bogart is, and the genius Hedy Lamarr. I wanna watch one of her films. Maybe I’ll write these down for my coworker. Thanks Nemia. Hope you come back soon (assuming you’re in SKT land ).