The Relative Tarot by Carrie Paris with Tina Hardt

Your Ancestral Blueprint for Self-Discovery

Every family carries stories. Some are remembered. Others are waiting to be rediscovered.

The Relative Tarot by Carrie Paris with Tina Hardt is an extraordinary 82-card tarot created specifically for exploring ancestry, family patterns, inherited stories and the connections between past and present.

Using evocative vintage nineteenth-century photographs layered with familiar tarot imagery, the deck transforms anonymous ancestors from diverse backgrounds and walks of life into the characters of the tarot.

The result feels unlike almost anything else on the tarot shelf.

Part divination tool.

Part family album.

Part invitation to look backwards in order to understand what you carry forward.

🕯️ Meet the Ancestors

At the heart of The Relative Tarot is a simple but powerful idea.

We don't begin with ourselves.

Every one of us arrives within a story already in progress.

Families pass down traditions.

Beliefs.

Strengths.

Fears.

Expectations.

Secrets.

Patterns.

And occasionally things nobody has discussed since approximately 1947.

The Relative Tarot creates a space in which those inherited stories can be explored.

You don't need to know your complete family history to work with the deck.

Instead, the anonymous figures within its vintage photographs can become symbolic ancestors, allowing you to explore ancestry, identity and inherited experience through tarot.

📷 A Tarot Built from Vintage Photography

The artwork gives The Relative Tarot its unmistakable identity.

Carrie Paris uses nineteenth-century photographs of people from diverse ethnic backgrounds and walks of life, combining them with recognisable tarot imagery and symbolism.

The photographs immediately create a sense of history.

These aren't fantasy characters created specifically to play tarot archetypes.

They look like people who lived.

Worked.

Loved.

Struggled.

Celebrated.

Raised families.

Made mistakes.

And carried stories of their own.

Layering tarot symbolism onto these historic images creates a fascinating tension between the personal and universal.

The photograph belongs to another time.

The archetype belongs to all of us.

🔮 Familiar Tarot, Different Perspective

The Relative Tarot retains familiar tarot imagery, meaning readers with Rider-Waite-Smith experience will find recognisable symbolism throughout the deck.

But the ancestral perspective changes the questions we can ask.

Instead of only:

What is happening to me?

The deck encourages us to consider:

Where might this pattern have begun?

What have I inherited?

What strength has travelled through my family?

What belief no longer belongs to me?

What deserves to continue?

What might end here?

That makes The Relative Tarot particularly powerful for journalling and reflective work.

🧬 Exploring Family Patterns

Ancestral work isn't only about discovering names on a family tree.

It can also involve recognising patterns.

Attitudes towards money.

Relationships.

Parenting.

Success.

Failure.

Security.

Risk.

Love.

Grief.

Belonging.

We often inherit ideas long before we're old enough to question them.

Tarot can give those patterns a visual language.

The Relative Tarot allows you to place them on the table, look at them from another perspective and decide what relationship you want to have with them now.

Not everything inherited needs to be carried forever.

🃏 Why 82 Cards?

The Relative Tarot deliberately expands beyond the standard 78-card tarot structure.

The deck contains 82 cards, including alternative versions of selected Major Arcana.

Most notably, there are three versions of The Lovers, giving readers greater choice when selecting imagery that reflects themselves, their relationships and the people they're reading for.

The deck also includes alternative numbered versions of Strength and Justice.

Different tarot traditions reverse the numbering of these two cards, placing Strength and Justice at VIII or XI.

Here, you can choose the system you prefer.

Or keep the alternatives within the deck and allow them to add another layer to the reading.

It's a thoughtful approach to creating a tarot that can reflect a wider range of readers and traditions.

🌳 Your Personal Tarot Blueprint

The accompanying guidebook goes beyond individual card meanings.

It teaches you how to calculate personal tarot cards including your:

Birth Card • Annual Card • Significator Card

These methods draw inspiration from the work of respected tarot teachers including Mary K. Greer and Angeles Arrien.

That creates another fascinating way to use tarot as a tool for examining identity and personal cycles.

Rather than simply asking the deck a question, you can begin exploring the cards that symbolically accompany different parts of your life.

📖 96-Page Full-Colour Guidebook

The set includes a 96-page full-colour guidebook to help you explore the deck and its ancestral approach.

Alongside guidance for interpreting the cards, the book introduces ways to work with your personal tarot blueprint and the deck's distinctive structure.

It's particularly useful if ancestral tarot is new territory.

Because this isn't simply a traditional tarot deck wearing vintage clothes.

The ancestral framework is fundamental to how it has been designed to work.

✨ Why You'll Love The Relative Tarot

• Unique 82-card tarot deck
• Created by Carrie Paris with Tina Hardt
• Vintage nineteenth-century ancestral photography
• Familiar tarot imagery and symbolism
• Created specifically for ancestral exploration
• Diverse historic figures and identities
• Three versions of The Lovers
• Alternative Strength and Justice cards
• Inclusive approach to gender and relationships
• 96-page full-colour guidebook
• Calculate birth, annual and significator cards
• Excellent for journalling
• Powerful for exploring inherited family patterns
• Beautiful tool for personal reflection
• Published by Weiser Books

🌙 The Reading Experience

The Relative Tarot is particularly suited to questions involving:

Ancestry • Family • Identity • Relationships • Generational patterns • Personal growth • Healing • Belonging • Life purpose • Transformation • Self-discovery

It can also be used perfectly well as an everyday tarot.

But give it a question involving family history or inherited patterns and the deck suddenly seems to sit up a little straighter.

That's where its distinctive voice becomes particularly apparent.

🌿 Perfect For

Ancestral work • Genealogy enthusiasts • Family-history researchers • Tarot readers • Shadow work • Journalling • Personal development • Inclusive tarot collections • Vintage photography lovers • Collage art lovers • Experienced readers • Reflective tarot practice

It's especially interesting for anyone who has ever researched their family tree and discovered that the phrase “well, that's interesting” can cover an astonishing range of revelations.

🎨 About Carrie Paris

Carrie Paris is a tarot creator, teacher and divination practitioner with an academic background in the cultural study of cosmology and divination.

She was among the first students to receive a master's degree in the Cultural Study of Cosmology and Divination from the University of Kent.

Her work explores tarot, divination, ancestral connection and ceremonial traditions.

She is also the creator of The Magpie Oracle and co-creator of Lenormand Revolution.

That combination of academic study, divination practice and visual storytelling is particularly evident in The Relative Tarot.

📦 In the Box

• 82 full-colour tarot cards
• 96-page full-colour guidebook
• Alternative Major Arcana cards
• Presentation box

📖 At a Glance

Title: The Relative Tarot: Your Ancestral Blueprint for Self-Discovery

Creators: Carrie Paris with Tina Hardt

Publisher: Weiser Books / Red Wheel Weiser

ISBN: 9781578637621

Cards: 82

Guidebook: 96 pages, full colour

Format: Tarot deck & guidebook kit

Artwork: Vintage photographic collage

Themes: Ancestry, family, inherited patterns, identity & self-discovery

Special Cards: Multiple Lovers plus alternative Strength & Justice cards

Publication: 2021

Language: English

Product Type: Tarot Deck & Guidebook Set

🖤 Why We Love It at Oneness Emporium

There are hundreds of tarot decks that can answer a question about your present.

The Relative Tarot makes us want to ask where the question came from.

That's a much more interesting proposition.

The vintage photographs give the cards an extraordinary atmosphere, but they're not being used simply because old photographs look mysterious.

They're integral to the deck.

They remind us that none of our stories began with us.

We inherit wonderful things.

We inherit complicated things.

And occasionally we inherit something that should probably have been returned to sender several generations ago.

We also really appreciate the thought that's gone into the additional cards.

Three Lovers.

Alternative Strength and Justice.

Different identities represented throughout the photography.

They're practical choices that allow more readers to see themselves within the deck.

The Relative Tarot isn't simply another interpretation of 78 familiar cards.

It has a reason for existing.

And those are often the tarot decks we find most interesting.