Manteia

During 1989-97 the printed edition of 'Manteia' was published to partly fulfill Spilkammeret's aim of documenting the mantic scene in the 20th century. In 16 issues (totally 680 A4-pages, the European paper format similar to `US-Letter') 'Manteia' reviewed and informed its readers about 470 tarot and cartomancy decks and 400 books on related mantic and symbolic systems, like I-Ching, geomancy and runes, which were published in English in the period. Major books in German and French were also included. Thus 'Manteia' became the most comprehensive documentation of the wealth of mantic material published in the last decades of the 20th century. Many of 'Manteia's' reviews were critical, expressing the editor's personal opinions with a focus on the symbolic, historical and artistic aspects of the theme. My attitude towards tarot is in general positive, considering it a useable psychological and personal magical tool, but on the other hand, I find that great many of the decks and books published are not worth the paper they are printed on, and that we easily could do without them. I am against the increasing commercialization of tarot and the mass market publishers' economical exploitation.

Two further issues followed after the regular publication ended: 'Manteia Courier 1997-1999'; which included various tarot related articles.

The magazine was published in a limited edition of 125 copies only. Over the years there has been an increasing interest and the few complete sets, that were offered at auctions, reached high prices. I have therefore now (March 2013) decided to make all issues available as pdf-files. Below you will find links to the single issues. The contents listed with each link is only a selection of the reviews/articles; full lists of contents (titles and names, respective) cover all issues completely. To obtain the best possible quality scanning the original master pages, created at a time with limited technology, the files are quite large and will take some time to open. All texts are written by myself, if not otherwise stated.

Selected deck reviews from 'Manteia' + later reviews

Reviews written after `Manteia' ceased publication and reviews from `Manteia', which may have been slightly revised and updated with colour illustrations.