Brigit Esselmont is very well known and has a huge online presence and following. So it is no surprise that I had stumbled upon her work from time to time. I was never though drawn to her, what seemed to me, oversimplified way of reading tarot, and I did not much care for the schematic visuals of her tarot decks.
As a consequence, for a long time, I lived my little life without paying too much attention to her work and the all too happy clips I saw online.
But that was about to change! Pam-pam!
I took a lovely little trip to Edinburgh, and I have this thing of buying a tarot deck (if possible) from every place I visit. I did a bit of research online and I found what seemed like a decent tarot shop, but when I got there I was disappointed to see that they had just a handful of pasty oracle cards and that was it. Oh well, next time!
Walking around the city we came to the famous Harry Potter shop and, of course I had to go in, I love seeing things, and was curious to see all the merch they had come up with.
Funny enough, in the back of the shop, there was a section dedicated to tarot and oracle cards. Not too big, but enough to spend a few minutes browsing through them. Sadly none of them really called out to me so I was a bit disappointed of not being able to buy my Edinburgh tarot memento. Among the decks, the very familiar looking Everyday Tarot mini stood in a tall pile. 11 euro. Oh well, for the memento, I suppose this will do. I said to myself and bought it, pleased that I have something to bring home to my own tarot deck pile.
In the BnB where we were staying I opened it and, although a bit awkward to open (it has a plastic box inside), the cards are of outstanding quality. Although mini (I am quite partial to large cards), the cards are so nice to shuffle and work with. The colors and the somewhat dark, gilded edges, give them a nice feel. I liked them a lot and was quite pleased with my purchase.
After coming home I found myself drawn to the little deck and, in my usual manner, I started to look up more info on them. To make a long story short, now I posses not only the Everyday Mini Tarot, but also the Biddy Tarot Deck, the book Everyday Tarot and the Tarot Card Meanings book by Brigit Esselmont.
With the Biddy Tarot Deck there came the subscription to the Biddy Community, app and the rest. I was happy to subscribe, curious to see what is there, but the fact that I received so much marketing material, and course offers, and discounts annoyed me at some point so I unsubscribed from them. I still have the app and nose around it from time to time, but I had had too much for the marketing.
I know it is a product and we are customers, but it being pushed so much on me really put me off it. The highest low was when I got a link to a special webinar training, just for me, about how to learn to read the cards intuitively, webinar that promised it will reveal three key ways of interpreting the cards without learning meanings etc. etc.
I have a very low patience level if somebody does not get to the point and just wafts around, and sadly the webinar was just disguised marketing, just like one you would see on TV, only at least that is honest and open, it does not pretend to be something it is not.
Now, I don’t want you to think I am unhappy with Biddy’s products, far from it. The quality of the cards, all of them mini and bigger, is great, and the books are very nicely written and I actually recommend them to tarot enthusiasts that want to explore the workings of their inner world with the help of the tarot.
I especially loved the mix of Cognitive Psychotherapy and tarot as presented in the Everyday Tarot book. I love Cognitive Psychotherapy and I have studied a bit about it, so it was great to see how beautifully Biddy marries it with the use of tarot.
I absolutely recommend the decks and the books. One thing I do not like about the decks is that the characters do not have faces, but I do understand why they were left out, so we do not read emotions on them but project out own.
Recently I have worked a lot with the Biddy Tarot and I have to say I have connected to it beautifully, although the lack of faces and some missing details on the cards bugs me, but I know them from the traditional RWS ones so I just make up the missing info in my mind. They do have lovely colors though and are a pleasure to work with!
So yeah … that is my take on Brigit Esselmont’s products. Do you use them? What is your opinion about them?