Indie Oracle Decks
A tarot deck hands you a system. An oracle deck hands you a question and trusts you to sit with it.
An oracle deck has no fixed structure. No 78 cards, no four suits, no major and minor arcana. Each one is its own invention, which means the artist decides how many cards there are, what they are about and how they speak to each other. That freedom is the whole point of the form.
It also changes how you read. Tarot rewards study because its symbolism is shared across centuries of books. An oracle asks you to work from the card in front of you and the guidebook that came with it, so it tends to suit reflection, journalling and ritual more than it suits prediction.
Both of ours are by Rae Serafina Barker, an independent artist in Milwaukee. Both are her own digital mixed-media collage with no AI-generated imagery. We source them direct from her and hold them in UK stock, which matters for a maker whose decks otherwise reach this country through overseas post and import fees.
Our oracle decks and why
Sixty-three cards in three realms: The Above for the daylight world, The Below for the unconscious and The Liminal for the space between. Built for deep feeling, truth telling, grief and creativity, with its own guidebook.
Sixty cards of ancient echoes, underworld journeys, ancestral wisdom and sacred darkness, with a Book of Mysteries guidebook. The steadier of the two, the one to reach for when the work is transformation rather than grief.
How to choose between them
- What is an oracle deck?
- A divination deck with no fixed structure. Where tarot has 78 cards in a set arrangement of majors, minors and four suits, an oracle deck is whatever its creator makes it: any number of cards, any theme, its own logic. It is read with its guidebook rather than with the shared tarot tradition.
- What is the difference between oracle cards and tarot cards?
- Structure and how you learn them. Tarot is a shared system, so any tarot book describes any tarot deck. An oracle deck is self-contained, so the guidebook that came in the box is the authority. Tarot suits study and detailed spreads. Oracle suits reflection, journalling and ritual. Many readers keep both and pull an oracle card alongside a tarot spread.
- Should I choose the Deep Place Oracle or the Stone + Shadow Oracle?
- Choose the Deep Place Oracle for grief, emotional depth and liminal work. Its 63 cards are sorted into The Above, The Below and The Liminal. It is built for descending into what is unresolved. Choose the Stone + Shadow Oracle for shadow work with an ancestral cast: 60 cards of underworld journeys, ancestral wisdom and death and rebirth, with a Book of Mysteries guidebook. They are companion decks by the same artist rather than alternatives, so readers who work with one often end up with both.
- Can a beginner use an oracle deck?
- Yes. An oracle is often easier to start with than tarot because there is no system to memorise. It will not teach you tarot though. If you want to learn the cards in the sense the books mean, start with a tarot deck and keep an oracle alongside it.
- Are these oracle decks made with AI?
- No. Every card in both decks is Rae Serafina Barker’s own digital mixed-media collage art, made without AI.
Worth reading alongside these: our review of The Deep Place Oracle, our review of The Stone + Shadow Oracle. Looking for something else? tarot decks for beginners, shadow work and dark tarot decks, dream and psychological tarot decks. Or see the full collection of indie tarot decks, every one of them stocked and shipped from the UK.