In this video Axél Antojai Carrasquillo reviews the Ark Animal Tarot & Oracle deck, beginning with an unboxing that highlights the deck’s oversized, thick box and a hefty guidebook split into separate Tarot and Oracle sections. He critiques the guidebook’s poor indexing, noting that finding specific animal entries is cumbersome, especially for the Oracle portion, making the deck unsuitable for beginners. The cards feature elemental symbols and Platonic‑solid icons at the top, which the reviewer finds overly complex and would have preferred more intuitive symbols. He examines the physical quality of the cards, pointing out uneven edge cuts, a noticeable ripple on the edges, heavy cardstock, and a glossy finish that together hinder smooth shuffling. While praising the high‑resolution artwork, accurate Native American totem meanings, and the extensive variety of animals (including rare ones like pangolin and hot‑sin), he emphasizes the steep learning curve: users must master totem meanings, Tarot correspondences, and Oracle specifics. The reviewer shares personal usage habits—keeping the deck as a decorative “house deck” rather than for client readings—due to its size and complexity. Sample pulls (Condor, King of Swords, Two of Cups, Lovers, Six of Pentacles) demonstrate that the deck can produce coherent readings when the user is familiar with its symbolism. Ultimately, he recommends the deck for experienced shamanic practitioners or earth‑witches who appreciate detailed animal totems, but advises newcomers to start with a simpler Tarot deck before tackling this one. He concludes with typical channel calls to action, promoting his Quantum Tarot course and Patreon support.
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Foreign. What's happening? So, fam, we're back with another Tarot review. And today we are reviewing the Ark Animal Tarot and Oracle deck. Before we get started, don't forget to subscribe, comment, share below. If you have this deck, if you like it, if you would recommend it, what do you not like about it? It? What do you think about this review? If you don't have it, and of course, don't forget to press that little notification button. Follow us on social media, on TikTok and on Instagram. And if you'd like these videos and you'd like to continue to help us produce more of these, you can support us on Patreon. All right, so let's get started into this. Well, first of all, the first thing that I want to really point out is this box is like, this box is so thick and it's so crazy big. And like when you open has like so many things in it. So this deck comes with a pretty fat book as well. Okay. Like, very, very detailed. There is a problem with this book though. So right off the bat, before I even give you my opinion of it, of the whole entire deck overall, let me just explain why. The book is kind of complicated. The book is split into Oracle and it's split into Tarot. All right, so this half right here is Tarot, this half right here is Oracle. But the book is not properly cited. Like, if I were to even look up for one of the things that kind of annoys me with these kinds of books is, is like there's a lot of content, but like you can't find the animals. Like, for, for an Oracle deck, it's very easy. If there was a syllabus here that gave you access to the animals and there isn't. There's also like this weird thing that these cards have, which are these symbols at the very top. And I'm going to bring it up a little bit closer. You see those symbols at the very top? Those symbols are elemental symbols. So these cards were designed with a lot of of thought, right? They have elemental symbols. They're oracle decks. They are also Tarot deck because even if you weren't going to use this as a Tarot deck, because this one would be the five of swords, for instance, in Tarot, if you knew a lot about the totem animal, the fly, then you would be able to still divine with it. The problem is if you want to go ahead and figure out, okay, the fly, right, you would have to kind of dig here because they're just written so weird. And it's not difficult for the tarot portion, but it is difficult for the oracle portion. Now, each card has a pretty significant meaning. And then there's, like, the cheat sheets here. But again, like, if you're not familiar with the card, the deck, and, like, for instance, like, the oracle, right. Like, there's all. This portion right here is oracle. So you literally have to flip through the book randomly and, like, try to find it as quickly as possible. So this is not one of those decks that you're going to learn right off the bat. Number one, because it has so much detail to it, this is not a beginner deck. The first thing right off the bat, because you do have to learn the totems, and then you have to learn on top of the totems, the tarot, and then on top of the tarot, the oracle. So even though the artists of this deck wanted to provide a lot of content, I feel like there was too much content put in here, even for me, as somebody who's an experienced tarot reader, to even want to put, like, considerable effort, especially because I have so many other decks that can do the same thing in a shorter amount of time. Now, the book does come with a little, like, a notebook. I can't remember what the name of these are, but you know what I mean? Like, a little slot for, like, let's say you were reading the Rabbit here. I'll return to that later. Okay. That. That is something cool. The thing about the cards themselves, like, I want you to pay attention. I pay attention to a lot of different details. You see all that right there? That's kind of like a puncture wound from how the cards were cut. Now, I did get this deck as a gift. Okay. One of the things I would have been really pissed about if I bought it myself. We're seeing all of these, like, and if you were to grab them and you were to feel them, you can literally feel the edge. Like, the ripple of that edge right there. You can see it, and you can see it right here as well. And you can see it again down here. That's not high. These cards, in that sense, are not high quality. Not only that, for a tarot deck, look how thick this deck is, all right? Look how big the cards are, even holding them like this to shuffle. I can't shuffle quickly like I would with other decks because of just how sheer, how sheerly big the cards are themselves and just kind of, like, do the material and stuff like that about it. Does it have a gloss? Yes. But Just the fact that it had that. That weird cut perforation on the side, which you can even see if I bring it up. You see it right there. That perforation right there. That's really annoying to me. Like, some people may not. May not mind it, but it is very annoying. On top of learning this and the elements and the oracle and the Toronto and, like, the totem, it's just a lot of work. Honestly, it's a cool little deck. If you want to have the deck sitting on your, you know, on your kitchen table or, like your coffee table, and somebody just wants to pick it up and play, that's what I've done with this one. This is like a house deck. Like, I just leave it out open, and if somebody feels drawn to it, they can pull out cards and start playing with it and get their own divination. I even rarely use this deck for myself. I rarely use this deck for even public readings and stuff like that. This is the oracle half. Okay, so let's go look at what the oracle is like. And each animal, like the cricket, has serendipity, moral compass, and liberty. Right. It does give you quick tips. The other more complicated thing about these cards is, like, you see these symbols down here on top of the symbol that's up here? Let's just pick two different. Pick two different arcana. So, you know, there's this symbol right here, which you would have to know what those geometric symbols are tied to the elements. I understand that the artist wanted to incorporate the Platonic solids into this, but I would have really just preferred, like, a water drop or, like, you know, an earth sign that would have been easier to comprehend. On top of that, look at the eel. The eel has its own little special icon right here. The cricket has special icons here. Like, every other animal has icons here. What those icons mean, I. You know, they have specific meanings in the book. But again, with all the detail that these cards are providing, I really feel, number one, that the artist could have shrunken the cards and still kept a lot of the detail and the importance of it, which would have made them better. And plus, like, whoever it is that's creating these cards for them is obviously not putting in the attention and the detail with these edges, because you can even see it right here. These edges are cut. Okay, so the cricket, koala, kangaroo, eel, porcupine, martin, crab. The cool thing about this deck is that I definitely got introduced to some new animals that I've never seen before. When I see one, I'll point it out. If you're already familiarized with totems, this could be a really good deck for you because there are people who are very familiarized with like totem meanings and they work with Native American spirits. The pictures are high quality. And the meanings to the individual animals are accurate based off of Native American totem meanings. Okay. So I don't want you to think that these cards are not accurate. They have their use, but they're not going to fit with everyone. Okay. Now even picking up this portion of the tarot deck, this is heavier than most tarot decks that I have. Like quite literally heavier than any deck that I have. And this is just a standard tarot portion. So just like other tarot decks that I talk about when I teach in my tarot deck course, my quantum tarot course, I explain to people, like, the art changes from deck to deck. Like, for this deck, you can't rely on the six of swords, which would have a specific painting on it. Like, you would like literally have to know the image of the six of swords, the meaning of the swords. And then you can combine that with like the storks total meaning. You can combine that with the element that's here. You can combine that with those meanings that are down there. I understand where the artist was coming from to give you as much detail and like the smallest amount of time possible. But it is an information overload which will then make you like spend time and time and time reading these. So, like, if you want to get these and slowly start learning about them, that's cool. But I definitely recommend it. This is. If you're thinking about a first time tarot deck, get a regular tarot deck first. Work with that for a while, maybe dive into learning some Native American totem spirits and then come back to this later. Because even as a seasoned shaman, a seasoned medium as I am, I find it really difficult to even deal with these cards. Are the cards accurate? Yes. I have had this deck for a little while and as you can see, they're pretty much brand new because I don't use them. I. One of the major reasons why I don't use them is the size and the complication of the deck and the quality of the cards, though I'm very appreciative that I got it as a deck and I will never get rid of it because everything that's gifted to me, I always keep. It's not one of those cards that I'm going to be using for my. For even my clients. You know, I mean, it's more so like a personal thing. That's why I leave it in the house because it's leisurely. Like if I don't know what the star means, I'm going to be pulling up this deck. I have to flip through the deck to figure out where the star is to begin with and then read all about it. So you know, when you're reading a tarot deck for a client, you're not going to just go ahead and be like, oh, hold on one second, let me just, let me flip through here. And the polar bear means X, Y and Z. Like that's very unprofessional. So ideally, if you don't know tarot, avoid this one. The images are really cool to connect with. I have bought in other tarot that have animals on them and the animals can be kind of weird looking or bad photos or bad drawings. But this is for those earthy shamans, those earth witches that really enjoy. Nature. It. The other thing is like some of the meanings from the animals don't always resonate with the tarot meaning. So that can be something that kind of throws you off. That's why it takes time to actually learn this deck. The variety of animals is, is quite amazing. Like, I never knew what this was like a, a hot sin. And does it have uses? Absolutely. It's not a bad deck, it's just not a beginner deck. A pangolin was another one that I had never been exposed to. And there you go. Now my hands right now they hurt. Like right here particularly. It hurts because this deck is heavy. And again like look how wide it is. Just not just like here, but like literally here. So shuffling them is annoying. But hello, you still have the oracle half. So when you add the whole oracle half, look at that. Okay, it's already pretty big on its own. And then you add the oracle and. And it becomes monstrous. It's like so thick right now. You could keep the, you could keep them separated, but they're all pretty much the same. Like I take it as it was intended to be used together. So let's test it out. First of all, the shuffling sucks because they're so big. They also stick to each other. You can't, you can't do it with speed or precision. I would have shuffled differently several times already, but the cards were moving out of my perception. Let's see what we need to know right now with these decks. The Condor, the King of Swords, step into your power, your truth, your final authority. You are a brilliant mind. Right? I use that Two of Cups. You have something that's coming your way, okay, that's really important. A sacred union, a marital, a mutual attraction or perfect harmony. Just allow yourself to marry your universe right now with power. The lovers marry your universe, okay? All forms of love in your universe. Six of Pentacles. You will be getting all your manifestations that you're looking for in the coming months, especially next year. So the cards do read well and let's look at the subconscious energy, have a change of perspective, face your darkness, you know, self surrender. Look at what needs to be analyzed and don't run from it. Again, it can be very, very beneficial for you depending on whether or not you want to put a lot of time, a lot of effort into particularly reading this kind of deck and this kind of material. Okay, so there are a hundred multi use cards and a guidebook. All right, So I mean it, it was cool. It was cool. Like it has like so much potential. But I'm not really sure if it's for me particularly. So if you're into animals and you want to combine decks for shamanistic purposes, this would be one of those decks that you can combine with other like shaman decks that you have or other totem decks that you have. And it can give you a lot of understanding. I hope this was helpful for you in this review. Don't forget. Don't forget to give me a like a Follow a share, press the little notification button below. Follow us on social media, support us on Patreon and check out the new Quantum Tarot course. All the links are going to be in the description below so you don't miss anything. And that way you can keep growing with the rest of us. I appreciate you so much, sending you lots of love.
