Two Cards Added to a Gothic Rider Waite Smith

Ethereal Visions Illuminated Tarot is an eighty card deck created and illustrated by artist Matt Hughes, published by U.S. Games Systems in 2018. It is modelled closely on the Rider Waite Smith tarot, keeping that deck's standard twenty two card Major Arcana and fifty six card Minor Arcana intact, and adds two further Major Arcana cards of Hughes's own devising beyond the traditional sequence, numbered 22 The Well and 23 The Artist, in the same way Beautiful Creatures Tarot extends the standard count by two rather than replacing any of it.

Every card is finished in a flowing Gothic Art Nouveau style with gold foil stamping over full colour illustration, a decorative finish uncommon among the mostly flat printed decks in this catalogue. Readers use standard Rider Waite Smith derived meanings for the original seventy eight cards, while the two added cards carry their own guidebook meanings written specifically for them, since no historical Rider Waite Smith precedent exists for either. That split, an attested historical reading system for most of the deck paired with new meanings for a small addition, mirrors how other expanded decks in this catalogue handle cards added beyond the traditional arcana.