The Book of Shadows: An Alchemist’s Story

The Book of Shadows: An Alchemist's Story is a genuinely unusual project that weaves together a tarot deck, a hardcover graphic novel, and a feature-length mockumentary into one immersive experience. Created by Andrea Aste, the work treats the origins of tarot as an unfolding mystery, and the three elements of the set build on each other rather than simply accompanying the deck.

The cards themselves reimagine the Rider-Waite-Smith tradition through dreamlike, luminous imagery that carries the philosophical weight of the alchemical narrative surrounding it. This is a project for readers who want their tarot practice to connect with something bigger: a story, an argument, a question about the nature of magic and knowledge that the deck alone cannot fully answer.