Tarot Face to Face
Posted by: Tinkerbell on: September 5, 2012
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by Kim Huggens
Imagine this: you’re one of today’s youth picking up a Tarot deck for the first time, eager to learn in a manner that you have become accustomed to. You want engaging, hands-on, immersive, instant, exciting and visual learning methods; you want to see results straight away; you want to be enthralled by a subject and not distracted by something more interesting. Imagine also that you are an experienced Tarot reader with many years of study to your name, perhaps a book of your own published on the subject, and you’re a teacher of this arcane art yourself. You want to be excited about Tarot once again; you want your passion rekindled, you want something new and innovative, interesting and challenging, revolutionary and life-enhancing. Can one Tarot book offer all of this? Can it cater to the entirety of the spectrum of knowledge and experience? If it’s Tarot Face to Face, by Marcus Katz and Tali Goodwin, yes.
Tarot Face to Face does not appear, at first, to be a large book, being smaller in page count and size than a great number of other Tarot books on the market. Yet it contains within it more vastness of material and opportunity for learning than nearly every other Tarot book I have read. This is the kind of book you can return to time and time again, and it will keep giving and giving over the years. It also cannot be taken in during a single sitting, nor all the ramifications of the exercises and lessons digested at once: this book needs plenty of time for you to play with it, explore it, try various parts of it out, and put into practice what is being taught, although you will be able to see results straight away. Of course, this might not sit well with those who lack patience or who want to be spoonfed Tarot knowledge… but if something is being spoonfed then I wonder if it counts as knowledge at all…
Split into ten chapters, Tarot Face to Face starts with the basics… no, not the card meanings, nor even the difference between Major Arcana and Minor Arcana, nor even how many cards there are in a Tarot pack. Instead, chapter one (“Face to Face with your Deckâ€) teaches the reader the essential skills and methods necessary to give accurate and life-changing readings from the get-go, without the need for lots of complex and time-intensive memorisation of card meanings or occult symbolic systems. Skills that many experienced readers use unconsciously, such as bridging, pinpointing, and navigating are explained, demonstrated, and highlighted through hands-on exercises for the reader to practice, which teach us how to actually perform a reading. Isn’t that something? These are the barebones of any reading, yet their conscious teaching has been lacking in a vast array of Tarot books over the decades. They may even sound complicated here, out of context, but Tarot Face to Face shows that they couldn’t be simpler, and follows them up with methods that can form a core of Tarot interpretation, such as key phrases and keywords and how to use a spread. Once we’ve got these under our belts (or been made aware of our prior usage of them if we are more experienced readers), we move onto… nope, still no card meanings here for us to memorise…
So, what exactly can a Tarot book teach if it’s not going to give us card meanings or tell us what the cards mean? Well, it teaches you everything that’s far more important. It teaches you how to use Tarot to engage with life, how to use it for life-enhancing and creative techniques, how to use it to explore your own spiritual journey, your relationships, the world around you, your inner self, your subconscious, your language, your programmed preconceptions, your ideals and dreams, your waking life and your dreaming life… It shows us how to create unique, on the spot spreads for a question using “Clean Languageâ€, how to find our own Tarot voice, how to examine the details in card images to reach truly oracular moments, how to explore a card in-depth with the “Exquisite Corpse†technique from the Surrealist movement, how to pinpoint the heart of a question, how to come face to face with a client, how to cope with a mind blank, how to create oracular sentences, play games with the cards, embark on shamanic journeys with the cards, lucid dreams with the cards…
Sound overwhelming? Not at all. It’s all split down into easy to manage chunks and chapters, with plenty of wonderful exercises in every section to get your teeth into, and it’s presented in a friendly, open and engaging manner with plenty of anecdotes and real-life experience from the authors. In fact, it is these practical exercises that are the real heart and soul of Tarot Face to Face, and they are as useful for teaching beginners the necessary techniques and approaches as they are to helping advanced readers learn new aspects of themselves and the Tarot, and shake themselves out of old, staid habits. There are some truly revolutionary exercises in here that are not just good one-offs for making the point of the chapter, but are to be revisited over and over again to glean more new information, or to be used as part of a reading, or as a game with other Tarot enthusiasts or interested parties. What’s more, these exercises bring the reader into the ultimate goal of the authors’ own brand of Tarot: “…to engage life, not to escape it.†Techniques such as Gated Spreads, for instance, build upon traditional shamanic methods to undertake journeys using the cards as a guide over a certain period (say, a week), with an eventual goal at the end that is life changing and deeply moving (Chapter 6: Tarot for Engaging Life). All of the exercises place the power in the hands of the one performing them, encouraging activities such as consciously choosing cards from the deck to use, rather than drawing them randomly, or offering ways of using the cards to regain hope, power, and possibility where it has been lost (in Chapter 3: Facing the Questionsâ€).
All of this boils down to a book that has a brilliantly solid approach to teaching Tarot to beginners, starting with the most necessary skills and methods and taking the reader right through to exploring their Tarot interest further in the world, whilst at the same time offering plenty of material to excite and inspire experienced readers. If you’re looking for a Tarot book to get you thinking and reading the cards a little differently, Tarot Face to Face will excite you again, inspire you, return you to a state of avid learning and passion, and make you want to get out your Tarot deck instantly and start using its many wonderful techniques and exercises. Nearly all of these exercises can also be performed with friends, partners or in a group, making this a perfect Tarot teaching tool or workshop tool. It uses many different decks to illustrate its examples, so can be used in conjunction with any chosen deck the reader is using, regardless of the tradition it comes from. The only recommendation I would make that seems to be missing from the book is that a more experienced reader may find it more helpful to use the book in places with an unfamiliar or new Tarot deck, as some of the exercises feel stunted by the instant responses that a familiar and well-known deck can elicit from us.
There’s no more I can say about Tarot Face to Face without taking away the joy of letting you discover it for yourself. It will take you on a journey of discovery, both of Tarot, and of yourself, and of the world and others around you. It will surprise you (it’s not often that you read the following in a Tarot book, “You will require ten helium balloons, easily available from most party supply shops, ten stamped postcards, and a “throwaway†tarot deck…â€) It will certainly change your perception of the possibilities Tarot can offer, and it will probably change your life if you let it. Let it. You won’t be sorry.
Note: as of completing this review, Tarot Face to Face has achieved the #198 position in September 5th 2012’s top selling (out of 8,000,000!) books. Now there’s something.
Bio:
Kim Huggens is the author of Tarot 101: Mastering the Art of Reading the Cards (Llewellyn, 2010), and co-creator of “Sol Invictus: the God Tarot†(Schiffer, 2007) and Pistis Sophia: the Goddess Tarot (forthcoming, http://pistissophiatarot.com). She is also the author of the companion book for the forthcoming Tarot Illuminati by Erik. C. Dunne (Lo Scarabeo, 2013.) Kim is a professional Tarot reader with 18 years experience studying the cards, and is always looking for new and innovative approaches to Tarot.
Tarot Face to Face
Posted by: The Tarosophist on: September 5, 2012
So just when you might start thinking: “Marcus and Tali have written ANOTHER book, what more can they have to offer and are they going to start repeating themselves or rehashing and regurgitating stuff ?†The answer is yes (to the first bit) – they have written another book and yes, they have LOTS more to offer and yes, new material (not rehashed) awaits you. I think they both need an extremely advanced filing system for their brains. These two people are just so amazingly dedicated, they are ALWAYS busy – doesn’t matter what time of the day (or night) it is.
The following Tarot decks have been used to illustrate this book:
Llewellyn decks:
Gilded Tarot by Ciro Marchetti
Legacy of the Divine Tarot by Ciro Marchetti
Mystic Dreamer Tarot by Heidi Darras and Barbara Moore
Revelations Tarot by Zach Wong
Shadowscapes Tarot by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law and Barbara Moore
Wizards Tarot by Corrine Kenner and John Blumen
Lo Scarabeo decks:
Universal Tarot by Roberto De Angelis and
Wheel of the Year Tarot by Maria Caratti and Antonella Platano
I love the diversity of decks used in this book as I feel it can relate to a wide audience. In chapter one, three cards from three different decks are used to show how common symbols have become accepted and they are commonly understood. This is the basis of the explanation in this chapter of how bridging the interpretations of symbols works and then how to use this as well as other useful and practical things like pinpointing. What I love about the way Marcus and Tali teach things is that it is not rocket science, it is done in such a way that is methodical and practical and it works. All that is required on your half as a reader is perhaps a bit of tweaking your own techniques and then practise.
I can promise you that maybe not all the things will work for you but some and most will and it will give you confidence to be the best reader you can be.
The methods taught in this book are easily understood and can be learned quickly. The exercise on talking or dialogue with the Tarot (on page 9) is something I would recommend and the more you do it, the easier it is. When I first started Tarot, I knew what I wanted to say but it didn’t always come out how I wanted it to and this is one of the techniques I used to get through this. It works not only to help you get over that but as a way of building your confidence too especially if you want to read at mind, body and spirit events or just at a similar fayre type things. I find this exercise and the one called Finding your Tarot Voice on page 30, kind of similar and both very useful.
There is a list of key phrases and key words for the majors and minors have been broken down like the following:
Pentacles: Resources
Swords: Expectations
Cups: Imagination
Wands: Ambition
And then each of the numbers from 1 to 10 have a meaning too. I always find things like this useful and I would say read through these and then see if you can either add to it or use your own if it would be easier. I found this book easily digestible and in the same vein, it definitely was food for thought.
The best thing for me early on in this book was the Lightning Matrix on page 19. I remember doing it on a Tarosophy Tarot course that Janine Worthington taught recently right at the beginning of the course and it took me a bit of practise but I eventually got it so I am so glad it is in this book. I can use it to review the same thing again.
Before I talk about the part I am about to talk about, I just thought I would add a random contributing fact in that Marcus has been involved with Tarot for 30 years plus and Tali for 20 plus years so the wealth and quality of information in this book meets and reinforces this and I feel it is a testimonial to their inspiration as Tarot Teachers and Writers, foremost and then Tarot Readers.
Why I say this is that I so love how they can do one exercise and use the same cards for numerous questions and come up with so many different ways to answer them – all with the same 3 cards. Here I refer to the exercise ‘Getting the Detail’ on page 35.
I have quite a number of books on Tarot spreads like ‘Tarot Spreads, Layouts & Techniques to Empower Your Readings’ by Barbara Moore and then ‘Complete Book of Tarot Spreads’ by Evelin Burger and Johannes Fiebig (these 2 are my fav spread books when I need some inspiration) but the angle Marcus and Tali take is about creating your own spreads. This is something I do a lot too and I remember doing a reading for someone once with a particular spread and the querent told me they had never heard of this spread to which I told them that I would be surprised if they did as I created it spontaneously with them, for them and I felt it went well – it was very apt.
Sometimes, being a bit creative in the spread department can be useful and again, I find it very useful when at mind, body and spirit events or fayres as you can get yourself stuck in a rut repeating the same spreads all the time. I think it adds to the excitement at these events as I had it where a number of clients were all in the same family and had come together to the event so it was great to add variety to the event this way. Their readings were all personalized to them. So, this is where the section on creating new spreads comes in useful. Read this section and you will get new, fresh ideas on how to be original and creative with spreads.
I really feel that we can see more of Marcus and Tali in this book as they share their thoughts on things like ‘Facing up to Tricky and Slippery Cards’. Marcus had eventually got to grips with The Hanged Man which was a bit of a sticky card for him and he explains how this happened for him here. Has this ever happened for you? Which card and how or what made you able to look at it almost with fresh eyes or being able to see it differently? It seems weird talking like this here as Marcus’ card was the Hanged Man and we are on about looking at new things with a new perspective. Consider the exercise on page 44, taking the card outside the box to help you here with this kind of thing.
Chapter 3 looks at ‘Facing the Questions.’
Marcus and Tali begin this chapter with another personal example of something that they experienced. This is what I so love about this book and I feel it asks you to think about it and if this has happened to you, consider how you handled the situation. I like how Marcus and Tali have said here that someone in the Therapeutic world once said that therapists get the clients they deserve and that maybe it is the same for Tarot readers. In this chapter, the discussion is on questions and how they appear like at the beginning of the year, it could be work related and then around Valentine ’s Day – love questions. How about ‘general readings’ or too many questions? Great advice is offered here.
What I love about this book is that it seems more compact than Marcus’ other book – “Tarosophy†and then the one that Marcus and Tali wrote – “Around the Tarot in 78 Days†but it is direct, focused and practical. I sense that this book is like a practical guide to doing readings for others.
In Chapter 4, it is time to Face the Querent
And under this chapter, some of the variety of decks are discussed and I am sure there could be one mentioned that you might have used. I said this at the beginning of this review that I love the wide audience applicability that has been used. I like the topic ‘Watch your language’ under this chapter and I think it is offers some good advice. I have done mind, body and spirit events before and used similar techniques in that I have tried to speak to the client in their language and style. I listened when I needed to and spoke less when needed to. I do feel that when venturing outside of your own comfort zone as a Tarot reader, maybe outside your own home or wherever it is that you do readings, you can rely on your techniques.
There are also rituals and then props etc. discussed under this chapter which again is more practical advice. My favourite personal thing is to use lavender essential oil on myself just prior to readings and during readings as it helps to relax me and I use rose essential oil on my cards as it smells nice and aids in keeping the querent focused too but this is just me. I use a spray smudge if I feel the need to (instead of the conventional smudge as some people don’t like the smoke) – this is available on my web site – www.nadinetarotreiki.com).
There is a part in this chapter on beginning with a client, the first few minutes. It can be a bit nerve-wracking I suppose so consider the advice here too. For me personally, I like to sit next to the querent rather than opposite them so I am kind of talking with them, not at them. If I have to use a table, I would use the cards in such a way that we get a side view of them. This also means that we are both looking at the cards from the same direction, we both have the same view. I have found it makes people feel relaxed.
I like the advice offered for if you feel a bit panicked. For fun, Tarot at parties gives you some great ideas. How many books have you read that offer this topic ???
The Tarot walk on page 118 reminds me a recent thing that Marcus did in asking people to take pictures of things that reminded them of particular Tarot cards while they were out and about. The cards are discussed under this kind of thing here. It is a strange thing to be able to see and feel this happen in your day to day life. This is what Tarot is about though isn’t it? It is life. It is not something that is just made up. It is real.
Being an animal lover, I won’t surprise you to say that I love, love, love the Shaman’s Path on page 123 and then Gate 5: Invocation of the Animal Spirit on page 130 (one of the gated spreads). There are the gated spreads in this chapter which are highly personal experiences that I would totally ask you to do. It totally surprises you what you get out of these.
I have purposefully been reading this book thoroughly and it has way surpassed my expectations.
When I got it, my initial thought was that because it was a lot smaller and thinner than ‘Tarosophy’ and ‘Around the Tarot in 78 days’, I wondered how much could be put into this book – lots, okay !!! It is jam packed, it is bursting at the seams.
Chapter 9 looks at Facing all Fronts with Twelve Spreads.
There has to be a chapter on spreads and there are some new ones just waiting for you to try. I have never seen these before and I urge you to try them on yourself or be brave, remember them and do them for others.
Chapter 10 ends it all off and offers topics such as using an ‘elevator pitch’ which is a short and sweet, even to the point description that people use to describe what they sell or what they are doing, in our case, Tarot as well as other questions including ‘What’s the most memorable question you have ever been asked?’ and then legal things and attitudes towards Tarot.
Marcus and Tali know what they are talking about. Between them, they have 50 years plus experience of Tarot. This book is one of the most down to earth – yes you can do it too – books out on Tarot. It is definitely not “just another Tarot book.† You need this book and you will not be disappointed. It offers practical advice and real life examples that get you thinking of how you can develop your own styles and techniques as a Tarot reader.
 Nadine Roberts
Spring and Travel Reading
Posted by: The Tarosophist on: March 19, 2012
Margaret Letzkus’s Sacred Places in the Tarot is a timely reminder to find space and time for the soul’s contemplation in the midst of everyday life. I chose to read it on a rare Spring morning in our garden, on a balcony that has become a place of serenity, renewal and freedom from the work of the day; attributes that Margaret assigns respectively to the High Priestess, Star and the World. This is an example of a subtle teaching of Tarot that is diffused through the text, hardly noticeable until second reading.
The book outlines a consideration of the images of Tarot where they relate to space; illustrated by a variety of decks, Margaret offers chapters on the Sacred Cave, Mountain, Earth, Tree, Stone and Water, and chapters on more cosmic spaces such as Labyrinths and Mandalas, Sacred Light, Sound and Internal Space. She concludes by providing a chapter on altars and creating one’s own sacred place, with a final brief two-page chapter on Spreads, such as the Man in the Maze spread.
An example of how Margaret treats such relationships is where she discusses (p. 20) the mountain symbolism in various cards. She reminds us in the Wheel of Change tarot how the “peaceful volcano†in the Seven of Cups has contributed in the past to the enrichment of the soil and the formation of the natural reservoirs from which the sacred water can be collected – perfect analogies which can be used in the interpretation of the card. She goes on to note that both the Two and Three of Wands in the Waite-Smith deck show men on high places, one man-made, one natural, and both look out to mountains – perhaps which call them to new heights and discoveries. It is this re-reading of the images in the context of sacred space (for as Margaret points out, mountain tops form pinnacles of energy) that so delights in this book and calls us outside through our cards.
Sacred Places in the Tarot
The choice of cards to illustrate the appearance of these spaces in Tarot is fascinating, ranging from the Cosmic Tribe Tarot to the urban Tarot of the Boroughs. It paints these cards in fresh light, by contextualising them from the artistic perspective; how a card image relates to metaphor, space, symbol and colour to draw us into a sacred space. As a result, we are drawn to make correspondences between the cards and the spaces we inhabit from day-to-day; tarot to engage life, not escape it. Here Margaret does not encourage us to go into the cards but through them, and through them, back out into the environment, wholly reframed.
In reading Margaret’s book, I found it a wonderful tarot-bridge to a fascinating book currently on my bedside table (another sacred space), David Abram’s The Spell of the Sensuous (Vintage, 1997). In this book, Abrams elegantly portrays our disconnection from the natural world, and provokes a new reading of the language of the “living othersâ€, through a wide-ranging discussion of language and meaning. Margaret invokes the same considerations through tarot.
A Sacred Space for Reading
I particularly loved the correspondence of ley-lines to linear tarot spreads, and the book is worth the purchase for this piece alone, deftly suggesting how we can read energies pulsing through a reading much like ley-lines. I will be using this idea with my favourite contemplation oracle deck, the De Es, whose stone faces, walls and constructs produce such rocky representations and rhythms.
This book is a perfect companion for any outdoor reading, and would be ideally suited for holiday and travel reading. It is bound to call forth your own correspondences of Tarot to the places you are visiting, and deepen your appreciation of both. Whilst keeping brief, it opens up wider realms of exploration, and I imagine mine will be full of scrawled notes within a month.
Sacred Places in the Tarot, Margaret Letzkus (Createspace, 2011)
Tarot for Beginners
Posted by: Tinkerbell on: December 20, 2010
I met Barbara Moore a little while ago and when reading this book, it was easy to have a mental image of her talking directly and personally to me. I believe this will be the same whether you have met Barbara or not – such is the accessibility of the text.
I first came across Barbara’s quirky humour and accessible style in her introduction to Mary K. Greer’s book, The Complete Book of Tarot Reversals, where she wrote that reversed cards were similar to the scene in Dead Poets Society where the teacher asks the class to stand on their desks – to see the room from an entirely different perspective. Such gems open up Tarot more than sometimes thousands of words.
Introduction
Barbara’s introduction to her book is very motivating and describes how she got into Tarot. I like how she gets us wondering about the power of Tarot and from where that power comes. As she discusses and I know from personal experience, this is a personal thing that we each can develop. It is developed over time. I apply this to myself as I have done readings for people and they – and I – have sometimes been very impressed with the results. I have sometimes wondered “Where the hell did that come from?†as something felt really right or just seemed to fit in. It’s not always like that though!
Structure and Format
Barbara breaks the learning process down and compares it to how you would learn vocabulary in language. There is a glossary and there are some very interesting Facts and Fancy at the front – and at the back of the book, Barbara has added four appendices. These appendices are all relevant and the book list (appendix A) can give you additional book reading suggestions from Barbara.
Barbara doesn’t go into much of the history of Tarot but does try to add a different approach by summarising the different things we would already know if we have read other books on Tarot. If you are like me, you will have either done this – read loads of books on Tarot and / or have a developing Tarot book library.
I personally have seen at least one book in the Appendix which is already on my Wish List. I have always personally (like Barbara) been interested in the variety of stories in the history of Tarot. You can also read a book by Rachel Pollack called Forest of Souls which is a collection of such stories. Most Tarot students and readers in Tarot Professionals take the historical approach which is based on evidence. Barbara has done her research for this book and briefly covers the connections (or lack of connections) of Tarot to areas such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Kabbalah and Gypsies.
A majority of books and decks today are based on the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck and Barbara has used the Universal Waite deck in her book too – so it is nice from that angle that she has gone through two other decks as well.
Content
Getting onto handling Tarot cards, Barbara talks you through the basics of Tarot card readings and there is a chapter on spreads. In this theme, simple rituals are covered and can be anything as simple as basically cutting and dealing the cards in a considered manner.
How about the questions asked of Tarot readers? This is a good thing to think about as you have to phrase the question correctly. Barbara points out various aspects of phrasing questions.
[box type=”info”]Some of My Suggested Tarot Questions
What are some possible outcomes of this situation?
What can one do to change a situation?
What can be learned from a particular experience?
How will the person being read feel today, next month or a year from now?
Where can the person being read feel comfort?
What challenges can be expected by following a specific course of action?
Where is one’s career headed?
How can one prepare for a certain outcome?
What could surprise the person being read?
Will there be a significant other for the person being read, within the next year?
What are the prospects for the new business venture?[/box]
Barbara provides a review of the structure of the cards for beginners, pointing out that there are 78 cards made up as follows; 22 Major Arcana, 4 sets of the following forming the Minor Arcana, Cups associated with Water; Wands associated with Fire; Swords associated with Air and Pentacles or Coins associated with Earth. In each suit, Ace and then the numbered cards 2 – 10 and then Court cards King, Queen, Knight and Page.
Barbara explains that the 1 to 10 pip cards often represent things that can happen in daily life. She focuses on the Court Cards as their roles in a traditional way rather than the personalities and / or jobs. The Major Arcana, Barbara explains, represent major events in our lives.
What about journaling? Barbara gives us some great ideas for different types of journals and how to use our journals. Barbara’s discussion of free writing (page 27) is an exercise I am consciously going to try tonight. Tarot reading to me is about great story telling and it is one thing I would strongly encourage.  When doing readings, it’s great to be able to connect the cards in such a way that they seem to flow into each other as if you are telling a story. The one thing I do is to talk to myself a lot – and I also have a tiny voice recorder that can fit into my bag. I can record things and play them back and can try to improve myself continuously to be the best Tarot story-telling Tarot reader I can be.
Illustrations & Teaching
Now to the best part of the book in my opinion, the section on the Tarot cards themselves! Barbara uses the following three decks to illustrate each card and gives insight into each deck as well as notes on the actual cards:
1)Â Â Â Â Â Shadowscapes (Stephanie Pui-Mun Law)
2)Â Â Â Â Â Legacy of the Divine Tarot (Ciro Marchetti)
3)Â Â Â Â Â The Universal Waite Tarot (the 1909 deck, the one here is a close copy, redrawn and recoloured by Mary Hanson-Roberts)
Barbara has given brief notes on each card alongside the three decks so as to help your intuitive development. She has not gone into too much detail as she doesn’t want to put people off with long essays. The best way to use this book is to relax, take it easy and don’t push yourself.
Barbara on Reversals
Reading This Book
Have fun and start off by either turning randomly to a page and work with that card or do the same with a deck – pull a card out and find the information in this book. Try to learn key words for each card and keep a journal for these notes. You can do it one card a day or try to recognize cards in your daily life. Life experience is a good thing!
The thing that can be slightly off putting but a good thing at the same time is the choice to use three decks instead of one but for beginners even though it can seem a bit odd, I think this can also open your eyes to the choice and availability out there. We can spend a fortune on Tarot decks and books if we wanted to! So this is like “see before you buy†of three very good decks for beginners.
Conclusion
I found this book easy to read and understand. I have sometimes had to put it down and come back to it but it is easy to stop and start. There are bite-size sections you can read through and I found the illustrations very appealing to the eye. Having one of these decks, I know what the colouring is like, so would have appreciated the same colouring in the book rather than black and white but it is still very appealing. It almost adds more to it and gives another way to see things.
I even had a brain wave whilst writing this review and I don’t know why I didn’t make the connection earlier but all of a sudden I realized that Rachel Pollack in her book, Tarot Wisdom, also illustrates each card with the use of multiple cards of the same card from different decks, for example, for The Star card (pg. 202 – first edition, 2008), Rachel uses Visconti, Marseille, Rider, Golden Dawn Ritual, Egyptian and her own creation – the Shining Tribe.
The difference between these two books is that Rachel does go into a lot more detail and for beginners, I would definitely recommend Barbara’s book before moving onto Tarot Wisdom by Rachel Pollack as Rachel offers a more spiritual and deeper teaching which I do think is extremely interesting and worth moving towards.
[box type=”info”]Publisher: Llewellyn. Trade Paperback, ISBN 9780738719559 English, 360 pages, 5 x 8 IN November 2010[/box]
[tabs slidertype=”top tabs”][tabcontainer] [tabtext]Where To Buy & Explore[/tabtext] [tabtext]If you Liked This …[/tabtext] [tabtext]Further Thought[/tabtext] [/tabcontainer] [tabcontent] [tab]
To buy this book, please go to Tarot for Beginners: A Practical Guide to Reading the Cards
To explore Barbara’s Tarot reading site, click Practical Tarot Reading.
For Llewellyn Books, visit their main website Llewellyn Worldwide.
[/tab] [tab]If you liked this, you may also like:
Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Book of Tarot
The Tarot Revealed & Mastering the Tarot by Eden Gray (which is an amalgamation of gypsy fortune telling and secret society practises).
Tarot for Yourself by Mary K. Greer (How to read the cards for personal insight and psychological insight).[/tab] [tab]It is interesting to consider how psychology and Tarot come together, for example, in considering the 16 types of roles taken by the Court Cards. These can be seen as the personality types first posited by Jung and later used in the Myers-Briggs personality profile. Marcus Katz has also utilised NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) in his Tarot book, Tarosophy.[/tab] [/tabcontent] [/tabs]
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]http://www.tarotbookclub.com/thumbs/Nadine.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Nadine Roberts is a Tarot reader, student and collector living in the North-West of England. She regularly attends Tarot conferences and is a Tarosophy Diploma holder presently engaged in the first cohort of the Tarosophy Tarot Degree-style program. She is Manager of the Tarosophy Tarot Book Club and works in a mobility centre, offering professional information, services, equipment and advice to individuals who have a medical condition or are recovering from an accident or injury affecting their mobility.[/author_info] [/author]
Autumn Reading
Posted by: The Tarosophist on: November 4, 2010
Hello All
What are you reading for Autumn? I have some way heavy material including Revelations of Chance by Rodney Main, on “synchronicity as spiritual experience” and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s PsychoMagic, “the transformative power of shamanic psychotherapy”.
The Tarosophist
Tarot Professionals
Posted by: The Tarosophist on: November 4, 2010
Hello All
Welcome to the Tarot Book Club and watch this space for excellent Tarot buzz in the following days, weeks and beyond! Do also check out the following sites for the best in Tarot worldwide, social networking for Tarot and Oracular Divination …
http://www.tarotprofessionals.com: Restoring the Spiritual Dignity of Tarot
http://www.tarosophy.com (Book pub. December 1st 2010): Tarot to Engage Life, Not Escape it.
http://www.tarot-town.com: Where the Spirit of Tarot Welcomes You!
Tarot Book Club Video
Posted by: The Tarosophist on: November 4, 2010
See our Tarot Book Club Video.
Book of Ordinary Oracles
Posted by: The Tarosophist on: November 4, 2010
We are delighted for our second Book of the Season to be recommending Lon Milo Duquette’s Book of Ordinary Oracles.
And even better … Tarot Book Club members get a 40% discount on this wonderful book!
Use Coupon Code BOTP (valid until 1/1/11) at Weiser Books and we’ll see you in discussion and practice of the wonderful exercises in this book here on Tarot Book Club.
And who knows, maybe Lon Milo Duquette himself will be about during the discussion to engage the extraordinary in the ordinary!
From the publisher:
Consulting oracles used to be difficult and dangerous. You had to make a pilgrimage plagued with hardship, trudging through the desert to a holy place or person. Or kill a calf to read its liver or a bird to read its entrails. Or study for years to read ink dropped in water. Who has the time? Traditional methods just aren’t convenient today. What’s a divine wonderer to do? Funny you should ask.
The Book of Ordinary Oracles, Lon Milo DuQuette shows us how to use items lying around the house–from pocket change to chopsticks–to divine answer to everyday questions. He also tells us how to ask the right question and interpret the answer. The tools he provides will make consulting oracles as easy as reaching into your pocket or cupboard. Can one use channel surfing as an oracle? You bet! DuQuette’s anecdotes illustrate various divination techniques. Laugh your way to wisdom while learning new ways to look at the I Ching and how to read tarot cards for yourself.
Tarot for Beginners
Posted by: The Tarosophist on: November 4, 2010
Our Book of the Winter Season is Tarot for Beginners by Barbara Moore.
From the Llewellyn website: This all-new edition of the popular Tarot for Beginners makes it simpler and more enjoyable than ever to learn how to read and interpret tarot cards. Award-winning tarot expert Barbara Moore clearly explains every aspect of the tarot so you can perform readings with ease and confidence.
Discover the core divinatory meanings of all seventy-eight cards, clearly broken down by Major and Minor Arcana, suit, and number. A variety of spreads and sample readings will help you develop essential skills and ultimately create your own unique style.
Buy the book here and join us in the Tarot Book Club during November – January 2011 for discussion, author insight and much more!
Take your Tarot to whole new levels with your Tarot Book Club!