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An acquaintance is interested in learning tarot. Since I practice only a non-standard variety---some would say "aberrant"---what do y'all think is a reliable guide to learning? Most online tarot sites are pretty cringeworthy, a whey and water noncocktail of New Age platitude and The Gospel According to My Little Pony and Friends. What is a nuts and bolts, serious book you have used to learn tarot? I was thinking Crowley's Book of Thoth might suit.
L.M. DuQuette has a book Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot that might be more understandable than the Book of Thoth for a beginner. Also the Thoth deck might be hard for a beginner, a Rider-Waite type deck might be easier. I started with A Complete Guide to the Tarot by Eden Gray in 1980. lol Any book is going to reflect the author's biases but you have to start somewhere. There might be some good books available here on WF.
I am not sure if electronic copy is available somewhere. This book is not just about divination though, it describes very deep sybolism of Tarot Arcanas and their possible occult implementations.
I also heard that book "Tarot of the Magicians" by Oswald Wirth was considered to be good, but I didn't read it myself so it is not my personal recommendation.
Rachel Pollack's 78 Degrees of Wisdom is a classic general guide to the tarot - and is much more accessible to beginners than Crowley.
There is a copy HERE.
Jan Woudhuysen's Tarotmania is a classic with a more creative/free-form approach to tarot. I've never seen a good quality scan of it though - so you may need to get a dead-tree edition.
Eileen Connolly's Tarot: A New Handbook for the Apprentice, and it's 2 sequels, are a classic set of training manuals. They are somewhat long-winded & dry for my liking, but I do know a lot of people who rate them very highly.
I didn't have time to search the site earlier, but The Qabalistic Tarot by Robert Wang is available from this site. It's one of my favorite books on the Tarot. It has a picture of the Crowley-Thoth, the Rider-Waite, the Golden Dawn, and the Marseilles(an older medieval type deck) decks of each card as it discusses them and as the title says, it looks at them from a Qabalistic perspective. Not actually a beginner's book, but good for intermediate to advanced.
Rachel Pollack's 78 Degrees of Wisdom is a classic general guide to the tarot - and is much more accessible to beginners than Crowley.
There is a copy HERE.
Jan Woudhuysen's Tarotmania is a classic with a more creative/free-form approach to tarot. I've never seen a good quality scan of it though - so you may need to get a dead-tree edition.
Eileen Connolly's Tarot: A New Handbook for the Apprentice, and it's 2 sequels, are a classic set of training manuals. They are somewhat long-winded & dry for my liking, but I do know a lot of people who rate them very highly.
Pollack's might best fit the bill here. Accessible is the thing desired most at the moment. Something to introduce the guy to the tarot, and not me tilting at my windmills.
Book of Thoth is one of the best out there but not beginner friendly. Paul Foster Case’s books are also excellent. One of the best chapters I ever read on the Tarot was in Lon Duquette’s book the Chicken Qabbalah. His book understanding Thoth Tarot is beginner friendly but is also pretty hard going for someone new. Robert Wang’s is also excellent. I find the best way to learn is to just start reading and practicing, using basic keywords to start, then progress into elemental dignities and how they relate to other cards, then astrological qualities and how they relate to the position on the tree of life and just build from there.
It all depends on what exactly a person wants from tarot. I downloaded the Mantegna tarocchi images from the Internet, slightly adjusted them graphically, and printed them at a local photocopy shop. I was pleased with how they handled the whole thing. Since I didn't have any relevant book on the given deck, I thoroughly researched every single concept presented in this unique tarot. These are universal things, and I learned a lot during that research. The thing works just as well in divination as any other tarot. I entered into this whole process with the intention of being outside of any influence of famous tarot authors and their understanding of the subject. I have built a completely independent system of meanings of the Mantegna tarocchi arcana solely thanks to my own efforts. In this sense, my recommendation to everyone is not to read anything about tarot at all, but to determine the meaning of each card for themselves. So, I suggest that a person obtain any traditional tarot deck and study it thoroughly, without relying on established opinions. Leave the reading for later.
and separate the major arcana from the minor arcana. Then, using the deck of just the major arcana, draw one card a day for about a month, either at the start or end of the day. This is to get first-hand experience with the tarot, by comparing the card you draw with the energy of the day. I've gotten feedback from this advice, and it's worked well for everyone who has tried it, which is why it's my first piece of advice. The same can be done with the minor arcana too, though it will take longer than a month and may test the patience.
More general advice follows:
Joe Monteleone has a good guide for the Thoth tarot, last I knew it was available as a free email from his website. I always recommend people start with the Rider-Waite because it's the basic symbolism other decks base themselves off of. Learn Rider-Waite and you can read with any deck IMO.
I recommend neophytes carry a deck of playing cards and get into the habit of offering readings to strangers. Playing cards cover the minor arcana and casual readings provide experience. And that way you don't dirty up your "real" deck, because we know most beginners don't want to muss up their tools by using them (it also trains the instinct of not overvaluing a specific tool, once you've done a few good readings with playing cards, you realize it isn't the deck that gives you the power to read).
I found studying Pythagorean numerology helped me memorize the minor arcana, Joe Monteleone's guide touches on the numerology of the cards if I recall correctly.
Biddytarot and labyrinthos are two online reference tools I'd recommend, they're like a Little White Book online.
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Addendum: I reread the OP and noticed you specifically asked for books. The only paper books I've read on tarot were the LWBs with my decks, but I did read The Essential Lenormand by Rana George and feel it helped me improve in all my divination, tarot inclusive. I mention it only in the interest of completeness, Lenormand is not tarot. That said, cross-disciplinary study has always helped my development, so I'll throw in a suggestion here to consider studying Lenormand to get a sense for how it's different from tarot (Lenormand is more literal, it was after casting a few Grand Tableus that I recognized how symbolic tarot is by comparison).
and separate the major arcana from the minor arcana. Then, using the deck of just the major arcana, draw one card a day for about a month, either at the start or end of the day. This is to get first-hand experience with the tarot, by comparing the card you draw with the energy of the day. I've gotten feedback from this advice, and it's worked well for everyone who has tried it, which is why it's my first piece of advice. The same can be done with the minor arcana too, though it will take longer than a month and may test the patience.
More general advice follows:
Joe Monteleone has a good guide for the Thoth tarot, last I knew it was available as a free email from his website. I always recommend people start with the Rider-Waite because it's the basic symbolism other decks base themselves off of. Learn Rider-Waite and you can read with any deck IMO.
I recommend neophytes carry a deck of playing cards and get into the habit of offering readings to strangers. Playing cards cover the minor arcana and casual readings provide experience. And that way you don't dirty up your "real" deck, because we know most beginners don't want to muss up their tools by using them (it also trains the instinct of not overvaluing a specific tool, once you've done a few good readings with playing cards, you realize it isn't the deck that gives you the power to read).
I found studying Pythagorean numerology helped me memorize the minor arcana, Joe Monteleone's guide touches on the numerology of the cards if I recall correctly.
Biddytarot and labyrinthos are two online reference tools I'd recommend, they're like a Little White Book online.
Post automatically merged:
Addendum: I reread the OP and noticed you specifically asked for books. The only paper books I've read on tarot were the LWBs with my decks, but I did read The Essential Lenormand by Rana George and feel it helped me improve in all my divination, tarot inclusive. I mention it only in the interest of completeness, Lenormand is not tarot. That said, cross-disciplinary study has always helped my development, so I'll throw in a suggestion here to consider studying Lenormand to get a sense for how it's different from tarot (Lenormand is more literal, it was after casting a few Grand Tableus that I recognized how symbolic tarot is by comparison).
Any material with basic explanations because once you finish that and practice, the information comes in a natural stream as an evolving process.
Tarot is a story, is a tool is a concept.
Enthusiasts should learn the archetypes from the tarot and at some point, after they are used with the energy flow it is enough to drop a couple of cards on the table and they'll be able to see, tell, understand the story behind, the influences, the aspects, all they need to know.
One suggestion tho.... avoid doing divination with financial gain in mind like readings for money because it will influence the logical and analytical mind to bypass the intuition channel and fall into corrupted information, distorted information and the "client" will receive the information they want to hear, rather than the true knowledge or useful messages for them.
And this can't be found in books or any materials, tiktok, reals, or whatever...
The idea of tarot reading is to know ourselves better, to understand our own predispositions to specific energies and influences, to understand how we are predispose to react in various situations under specific circumstances.
"At the court it is an innocent game of cards for the fool, a tool to complot for the crowns and a tell of wisdom for self-discovery for the hermit"
Wanted to add to this...I will caveat that each author has their own approach, as with anything, and (personally) I take from it what serves me without feeling that I have to agree or like everything. Anyways, as with anything, pinch of salt and all that jazz. Also, not sure if you want books for Marseille or RWS (and off shoots), so giving a mixed bag of suggestions.
These books (no particular order) have helped me develop:
Jodorowsky & Marianne Costa, The Way of Tarot - Has some interesting exercises. It has some mention of colour, numerology, focuses on Marseille and brings some interesting suggestions on how to develop a relationship with the cards. It does, however, primarily relate to his and Camoin's deck, so just keep that in mind.
Hajo Banzhaf, The Tarot Handbook - Clearly laid out, decent guide (focuses on RWS). Has I Ching parallel and mythological image entry for each card. I've yet to find translations of earlier books on tarot he wrote, but good news is that if you speak Romanian you'll be able to read them!
For a hefty book to hold and a great place to start if you only want one book:
Benebell Wen's Holistic Tarot - she's thorough. She's good at getting the reader to think about the connections between the cards. She also has a YouTube channel with videos that could be helpful to a beginner.
Also, like others have suggested, Pollack's 78 Degrees, Paul Foster Case, Duquette's Chicken Qabbalah highly recommended. Thoth too, but maybe less so for someone very new to Tarot?
For Marseilles I have several more to recommend, but in Spanish or French...so unsure if that's useful? Here are a few:
Marta Ramírez - Tarot Marsellés
Francisco Caudet Yarza - El Poder del Tarot
Michele Chatellier - Le Tarot de Marseille
Hope this is helpful. Wishing your acquaintance all the best in their tarot journey and self-discovery.
Waite's Pictorial Guide to the Tarot is simple and concise. It's the original book for the standard RWS tarot, and I find it has different shades of meaning for some cards than a lot of the more 'new-agey' contemporary tarot books.
Divination is what we're talking about. There are many different divination ways even in tarot. Found my own way which is just to draw 4 cards of the directions and elements which seems to be a good way of getting information. Of course you can do your own logic while drawing the cards but different things work for different solutions. Sorry haven't delved into Tarot so much so can't help you here friend. But perhaps what others have told in this thread will help you on your way. Go with the blessings of Spirit.
