tarot books for the raw beginner - info please!

[tarotbear]

What book(s) would you recommend for someone who is totally unfamiliar with Tarot cards? Why? Did someone recommend this book to you, did it fall off the shelf at the bookstore, or was it a gift? Why do you feel a beginner would benefit from reading this book?

[Talisman]

tarotbear,

(Great idea! Good for you. And I hope some hard working soul cleans the FAQs of extraneous stuff like this.)

I'm sure these book suggestions are obvious, so maybe this will help to get them out of the way first.

ONE: The first book I'd recommend if you had just one is Mary K. Greer's "Tarot For Yourself." Easy enough for a beginner, as profound as you want to make it, and she touches most all bases -- including all the questions tarotbear is seeking for his FAQs.

TWO: Rachel Pollack's "Seventy-eight Degrees of Wisdom." Intelligent, insightful commentary on tarot, including origins, symbolism, historical, mythological and esoteric backgrounds, and how to read.

THREE: A good book written for your most special deck(s). This may be problematic.

And, I hope we can add tarotbear's book to this list soon.

Talisman

[Logiatrix]

i have divided my book preferences in two categories: those books you will outgrow, and those books that are "keepers."
sooo...
these are good, but you will outgrow them:
"the idiot's guide to tarot and fortunetelling"--find it at your fave used bookstore, give it at least a cursory perusal, and you will be introduced to tarot. it serves it's purpose.
"tarot basics"--that's exactly what it is.
"easy tarot guide"--also VERY basic, but RWS in color, which is nice.
these are each fine introductions to tarot as far as card meanings and all those FAQ's! i found them for myself at used book sales.
"keepers":
basically ditto on "tarot for yourself" and "78 degrees of wisdom." i'm also partial to anything by hajo banzhaf, and angeles arrien's "tarot handbook." these all must rate pretty well with other tarot enthusiasts in my area, 'cuz i've rarely seen any of them used...i had to pay full-price for each of my "keepers."
:)

[maria42airam]

My suggestion as a first book is Joan Bunning's "Learning the Tarot." It's a lesson based book, uses the Rider-Waite deck, and there is a web-page class that can be used with it. You can even download the class to your PC to speed up loading images.

Excellent!

Maria

[Apollonia]

My all-time favorite, and the one I still reach for several times a week, is "Tarot Plain and Simple" by Anthony Louis. It's written from a personal, real-world viewpoint that I found incredibly helpful, especially at the beginning when I sometimes just wanted to know, bottom line, what the card meant. I also like it because it's organized the way I first learned Tarot, with all the Aces grouped together, etc.

Good luck in finding a few books that really speak to you and your developing style!

[tmgrl2]

For raw beginners, (that's me, too):

I found/find: Mary Greer - TarotforYourself
Rachel Pollack's Complete Illustrated Guide to Tarot
Joan Bunning: Learning the Tarot

Silvie Simon: (Out of Print but available used at Amazon.com ) The Tarot: Art, Mysticism and Divination (Use full title to do the search)

I have at least 50 books now in my library, but I still use the four I mentioned. Mary Greer does some fun activities with cards that get one to use them in a variety of ways. Joan Bunning's book is available online:

http://www.learntarot.com/

Also, I would recommend going to the Home Page Here at Aeclectic and reading the articles for beginners. They are all excellent, well worth downloading to read and reread.

Also Thirteen's notes on all of the cards are available here also.

The 78-week Study here at AT takes each card and people add on to the discussion. I have been slow to add on, but hope to work my way through the thread.

Search here also for any aspect or card or deck and you will find pertinent threads.

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/learn/

terri

[Thordia]

I think I agree with all of the above really! Of the ones I have worked with I found 'Tarot for Yourself' is a wonderful book to start getting to know and work with the cards, 'Learn the Tarot' is a great self-study course and 'Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom' will give you much insight into the cards... and it is definitely worth getting a book for your deck too.

Another book I would recommend which is good for beginners is Terry Donaldson's 'Step-by-Step' Tarot :)

[Emily]

If you are learning Rider Waite symbolism I would recommend '78 Degrees of Wisdom' too - I've only just started reading this book and its fascinating. I wish I'd read it sooner. It does really go indepth with each card. I would recommend it for a beginner. :)

[The 78th Fool]

The Beginner's Guide to the Tarot by Juliet Sharman Burke

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/sharman-caselli/

It's a complete self contained Tarot course for the beginner which even includes a superb deck based on the Rider Waite system. The whole package retails for slightly less than a standard US Games deck. This really is not to be missed.

I saw this in my local bookshop and was struck by the wonderful quality of the artwork. This course is largely responsible for me becoming a fluent reader and It's one I still return to even though I'm not a beginner any more.

Chris. xx

[hyatt]

i think that "learning tarot" workbook is just a fabulous tool for a beginner. it is a GREAT book!!!!! It is fun and easy to use. a wonderful book. Then move on to Rachel Pollack's "Seventy-eight Degrees of Wisdom." Truly, this is THE book. This book is great for a beginner or advanced student. Everytime you read it gets better and you understand another layer. Those are two excellent choices!!!!

[JeNNi]

Okay this is a great thread! I need a good beginners book. Now....only to decide out of all of the ones listed lol If I only had the money I would swipe up all of these books, but unfortunately as of now, I am on a limited budget, and I think that I will probably go with Rachael Pollock's The Complete Illustrated Guide to Tarot to start out with. I see it for a good price on ebay so me happy :P

Hopefully this will help me out. Anymore book suggestions?

[CreativeFire]

hi JeNNi

Rachel Pollack's "The Complete Illustrated Guide to Tarot" is definitely a good choice as it covers a number of different decks and their symbology etc, as well as spreads, readings in general.

Also if you are on a budget at the moment, as tmgrl suggested the online resources of Thirteen's Basics here on AT are excellent as is Joan Bunning's online "Learn the Tarot".

My personal favourite (and excellent value for money), is the one that 78thFool mentioned - "The Beginner's Guide to Tarot" by Juliet Sharman-Burke as you get a very good beginners book AND a lovely deck for the price that you would normally pay for a deck or book. I actually bought this set many years after I started with Tarot as I really connected with the deck itself - and it remains one of my few favourite reading decks. Also whenever any of my friends express an interest in getting into tarot this is what I suggest that they buy. ;)

Good luck

CreativeFire

[JeNNi]

Id love all of the books! I love books period. Now its the decks that are getting me!

Okay...decisions decisions hehe I might drop by the bookstore today and see if I find them, and then go from there on what I pick out first.

Thanks again! :)

[Yemanja]

Joan Bunnings "Learning Tarot" was a Godsend for me. It lays everything out with great clarity and speaks stright to the heart about using, learning and understanding the tarot. Also, the card meanings listed are wonderful for the beginner.

Also, this book is available on-line, which helped me a great deal in learning to use the cards since I just downloaded the course.

I havent read that many other books, but I would love to, especially the ones I keep hearing about e.g. 78 degrees, Mary K Greer etc.

[Semiramis]

I completely agree with the book choices already posted, they are great. In addition I also liked the "Easy Tarot Guide" by Marcia Masino. Gives very detailed explanations of the cards and has good info for beginners.

[etal]

I'd like to add my vote to those that 78thFool and CreativeFire have already cast for Juliet Sharman-Burke's Beginner's Guide to Tarot, whose back cover reaches out and wraps around a deck of cards illustrated by Giovanni Caselli—there's a thread somewhere devoted to the curiousness of the packaging, which requires that you cut off a kind of "hanging chad" from the back of the book after you've liberated the deck, but be reassured: A few snips of the scissors and all ends well (unlike some other incidents with hanging chads).

What I like most about the book is S-B's approach to teaching the Tarot: She starts off with the Minors, and when you've finished studying a bit about each card in one suit, let's say, Cups, she has you practice a 5-card Horseshoe with all the Cups alone (much to my amazement, I got a remarkably accurate reading when I tried this!). Then, when you've done the same thing with each of the four suits separately, she has you use all the Minors (and only the Minors) in a reading (dealing with "everyday matters") with the Celtic Cross spread. Similarly, when you're finished learning something about all the Majors, you do a 7-card, Majors-only Star spread, and finally you try out the first spread you learned, the 5-card Horseshoe, but this time you're using all the cards in the deck.

The cards are freely adapted from the RWS standard and read like a dream. I thought at first that they might be a bit too comic-booky for my own taste (the set was a gift), and perhaps I was right, but I'm just ignoring the frantically blinking signals my aesthetic judgment is sending forth and instead responding to the cards' clarity, their honesty—and sometimes their humor: Take a look at the Knight of Swords!

And on the plus side for newbies like me, Caselli relates all the cards of the same suit to one another with his use of color and symbol. So, for example, all the Pentacles feature the colors of the earth, while Cups are a watery blue and lush mauve, Wands all dry yellow and fiery red, Swords a steel grey. And depending on what suit you're in, you're bound to find a mouse, rabbit, salamander, butterfly or fish poking about and sending signals about the card's meaning.

This is the most accessible Tarot book+card set I know of (and how I wish I had known of it long ago!). For those newbies who might look at other beginner books and feel overwhelmed at the prospect of (apparently) having to swallow a cookbook-sized volume of meanings for 78 (apparently) inscrutable cards all in one mental gulp, S-B nicely breaks down the process into very manageable—even delectable—portions in one small book, and throws in a beautiful, honest deck to sweeten the deal.

A beginner really can't go wrong with this one.

etal

[Rusty Neon]

Some useful on-line Resources for card meanings for a beginner to tarot decks based on the Rider-Waite deck:
Waite's A Pictorial Key to the Tarot
http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/pkt/
For the minor arcana meanings

Golden Dawn's manuscript, Book T
http://www.the-equinox.org/vol1/no8/eqi08016.html
- For the minor arcana meanings and title keywords
- Useful because the Rider-Waite deck is a Golden Dawn inspired tarot deck.

Etteilla's card meanings for the minor arcana
http://www.villarevak.org/td/td_1.htm
- Oftentimes, 18th century Etteilla card meanings make their way into the RW card meanings.

Dr. Art Rosengarten's Complete Tarot Lexicon (in 3 parts)
- 'Traditional' card meanings and modern psychologically-insightful card meanings

Numerical Minor Arcana cards: http://www.artrosengarten.com/lexicon1.htm

Court cards: http://www.artrosengarten.com/lexicon2.htm

Major Arcana: http://www.artrosengarten.com/lexicon3.htm

[lunakasha]

Originally posted by CreativeFire
My personal favourite (and excellent value for money), is the one that 78thFool mentioned - "The Beginner's Guide to Tarot" by Juliet Sharman-Burke as you get a very good beginners book AND a lovely deck for the price that you would normally pay for a deck or book. I actually bought this set many years after I started with Tarot as I really connected with the deck itself - and it remains one of my few favourite reading decks. Also whenever any of my friends express an interest in getting into tarot this is what I suggest that they buy. ;)

I have quite a few books (and decks :eek: ) already, but I recently discovered this deck/set online, and fell right in love with it...a very lovely RW style deck....still on my wishlist!!!

Best of luck to you JeNNi....it is overwhelming, there are so many books out there...I think Pollack's Illustrated Guide is excellent to start out with.

:) Luna

[SongDeva]

Originally posted by JeNNi
Hopefully this will help me out. Anymore book suggestions?

Only that I got this book for about $2 on half.com. Hold out for a good price! It's a nice one.

[Cocobird55]

Barnes and Noble University is online and frequently offers a free tarot course based on Bunning's book. I have taken it a few times. I think it is a good way to work through the book, comparing notes with other people, participating in discussions, etc.

The Sharman-Burke is another favorite of mine for learning.

Sue

[The 78th Fool]

I've just found out today that Juliet Sharman Burke has published a follow up to the Beginner's Guide to the Tarot - I think it's called the Tarot Workbook or something similar.

Apparently, it aims to build on the original course and go deeper into studying the Sharman Casselli Deck. It is very similar to the Mythic Tarot Workbook in format.

I can't wait to get my hands on this one!

Chris. xx

[freshyoyo]

I have searched the two books that the second post mentioned and I am interested in them.
But I can not buy them in the internet and I can not find a bookshop in China.

If you have any suggestion for me , many thanks for you to tell me by private message. Thanks a lot.:)

[se7enseas]

Ok my turn now, Im a beginner & I think I need a textbook based book, because I prefer point-forms, not chunks of paragraphs. As likely I will have this book beside me when i do my reading & make reference to it, at least at this beginning stage.

I have already got 'Mastering the Tarot' by Eden gray after reading some beginners' book recommendations threads here. The book is easy to understand & it gives the most portion to the Minor & Major cards interpretations.

Now I think I need one that is, practically guided & proportionally sectioned-to give a reasonable portion also to:

*Do's & Dont's of tarot;
*How to acquaint or link with my tarot;
*How to care for my tarot cards;
*How to ask questions or read cards;
*Cards Handling - cutting / shuffling tech (with diagrams);
*Various card spreads for different question-type (with diagrams)

I know the book by Joan Bunnings kinda fits but the text is also available online right?

The Dummy's or Idiot's guides also seems to be good choices, but I dont really like the way the titles sound, remember I want to feel right with my tarot - especially with it beside me eh?

Thanks!

[MarkMcElroy]

You can take a peek at Joan Bunning's book, which is one of my personal favorites, right here:

http://www.learntarot.com.

I'd also humbly ask you to consider the brand-new Absolute Beginner's Guide to Tarot. Right up front: I'm the author. Even so, based on what you've described, I think the ABG to Tarot can really help you, as it has all the features you've asked for ... and more!

Related posts about the book -- a description of it, plus a podcast of the first chapter -- are available here on Aeclectic:

Description
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=57345

Podcast
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=57964

I'll be posting the full text of several chapters to the web over the next few days. I hope you'll find the info useful! :)

[KaiMoonshadow]

I really liked "Tarot for A New Generation" by Janina Renee... It was recommended by a friend and I found it quite helpful in understanding different aspects of the cards :)

I have also used the Learn Tarot (www.learntarot.com) website, although recently, it seems to be broken :( does anyone know why?

[bleuivy]

Woa. Lots of people apparently really like Learning the Tarot. I understand it's a great book, and that it works for many people, but I completely didn't connect with it, and even considered giving up on tarot cards when I was a beginner based upon how little I was getting out of them when I was working with the book. It was too cut and dried for me, too utilitarian, too something. I'm not bashing it, understand. I understand it works for just about everybody.

I'm severely dyslexic, and Joan Bunnings approach just didn't work for me. Maybe because of the way I learn, I needed an approach that allowed me to get a more intuitive understanding of the cards while at the same time allowing me to look up the intention behind the symbolism. The combination of books that worked for me ended up being:

The Complete Tarot Reader, which focusses on working with the cards to come up with your own meanings of the cards.

78 Degrees of Wisdom, which was good for when I wanted to know what the intention behind certain symbolism was.

The book that went with the deck I was working with at the moment, which, as Talisman said, might be problematic for some people.

And, because I'm a historian, and really like knowing where something has been to know where it's going, I really didn't feel like I'd started understanding tarot until I'd read a book on tarot history.

But then, I understand I learn very differently from most people...

[Kilted Kat]

My first book was Tarot: A New Handbook for the Apprentice, by Eileen Connolly [ISBN 0-87877-045-3]. I would recommend it to anyone. In fact, I found a copy and bought it for my partner to study by.
:grin:

K:spade:K

[Sulis]

I really don't like 'Learning the Tarot' by Joan Bunning - I never recommend it to beginners - why? Because it doesn't give you a system, it gives you a load of keywords for each card that you're meant to just learn...
There is no mention of how Joan got to these keywords, no numerology and suit, no reading the picture, just a lot of words to learn parrot fashion.

In my opinion you need to know HOW to read, you need to know HOW to find your own meanings for the cards, not just learn Joans..

I always recommend Teresa Michelsen's 'Complete Tarot Reader' - you won't find any keywords in this book, no card meanings just really easy to follow information on HOW to read..
Excellent book.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0738704342/026-0089548-4678059?v=glance&n=266239

[The 78th Fool]

In my opinion you need to know HOW to read, you need to know HOW to find your own meanings for the cards, not just learn Joans..

I really agree with this. One of the main reasons why I got so much from Juliet Sharman Burke's Beginner's Guide to the Tarot was because the book contained repros of all the cards in the accompanying deck. Each illustration was diagramattically labelled, identifying each individual element of the image and discussing its symbolic significance. This taught me to develop a new awareness of the imagery on any given deck, viewing it first as a whole and then to identify the individual details, looking at their traditional symbolism but also what they symbolised to me. I would recommend any book therefore that teaches you to develop your own awareness of tarot symbology rather than just relying solely on formulas or keywords.

Chris. xx

[RubyV]

I'm not really a fan of Bunning's book or site. It's dry, and not very user friendly.

I really liked "the complete tarot reader", and am getting a copy of Greer's new book.

I prefer books that encourage the reader to develop their own associations and definitions, and not depend on the book.