Maria Tarot
Hi,
Is there any RWS book you would recommend?
Thank you all
Is there any RWS book you would recommend?
Thank you all
Books about the specific history of the deck, or about divination methods specific to the deck, or ... ? Many or most intro books about tarot use this deck, from what I've seen. What's your particular interest?
For once I agree 100% with Abrac. Some of Waite's books are available for free (or inexpensively) online as ebooks. There are those who claim that Waite is too hard to read, but the insight gained thereby is proportional to the time and effort put into it.......To get a better understanding of the symbolism, I'd forget about everything that's already been written and start reading Waite......
It depends on what you're looking for. If you want something that's easy to digest and understand there are innumerable commentaries out there. The only problem is virtually all of them are shallow and miss the mark most of the time.
To get a better understanding of the symbolism, I'd forget about everything that's already been written and start reading Waite. It's a slower path but the rewards are more satisfying. A good place to start imo, is A.E. Waite, Magician of Many Parts by R.A. Gilbert. It's not by Waite, but it's loaded with quotes from his autobiography. If you have trouble finding Waite's books, or they're too expensive, try a library. The interlibrary loan can sometimes be very fruitful.
For once I agree 100% with Abrac. Some of Waite's books are available for free (or inexpensively) online as ebooks. There are those who claim that Waite is too hard to read, but the insight gained thereby is proportional to the time and effort put into it.
Don't waste your money on books that claim to tell you all you ever wanted to know about the Waite deck. Such hype is designed to sucker the instant gratification crowd.
If it's the reasoning behind the divinatory meanings you're after, I can offer a couple of ideas.
In Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot, in the first part before he gets to the card descriptions, he shares quite a bit about his philosophy of divinatory meanings.
He wasn't big on using the majors for divination. He saw them more as meditative tools, or for pathworking (on the Tree of Life). In his book there aren't any divinatory meanings given for the majors.
Regarding the minors, from what he says in the PKT, he has drawn on many different sources and distilled them into the most common meanings. He mentions in one place that part of it has to do with the card number and its suit.
"So also the smaller cards, which—until now—have never been issued pictorially in these our modem days, depend on the particular meaning attaching to their numbers in connexion with the particular suit."
I suspect he's also drawn on the Golden Dawn's Book-T.pdf document, but this seems hit and miss.
**EDIT** I just noticed there are some divinatory meanings for the majors toward the end of the book, but it's clear from Waite's quote at the end how he feels about them.
"It will be seen that, except where there is an irresistible suggestion conveyed by the surface meaning, that which is extracted from the Trumps Major by the divinatory art is at once artificial and arbitrary, as it seems to me, in the highest degree. But of one order are the mysteries of light and of another are those of fantasy. The allocation of a fortune-telling aspect to these cards is the story of a prolonged impertinence."