What book(s) are you currently reading?

weaver

For the past few weeks, I have been immersed in listening (and re-listening) to the audio-book "The Process". It is completely revolutionizing how I relate to, and work with the cards.
 

Asher

bodhran said:
Tarot for Life: Reading the Cards for Everyday Guidance and Growth
Amazon recently shipped this, so I'm hoping to be reading it this evening.
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My copy of this book just arrived today. I was pleased to meet the author at the Readers Studio. It looks very thorough; unfortunately, I won't be able to read it tonight, since I'm off to the theatre!

Asher
 

Le Fanu

Im reading The Origins of the Occult Tarot, Decker &c. taking it in bite-sized pieces as there is a lot of info to take in!

I have also been dipping into a great book of true ghost stories and reading the Alchemical tarot book...

Lots on the go!
 

BodhiSeed

I have a feeling this thread is not going to be good for my pocketbook...:D
 

tigerlily

bodhran said:
I have a feeling this thread is not going to be good for my pocketbook...:D
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MWAHAHAHA })

I started the first chapter where the author uses maps as a metaphor of how we structure our view of reality. He writes that our perspective changed with the beginning of the renaissance, which is made visible in the paintings: First he describes a medieval painting of a saint -
Time and Space are unified in such a painting, for the saint may be portrayed as being at several different points in his or her life and in physically different locations. Yet all these different elements in time and space are woven into a single tapestry. When color is used, for example, it is not intended to be purely realistic but has a symbolic quality, as have the various objects in the painting.(...) Within the painting, each form is authentic in itself and exists in its own space.
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Then he contrasts it with the "new perspective":
Perspective is an invention of human reason whereby space is portrayed from a single viewpoint. In a sense, perspective makes a painting more "realistic". But it also (...) distorts the forms and structures of objects in order to fit them into this dominant vision. (...) it is (...) a denial of the essential indwelling of each object in favor of a single-minded, obsessive vision.
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I've never looked at perspective from this angle (no pun intended). I remember how we were taught to draw realistically in school and how much more natural it was to slip into the "wrong" perspective (draw a cup's rim as a circle, not an ellipse, and so on). Now I wonder if children draw in this "primitive" mode because it is the primal human way to see the world?

And I'll have a look at those Visconti and Marseilles decks. The Marseilles especially always turned me off for its crudeness and weird (or lacking) perspective. Perhaps I'll see it with new eyes... The Visconti at least came into existence at the juncture of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, so perhaps it does encode ancient wisdom, just not of the kind Etteilla thought...
 

MistressNatasha

Oh!

Well I'm skimming quite a few books but I decided to sit down and actually read (absorbing every word) of P. Scott Hollander's Tarot for Beginners. I've had it since I first started but have mostly skimmed pages. And after this book is done, I'll read the other 6 or 7 books I have. :D
 

rosebud_a320

Ooooo what a great thread, I love my books.
I have so many on the go but right now I have been reading:

*Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov - The Power of Thought
*Doctor from Lhasa by T. Lobsang Rampa, I read and loved the first book, The Third Eye and so could not resist this follow up when I saw it at the library!
*Victorian Flower Oracle Companian Book, I have never really bothered with Oracles, this one I am liking:)
 
Vision Quest Tarot Companion Book... Only German? Animal totem books