gregory
Set ? You have the deck too ? That makes a difference maybe ? But fair enough - i am NOT into numerology as such.Silver Crow said:
Best Tarot Books
Silver Crow
I have the set but don't use the deck that much unless someone picks it as the one they want the reading with, it's just not my style, but my son loves it which is why I bought him a set of his own. I do think you have to be into the numbers so to speak to get on well with it though.
The book is actually online for free:
http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/PT/
I like having a hard copy of books though - you never know when the internet will go out for good.
The book is actually online for free:
http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/PT/
I like having a hard copy of books though - you never know when the internet will go out for good.
sapienza
I have a personal opinion on this issue. It may not be all that popular.greatdane said:
Because the RWS deck (and it's clones and inspired decks) has been the most common choice for quite a long period of time, most of the books written refer to this deck by default. The technique of reading the cards by going with what one 'sees' in the images, and developing ones own personal meanings is a relatively modern approach. Traditionally cards had set meanings and that was that, particularly when using older style decks without fully illustrated minors (ie Tarot de Marseilles). Anyway, a lot of the books written have taken the RWS imagery and pulled it to pieces, analysing every little detail (I think of Rachel Pollack here) and building up a complex system of meaning that may or may not be what the creator of the deck had in mind. What I find really interesting is how few people who work with the RWS deck have actually read Waite's 'Pictorial Key to the Tarot'.
I agree with Freddie here, the style is a little dry. But ultimately THIS IS THE COMPANION BOOK FOR THE DECK. If you want to know what the author and creator of the deck was intending then this is the book to find that out. ALL other books that talk about card meanings are simply the authors own personal interpretation of the images. Many authors state their opinions as fact rather than explaining where they are coming from.Freddie said:
Please don't misunderstand me. It is important to develop your own personal meanings. But I believe that the most valuable books to read are the ones that explain the tradition and the systems behind the meanings of the cards. When you have a good solid foundation then your own personal meanings are much richer than if they are built on the 'opinions' of other authors.
Scion
And building on that, Sapienza.... Anyone who's reading a Waite-Smith or WS-derived deck and thinks they AREN'T influenced by the creator's intention is playing a weird form of denial Olympics.
Looking at artwork that is comprised of symbols involves readign those symbols, and thereby the artists' intentions, howveer indirectly. Intuition is not looking at a picture and making sense of it. Even if a reader's "personal" meanings are derived, they are derived through review of someone else's symbols. And since the Waite-Smith and all its clones are directly sourced from the minds behind the Pictorial Key and Liber T (however obliquely), anyone using those decks is using those texts. Ignoring that is a choice, but an odd one... and hard to defend intelligently in my opinion.
The odd trend of 80s and 90s so-called "personal" meanings is a trend that reflected the self-help zeitgeist of those decades: quick metaphysical fixes and satori in two hours! It often seems to me more of a workaround for people who have an aversion to primary sources. No one HAS to read Waite's writing or Crowley's or Mathers to read decks that draw on their work, but that doesn't mean those Tarot readers aren't studying the Golden Dawn when they use decks based on the Golden Dawn's Liber T. Studying and meditating and obessively cataloguing the contents of those decks is a way of tracing the underlying system... Put another way: you CAN study Liber T decks and learn a lot about the Liber T indirectly, but that is what's happening when you study the images. As I'll point out until the clouds turn into bricks and fall form the sky, calling that process "intuitive reading" is a misuse both of the words "intuition" and "reading."
That isn't to say that people don't find personal meanings. Hell, the Golden Dawn insisted that their members create and color their own decks for exactly that raeson... to build a deck in their minds that could never be damaged or destroyed. I think that's the center of any esoteric discipline. Every reader finds their own "deck" their own "meanings" their own "voice." Each of us must find our own path of approach. And the zeitgeist has shifted some from the "make-it-up," "whatever you feel like" Tarot-in-20-seconds approach of the 1980s.
Again, this is only my own opinion (nb I HATE typing that redundant qualification, but I know if I don't, people will get indignant) . No one has to study anything any particular way. But in the interest of declaring terms for clarity, I'll say it flat out: Studying a Golden Dawn deck is equivalent to studying the Golden Dawn's view of the world, of divination, of magick. They were a magickal order. They reinvented Tarot as an explicitly and implicitly magickal object. Avoiding the sources of that reinvention and doing it at N degrees of remove seems (to me! to me!) a little like learning the features of a sculpted face under layered veils... Possible, but perverse.
As Sapienza said, I think adding to your understanding by considering other author's, other reader's, understandings of Tarot has been completely essential to my own path. We stand on shoulders of those who have come before. That is why we aren't squatting in the mud banging rocks together to cook dinner.
Looking at artwork that is comprised of symbols involves readign those symbols, and thereby the artists' intentions, howveer indirectly. Intuition is not looking at a picture and making sense of it. Even if a reader's "personal" meanings are derived, they are derived through review of someone else's symbols. And since the Waite-Smith and all its clones are directly sourced from the minds behind the Pictorial Key and Liber T (however obliquely), anyone using those decks is using those texts. Ignoring that is a choice, but an odd one... and hard to defend intelligently in my opinion.
The odd trend of 80s and 90s so-called "personal" meanings is a trend that reflected the self-help zeitgeist of those decades: quick metaphysical fixes and satori in two hours! It often seems to me more of a workaround for people who have an aversion to primary sources. No one HAS to read Waite's writing or Crowley's or Mathers to read decks that draw on their work, but that doesn't mean those Tarot readers aren't studying the Golden Dawn when they use decks based on the Golden Dawn's Liber T. Studying and meditating and obessively cataloguing the contents of those decks is a way of tracing the underlying system... Put another way: you CAN study Liber T decks and learn a lot about the Liber T indirectly, but that is what's happening when you study the images. As I'll point out until the clouds turn into bricks and fall form the sky, calling that process "intuitive reading" is a misuse both of the words "intuition" and "reading."
That isn't to say that people don't find personal meanings. Hell, the Golden Dawn insisted that their members create and color their own decks for exactly that raeson... to build a deck in their minds that could never be damaged or destroyed. I think that's the center of any esoteric discipline. Every reader finds their own "deck" their own "meanings" their own "voice." Each of us must find our own path of approach. And the zeitgeist has shifted some from the "make-it-up," "whatever you feel like" Tarot-in-20-seconds approach of the 1980s.
Again, this is only my own opinion (nb I HATE typing that redundant qualification, but I know if I don't, people will get indignant) . No one has to study anything any particular way. But in the interest of declaring terms for clarity, I'll say it flat out: Studying a Golden Dawn deck is equivalent to studying the Golden Dawn's view of the world, of divination, of magick. They were a magickal order. They reinvented Tarot as an explicitly and implicitly magickal object. Avoiding the sources of that reinvention and doing it at N degrees of remove seems (to me! to me!) a little like learning the features of a sculpted face under layered veils... Possible, but perverse.
As Sapienza said, I think adding to your understanding by considering other author's, other reader's, understandings of Tarot has been completely essential to my own path. We stand on shoulders of those who have come before. That is why we aren't squatting in the mud banging rocks together to cook dinner.
Scion
Eek. 
I fear I sounded too scoldy above and killed the discussion...
I fear I sounded too scoldy above and killed the discussion...Nina*
Nah... you just made so much sense there's nothing more to add really.Scion said:Eek.
sapienza
I think I might have to take some of the responsibility for killing it off as well, given my last post. For what it's worth Scion, I appreciated what you had to say.
Interesting that the Pythagorean book came up here. I'm sure it came up in another thread just recently too, or maybe I'm getting mixed up.
Interesting that the Pythagorean book came up here. I'm sure it came up in another thread just recently too, or maybe I'm getting mixed up.
daphne
sapienza said:
No, you are right.
I am interested in it and I asked you about your impressions in the thread opened specially for this book.sapienza
Ah, that's right. I couldn't remember which thread it was.
