Suggestions Please! ~ Prison Book ~

Greetings all you helpful readers!

I need some help. I have a ministry placing books in prisons. Prisoners can't have tarot cards. But if I give the correct tarot book, the book itself can be used for a reading, for instance by opening it to 10 separate pages, one could manage a celtic cross reading.

So what's needed is a desert island type of tarot book~ a great book with illustrations and text. Any suggestions?

~willow~

I would recommend Hederman's Tarot: Talisman or taboo? (isbn 1-85607-902-3), which is a book I have mentioned before, but otherwise ralatively rarely have the opportunity of recommending.

Ideal for the situation, as far as I'm concerned, though not for bibliomancy generally, and not to generate a 'celtic cross' spread.

I am wondering.....Why can't they have tarot cards? Arn't they allowed playing cards? Maybe get a cartromancy book?
As for a tarot specific book, Tarot for Beginners by P. Scott Hollander. I can see how it might be good to 'flip through' for a draw.

Just curious, but why can't prisoners have tarot cards?

greetings ~willow~

There's an everyday sort of book, quite inexpensive,
that has a redundancy of illustrations in it:

How to Read the Tarot by Sylvia Abraham

A person could have a ball just coloring it,
or cut it up and make a deck, with spares.
And to be honest, it's a grand sort of read!

and... thanks jmd

from: Dufour Editions

Tarot
Talisman or Taboo? Reading the World as Symbol
Mark Patrick Hederman

A Christian reading of Tarot cards. For many, it has been very important to try to get in touch with the unconscious, the untapped source in ourselves. This is where the springs of our creativity are hidden, and where God can enter our lives. This new book suggests that there are ways to engage this area through Tarot cards. The Tarot cards are like a “user’s guide” to the unconscious, an easy way to subvert the rational and allow the energies beneath to creep up. If you learn to shuffle and to deal the twenty-two major cards of this ancient museum of the unconscious, it will help you learn to familiarize yourself with a symbolic way of thinking. This book provides an introduction to the Tarot, a history of its uses and abuses, and a practical guide to its value as an underground map. It also provides a meditation on each one of the twenty-two major arcana that can help the reader to undertake his or her own spiritual journey. The important books in life are not the ones that we read; they are the ones that read us. That is the way the Tarot should be read. Mark Patrick Hederman is a philosopher and Benedictine monk of Glenstal Abbey. A founding editor of the cultural journal, The Crane Bag, he is also the author of The Haunted Inkwell and Kissing the Dark. A Currach Press Book.

October 2003, 22 color illustrations,
5½ x 8½, 224 pages (Currach Press )
ISBN 1-85607-902-3
Paperback

Eden Grey's books on the RWS deck. they are cheap, easy to find, and easy to read. they probably can adapt playing cards to work with it too.

Eden Gray

Ace said:

Eden Grey's books on the RWS deck. they are cheap, easy to find, and easy to read. they probably can adapt playing cards to work with it too.

Click to expand...

I'm totally with you here ~ Eden Gray is like the Godmother of Tarot.
Thanks to magpie9 (and some wheeling-dealing) I now have all 3 books!
But for the pictures only ideas, I'd say check the edition for muddy pics.
What an odd question this is really though. Prison is all too uninspirational.

jmd: Thank you. In forum searches I've noticed your thoughtful and generous posts. I am considering buying your recommend. Are only the Majors depicted? and is it more appropriate for the Christian reader? Thank you for the word bibliomancy. Exactly.

Lunafey and Mesara: Why aren't tarot cards allowed in prison? The short answer is: for the same reason a prisoner cannot have chocolate truffles.

The sacred answer is, as the creator of the Tarot for Recovering Pagan Fanatics reminds us: A 19th century occultist said a prisoner alone in a prison cell with nothing but a pack of Tarot cards could acquire all world knowledge.

The answer according to current law is: security. Goodman vs. Snyder et al held "that the restriction on tarot cards was justified because "some decks contain symbols similar to those used by gangs or other security threat groups." " Runes are also considered contraband. Goodman is an Illinois inmate whose case claims that the use of tarot is vital to his religious practice. How interesting.

Apparently there are some state or jail systems that allow limited use of tarot although I believe they are few as I haven't found them yet. The cards may only be available under supervision such as during clergy visits, and must meet criteria such as no nudity (Stick Figure Tarot anyone?)

Of course, just reading the tarot cards in your own home in some areas of the US can land you in the pokey, where one would be further protected from the evil cards. http://www.religioustolerance.org/divi_law.htm

Fulgour: Heh. Thank you for your last comment. I didn't mean to bring you down, just challenge you a bit. It made me think though. Most of us have been prisoners of our own construct. Breaking out is work. Have you seen the Prison card in the Psycards Deck? And then the Liberation card? If I made my own deck from personal experience, those states would be expressed in my deck.

Fulgour and Ace: Thanks for the inexpensive recommends! Given that the pics (most important in this case) may be cut out (and used as security risks one reckons) and then must be replaced, they are great suggestions F, I like your phrase a redundancy of illustrations.

You books forum folks are a generous bunch

~willow stuffwise~
~book dowser~
~somewhere out there trying to keep you all out of jail~

Recommendations so far:

Tarot: Talisman or Taboo? Hederman
Tarot for Beginners Hollander
How to Read the Tarot Abraham
Eden Grey's books on the RWS deck

Mark Hederman's Tarot: Talisman or Taboo? only, from memory, implies the pips and courts, but neither discusses them nor illustrates them - the book is illustrated with a 1980 copyrighted mark of the Grimaud Marseilles Atouts (Major Arcana), as well as the Wheel from the Visconti-Sforza and a painting by Walshe.

It has been just over a year since I have read it, and found it, on the whole, quite a good and solid book.

The historical section contains some mis-information, and even 'minor' (from my perspective) statements about the Decker, DePaulis and Dummett book are not accurate - but overall a good and useful book.

If I was only allowed a small book, I would certainly consider this one as a major possibility.

Mark also quotes and refers to the anonymous author of Meditations on the Tarot.

Between his spiritual and psychological care, his decent historical overview (nearly) up to date, his usage and representation of a solid Marseilles deck, and his general style of presentation, one of the better books on my shelf... and I have quite a reasonable shelf, or in fact shelves

But I of course also have certain preferences, which may not be others'.