Book: The Ultimate Guide to the Rider Waite Tarot by Fiebig & Burger

Eeviee

I was browsing upon Llewellyn's website when I happened to come upon this title: The Ultimate Guide to the Rider Waite Tarot by Johannes Fiebig & Evelin Burger
http://www.llewellyn.com/product.php?ean=9780738735795

It is said to be released in April of 2013.

The Summary reads:
Originally published in Germany, The Ultimate Guide to the Rider Waite Tarot provides a wealth of meanings for each card of the world’s most popular tarot deck. Discover the primary meaning, spiritual meaning, daily meaning, prognosis, relationship meaning, and luck meaning of each card. Authors Johannes Fiebig and Evelin Bürger also provide the ten most important symbols of each card in vibrant four-color illustrations throughout the book. In addition to an overview of the major and minor arcanas and insight into tarot’s relationship with astrology, several quick top-ten lists are provided, including: best tarot definitions, most important facts about tarot, favorite ways of using a single card, most useful tips for interpretation, most important rules for interpretation, and most important interpretations of each suit.

As this is a multi-country forum, I was hoping to hear of anyone who has read a copy of this book in it's original translation.

Thoughts? Opinions? Info?
 

Richard

It may be a good book, but many books are based on the Rider-Waite. So far, the ultimate may be A. E. Waite's The Pictorial Key to the Tarot. Unfortunately it is (unavoidably) flawed, but a little research can flesh out its omissions. Another well-known Tarot author has been working on a book concerning the deck and its history, and if it is ever published, it should be the "ultimate."
 

Eeviee

It may be a good book, but many books are based on the Rider-Waite. So far, the ultimate may be A. E. Waite's The Pictorial Key to the Tarot. Unfortunately it is (unavoidably) flawed, but a little research can flesh out its omissions. Another well-known Tarot author has been working on a book concerning the deck and its history, and if it is ever published, it should be the "ultimate."

The Pictorial Key is pretty short and obviously barren. The fact that Waite kept his vows of secrecy leaves much to be desired in his companion book. It lacks much in the areas of symbolism, correspondences, and Qabalah. I hardly find it the "ultimate" due to the need to refer to many outside sources to piece much of this important information together.

Which author and title are you referencing?
 

bogiesan

The Pictorial Key is pretty short and obviously barren.
Which author and title are you referencing?

I'm Guessing that LR is not in an ethical position to say more. Adds to the intrigue.

Re the OP, my crap detector goes off whenever I see "Rider-Waite" in reference to the seminal deck. After 100 years, of course, the usage has accreted into tradition.

I prefer the declarative "Waite-Smith," a monicker that reflects the creative effort of the work more than the (perhaps not insigificant) financial risk of the publisher. Maybe that's too romantic, though, when one considers (the sparse) evidence describing any relationship between Smith and Waite. Maybe the relationship between Waite and Rider was, in fact, much more important in getting the deck printed and distributed and, ultimately, sold, which is what Rider cared about most. Diving into that topic would make interesting reading, I should think, perhaps revealing fundamentatl motives Waite had for starting the project and seeing it through to shipping his deck. ONe hundred years ago, what was the potential market for a rectifed tarot deck? Someone had to look at potential sales and compare that figure against the cost, hassle and time for creation and printing.
 

Freddie

Hi All,


This one looks good for the collection. Anyone care to comment on it...anything new in it?



Thanks,


Freddie
 

Richard

.....This one looks good for the collection. Anyone care to comment on it...anything new in it?.....
It might be good for a collection. I doubt that it contains any earth shaking revelations. Who can afford to buy every "Ultimate Guide" that graces the book stalls?
 

Freddie

I was just looking for a book that goes deeper into the symbolism of each card of the Rider-Waite deck.


Freddie
 

rwcarter

Randomly opening my copy of the book to the 3C, it lists the following as the 10 most important symbols of the card:

  • the figure's position or poses
  • the figure's position or poses II
  • the pose of the depicted figures (methinks they had to reach to find 10 most important symbols for the card as these three could've been combined into one....)
  • fruits/harvest
  • raising the cups I
  • raising the cups II (ditto re position/poses)
  • on tiptoe
  • the dance
  • red, beige, white
  • the light blue sky
Some of the symbols have both positive and negative interpretations associated with them like peer pressure for the dance. (Which I hadn't ever thought of, but can see as an interpretation.)


One thing I do like is that they obscure the rest of the image in a thumbnail to focus on the particular symbol they're discussing. One the facing page they show a bigger picture with the various symbols called out and then also give a basic meaning and meanings as spiritual experience, card of the day, prognosis/tendency, love and relationships, and success and happiness.


Whether or not you'll find that useful, only you can say.

Rodney
 

cbiz83

Danger will robinson! Danger!

Ok, so some of the investigation of symbolism inspired me to buy this book. Now I'm waay on the fence. Some of it is just plain wacky. I'll be the first to say that Tarot involves a careful negotiation of intuition and many possible meanings. Also, that symbols are arbitrary (they are never universal, they're relative. They exist in reference to things, yes, but it depends entirely on who is receiving them as well). But this book... it just takes things to places that are troublesome.

The authors like to throw around random literary references. I mean, ok. Whatever. I have a doctorate in literature, that's cool. But who the heck really cares if you can reference Wagner's Ring Cycle or Faust's bargain. I do that for a living and I still don't care. It's super heavy on a phenomenon I like to call "let Christianity explain everything!". Sure, there's a lot in the RWS system that lends itself to that. And...there's a lot that doesn't.

But then, we get passages that just take the cake and then my BS meter goes through the roof:

Regarding the curtain in Justice: "In the spectrum of colors, violet lies closest to invisible radiation." WUT?

Regarding the Sphinx: "The cube represents the 'karma' of the space-time which we occupy in this life."

I think I might have thrown up a little in my mouth. I recognize that I've provided an entirely biased opinion and am no where near objectivity. This book is bound to be useful for someone, and that's fine. But it sets off so many poop meters for me, as a tarot reader, as a professional scholar, and as writer. It's sloppy and slapdash and at times uncomfortable feedbag of random associations.

Hard pass. Maybe kindle will give me my 9 bucks back.
 

rwcarter

Ok, so some of the investigation of symbolism inspired me to buy this book. Now I'm waay on the fence. Some of it is just plain wacky. (snip) This book is bound to be useful for someone, and that's fine. But it sets off so many poop meters for me, as a tarot reader, as a professional scholar, and as writer. It's sloppy and slapdash and at times uncomfortable feedbag of random associations.
My general rule of thumb with the written word (even my own!) is to keep what resonates and discard what doesn't. Just because it's written (in a book or on the web) doesn't mean that one needs to take it as gospel.

I have the book and haven't read it. But even if one feels the interpretations of the symbols are rubbish, the book might be useful for pointing out symbols that one might not have thought of otherwise, like the dance in the 3C that I mentioned earlier.

Rodney