A great tarot book for deep thinking times

[Andalucia]

I found a really great book this weekend by chance in Borders 'The complete new tarot' by Onno and Rob Docters van Leeuwen ;it is a Dutch book translated into English.

It is chock full of really thoughtful descriptions of the cards and will take an age to get through - really thought provoking.It is based on the Rider-waite style images with some modifications, and it does propose restoring the 'missing' two cards in the major arcana -'intuition' and 'truth'. However, this does not mean you cannot use the book's content with the 78 card decks most of us probably use.I have found it has displaced my copy of '78 degrees of wisdom' when I need a deep tarot read.

Try to buy it if you don't have it, it's wonderful and full of pics and charts and diagrams too.I was thrilled by some of the ideas presented in the book.

 

[rwcarter]

I have that book. It's the companion book, as it were, to Tarot in de Herstelde Orde, their Restored Tarot deck. I haven't spent anywhere near as much time with it as I should (either the book or the deck as I think about it), but I did find the Chain layout for studying/remembering the Majors to be very informative.

Rodney

 

[avalonian]

I have that book too and have just got the deck to go with it, mostly because I think that is one of the best illustrations of the ten of swords that I've ever seen. I'll probably refer to the book more now that I have the deck, but there is so much information in it that I'm feeling a bit befuddled!

 

[Elnor]

Thanks for the info, I've added this to my Amazon wish list.
It's been ages since I've bought a Tarot book, and this one looks good, (any excuse to buy a book!)

elnor

 

[tinkerbell]

a great Tarot book......

I'm intrigued by this book so I have put it on my wishlist over at Amazon. I'm wondering where I would be able to get the deck to go with it.....can anybody help me out?
Tink x

 

[tinkerbell]

a great tarot book....

Doh!
Have just found the cards and a deck review here and followed the links to Tarot garden.
I really like this deck but would rather have an English version. I don't think that's likely to happen though is it?
Never mind- I will still get the book- it really does look a fascinating read!
Tink x

 

[rwcarter]

I have that book. It's the companion book, as it were, to Tarot in de Herstelde Orde, their Restored Tarot deck. I haven't spent anywhere near as much time with it as I should (either the book or the deck as I think about it), but I did find the Chain layout for studying/remembering the Majors to be very informative.

Well, having been laid up in bed sick for the last few days, I've had time to read this book, and I almost wish that I hadn't....

As I'm reading along, I realize that no sources are cited for the claims that are made in the book. That made me look in the back of the book for a bibliography, and there is none. So supposition is stated as fact.

And there are a number of coincidences with the numbers 24 and 80/81. These coincidences are taken as proof of the authors' claims.

Reading Chapter 2, "The 24 Major Arcana of the Tarot as the Path of Life," I note that there's a whole lot of biblical references, yet the authors chide the Church for the obfuscation of Juno and Jupiter from the tarot.

The Principle Arcana (the 12 pairs of Major Arcana) is an interesting concept that I'll have to pursue with the deck to see if it actually makes sense to me.

I'm used to the hierarchy of the Minor suits as being Earth, Air, Water and Fire, but they have them as Earth, Fire, Water and Air. That's worth exploring. As a result of their hierarchy, Kings are Air and Knights are Fire. Again, that's different from what I'm used to, but it's worth exploring.

I'm not sure how I feel about their correlation of the Royal Arcana with the Major Arcana. But since that is the basis for their 80 card tarot mandala and their 20 sets of 4 card quartets, both of which are interesting ideas, I'll have to explore all of them in more depth.

That whole history of the tarot section seriously suffers from lack of sources for many of the things they claim, especially pre Court de Gebelin.

I had already read about The Chain and done some study on that.

They lost me with the whole Knights of the Round Table correlated with the 24 Major Arcana thing.

I wish they had spoken more about the 24 Moon phases and how they correlate to the 24 Major Arcana.

Chapter 7, "Mathematical and Esoteric Structures in the Tarot" was a complete waste of my time because none of it interested me. And their 10 facts that support the authenticity of the restored Tarot seem self-serving at best. (See what I said above about coincidences as proof.)

Chapter 8, "Theory of Divination" was also a waste of my time.

I disagree with most of their prep for doing a reading, although some of their spreads were interesting. I found it interesting though that they kept talking about the importance of using reversed cards, but none of the reading examples they used had any reversals in them!

I still look forward to working with the deck, but going by my own rule of keep what resonates and discard what doesn't, I'll be discarding most of what's in this book.

Rodney

 

[rwcarter]

As I'm reading along, I realize that no sources are cited for the claims that are made in the book. That made me look in the back of the book for a bibliography, and there is none. So supposition is stated as fact.

Since I wrote this, I have procured a copy of the original Dutch version of the book. There is a Bibliography in the original, but for whatever reason, one wasn't included in the English translation.

Rodney