*Must have Tarot books

I've got The Book of Thoth, and I've tried to read it numerous times. I think the furthest I've gotten was the 2nd page of the first chapter, and then I would realise I've been reading the same line over and over and over for the past ten minutes and not comprehending a single word.

PlatinumDove said:

I've got The Book of Thoth, and I've tried to read it numerous times. I think the furthest I've gotten was the 2nd page of the first chapter, and then I would realise I've been reading the same line over and over and over for the past ten minutes and not comprehending a single word.

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I understand how that can be. For a devotee of Crowley it is easy to forget how difficult - incomprehensible - it all was at the beginning.

I would start with his court card descriptions; they are not hard to read, don't allude to umpteen obscure Crowley books, and really show Crowley's incredible genius as an observer of human nature. I have found lines in those descriptions prophetic again and again.

They also don't stray far from traditional meanings, so you're not getting a lot of Thelemic dogma.

After the courts, then the minor arcana (pips) - there is a system, and the system is the clearest I've seen (It's the "Naples Arrangement" at the beginning of the book. It really works). The pips are also easier to read and understand than then Atu.

Ross G Caldwell said:

Interesting nobody has mentioned "The Book of Thoth" by Aleister Crowley!

For occult interpretations of tarot, it is - to me - the best. Definitely a "must-have"!

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I agree...for some reason, I took it out of my list. I'm a recovering anti-Crowley (that is, I've decided to forget the man and concentrate on the work. Having had some initial intense experience with the Thoth deck & book early in my discovery of tarot, I developed a huge aversion to them after I read about the man. Firemaiden coaxed me back to the deck & the book - with her usual humane humour).

I suppose I kept it out because I see it as "the book of the deck" - although it goes beyond that, I realise. Some of it is really mind-blowing, some of it, a bit silly -but never mundane! And if you take it all with a pinch of salt...

Ross G Caldwell said:

I would start with his court card descriptions; they are not hard to read, don't allude to umpteen obscure Crowley books, and really show Crowley's incredible genius as an observer of human nature. I have found lines in those descriptions prophetic again and again.

They also don't stray far from traditional meanings, so you're not getting a lot of Thelemic dogma.

After the courts, then the minor arcana (pips) - there is a system, and the system is the clearest I've seen (It's the "Naples Arrangement" at the beginning of the book. It really works). The pips are also easier to read and understand than then Atu.

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Good advice Ross. Diving straight into the card descriptions is the best way for the complete novice to tackle The Book of Thoth. After that just a basic grasp of qabalah and a little bit of background knowledge about Thelema will be enough for most people to tackle the rest of the book with confidence. And that includes the first part that seems to put most people off.

Many great books have been mentioned in this thread so I will not repeat them.

For those of you that like to do exercises and use tarot for various purposes I would recommend the entire Special Topics in Tarot series of books from Llewellyn. I have really enjoyed reading and working with these books.

Other good books I haven't seen mentioned include:
Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot by Lon DuQuette
The Tarot : History, Symbolism, and Divination by Robert Place
and Sandra Thompson's Pictures from the Heart

My must have books are as follows:

78 Degrees of wisdom - Racel Pollack
It's all in the cards: traot made easy - Tarotbear
Understanding the tarot court - Mary Greer
tarot tells the tale - Can't remember the author
Tarot Symbolism - Robert O'Neill

The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Waite has to be at the top of my list although it took me years before I could read it thoroughly (and understand it).
BTW, we're discussing his chapter on "The Doctrine Behind the Veil" - sentence by sentence - over in the History section, under Rider-Waite-Smith. Please join us.

I would also include:
Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung (and others)
The Tarot: A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages (should be re-read every year)
Mastering the Tarot by Eden Gray (for anyone who is picking up the RWS deck for the first time & wants to read right away).
The Tarot Plain and Simple by Anthony Louis is essentially a compilation of meanings from other books (unfortunately unacknowledged) but it's a handy reference if you just want RWS meanings.

TarotL History Information Sheet
Plus all the great history books already mentioned.
A Renaissance Tarot by Brian Williams
The Greek Myths by Robert Graves and/or Cassell's Dictionary of Classical Mythology and definitely the Peguin Dictionary of Symbols (supercedes Cirlot). Hans Biedermann's Dictionary of Symbolism is also worthwhile, (along with Thomson's Pictures from the Heart).

I second most of the other learning and interpretation books already mentioned. Did anyone list Joan Bunning's Learning the Tarot?

For the Thoth deck:
The Tarot Handbook by Angeles Arrien AND The Book of Thoth by Aleister Crowley (I know, I know . . . they seem contradictory, but reading both will free up your experience of the Thoth deck to help make it your own).

Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot by DuQuette and The Crowley Tarot by Akron and Banzhaf are very helpful in understanding Crowley but you still have to have the original.

An Introduction to the Golden Dawn Tarot by Robert Wang (a source of the GD teaching manuscript known as "Book T")

The Inner Guide Meditation by Edwin Steinbrecher

Tarot of the Magicians by Oswald Wirth

The Greater Trumps by Charles Williams (fiction)

Mary

It's wonderful to see Mary's list of books. Thanks so much.

General Tarot -

Mary Greer's Tarot Mirrors, Tarot Constellations and Tarot for Yourself (my very first readable book about tarot)

RWS -

Book T
Pictorial Key to the Tarot
Dion Fortune's Mystical Qabala
Lon Duquette's Chicken Qabala (the section on tarot is superb)

Thoth -

Book of Thoth
Lon Duquette's Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot
Arrien Angeles' The Tarot Handbook

And I'm waiting for Mary's Women of the Golden Dawn. For background on the various personalities who developed the modern occult I highly recommend Alex Owen's Place of Enchantment.

Just finished reading Robert Place's Tarot, History, Symbolism and Divination. What a fascinating read. It's a bit light-on with the Waite-Smith, but nonetheless, I can't recommend it highly enough, particularly for those who are just beginning their history/symbolism quest. I would have found it even more helpful if I had read it prior to O'Neill, Decker and Dummett, and Huson. Gives a good simple introduction to each of the areas he covers.

Mind you, I still think that Plato was a pompous ass - but there ya go! - doesn't mean that I have thrown out the Platonic baby with the bath-water. And, it is so good to see an author who actually acknowledges that virtually nothing that Pythagoras wrote has survived, and that what we 'believe' was written by Pythagoras was either the work of his followers, or the Neo-Pythagoreans.

This is indeed an excellent book and delightfully priced, particularly if you grab it second-hand as I did.

mythos