Opinions wanted! The Tarot~Mouni Sadhu

[minrice]

I just bought this book at the local metaphysical shop....holy cow its like a textbook. Heavy with teeny print! I haven't come across anything quite like it, it's still in print but most Tarot books are how to read the cards, spreads, etc. This one actually intimidates me! But I spent $35 on it and now it's like I have to read it.

Anyone read this book or is reading it? Any thoughts?

 

[Silver Crow]

I have had this book for years and like you, was totally intimidated by it, so on the shelf it sits. It would be nice to hear from someone who's tackled it. Maybe I should find it and give it a go with you.

 

[Scion]

Highly idiosyncratic and unabashedly skewed towards Sadhu's own teaching and beliefs. It IS a textbook, but it's a textbook for a school that doesn't have many students nowadays. Many interesting ideas, but very much "of a time" and hodge-podgy in that modernist "because I say so" way. Kind of like Franz Bardon in it's sweeping bombastic ecelecticism, but much less practical than Bardon. Sadhu is sort of an evolution of Tarot that didn't survive... a weak mutation of the tradition.

Also, not very helpful if you're using a Golden Dawn Tarot. BUt interesting, more as a study of what you can connect to the Tarot if you read a lot and want to start a school of your own that as any great revelation of the mysteries. I will say that you have to be in the right mood to get anythign out of it. There's a lot of blather and pontificating... and reliance on research that is now outdated and vaguely hokey.

 

[Silver Crow]

Thanks Scion. I had a feeling that's what I would be facing if I tackled it with any sort of zeal, but I will give it a go when I have nothing pressing some evening. I appreciate your insight. I do tend to like those kinds of books though, every once in a while there's something profound in between all the "fluff".

 

[Thenameis]

If I may...I want to share my experience with this author.
I had the chance to read his book. It was the only tarot book (with the one of Oscar Wirth) I found at the university. An old and tattered book...It almost felt like I had stumbled upon an ancien manuscript of some sort. Really weird feeling.
I went through it and it did inspire me a lot. If I am correct, he also wrote a book about concentration and meditation and from what I read he is a very serious master, very heavy. The book on tarot really did give me something. I read it intuitively. The one on meditation...he was so serious in his introduction that he made me quit.
Thanks
Thenameis

 

[minrice]

Thank you for the input everyone. You can definitely tell this is one of those texts you have to slog your way through. I just finished the introduction and it is interesting reading.

Thank you for your thoughts Scion and Thenameis, I feel like I can and should continue on. It won't hurt my knowledge and I do love to read just for the sake of it (most things anyway). I don't use a Golden Dawn tarot, though I do find the GD names of the cards and associations helpful at times which an entirely new conversation...thanks for mentioning Bardon Scion, I will check him out.

I like books like this too Silver Crow! I picked this one up because it was beyond the usual fluffy Tarot books in the bookstore. Fun to have but boring after awhile and they all start to look the same and I can't even remember how one differs from the other.

 

[mac22]

This one of the books that earned a place on my tarot reference shelf...by the time you've reached the Mouni Sadhu level of Tarot reference works tou ARE into serious learning about the tarot IMHO.... YMMV.

mac22