Marcus KatzRezensionen

This book fixates on 3 things: The Kabbalah, Aleister Crowley and his Thoth deck, and the order of the Golden Dawn. I found the studies on the Kabbalah very interesting but realize that is at least another book all on it's own. As for all the topics pretty much relating back to Aleister Crowley and the Golden Dawn, I understand that this is where we get modern Tarot and even the Rider Waite Smith tarot deck, however I think we are a little beyond that now and I would like to see more information on modern adaptations of what Aleister Crowley and the Golden Dawn began. Other than that small issue, I think it was a very good book with some great information and some really great exercises.

Quick impressions: Though it claims to be for both beginners and advanced readers, this book is more geared to the advanced high level reader. It has concepts that it could explain and develop better, but it feels like the authors assume readers will know those concepts so they do not bother expanding. Though they offer a structure, they also say you can study the cards in your own pace and order, so to be honest, the structure is not that essential either. May work better as a reference book.

I will have a full review on my blog later.

4.3 stars

I wish that this book was an actual master class in a university setting because there is A LOT of information here from authors that seem to have a plethora of knowledge to pull from. I was in awe of the amount of information in this book. I loved all the history that was included in this book and how each of these experts gave an analysis of the various texts terms associated with magic. It was very well done.

Again, I seriously wished that there was a class that I could take or someplace that I could meet these individuals in person and just pick their brains. Anything metaphysical always intrigues me because there is something fascinating in the unknown. Even with evidence and, sometimes lack of evidence, that it makes it intriguing of the "how" and "why" something is. There is power in discovering the things that are tangible and the things that cannot be explained. I think that if I was around these amazing experts that I might just become even more of a believer than I already am.

Katz and Goodwin deliver a lot of good, researched information in very accessible prose. The activities and (gated) spreads are engaging--I haven't completed all of them (some are specifically time-based and some I just felt like waiting to do). While I didn't agree with all of the ideas presented in this book, I was generally inspired to follow my own path; for instance, the reader is encouraged to design their own spreads, and this text helped me figure out a way to design spreads based on poetic forms.

This is an extremely interesting book, focusing on the inspirations of both AE Waite as the designer of the deck and Pamela Coleman Smith as the artist, especially given that they didn't seem to communicate much if at all about the process. Waite is working from a Golden Dawn/Catholic mystical/Kabbalistic perspective; Smith is an artist of the arts & crafts school who was heavily involved in theatre. She worked off of his direction (and apparently off of some Golden Dawn tarot materials) but Waite never cared much about the details of the art except in a couple of cases, so there's lots of interesting symbolism to dredge out of Smith's tastes and experiences.

There are three major components to this book: the histories and biographies of the creators, a detailed breakdown of each card (which is sometimes simply Waite's text from the Pictorial Key, and sometimes includes additional information), and some information on Waite's strategies for reading, supplemented by material that belonged to a secret order at the time he published but which is available now. I focused on the first two parts in this reading; I might go back to the third in the future, but I'm just not as kabbalistic as Waite and so those correspondences are less interesting to me.½

The objectives of this book of Tarot cards instruction are 1) to demystify the cards themselves, and 2) to provide a basic level of knowledge that will allow one to divine present and future circumstances more accurately and intuitively. Historically the Tarot cards, also, have had a primary purpose of spiritual/metaphysical self-development, which in this book is more or less simply suggested, rather than emphasized.

To accomplish their objectives, the authors of this book have gone to great lengths to make the entire learning process "fun" by introducing many, many spreads, and by imaginatively naming the Kabbalistic Tree of Life's ten groupings by such titles as Gate Two: "The Clockwork Museum" and Gate Eight: "The Pyramid Plaza." These are positive features and others include a straightforward description for each card along with a listing of the numerological, astrological, Kabbalistic and Sabian Symbol correspondences. However, no background information is provided, which would make the correspondences useful in Tarot readings.

Other positive features are the Keywords which are useful for verbiage to use in interpreting the cards for oneself or others. Also, there are very short summaries of every card with regard to Career/Financial, Health, Relationships, Travel & Lifestyle, Education and Self-Development questions that are commonly the topics of the inquiry. On a personal note, with yourself or an inquirer, suggestions for practicing the positive aspects of each card are given, such as the following for the 8 of Pentacles (Finding Yourself Working): "You are blocking this card today by 1. Performing an important task in a shoddy way" and "Connect to this card by working hard and concentrating on getting jobs off the list".

The attempt and the objectives are admirable, yet the undertaking appears to have been short-circuited somewhat (the 8 of Pentacles?). The absence of an index is the greatest drawback to studying with this book. Even though I kept a log/journal for each day, there were many times that I wanted to refresh my memory regarding something I had read previously, and found it very time-consuming to locate that information. Certainly an index that included all the spreads and particular exercises, as well as information on correspondences (even though limited), and listings of the "Wayside Lessons" would have been useful. Even referring back to specific Tarot cards, with page numbers, would have been extremely helpful. Now, that I am not working with this book on a daily basis, the idea of searching for any specific piece of information boggles the mind.

I am glad that I bought and studied with this book. After 20 years of not having worked with the Tarot deck, I was definitely in need of a reliable refresher, and this to some extent fit the bill. However, after a couple of weeks, I also was referring to some other Tarot Card books for more in-depth information on specific cards and also on the principles underlying the Tarot Card meanings themselves. I would recommend any and all of the following books as helpful to the "inquiring mind": "Tarot Handbook", "The Tarot Workbook: Understanding and Using Tarot Symbolism", and "Tarot of the Spirit".

Too much about NLP, too little about tarot

Simplifies the card meanings down to a couple words and phrases. Not very extensive

This book has a lot of interesting and useful information about the tarot, but a different organizational system would've worked better for me. The basic structure is straightforward: work with one tarot card a day for 78 days. For each card, the authors list a couple of key phrases and various correspondences with numerology, astrology, and the Kabbalah. There is also an affirmation and a meditation. Next is the lesson for the day, followed by suggested meanings for the card and ways to work with it on that day. The book is divided into several sections by theme, and the book concludes with several appendices.

I was impressed by how much information the authors included. They take seven days to work through how to read the Celtic Cross layout, which is commonly taught to tarot students, but they also spend five days on the Opening of the Key method, which isn't discussed nearly as much. They talk about how to read a card at different levels (literal, symbolically, etc.), how to meditate with a tarot card, how to tell when a court card represents a person or a situation, the use of astrological correspondences and elemental dignities, and much more. The book is packed with original layouts, and I think the authors' Keyword Kaleidoscope is a fascinating and thought-provoking exercise. What is driving me up the wall, however, is the way it's organized and the difficulty of finding any one topic in it. There is no index and the table of contents only lists the cards, not the lesson topic that goes with each card. Often, a lesson has no apparent connection to the card of the day. For instance, Day 53's card is the Four of Wands, but the day's lesson is a discussion of the "resources" position in the Celtic Cross, using the Nine of Swords as an example. Now that I've read the book, I want to use it as a reference, but I'm afraid that I'll lose a lot of time just flipping uselessly through it, hoping I stumble across whatever it is I'm looking for.