I built this site and promptly got too busy to post anything. It’s been many months, and now I just look at it, sigh, and feel silly because I suddenly can not think of anything to say.
So, an ice-breaker.
A post to get the dreaded first post out of the way. Leaning into the void and giving a little hello.
Books I love right now
Books I have always loved
Currently, I am loving on three books that all tie in with each other:
- “Seeing the World: Tarot Signposts on the Path to Perception” by the late Jean-Claude Flornoy
- “The Spiritual Roots of the Tarot” by Russell A. Sturgess
- “The Marseille Tarot Revealed” by the late Yoav Ben-Dov
They are all about the Marseille Tarot. Each book takes a different approach. My favorite is the book by Jean-Claude Flornoy. He was a cardmaker, and his widow Roxanne still runs the atelier in Southern France. I also bought a deck of cards from them, a Marseille based on the Noblet Tarot. They are my favorite cards, and I carry them with me wherever I go. The book approaches Tarot as a psychological tool. It got me thinking about the tiny details in each card that we may overlook when we are reading. It has also interested me in medieval history and early Western mindfulness systems.
That’s how I ended up purchasing the next book on this list. This book addresses the Cathar connection to the Tarot and is written from the perspective that the Tarot is a tool that contains the hidden teachings of Western mindfulness as taught by the Cathars in medieval France. It has also made me want to look more into history. These two books have also made me more appreciative of the Christian mysticism that seems to be at the root of much that the modern magical community does.
The third book also addresses some of the history of the Tarot, examines the English and French schools of thought regarding the Tarot, and is more of a reader’s manual. Yoav Ben-Dov used the CBD Tarot de Marseille, which he published, based on the deck created by Nicholas Conver in 1760. This deck is featured throughout this book. It contains interpretations and spreads and discusses things like handling and shuffling the cards, reading upside-down cards, and the dynamics of a reading session.
This list has nothing specifically to do with the Marseille Tarot. Much of how I read the cards would probably be considered improper by the old-school French cardmakers, and I am OK with that!
- “How to Use Tarot Spreads” by the late Sylvia Abraham. Sylvia quietly wrote some great little gems that quickly got a reader up and running. This book briefly examines her keyword system, which combined very basic numerology and a keyword or phrase to create a set of cards grouped by number. For the absolute novice, this book is excellent. The bulk of this book is filled with spreads, many of which are beginner-friendly and fun. They get you thinking about the cards in different ways.
- “Choice-Centered Relating and the Tarot” by Gail Fairfield. In 1984, Gail wrote “Everyday Tarot,” and this book from 2000 expanded on it greatly. It would be great if you could find a copy of either book, but the one explicitly mentioned on this list has much more information. Gail is also an astrologer and uses her knowledge in that field to provide a different slant on interpreting the cards. If you’ve ever thought that there has to be more to the Three of Swords than betrayal and heartbreak or that you’d like to use the cards to explore things like identity or boundaries, then give Gail’s work a look.
- “Power Tarot,” by Phyllis Vega and Trish McGregor. This book is wonderful if you just want a balls-out practical guide to interpreting the Tarot cards as they might appear in questions relating to a client’s most pressing concerns, like love, money, work, or health. It’s out of print, so you’ll have to hunt around Thriftbooks or Abebooks for a copy, but it’s time well spent. The back of the book has a good-sized collection of spreads, and one of my favorite spreads to use, “The Ladle,” comes from this book.
