The Bookworm’s
Guide to Tarot
By James W. Revak
The Bookworm’s
Guide to Tarot
By James W. Revak
GETTING STARTED:
A RECOMMENDED LIBRARYThe following titles, which are completely devoted to Tarot or nearly so, are recommended for Tarotists who have a wide ranging interest in Tarot, which embraces divination, using it for self-exploration, Occultism or Western Esotericism, and history. Of course, specific Tarotists, depending on their needs and interests, may find that some of the titles listed below are neither important nor essential to them. They may also find that some titles, which they do find important or essential, are absent from list below.
For example, an individual who has no need to learn about or interest in the detailed early history of Tarot, may find Moakley’s The Tarot Cards Painted by Bonifacio Bembo for the Visconti-Sforza Family (listed below) neither important nor essential. On the other hand, an individual who has a need to learn about or special interest in a specific, unusual deck, may find that a book specifically devoted to it is both important and essential – even if it does not appear below.
BEGINNING Bunning, Joan. Learning the Tarot: A Tarot Book for Beginners.
Greer, Mary K. Tarot for Your Self: A Workbook for Personal Transformation.
Louis, Anthony. Tarot Plain and Simple. Especially if you regularly use or have a special interest in The Robin Wood Tarot, Rider-Waite-Smith decks, or decks closely based on Rider-Waite-Smith.
Knight, Gareth. The Magical World of the Tarot: Fourfold Mirror of the Universe. Especially, but not only, if you regularly use or have a special interest in the Tarot de Marseille or similar decks.
BEGINNING TO INTERMEDIATE Akron; Banzhaf, Hajo. The Crowley Tarot: The Handbook to the Cards by Aleister Crowley and Lady Frieda Harris. Especially if you regularly use or have a special interest in the Thoth Tarot Deck.
Butler, Bill. Dictionary of Tarot.
Giles, Cynthia. The Tarot: History, Mystery and Lore.
Pollack, Rachel. Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Book of Tarot.
INTERMEDIATE TO ADVANCED Case, Paul Foster. The Tarot: A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages. Especially if you regularly use or have a special interest in the Builders of the Adytum [BOTA] Tarot, or a deck significantly influenced by the Golden Dawn, e.g., Robert Wang’s Golden Dawn Tarot, Rider-Waite-Smith decks, decks closely based on Rider-Waite-Smith, and the Thoth Tarot Deck.
Irwin, Lee. Gnostic Tarot: Mandalas for Spiritual Transformation.
Kaplan, Suart R. The Encyclopedia of Tarot: Volume I.
Kaplan, Suart R. The Encyclopedia of Tarot: Volume II.
Lotterhand, Jason C. The Thursday Night Tarot: Weekly Talks on the Wisdom of the Major Arcana.
Waite, A. E. The Pictorial Key to the Tarot: Being Fragments of a Secret Tradition Under the Veil of Divination. Especially if you regularly use or have a special interest in Rider-Waite-Smith decks or decks closely based on them.
Wang, Robert. The Qabalistic Tarot: A Textbook of Mystical Philosophy.
Wirth, Oswald. The Tarot of the Magicians.
ADVANCED Betts, Timothy. Tarot and the Millenium: The Story of Who’s on the Cards and Why.
Book “T” – The Tarot. Especially if you regularly use or have a special interest in a deck significantly influenced by the Golden Dawn, e.g., Builders of the Adytum [BOTA] Tarot, Robert Wang’s Golden Dawn Tarot, Rider-Waite-Smith decks, decks closely based on Rider-Waite-Smith, and the Thoth Tarot Deck.
Crowley, Aleister. The Book of Thoth: A Short Essay on the Tarot of the Egyptians. Especially if you regularly use or have a special interest in the Thoth Tarot Deck.
Decker, Ronald; Depaulis, Thierry; Dummett, Michael. A Wicked Pack of Cards: The Origins of the Occult Tarot.
Dummett, Michael. The Game of Tarot: From Ferrara to Salt Lake City.
Jorgensen, Danny L. The Esoteric Scene, Cultic Milieu, and Occult Tarot.
Moakley, Gertrude. The Tarot Cards Painted by Bonifacio Bembo for the Visconti-Sforza Family: An Iconographic and Historical Study.
O’Neill, Robert V. Tarot Symbolism.
Papus. The Tarot of the Bohemians: Absolute Key to Occult Science.
Rosengarten, Arthur. Tarot and Psychology: Spectrums of Possibility.
Sadhu, Mouni. The Tarot: A Contemporary Course of the Quintessence of Hermetic Occultism.
Tomberg, Valentin. Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey Into Christian Hermeticism. (Published anonymously).
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Copyright © 2001 James W. Revak. All rights reserved. Version 2.0 (8/10/01).