Tarot Books

And their limitations

If you want to learn to read Tarot well, you have to read books about reading Tarot.

I know, it’s work, and the opposite of the instant gratification we seek, and that there are some voices in the Tarot community claiming that every written word about Tarot can be ignored, just go with feelings. But it just doesn’t work that way.

Books have to be read in order to learn.

We have to read books about Tarot so that we understand how the system was developed. What the correspondences to other esoteric systems are. What the broadly accepted meanings of each of the cards are and why. We need to read about properly forming a question, or helping a querent to do so. Through reading we learn about ethical Tarot practice, our duties as a practitioner. And we learn a myriad of other things.

Skipping the books, just going for it, it’ll never work. We’ll never be good, let alone great with the Tarot.

If we hope to learn to read Tarot well, we have to read books about Tarot. This step can’t be skipped.

A bookshelf filled with books

All of that out of the way, I must remark that books aren’t all we need to master the Tarot.

This is because Tarot is an art. It isn’t rote memory.

We can’t just memorize the meaning of each card as recounted in a book, then recall and recite that meaning when a card pops up in a spread.

That can not work because Tarot is a language. And language requires context.

This inability to provide context is the fundamental limitation of all Tarot books.

It seems that every book one encounters on Tarot has a listing of every card, along with the author's explanation of the meaning of each card. This explanation will be in keeping with the generally accepted card meaning, with the author’s unique perspective blended in.

And that is how it should be. As with all symbolic systems, every practitioner should, over time, develop their own understanding of the symbol.

It is vitally important that if we hope to read the cards well, that we know what the generally accepted meanings assigned to them are. But if we hope to master Tarot, we have to develop those meanings in a personal way, based on our own perspective, knowledge, and experience.

This makes Tarot unique to every practitioner.

But it goes deeper than that, because the meaning of each card can change based upon its context within the reading.

The meaning might be slightly different based on the question that was asked.

It might be different because of its position in the spread used.

The meaning may well be influenced based upon the cards near it in the spread.

It may well be strengthened or lessened in importance based on its similarities to other cards in the spread.

Ultimately there are a myriad of possibilities that may cause the meaning of a card to be adjusted.

All of this is context.

And as with every language, context is key.

This is the limitation of every Tarot book. The ways in which a card may fit into any particular reading are seemingly infinite. And as books can only hold a few hundred pages at most, none of this context can truly be explored within a book.

All of that, how to bring context to the meaning of a card has to be figured out by each and every Tarot reader.

And that’s hard. Harder than reading books about Tarot. It requires knowledge and experience. A lot of both.

But, I’ve been thinking recently about how that limitation in books can be overcome.

I think the answer is in small group discussions.

Consider…

A small group gets together, perhaps with some wine, to focus on the meaning of a single card.

But not the meaning of the card hanging out there all alone, that can be learned from books.

Rather the meaning of the card in context.

A question is asked and a spread is created.

Now we have the context.

What is the meaning of the card, based upon the question that was asked, its location in the spread, and its relationship to all of the other cards in the spread.

Discussion ensues, and answers are discovered.

The whole gathering takes perhaps an hour, but much knowledge and experience is gained.

Over time, I can think of no better way to truly learn Tarot. To master it on a very deep level.

But I’m curious about what you think. Does this sound like an interesting and fun way to deepen your knowledge about Tarot? Would you be interested in participating in a small group like that?

Let’s chat about it…