tarot of the bohemians

frances

has anyone read The Tarot of the Bohemians and if so how did they find it ? I have just started the book and would love to hear your thoughts
 

Teheuti

It's a book that I had to go back to again and again before it made sense to me. It's not that applicable to modern Tarot readings (unless you like his systemized approach to the Marseille), but it is very helpful in understanding the development of certain Continental approaches to Tarot.

I did get some great insights from his dialectic approach to the development of the cards through the numerical sequence but I don't use it as my core method of interpretation.
 

Colleen007

I have to admit, this looks like an interesting book. I downloaded the pdf today. It's only about 100 pages and has plenty of graphics. I will probably print this book out because of the graphics and charts in it.

I am very early on my qabalah path, so this book looks helpful.
 

bradford

Negative value. It will harm your understanding if you take it seriously.
 

Richard

The turgidity of this book defies description. Compared to Papus, Waite is almost as readable as Ernest Hemingway.
 

Richard

Really? Why?

It wouldn't hurt your understanding, Zeph, but it might bother someone who is still struggling to learn the basic structure of the Golden Dawn system, such as the Hebrew letter attributions. For Papus, the Magician is Aleph. This puts an entirely different slant on the Trumps.
 

bradford

Really? Why?

Because we build our knowledge sequentially and if you lay your foundations on nonsense you're going to have to fix that structure some day, and that's more costly than a quality build. You want to start with the best you can find if you respect where you want to go with your studies. I think it was wise of Frances to ask the forum about this. This more critical attitude is also the reason you don't want to start with "made easy" or beginner's books. Once you have a good core knowledge you can plow through the crap and only take away the useful parts. It's true that a lot of new age folk eschew knowledge and don't much care what they let come live in their minds, but that soon starts to show, and then they are forced to defend delusion and ignorance when challenged.
If ever we needed proof that the Tarot evolved out of vague, chaotic and fanciful beginnings, instead of a perfect, golden-age system, this book provides it.
 

Ruby Jewel

Tarot of Bohemians by Papus

has anyone read The Tarot of the Bohemians and if so how did they find it ? I have just started the book and would love to hear your thoughts

I happen to have a first edition, from 1958 by Arcanum Books. Samuel Weiser is the publisher. It is unbelievable how my readings evolved once I laid out the cards according to the Yod-He-Vau-He structure in the ternary/septenaries pattern. The story of the tarot became clear to me in terms of the patterns of "society", "morality", "spirituality" (which I call the Night Sea Journey realm or karmic payback.....made up of the major arcana 13 through 18), and finally, "transformation" 19, 20, 21). The court cards are under the domain of one of the major arcana, and the pip cards are under the domain of the court cards.

I had this edition for decades and never looked at it because it looked so complicated. One day I decided to start reading it, and figured out how to lay out the septenaries and ternaries, the relationships between the cards became clear. I set up 2 sawhorses and put a big sheet of plywood on them....covered it with a blanket and laid out the cards. That was about a year and a half ago, and they are still there for me to consult periodically if I need to. Actually, it is pretty much in my memory now.

I noticed on Amazon there are a couple of the 1958 editions for sale. The price is $38....it is well worth it.