aliceinwonderland
It is DEFINITELY worth buying. HOWEVER, you must approach it differently than Tarot Plain and Simple. I guess Mr. Louis sys it like it is. His first book was simple, direct. You have a card, here are the meanings. Tarot beyond the Basics is a VERY meaty book with an immense amount of information. It is not one to be read in one sitting and does require some time. Just to mention the chapters:
Reflections on the Celtic Cross; Astrology 101 for Tarot Readers; The Topsy-Turvy World of tarot Reversals; The role of intuition in divination; Number symbolism and the Tarot; The four elements; The elemntal personalities of the court cards; The major arcana; The anatomy of the four suits
His prose is always a delight to read. He explains things in a nice way so you won´t feel like you're preparing a PhD. thesis on Tarot As in TP&S he provides anecdotes and stories to illustrate the teachings, with pictures of cards from various decks. To be honest, the astrology bit did not interest me much but it can be someone's treasure (there is a lot of information on this area). I guess the main difference is that instead of giving the reader the meaning, he scrutinizes the card symbols and history with the reader to teach him how to LOOK FOR meanings. (does it make sense?) There are 70 pages of appendix info alone with a HUGE compillation of keywords , planets, elemnts, houses, etc.
Tarot Beyond the Basics is Tarot Plain and simple's older brother.
This is an amazing review, AL. Thanks so much for taking the time in giving us these little nuggets from the book. Like you said, I liked very much his narrative style, very plain and it comes across very heartfelt to me. The only thing I found lacking on his book (tarot plain and simple) was that the meanings were very inspired by the suits (pentacles: money matters, for example) and I found it lacking to make sense in other contexts. I only like to read love questions, lol. I guess is my own responsibility to get into a wider scope of reading. I just don't feel it. My forte and what I truly enjoy looking into is human relationships....
I am not overly visual with the cards. I guess is because my first deck was Marseilles....
I certainly would enjoy the astrological aspect, would help me grasp the use of reversals and to put personality to court cards.
Thanks so much for the time you have spent typing this!
Big hug xxx