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Barleywine

I just rediscovered on my bookshelf The Dictionary of the Tarot by Bill Butler from 1975 (Schocken Books, NYC). It's basically a roll-up of what I would call "capsule interpretations" from a host of tarot sources, a few of which I'm unfamiliar with: Case, "Christian" (especially unfamiliar with that one :)), Crowley, Douglas, Gray, "G. Dawn," Grimaud, Huson, Kahn, Kaplan, Knight, Lind, Mathers, Mayananda, Papus, Sadhu, Thierens, Ussher, Waite and Butler's own "suggested" meanings. In addition, it has written comparisons of the various designs of decks available at that time, and a few b&w illustrations. Kind of an interesting New Age artifact with good intentions.

Looks like Butler had a lot of books and did a lot of reading to put this together. I will be dipping into it to see how it squares with current thinking. (Oh, and the title of this thread is ironic; I don't believe there is such a convenient all-in-one source book anywhere in the tarot literature. If there's something even close, I'd love to know about it.)
 

3ill.yazi

"Christian" I believe is Paul Christian, a 19th century occultist. I forget at the moment where he fits in, but I lump him in with that era before the GD (golden Dawn) with Levi and papus.

Butler is a good book to have. Back when I was putting together my personal LWB (it's red, actually) I turned to this book for comparative meanings, mashing it up with Paul Huson's book, which does a similar thing but provides earlier sources like Etteila, and meanings found in some modern books like Tarot For Yourself, 78 degrees of wisdom, and tarot plain and simple.
 

Barleywine

"Christian" I believe is Paul Christian, a 19th century occultist. I forget at the moment where he fits in, but I lump him in with that era before the GD (golden Dawn) with Levi and papus.

Butler is a good book to have. Back when I was putting together my personal LWB (it's red, actually) I turned to this book for comparative meanings, mashing it up with Paul Huson's book, which does a similar thing but provides earlier sources like Etteila, and meanings found in some modern books like Tarot For Yourself, 78 degrees of wisdom, and tarot plain and simple.

Ah, I do remember Paul Christian now. I was thinking Butler was treating "Christian" like a category, the same as "G. Dawn."
 

gregory

I rather like this book. :)