Tarot Beyond the Basics

Grizabella

I think I might have posted about this book before, but I wanted to mention what a very good reference book this is. As the title of the thread says, the name of the book is Tarot Beyond the Basics and the author it Anthony Lous. It covers astrology, numerical associations, elemental dignities, Kaballah,Tarot reversals and more. It's a book just packed with information.

I think for someone who has the basics down pretty solidly, this book would be a good purchase to keep in one's Tarot reference library to keep growing in Tarot knowledge.
 

Barleywine

I would add that, if you are interested in gaining a better understanding of the Celtic Cross, his section on the CC is exceptional. I remember Anthony Louis as a member of the Astrological Society of Connecticut when I was involved in that organization (and also the National Council for Geocosmic Research) back in the early '70s, so we're contemporaries. I've always had the greatest respect for his knowledge, and this book is no exception.
 

Grizabella

It's going to take me quite awhile to absorb all the information but I'm slowly working my way through the book. When I was younger, I'd have sailed right on through the book probably, but at this point in my life, it takes me longer to absorb this kind of information.

I like the chapter on intuition especially well. I've still to completely absorb it all but I have a question that maybe you can answer since you also have the book, Barleywine. Did Humpty Dumpty's wife or mother exist? Because Louis refers to "Madame Humpty". I know you're probably thinking it's no wonder this book is slow going for me, but humor me. :p

Back to sanity now--I haven't given it a try yet, but the book mentions Dion Fortune advising to do three divinations, taking careful notes each time. If certain cards or card suits recur, then it's a valid reading. But if the readings don't seem to connect, then Tarot probably isn't providing a meaningful answer and "the divination should be abandoned." Have you actually tried this? I'm gonna give it a try later on today.
 

Nemia

I love this book, too. From the books I have read, it's the best so far concerning tarot and astrology - leaves Kenner, Banzhaf and Aharoni far behind. I can't eat my way any more through a mountain of rice, i.e., explanations about the structure of tarot and that it was NOT invented by Egyptians, and then 78 card meanings upright and reversed, before digging into more advanced stuff. There are simply too many books going over the same tired acres again and again.

I'm glad Louis wrote TWO books. You can start with the basic one and advance to this one.

It comes straight to the interesting points: a good chapter about the Celtic Cross, solid astrology, reversals, number symbolism, the court cards... he doesn't cover Kabbalah but I'm fine with that. Everybody has his expertise and I won't expect an academic expert on medieval art to tell me much about Jean Dubuffet, so for me, his NOT going into kabbalah is one more reason to respect him.

Yes, this is a good book and I felt it really gave me something to chew on when I read it.
 

Barleywine

It's going to take me quite awhile to absorb all the information but I'm slowly working my way through the book. When I was younger, I'd have sailed right on through the book probably, but at this point in my life, it takes me longer to absorb this kind of information.

I like the chapter on intuition especially well. I've still to completely absorb it all but I have a question that maybe you can answer since you also have the book, Barleywine. Did Humpty Dumpty's wife or mother exist? Because Louis refers to "Madame Humpty". I know you're probably thinking it's no wonder this book is slow going for me, but humor me. :p

Back to sanity now--I haven't given it a try yet, but the book mentions Dion Fortune advising to do three divinations, taking careful notes each time. If certain cards or card suits recur, then it's a valid reading. But if the readings don't seem to connect, then Tarot probably isn't providing a meaningful answer and "the divination should be abandoned." Have you actually tried this? I'm gonna give it a try later on today.

It seems to me that Madame Humpty was a figment of Charles Dodgson's fertile imagination. Near as I can tell, Humpty Dumpty only existed as four lines in an English nursery rhyme prior to Through the Looking Glass. But there have apparently been other literary treatments.

Aleister Crowley said something similar about abandoning a divination; if you try to guess from the cards why the querent came for a reading and fail three times, you give up. I like Dion Fortunes's idea better but I probably wouldn't use it.
 

Barleywine

While browsing back through the book, I came across something curious: Louis states that in the Golden Dawn system, the Knights can indicate something coming or going in the matter rather than an actual person. When I read the official Golden Dawn papers compiled by Israel Regardie, I see that the horse-mounted Kings, not the chariot-borne Knights, are mentioned as showing the coming or going of either a person or an event in the matter. The Knights (and also the Queens) are mentioned as almost always referring to an actual person. The key is the mount, which allows the King that degree of movement in the matter.

It seems, from looking at the tables, that Louis has adopted Aleister Crowley's substitution of the horse-mounted Knights for the GD's horsed Kings (which Louis now calls Princes/Kings), but didn't bother to clarify it in his reference to the Golden Dawn system. The Golden Dawn swapped the mode of locomotion but not the titles; Crowley got rid of Kings completely by renaming them Knights, and changed the old chariot-borne Knight title to Prince and kept the chariots. What doesn't work is assuming that the enthroned Kings of the RWS deck are the same as the Golden Dawn Kings for this particular purpose. If I see an RWS King, I just translate it into its GD equivalent when looking at "coming or going." In the past, I simply defaulted to the more mobile RWS Knights, but recently recognized the mismatch.