Ultimate Tarot Book?

"The Spiritual Tarot: 78 Paths to Personal Development" by Signe E. Echols, Robert Mueller & Sandra A. Thomson.

I always refer to this book as my "Bible."

The Underground Stream by Payne-Towler gives a good overview of various schools of tarot thought, with pictures of tarot cards from various historical decks as a bonus.

ideal book

Heck, I have so many Tarot books, at one point it was getting ridiculous - there was a new one arriving from amazon every day. I never found the 'one' bibe that really speaked to me above anything else though I do find Gerd Ziegler's Tarot: Mirror of the Soul is very good for the Thoth tarot. I have a Thoth journal I need to get back to completing..

coyoteblack said:

Another book that i really enjoyed was The complete Tarot Reader by Teresa michelsen . That is what started me into ' parsing the deck" and tying to break cards down into there simpleset parts and re combine them.
http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/books/complete-tarot-reader/

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I like that one too Coyoteblack!

I'm not sure that I could reduce my favorite Tarot books to even a top five or top ten list, since different books satisfy different parts of my Tarot experience. I have to agree with jmd that the 78 'pages' of the tarot are really the ultimate. I do have one book that I've re-read many, many times and still find filled with gems:
Paul Foster Case's The Tarot: A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages.
http://www.amazon.com/Tarot-Key-Wisdom-Ages/dp/1585424919/

I'm really surprised no one has mentioned it. It's helpful mostly for those dealing with RWS/Golden Dawn-based decks, but nothing else gives such a rich understanding of the doctrine of correspondences inherent in this design. Lotterhand and Wang's books are based on this one, and it always helps to go back to what inspired them. The same could be said for Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot - but it took me many years of trying before I could appreciate the wealth in that one.

I'd like to suggest a new "Top Ten Tarot Books" poll - the last was two years ago, but this time 2 polls - one with an historical emphasis and the other focusing on reading the cards.

Mary

I like the survay idea i love to read and more the merrier.

Problem is if we have a poll with a two-fold division of historical emphasis and reading emphasis is how to place Meditations on the Tarot? Fits in neither category.

jmd said:

Problem is if we have a poll with a two-fold division of historical emphasis and reading emphasis is how to place Meditations on the Tarot? Fits in neither category.

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I thought of that too - with specifically that book in mind. Perhaps we need three categories:
• History
• Reading the Cards
• Metaphysics - including works by people like Tomberg, Mouni Sadhu, Case, etc.

Mary