What Are You Currently Reading?

Madrigal

I'm reading 'Holistic Tarot' and finding it very thorough. I'm also reading '78 Degrees of Wisdom' and am planning to read Juliet Sharman-Burke's book as it gotten good reviews for both beginners and those more experienced.
 

Chrystella

I'm reading:
  • The Story of the Waite-Smith Tarot by K. Frank Jensen
  • Reading the Marseille Tarot by Jean-Michel David
  • Tarot - The Open Reading by Yoav Ben-Dov
  • Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot by Lon Milo Duquette

I'm really enjoying Duquette's. I think I'll recommend that to anyone who wants to know more about Crowley without actually reading Crowley :joke:.
 

Barleywine

I Must Hate Myself

Last night I dusted off my "self-flagellation" whip and started reading The Pictorial Key to the Tarot again. I still think his prose is turgid and supercilious in tone, but his insights are generally sound (unless you happen to be Aleister Crowley). The first nugget of wisdom I came across was "The true Tarot is symbolism; it speaks no other language and offers no other signs." That will be enough to keep me going for a while.

ETA: I'm about half-way through it and getting a bit more value out of it this tiime, after he settles down and stops with the stuffy, ornate Victorian obscurantisms. It's a little (well, more than a little, to be honest) too smug and self-important in many places. I can appreciate where he's honoring his vows, but I get tired of seeing "I have my own reasons for saying this but YOU don't need to know them." Why write a book if you're going to constantly poke your thumb in the collective eye of your readers? What does strike me is how little philosophical and metaphysical depth there is in many of the Major Arcana discussions. I know he's "speaking in code" for those who can understand, and I don't have much difficulty navigating that since I've spent decades with Crowley, Regardie and many other GD progeny. But I'm reminded of the old Wendy's commercial: "Where's the beef?" It's like the antithesis of the Book of Thoth, which is more like a Big Mac: Crowley's "special sauce" oozes out all over the place :)
 

theangel

thanks for the tip

Hi, you should check out the RWS sub forum here. The Rider Waite deck is one of the seminal decks, and I'm figuring the vast majority of decks published in the century since its appearance are based on the system behind it.

I will check that out, also, I did not enjoy my Tarot for Dummies book set. I do not vibe with the RWS and the book was just terrible at explaining anything. It more just gave me a history about her life and tarot which I felt was not helpful.

I really want to get the Thoth tarots next, Crowleys explanations were good, makes readings a snap
 

Barleywine

Was just starting to re-read the Book of Thoth last night, but the Camelia Elias TdM book Marseille Tarot,Towards the Art of Reading just arrived today, so I'll be sidetracked from Crowley. I haven't started reading it yet but I see it has color illustrations from the Carolus Zoya deck.
 

Snowhunter

I'm just finishing up "Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom", and I started looking through "Holistic Tarot" on my Nook app. My only complaint about the ebook version is that I can't see some of the charts properly.