One of the most common questions that is asked by many is what is a good deck or book for a beginner? There are so many to choose from it is hard to know where to start. One of my own personal favourites is The Complete Tarot Reader by Teresa Michelsen. I like it because the information that it gives you can be applied to any deck and not just the Rider-Waite-Smith and clones thereof. It gives you a good grounding in all the skills you need to start reading. I especially like the appendices in the back as they give you extra information that is really useful like the glossary of symbols. I personally find the symbols used in the RWS hard to get to grips with, and that has helped to break down some of the barriers.
In this column I want to focus on the problems one can face when you have passed the beginners stage. To my knowledge, there are very few books that deal with this. When I was originally planning to write about this issue around March/April this year I was going to argue that there should be more books available to those who want to progress to more intermediate and advanced levels working with tarot. In essence I feel that argument still stands but I have had time to reflect on why this is the case.
I don’t believe tarot can be studied in the same way someone studies a subject at school. Of course basics need to be covered like those covered in books for beginners but as I am discovering not only can tarot be an in depth subject it is broad too. There are so many avenues one could choose to study: tarot and elemental dignitaries, tarot and astrology, doing an integrated reading, tarot and numerology, symbolism in tarot, meditating on the cards; and that’s only the ones I have come across. No one book could contain that information, not unless it was big and heavy thus making too inconvenient for most people.
There is a second significant factor that needs to be mentioned here. Tarot study is heavily influenced by one’s own personal experience. Tarot takes our mind’s subconscious messages and presents them for our conscious mind. Every experience that we have shapes the communication between us and the cards. Thus, the avenues we decide to follow in tarot study are also personal choices that each of us make.
The now defunct Barnes & Noble University Tarot for Beginners course was a significant development in my own tarot study. The exercises served a purpose but the most useful thing I gained from that course was sharing experiences with others. It was there that I no longer felt isolated in my tarot study; that I almost felt part of a collective. In this collective I had access to different ideas and approaches I hadn’t heard of before like elemental dignitaries; which offered me a viable alternative to reversals which I had never felt comfortable using. Most importantly I discovered that I could create my own methodologies and rituals when using tarot. There was no single right way of doing things when it came to tarot. That was just a myth. I felt liberated with that knowledge and began travelling on my own path in earnest.
I believe the greatest resource that a tarotist can have is access to other tarotists so they can share in the collective knowledge and add their own personal experiences to the melting pot. Probably without them realising someone will benefit from what they shared. This collective also provides support as we all look inside ourselves as we strive to be better people and to make better decisions. We all have personal journeys that we have to make but hearing of others struggles and triumphs gives us strength to carry on when we reach a bump in the road.
If I believe that this collective is so great, why am I advocating the need for more books and resources? It’s simple not everyone has access to a great group like Tarot for Life. It can be quite difficult to meet other people with an interest in tarot where you live. In the world outside cyberspace there are still strongly held misconceptions about what tarot is, and what functions it can perform. It may not be wise for a person to admit they have an interest in it. Besides not everyone has access to the internet. Books are part of the collective knowledge. When an author writes a book about an aspect of tarot they are effectively sharing a part of their personal experience and can offer the reader the chance to become part of this collective experience.
Tarot is a life long study. It isn’t possible to learn everything about it. As we travel along our different paths in life, our relationship with the tarot changes with us.
