If my last post on the tarot in fiction piqued your interest in the tarot in general, but you aren’t sure where to start, don’t worry – I’ve got you covered! There are many, many books out there on the tarot, from compendiums of esoteric texts to the late Rachel Pollack’s iconic works. The tarot is not a hammer, but no matter how you use it, it is a tool and the tools we use to connect with the world(s) within and around us need to adapt and change with the times, along with how we think of them. Here are three recent books to help you learn and to use in conjunction with your favorite deck (which I promise doesn’t have to be gifted – don’t let that hold you back from exploring this radical and powerful tool).
Finding the Fool by Meg Jones Wall is an excellent primer for those interested in starting a relationship with tarot as well as those looking to reconnect, as it offers ways to select and connect to your chosen deck that are inclusive and written to invite and welcome folks who maybe haven’t felt welcomed by the traditionally Western Eurocentric, fairly homogenous history of the tarot, while also taking a deep dive into modern, inclusive tarot. Wall offers in-depth tarot basics such as card keywords and contemporary meanings, astrological and planetary correspondences, and elemental and numerological correspondences. The journal prompts invite readers to create their own “tarot grimoire” to deepen their intuitive understanding of and relationship with the cards.
Radical Tarot by Charlie Claire Burgess is the perfect companion to their radically queer and inclusive Fifth Spirit Tarot deck, but also a fantastic stand-alone revolutionary treatise on the tarot. In Radical Tarot, Burgess pushes us to expand our understanding of the tarot as a tool not just to tell the future, but also to create it by opening up and transforming how we exist in and interact with the world(s) around us. This book is less of a card-by-card meaning guide and more of a card-by-card guide to expanding and revolutionizing the tarot itself, pushing it into the next century and beyond.
But as Burgess acknowledges, it’s going to take hard work to get there. In Tarot for the Hard Work Maria Minnis reframes and repositions the archetypal journey of the Major Arcana (as detailed in Rachel Pollack’s classic primer 78 Degrees of Wisdom) as a tool to help readers on their journey of anti-racist work and asks readers to investigate their own anti-racist paths and create their own anti-racist, community centered toolkit through journal prompts and additional resources/reading.
While these books are both an excellent introduction to the tarot as a transformative tool as well as a means to push your current practice in radical new directions, they may not satisfy those of you who really want that full, granular explanation of the tarot. For that, I recommend Benebell Wen’s exhaustive and deeply researched Holistic Tarot, which includes not just Western correspondences, but correspondences across a multitude of cultures and mystical paths.
~posted by V.
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