There are many, many tarot books available, each with its own slant and style. Here are a few that I consider essential components of a tarot library.
Learning to Read the Cards:
Tarot for Your Self, by Mary Greer. If you are interested in reading the cards, or using them for purposes of meditation or personal growth, this is the place to start. It is a workbook, rather than a text. Greer provides a wonderful set of exercises that help you experience the imagery of the cards in your own deck (whichever one you may have) and discover what the cards mean to you. She also gives excellent detailed examples of readings and meditations she and others have done with the cards. Using this book feels almost like learning from personal instruction.
78 Degrees of Wisdom, by Rachel Pollack. This book analyzes the cards in the Waite-Smith deck, one by one. Pollack's interpretations span psychological, mystical, and mundane meanings; she is very systematic and very readable. Although it is nice to become acquainted with interpretations by more than one author, Pollack is an essential starting place and lasting reference.
Learning the Tarot: A Book for Beginners, by Joan Bunning. This is the book version of Bunning's excellent on-line tarot course. It is really the best of all worlds for a beginning tarot reader. More hands-on oriented than Pollack, but more explicit with card meanings than Greer. It's an effective and comfortable way to learn all the basic information, concepts, and practices needed to read the cards. Highly recommended.
History/Study:
Encyclopedia of the Tarot, by Stuart Kaplan. Kaplan is interested in the history of the cards, moreso than their esoteric uses. The three-volume encyclopedia reproduces cards from hundreds of different decks, particularly older ones that are not available outside museums or personal collections. The text focuses on the historical development of the tarot, including lots of information about the Visconti and Sforza families of Milan, who commissioned the earliest surviving tarot cards. There is perhaps too much attention given to tarrock cards, a tarot derivative of little interest to most tarot enthusiasts. These books will not help you to read the cards or understand their meanings, but they are indispensible for gaining a factual grounding in the tarot tradition. Volume I is the most essential, hitting all the high points of tarot history. Volume II explores pre-20th century decks in more detail, with material useful to collectors. Volume III focuses on 20th-century decks.
Tarot Symbolism, by Robert O'Neill. If you are seriously curious about how the tarot cards were first created and why, you must read this book. O'Neill reviews the documented facts pertaining to the origin of the cards in renaissance Italy, then examines all the different traditions, philosophies, and belief systems that might have contributed to their design. His thesis is that the cards were a carefully developed allegorical depiction of a mystical philosophy and cosmology. Ultimately, the hard evidence leaves much room for doubt and skepticism regarding some of his conclusions, but this is definitely the "thesis to beat" if you want to claim you understand how and why tarot cards were developed.
A Renaissance Tarot, by Brian Williams. Most books that are written to accompany decks do little but rehash commonplace interpretations and explain the idiosynchrasies of the particular deck. This one is different. Williams examines the artistic and allegorical history of the tarot as it was developed in the 15th and 16th centuries. The result is a book that really adds something new to one's understanding of the cards. It includes hundreds of illustrations based on renaissance art, placing the tarot images in their true cultural context.
Theory/Overview:
Tarot: History, Mystery, and Lore, by Cynthia Giles. This book does not explain how to read the cards, but does provide the best accessible overview of their development and their relationship to psychological and metaphysical ideas. Giles summarizes the essentials of more serious books, like O'Neill and Kaplan, and also gives readable accounts of various esoteric theories explaining tarot divination. This is the best book to start with, if you are curious about the tarot, rather than seeking instruction on how to use them.
The Book of Thoth, by Aleister Crowley. Crowley presented himself as the greatest magician of his time, and there is certainly an atmosphere of occultism and ego that pervades this book, but his understanding of symbolism, numerology, qabala, and astrology is conveyed effectively and makes this book a good "one-stop shop" for learning the occultist perspective on the tarot (which is not necessarily historically sound, but has nevertheless been the dominant influence in understanding the tarot). His descriptions of the individual cards carry a lot of weight, especially in conjunction with the deck he designed.
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Copyright © 1998, 1999 Tom Tadfor Little