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January 2019
Selector: Maria Nuccilli
Tarot Basics
The Pictorial Key to the Tarot
Book Although there were many Tarot decks prior to the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, and many after, none has gripped the popular imagination as much as this set. Waite covers the significance and deeper implications of each card, and gives practical instructions as to how to conduct a reading.
Llewellyn's Complete Book of Tarot
Book Discover basic reading techniques for a wide variety of systems, including Marseilles, Rider-Waite, and Thoth. Combine tarot reading with Kabbalah, numerology, Jungian psychology, journaling, and storytelling while exploring card selection, creativity, tarot ethics, and specialized spreads.
Complete Idiot's Guide to Tarot and Fortune-Telling
eBook Irreverent in approach, these guides include tips and advice from leading authorites, aiming to help with life's big decisions and challenges, as well as hobbies and sports. This text focuses on tarot and fortune telling.
The Tarot: Art, Mysticism, and Divination
Book Looks at the history of Tarot cards, explains the meaning of each card, and shows how to arrange them for a reading
Websites
- Biddy Tarot
An Australian website that has printable materials, detailed definitions of tarot cards, and blog posts. - Learning the Tarot
Online since 1995, this site offers self-paced lessons to learn the Tarot, and practical interpretations of cards.
Tarot in Art and Literature
Tarot Cards in Sculpture by Book In 1985, French-American Artist Niki de Saint Phalle created a limited edition book illustrated with her tarot art, photos of the garden under construction, and her hand-lettered comments.
Tarot and Other Meditation Decks: History, Theory, Aesthetics, Typlogy by Book This work of art history analyzes decks in relation to conventional and postmodern art movements as well as literary concepts, including the novel, utopias, and popular genres.
Esoteric Symbols: the Tarot in Yeats, Eliot, and Kafka by Book In this pioneering scholarly work on occult symbols in literature, the reader is offered a vivid look into how W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, and Franz Kafka--three masters of symbolic expression--utilized Tarot cards in their poetry and prose.
The Eedusemiotics of Images: Essays on the Art and Science of Tarot by eBook Semetsky's new book offers a bracing account of Tarot semiotics in view of its deep significance for educational experience, analyzing the symbolic language of Tarot images that express the intimations of the unconscious.
Related Online Journals
- Correspondences
An international, peer-reviewed online journal dedicated to the academic study of esotericism.
- Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft
A peer-reviewed, scholarly journal drawing from a broad spectrum of perspectives, methods and disciplines and offering a wide geographical scope and chronological range.
- Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies
Peer-reviewed, scholarly journal providing a forum for papers, essays and symposia on both ancient and contemporary Pagan religious practices.
- Esoterica
Published by Michigan State University, Esoterica was a peer-reviewed academic journal devoted to the transdisciplinary study of Western esotericism.
Further Reading
The Secret Teachings of All Ages by Book A classic since 1928, this encyclopedia of ancient mythology, ritual, symbolism, and the arcane mysteries of the ages is a codex to the ancient occult and esoteric traditions of the world.
Contemporary Esotericism by eBook Contemporary Esotericism studies the period since the 1950s but focuses on developments of the last two decades.
Access to Western Esotericism by Book This book covers esoteric currents such as as Christian Kabbalah, Theosophy, Alchemy, Rosicrucianism, and Hermeticism, in addition to a series of studies on several important figures, works, and movements in Western esotericism.
History of Tarot
"The earliest references to tarot all date to the 1440s and 1450s and fall within the quadrilateral defined by the northern cities of Venice, Milan, Florence, and Urbino."
"There’s a lot of friction between tarot historians and card readers about the origins and purpose of tarot cards."
Tarot in the News
"Although tarot imagery employs supposedly universal archetypes, new decks are constantly being invented, and old decks altered [...] Which begs a second question: How do the cards’ art and design relate to the social changes, technological advances, and aesthetic sensibilities of their particular eras?"
"Creators of new decks seek to address the need for representative and culturally specific tarot."
"Vicki Noble, who with Karen Vogel created the Motherpeace Tarot Deck in the late 1970s, hasn’t really kept up with the latest happenings in the community of divinatory playing cards. But when Maria Grazia Chiuri, the artistic director of Christian Dior, called and said she wanted to incorporate the Motherpeace into a fashion line, she and Ms. Vogel agreed."
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"Within the confines of the Moonbox, there is little distinction between, for example, a skin care ritual and a full-moon ritual. Here, self-care, self-beautification, and spiritual identity become one."
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