Customer Reviews

The Magical Tarot of the Golden Dawn

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Running to over 600 pages the first thing you notice is just how big this book is. I advise having a surface handy when you read it as it's not one for a commute!

It starts with a general introduction to the Golden Dawn theory of tarot though interesting this can mostly be found elsewhere. What was unique was the Zalewskis instructions on coloring the deck. Finally they make sense of the Golden Dawn color scales and how they an be applied to a card in a coherent fashion.

The meat of the book is in the individual card descriptions. These are each accompanied by an original image in black and white. I found the art work to be very pleasing and thankfully devoid of the rather cartoony style of some recent decks. I have copied some of the card images and colored them to the Zalewskis instructions with great effect.

The card descriptions not only give coherant divinatory meanings but more importantly relate each card to its place in the vast Golden Dawn system (including alchemically, qabalistically, the I-ching and many more). Essentially this book argues that the Tarot was the 'glue' holding together the diverse strands in the GD magical system.

If you are interested in tarot I would recommend this book, if you are also interested in the Golden Dawn I would say it is essential reading.

Pat Zalewski's Magical Tarot book is the ultimate guide to the GD Tarot. It contains numerous associations to the cards, a detailed description of each card on multiple levels, and various rituals involving the Tarot. It's an essential work for the GD practitioner.

Again, as presented in all of his books, Mr. Zalewski presents materials here that are not of the Golden Dawn Whare Ra teaching base. Again, it is not the teaching of the S.M. either. These are his ideas and do not follow tradition as he proports.
For someone with an exalted title of 8=3, you would think that they would be able to provide authentic teaching on the tarot, and have a great firm foundation within the old teachings of the Golden Dawn. This is just another book with him trying to sell Whare Ra teachings that are in fact of his own instead.

This book is by far the biggest piece of misinformation you can possibly get. Pat has written the most inaccurate meanings & explanations in this book for the sole purpose to mislead anyone & everyone who is interested in learning the true Tarot & all of its components. How anyone can write such a lengthy book with the purpose to provide inaccurate info to students as well as professionals seeking to understand & learn the Tarot from its Astrological to its Qabalistical links just blows my mind but again it all comes down to making money off people that are unsuspecting. I base my claims on the fact that i spoke with a very high ranking member in the Golden Dawn who was nice enought to share some information on the meanings of some cards. The member said that these meanings are not correct at all they are a lot of delusional hype on Pat's part the sad part is that Pat never had any intention of revealing the true meanings of the cards when he wrote this book it was only once again to throw a blind to mislead people away from the true meanings of the cards. If you claim to be such a spiritual adept as Pat & then you knowingly & willingly carry out such a hoax you then question what kind of person is this. This book is pure fiction i would never ever recommend this book to anyone b/c the information is not correct you will learn the wrong meanings of the cards if you follow his writings. For example in his 4/wands he describes one meaning as impulsive spending & another as rushing quickly into a relationship/marriage. This card has nothing to do with these meanings i can assure of that, he also explains that Chesed/Jupiter is in an element of fire however he never explains to you the influence of Jupiter/Chesed on Venus & how this also impacts the cards meaning. In all of the Minors he never explains the sephira/planet in direct relation to the planet in the small cards which is also very important in the full understanding of the card. Another card that is wrong is the 5/swords Venus in Aquarius he states that this means the love of freedom again very misleading this card has nothing to do with this meaning. So in closing again this book is a rip off so think twice before you purchase this book.