Customer Reviews

The Secret Language of Tarot

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I had pretty high hopes for this book--apparently too high. The Amberstones are the ones who want to separate you and roughly $800 of your cash to learn tarot, and I figured this book would be a taste of what I'd get should I decide to take their course. Apparently not too stupid a decision, since this book seems to be one of their courses merely in book format (chapters begin with some sort of 'welcome to our class on....' formula). While there is good stuff in here and I definitely like the across-the-deck approach of symbols, on the depth of information, I honestly wasn't blown away. Good stuff, yes, but not exactly mind blowing. And every chapter I ended up *filling* with marginal notes like "what about this?" "And this?" For example--they talk about the five-petaled rose as a symbol in class, erm, chapter one. While they're spot on in what they do have, they don't touch on some pretty obvious numerology--five in the Middle Ages represents *humankind*--the five senses, the four limbs & the head, five fingers, etc. It's also more closely tied to the Virgin Mary than they say--anyone saying the rosary knows of the *five* sorrows and joys of the Virgin. As for white versus red roses--any Englishman (such as Waite) would almost automatically have considered roses, red and white, with Lancaster and York. So while they're not *wrong*...they're just not as *right* as I wanted them to be. And for the columns, they completely skip over the notion of the Hebrew names possibly being further representation of gender polarity--Boaz "in him is strength" masculine, Jachin "God prepares"--hello? The Virgin Mary again? Medieval notions of the female as the fertile bed upon which the masculine seed is acted?

If I sound frustrated it's because I bought this book expecting *experts*, (on their website they boast of more than 80 years of tarot experience) not just a few neat titbits. The only way I can reconcile myself to this book is to say that I must in contrast be a Tarot Super Genius, which I most certainly am NOT!

I gave it a four because I do like the notion of analyzing SYMBOLS rather than cards, and because what they do have is good stuff--just not as much as I would have liked. It's a good book for an intermediate tarot reader, but advanced readers might not find enough (like me) to justify shelling out the money. It's definitely a 'look before you leap' book. I'd recommend either of Mary Greer's big Tarot books before, and possibly instead of, this one.

But god bless 'em for having one of the very *few* good titles to come out in Tarot in the last few years!

This book stands out sharply from all of the dozens of books in print that look at the symbolism of various Tarot decks. The other books all have one thing in common: they take the cards and dissect them into their various symbols. This remarkable work takes the symbols and integrates them with the cards.

Rather than simply go thought the Major Arcana and say "Oh, look there's a moon under the foot of the High Priestess", The Amberstones take the moon and look for its occurrences across the deck. The results can be surprising. Yes, the High Priestess does indeed have a crescent moon, but so does the Chariot, The Hierophant, The Moon and several Minor Arcana. As the author, so rightly points out, "Regardless of the card and regardless of its phase, every appearance of the moon in tarot brings with it the gift of all its meanings and references ready to the hand of the reader".

The same procedure is repeated for other common and important symbols: crowns, pillars, paths, mountains, horses, clouds and many more.

With foreword by Mary K. Greer and afterword by Lon Milo DuQuette, two of Tarot's brightest lights join with the sterling reputation of the founders of The Tarot School to bring us a unique jewel in the crown of Tarot books.

As a tarot professional and author myself, I have many book cases filled with tarot books and believe I own almost all of the books in print on the subject of tarot. I must admit I haven't read them all because some are either boring, hard to plow through or just plain uninteresting to me.

So it was to my great delight to delve into the Secret Language of Tarot and to enjoy every word of it!

After 30+ years of reading the cards, when I have access to new information, or a new way of looking at the cards, I am just thrilled. I have been recommending this book to everyone.

It is truly a wonderful read and contains many thought provoking ideas!

The symbols universal in Tarot decks are reviewed in "The Secret Language of Tarot", a book which acts as either a reference to these images or as a series of guided meditations on each Tarot symbol. Each chapter offers a set of symbols that share a common theme, with plenty of background information surveying myths, realities and research. New age libraries strong in Tarot studies will find "The Secret Language of Tarot" an absorbing analysis useful on more than one level.

I had really looked forward to reading this book because I'm really into symbolism, so when I got it as a gift, I was thrilled. That thrill turned into disappointment in a very short time after starting to read it.

First of all, I found the writing to be surprisingly amateurish. The writing is something one might expect on a website - which this book obviously came directly from - but not in a published book by a reputable publisher. There seemed to be no clear structure, forethought, research or design to the content, to the point that I think they must have just lifted it right off of the authors' website without any editing to make it into a book form at all! In fact, this was directly evidenced in the book where the authors said something to the effect of there was no forethought in how the symbols were combined into sections, and they were writing it on the fly. Again, fine for a website, not for a purchasable book. There were no research references, only what seemed to be opinion stated as fact. I did not find the content particularly insightful, and while there were a few interesting tidbits here and there, what I found useful could have been written in a two page handout.

Additionally, every section (not chapter - every *section*) continually stated "...in this class..." "...in this class..." There are so many problems with this seemingly amateurish structure, I'm not sure where to begin. First of all, if a book is considered to be "a class" then the book itself is 'the class' and the chapters are the lessons. But this was not written as a classroom instruction book in style, it was simply ... a book.

As a college professor for 15 years, I found no clear "lesson plan" here, just, imo, a lot of tidbits about symbols that didn't directly have anything to do with the subject at hand and was never adequately integrated into the concept of the book. An example of this is, at times, the authors explain something and then say, "but that's not in the tarot." Okay, then give me a good reason why you put it in. Don't get me wrong, I can certainly understand an author using an example to explain a concept, but these just seemed to be little historical bits of trivia that were never properly tied in.

Furthermore, there also seemed to be no clear "intro, body and conclusion." The authors just seemed to jump in and out of things, sometimes with information in what was supposedly the summary but had never been properly articulated in previous sections.

Much of the content, however, seemed to be just opinion of what something meant, stated as fact, with no real direct explanation of why they were stating it as fact, and with no room for people to interpret the symbols in their own way. I, in fact, disagreed with many of their conjectures, which is fine for them, but symbols can mean very different things to each individual. Everybody has their own frame of reference. I didn't feel there was room for that in this book. Moreover, much of the content was very analytical without room or guidance for people to use their intuition about the cards. And analyzing the symbology within cards themselves, in truth, were just a small portion of each section.

There were a couple of decent, very basic spreads in the book, and others that just seemed to be there for the sake of making them look like they fit. The overall content, however, was not the in-depth look at the topic that a book should be. These authors even went so far as to make statements such as, "We don't have time to get into that here." Well, that's what books are suppose to be ... an in depth look at a topic. Not so much on a website, however ....

I understand that these people run a very successful website about learning tarot, but having read this book, I would be hard pressed to take any of the classes they offer. I'm happy that people must get something out of their classes, and happy for the authors' success in that endeavor, which is a lofty one, but having read this book, makes me feel that they are much better website designers and marketers than they are teachers or authors. Frankly, if you want in depth discussion on symbols of the tarot, I would suggest "Pictures from the Heart: A Tarot Dictionary."

(As a point of disclosure, I am a professional tarot reader and have read for over 30 years.)

I was a bit dismayed by the suggesions in a generally positive review that Wald and Ruth Ann Amberstone published this book merely to 'market' their Tarot classes and other products, also implying that their classes and products were over-priced.

This, in my opinion, unfairly reflects on the ethics and professional reputation of the Amberstones. I, personally, have found every penny I've spent on their classes, recordings, and books to be worthwhile and infinitely instructive.

I was privileged to be able to attend the classes that this book is developed from. I also have the original $125.00 tome that this book was developed from. That original book was the raw class notes from those lectures and worth every penny. This current book is an excellent and affordable distillation of that earlier book.

For me, at least, both books are worth having. I love how the various chapters cover concepts of card imagery that are seldom covered in your traditional tarot books. Is this book going to exhaust this topic and totally reveal all symbols and estoteric attributions? Certainly not. The authors would never have time to write something like that and it would be more expensive than most could afford.

Frankly, all of that Golden Dawn and Rider Waite information is out there for you to find. If this book isn't detailed enough for you, you are welcome to do your own research.

Is the style and format of this book going to appeal to all readers? Probably not, but there are plenty of other Tarot books that you might like better and you are welcome to buy any or all of them.

It is my personal opinion that you will never find another book quite like this one. It's not meant to be exhaustive or to merely give you the same card meanings or lists of esoteric attributions you will find in hundreds of other books on Tarot. It opens a door into an examination of card imagery that few books go into, or, at least, not in this depth.

In this book, we have been lead to a path that will give us a unique way of seeing the cards. I, for one, treasure the invitation the Amberstones have offered for us to walk that path. Walking that path is truly a lifetime's vocation and more than any single book can give you, but this book shows the way.

"The Secret Language of Tarot" has had my attention since the winter of 2006, as I awaited its release, and I am delighted to find this colorful volume in my hands in early April 2008. For some time now I have had the feeling that this new book by Ruth Ann and Wald Amberstone, founders of The Tarot School, would take its place alongside Rachel Pollack's "78 Degrees of Wisdom" and "Forest of Souls", Mary K. Greer's "Tarot for Your Self", and Robert M. Place's "The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination", as a classic reference work of use to everyone for decades to come. Now that I have felt, seen and worked with the book, I am convinced that my intuition was accurate.

This is a beautiful, highly usable, unique text on the subject of our passion, the Tarot. I particularly appreciate the fact that in focusing on the symbols of Tarot, this work opens for all of us the power of Tarot in both the RiderWaiteSmith and Thoth traditions, and all of the unique decks of the world which depart from these standards. I found Mary K. Greer's foreward beautifully written and enticing as I entered the book. For me and for quite a few others I have spoken to, the best part in many ways is the sense of being included directly in a class with the Amberstones, and I like to think that in wording their work in this way, they have enabled us all to conjoin with the gestalt of the original class and its future students, learning as a group adventure from a near part of eternity ~ that, in my opinion, is EXACTLY what the esoteric tradition is all about. Lon DuQuette expresses this, and his deep confidence in the authors, in his afterward.

So, thank you, Red Wheel/Weiser and Ruth Ann and Wald Amberstone, for a stately, organized, powerful, and immediately useful book on the Tarot.

This book will bring you closer to the symbols and images in your deck. Not only the symbols that they talk about in the book, but it makes you aware of all the little pieces that make up a deck. A wonderful beginning to a new way to explore.

This book is apparently a distillation of notes for a class that the author's taught on tarot symbols. It makes no pretense to be a complete or definitive reference, but rather it selects 22 symbols found on the Rider-Waite tarot cards for review and reflection. I found what the authors had to say enjoyable and interesting but wish they had gone into greater depth. For example, they point out that the appearance of the moon on the 2 of Swords is an astrological reference to the first decanate of Libra which is ruled by the moon, but they do not explain why the moon appears on this card and not on several other cards associated with astrological decanates also ruled by the moon. The moon's omission from those cards remains a mystery. The main value of this book is that it gets the reader to look in a more detailed way at the cards and to ask why particular symbols appear as and when they do. A fair amount of the material is based on the authors' speculations and intuitions instead of scholarly research. Nonetheless, they do have years of experience with the tarot, so their opinions are valuable.

All in all I enjoyed this book but wish it had gone into greater depth and detail. It is definitely well worth reading and will get you looking in more depth as your own cards, no matter which deck you are using.

First of all I wish I didn't have to give a star rating to this book. It's a given that ratings and reviews are subjective. So why do I state the obvious? In many ways this book does the same thing. "The Secret Language of Tarot" by Ruth Ann and Wald Amberstone is well intended, I wouldn't go as far as to say that it might miss lead you. But there is something about the way it is written that it very questionable. One of the things that I first noticed is the lack of bibliography. For a book that aims to be as academic as this one: how can it not have a bibliography? or a "further reading" section? That single detail was a red light for me. In the book there are no references to other books, authors or sources where this information is coming from. I am not trying to say that it is wrong, just that there is a lack of back up to some of the arguments.

I have to agree with some of the other reviews about the amateurish way it is written. I found myself rereading a lot of sections just because it wasn't clear what the message was. Simply put, the way it is written wasn't very engaging or enjoyable.

There is an ingrained feeling of unfairness when criticizing a book without ever written one; but an unpretentious comparison with other books makes this one just feels of poorly delivered. Phrases like (when discussing the moon as a symbol): "...the subject is so large and the space is limited." (pg. 92) are very common lines though out the book. What do they mean by "the space is limited"? The book is only 265 pages long! I've never read something like that on a book, it is just lousy. Maybe tell me something like "more depth is beyond the scope of this book", or hint at a second volume, something else. Once you read about the space on a book being "limited" it just gives a bad impression, it is not a magazine. I am making a big deal about this because in general that is the tone of the book, it always stays short in it explanations and it depth.

Another phrase that gave me a substandard impression of the book: "We are at the end. Nothing more can be said that would be useful."(pg259) This borders between pretentious and arrogant, or maybe premonitory (i.e. no need for further reading or more books about this subject) whatever the intention is, no need for further readings might be very far away from the truth.

Each chapter deals with three or four symbols. How and why the pick those symbols is revealed in page 184 "...we have no idea at the beginning how it's going to turn out in the end. A group of three images present themselves to us when we need them and, essentially, ask us to have faith that all will be well." Basically there is a lack of plan or method for the objects that they picked for each "class" at they describe it at the opening of each section. This seems pretty random. There are signs that show that they are not picking the symbols that the have a depth of knowledge about: when discussing pools as a symbol: "...for lack of any detailed authoritative source, we looked inside ourselves to find what we were positive existed, and there, sure enough, was everything we needed." (pg. 105) I am not trying to discredit intuition, but this can lean more towards self-knowledge than knowledge about the Secrets of Tarot.

I do want to say that despite its improvisatory nature, I did get some useful information form this book. The discussions on paths, crosses, gardens, and rivers proved to be very insightful. I do want to warn the readers about some of the deficiencies of the book. I definitely wouldn't recommend this book to beginners or as one of the first books that your read about tarot (for that read some of my other reviews), but at some point if you are curious and thirty for more information look into this book, that as I said it well intended, but be aware of its flaws.

Last but not least, it is important to know that this books focuses solely on the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. Even though it is indeed the most popular deck, it is not the only one and this might be a problem for readers that use other Tarot Decks.

P.S. I heard an interview they did to Wald Amberstone (on the internet) and he sounded very knowledgeable and wise. That is what got me interested on this book. I still have high regards for him and some of his ideas and teachings.