Customer Reviews

Symbolism of the Tarot

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I highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a new view of the tarot. It deals with a very occultist point of view, and while there are literally an infinite number of ways to look at the tarot, this book shows you a whole new way. The book states it in a way that I never could, so I'll quote you a passage to let it speak for itself: The Devil: ..."I close the triangle, the other two sides of which are Death and Time. In order to quit this triangle it is necessary to see that it does not exist." I would suggest this little volume for anyone searching for the deeper meaning of the Tarot.

This book from the Russian-born Ouspensky on the meaning of the images of the Tarot was written early in his career (during which he popularized interest in the occult in the early 20th century with his own ideas -- as in Tertium Organum in 1912 -- and the ideas of G. I. Gurdjieff in the posthumous 1949 book In Search of the Miraculous) and uses the Waite-Smith pictorial deck as his basis. Ouspensky's work is always original and this is no exception - a short, interesting glimpse of Tarot symbolism from a unique point of view.

The pack of 78 cards is a very intriguing one. From its foretelling reputation (various authors claim that the whole ancient knowledge is coded in them) over its abridged playing version of Tarok (22 cards of Arcana Major in altered look plus 32 "normal" cards).They are also discussed by famous occultist Ouspensky.
The presentation is near perfect. He tells us enough to feel the occult meaning of symbols and almost in the same time states that symbolism only remains symbolic as long it is not clearly defined. At that time symbol convert into a character (of alphabet), which loses its original message.
So there is always something hidden in symbolism, that can be interpreted one or another way around. It is up to interpreter, who has the knowledge and experience to understand this symbolism. Not for every mortal, but interesting to read.

It is not a statement about symbols. These are his personal pathworkings. If one meditates on a major arcanum, there may also be a path to follow, necessarily different from that of Ouspensky, by virtue of being a different person.

I am, I will admit, a beginner at Tarot. I have just put my first tentative foot upon the long and winding path. And what should I pick up first? Why Ouspenskii's book "The Symbolism Of The Tarot"!

For someone who wants to understand Tarot this is a godsend! He talks about some of the background and then goes over the symbolism of each of the Major Arcana cards in detail. And then he does a wonderful thing and describes each scene on the cards as if he had just come upon it. He paints a "word picture" of the card that goes much deeper, at least for me, than the images themselves do.

The reason you might want to read this book is because it might be helpful to understand what the symbols mean on the cards and what the add up to.

What this book WILL NOT give you is the divinatory meanings of the cards. If you just want a book with a list of the possible meaning of the cards for your next reading, this isn't the book for you.

But if you want to go deeper into the Tarot... this might be a doorway for you.

My only complaint is that it's a short book. He taught me a lot, went farther than the stuff I read by Waite (admittedly, just the material that came with the cards) and then stopped. I want MORE!

Dave
2011

Written to sound impressive and as if relating to occult but it is just beating around the bush and telling you that there are numerous ways of interpreting the symbols... So how are you going to interpret the symbols? Just whatever way you feel then.

This book is unusable. If you want to know about reading tarot, you can forget about learning from this book.