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Mary K. Greer's 21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card Paperback – Illustrated, May 8, 2006
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Drawing on nearly forty years of tarot experience, Mary K. Greer has developed a new energizing approach-made up of twenty-one stimulating techniques to interpret or deepen your understanding of each card. Just as the twenty-six letters of the alphabet can be combined to form billions of words, Greer's twenty-one methods can be used in any combination for gaining amazing new insights and perspectives.
Emphasizing both traditional and personal methods of interpretation, Greer's techniques involve storytelling, sketching, symbols, metaphors, dialogues, acting, and other imaginative exercises. Designed to bring about interaction, transformation, and empowerment, this twenty-one-pronged approach to tarot can help readers expand standard interpretations and evolve new ways of connecting to the cards.
COVR Award Winner or Best Divination Book
- Print length336 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherLlewellyn Publications
- Publication dateMay 8, 2006
- Dimensions7.4 x 1 x 9 inches
- ISBN-100738707848
- ISBN-13978-0738707846
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From the brand
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As the world's oldest and largest independent publisher of books for body, mind, and spirit, Llewellyn is dedicated to bringing our readers the very best in metaphysical books and resources. Since 1901, we've been a source of illumination, instruction, and new perspectives on a wealth of topics, including Paganism and witchcraft, astrology, tarot, wellness, magic and the occult, and the paranormal.
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From the Publisher
Winner of the Coalition of Visionary Resources Award for Best Divination Book
Drawing on nearly forty years of tarot experience, Mary K. Greer has developed a new energizing approach-made up of twenty-one stimulating techniques to interpret or deepen your understanding of each card. Just as the twenty-six letters of the alphabet can be combined to form billions of words, Greer's twenty-one methods can be used in any combination for gaining amazing new insights and perspectives.
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| The Complete Book of Tarot Reversals | Understanding the Tarot Court | |
| Also by Mary K. Greer: | What do you do with the "other half" of the Tarot deck: the reversed cards? Experienced and beginning Tarot readers alike often struggle with interpreting cards when they're upside down. | Just who are those kings, queens, knights, and pages in the Tarot deck? Generally considered the most difficult part of the Tarot to interpret, they actually represent different characters or personalities that are aspects of ourselves. |
Editorial Reviews
Review
COVR Award Winner or Best Divination Book
"This may be the only book you'll really need on the tarot. All the other books are, so to speak, icing on the cake baked by Mary K. Greer."―Barbara Ardinger, PhD, in The Beltane Papers
"If you buy one book this year, make it this book! There is such an incredible amount of material presented here―researched and presented in a thoroughly professional manner...There is something in this book for every student, at all levels."―Bonnie Cehovet, TE, on Aeclectic Tarot
About the Author
Mary also has a wide following in the women's and pagan communities for her work in women's spirituality and magic. A Priestess-Hierophant in the Fellowship of Isis, she is the founder of the Iseum of Isis Aurea.
Mary has studied and practiced Tarot and astrology for over 34 years. Her teaching experience includes eleven years at New College of California, as well as at many workshops, conferences, and classes. She is the founder and director of the learning center T.A.R.O.T. (Tools and Rites of Transformation).
Her books include Tarot for Your Self: A Workbook for Personal Transformation (1984); Tarot Constellations: Patterns of Personal Destiny (1987); Tarot Mirrors: Reflections of Personal Meaning (1988); The Essence of Magic: Tarot, Ritual, and Aromatherapy (1993); Women of the Golden Dawn: Rebels and Priestesses (1995); and Aromatherapy: Healing for the Body and Soul (1998), with Kathi Keville.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Name
Action without a name, a "who" attached to it, is meaningless.
-hannah arendt, the human condition
The Way of the Apprentice
Preliminaries: Choosing Your Card
Now's the time to select the card that you'll use through each of the twenty-one ways to read a tarot card. That's right; you might as well jump right in. Choose a deck that has storytelling images on all the cards, and shuffle it thoroughly as you ask, "What do I most need to look at in my life right now?"
Draw three cards and turn them to their faceup and upright positions (see Glossary). Which card is most intriguing? Which one is most unsettling? Which card has the most detail? Which card has the least detail? Decide which one of the three will be your "chosen card." It should have enough symbolism for you to explore in depth and, perhaps, be more interesting than pleasing. Aces are not your best bet or the Eight of Wands, as they usually have few details. It helps if one or more people are actively doing something in the image. If in doubt, pick a Major Arcana card.
You'll be working with your chosen card throughout the book. Do not look up its meaning until you get to Step 10. If you feel truly drawn to do so, you can change your card at any time, but remember: the greater the challenge, the greater the potential growth. If you change your card, go back through the previous steps to get an overview of the new card before continuing where you left off.
Activity
1:1
Say the name of the card you have chosen aloud:
"I've drawn 10, the Wheel of Fortune."
"You received the Four of Pentacles."
"This card is the King of Cups."
"I got 13, Transformation, which is usually called Death."
That's all there is to this first step. Say the name of the card! It seems obvious but don't overlook doing it. Time after time, I see students look at a card in desperate silence, with no idea of what to say or where to begin.
Saying the name of the card opens your mouth and starts it moving-what I call "priming the pump" or getting the ideas flowing. You'll then find it's easier to say the next thing and the next. Naming something helps you own it and thus connects you to what you know about it. It's like a key that unlocks a gate-sometimes a floodgate-of information.
Activity
1:2
If you are new to tarot or have just purchased an unusual deck, shuffle it and then examine the cards, one by one, saying their names as you do so. This simple exercise will help familiarize you with this particular pack.
The Way of the Adept
You can continue exploring this step now or come back later, after trying out the other ways to read a tarot card.
Before beginning a reading, you should have psychically grounded yourself, paid attention to your breath, and shuffled the cards. Step 1 establishes an essential quality in a reading: a focused state. Now you bring your focus to bear on a single card and what it has to offer. Naming the card is a formal introduction to the energies before you, an acknowledgment of the players in the game.
The tone and emphasis you use when naming the card will convey a tremendous amount of information in itself. You might surprise yourself with a feeling you didn't know you had. For instance, you might greet the Empress with a sense of letdown-"Oh, the Empress"-only realizing later that you were hoping for a little more dynamic and assertive card. If reading for a querent, you can disarm their assumptions about a card by your manner of naming it. For example, you might greet a disturbing card by cheerfully exclaiming, "How exciting, you've drawn the Tower!" The task then becomes to convey what makes this card so exciting. Don't overdo it and definitely don't fake a response. In general, you are best served by being open and curious about why this particular card appears at this place and time. Always pay close attention to first impressions, both when reading for yourself and with a querent.
When reading for another, empathize with their first response to a card. Acknowledge and support their response before continuing.
Activity
1:3
Shuffle your deck. Ask the question, "Who am I?" Then turn over a card and say its name. Notice any physical response in your body as you first see the card and name it. Did you hold your breath or did you inhale, as if to take in the card? Did you move subtly back or forward? Was there any tenseness or relaxation? What was your very first sensory impression-a flush, a chill, an increased heartbeat, surprise, disappointment, satisfaction, nostalgia? Try this with two or three more cards.
Activity
1:4
Have another person draw a card for the same question. Say the name of the card. Simultaneously note the person's initial physical response. Tell the person what you observed and then ask what her first impression was. For example, Amy draws a card and I tell her, "It's the Ten of Coins." Then I say, "You moved forward slightly when you saw it and seemed to smile. What's going on?" Amy responds, "I'd like having that many coins and my own family." Was the response what you expected?
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Name
Action without a name, a "who" attached to it, is meaningless.
-hannah arendt, the human condition
The Way of the Apprentice
Preliminaries: Choosing Your Card
Now's the time to select the card that you'll use through each of the twenty-one ways to read a tarot card. That's right; you might as well jump right in. Choose a deck that has storytelling images on all the cards, and shuffle it thoroughly as you ask, "What do I most need to look at in my life right now?"
Draw three cards and turn them to their faceup and upright positions (see Glossary). Which card is most intriguing? Which one is most unsettling? Which card has the most detail? Which card has the least detail? Decide which one of the three will be your "chosen card." It should have enough symbolism for you to explore in depth and, perhaps, be more interesting than pleasing. Aces are not your best bet or the Eight of Wands, as they usually have few details. It helps if one or more people are actively doing something in the image. If in doubt, pick a Major Arcana card.
You'll be working with your chosen card throughout the book. Do not look up its meaning until you get to Step 10. If you feel truly drawn to do so, you can change your card at any time, but remember: the greater the challenge, the greater the potential growth. If you change your card, go back through the previous steps to get an overview of the new card before continuing where you left off.
Activity
1:1
Say the name of the card you have chosen aloud:
"I've drawn 10, the Wheel of Fortune."
"You received the Four of Pentacles."
"This card is the King of Cups."
"I got 13, Transformation, which is usually called Death."
That's all there is to this first step. Say the name of the card! It seems obvious but don't overlook doing it. Time after time, I see students look at a card in desperate silence, with no idea of what to say or where to begin.
Saying the name of the card opens your mouth and starts it moving-what I call "priming the pump" or getting the ideas flowing. You'll then find it's easier to say the next thing and the next. Naming something helps you own it and thus connects you to what you know about it. It's like a key that unlocks a gate-sometimes a floodgate-of information.
Activity
1:2
If you are new to tarot or have just purchased an unusual deck, shuffle it and then examine the cards, one by one, saying their names as you do so. This simple exercise will help familiarize you with this particular pack.
The Way of the Adept
You can continue exploring this step now or come back later, after trying out the other ways to read a tarot card.
Before beginning a reading, you should have psychically grounded yourself, paid attention to your breath, and shuffled the cards. Step 1 establishes an essential quality in a reading: a focused state. Now you bring your focus to bear on a single card and what it has to offer. Naming the card is a formal introduction to the energies before you, an acknowledgment of the players in the game.
The tone and emphasis you use when naming the card will convey a tremendous amount of information in itself. You might surprise yourself with a feeling you didn't know you had. For instance, you might greet the Empress with a sense of letdown-"Oh, the Empress"-only realizing later that you were hoping for a little more dynamic and assertive card. If reading for a querent, you can disarm their assumptions about a card by your manner of naming it. For example, you might greet a disturbing card by cheerfully exclaiming, "How exciting, you've drawn the Tower!" The task then becomes to convey what makes this card so exciting. Don't overdo it and definitely don't fake a response. In general, you are best served by being open and curious about why this particular card appears at this place and time. Always pay close attention to first impressions, both when reading for yourself and with a querent.
When reading for another, empathize with their first response to a card. Acknowledge and support their response before continuing.
Activity
1:3
Shuffle your deck. Ask the question, "Who am I?" Then turn over a card and say its name. Notice any physical response in your body as you first see the card and name it. Did you hold your breath or did you inhale, as if to take in the card? Did you move subtly back or forward? Was there any tenseness or relaxation? What was your very first sensory impression-a flush, a chill, an increased heartbeat, surprise, disappointment, satisfaction, nostalgia? Try this with two or three more cards.
Activity
1:4
Have another person draw a card for the same question. Say the name of the card. Simultaneously note the person's initial physical response. Tell the person what you observed and then ask what her first impression was. For example, Amy draws a card and I tell her, "It's the Ten of Coins." Then I say, "You moved forward slightly when you saw it and seemed to smile. What's going on?" Amy responds, "I'd like having that many coins and my own family." Was the response what you expected?
Product details
- Publisher : Llewellyn Publications (May 8, 2006)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0738707848
- ISBN-13 : 978-0738707846
- Item Weight : 1.5 pounds
- Dimensions : 7.4 x 1 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #164,425 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #620 in Tarot
- #2,472 in Occult & Paranormal
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Mary K. Greer is an independent scholar, writer, teacher, and professional tarot consultant. She has an M.A. in English Literature from the University of Central Florida where she also first taught tarot in 1974. For eleven years, she was a teacher and administrator at New College of California in San Francisco, including teaching tarot as an interdisciplinary subject integrating art, literature, history, and psychology. She is the author of eleven books on tarot and on magic.
Mary's books have pioneered entirely new techniques for learning about and working with the cards, including being the first to present in-depth techniques for reading for oneself. In 2007, Mary received the International Tarot Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Tarot Studies. She also received the 2006 Mercury Award from the Mary Redman Foundation for "excellence in communication in the metaphysical field," and the 2006 Coalition of Visionary Resources (COVR) award for best divination book. She is also an ordained priestess in the Fellowship and Church of Isis.
Mary has lived in Japan, Germany, England and Mexico and in six states within the U.S., and continues to travel around the world teaching. She currently produces "Mary K. Greer's Tarot Blog" at http://marygreer.wordpress.com which focuses on tarot history and research, tarot in popular culture, and tips and techniques for reading the cards. Her blog posts are frequently translated into other languages and reposted on other sites.
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Top reviews from the United States
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Because tarot is personal and interactive, there is not true objective perspective; each placement is a predestined arrangement of what we already feel inside, laid out before us, as proof that we’re properly engaged.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 27, 2022
Because tarot is personal and interactive, there is not true objective perspective; each placement is a predestined arrangement of what we already feel inside, laid out before us, as proof that we’re properly engaged.
In addition to this psychological insight, the exercises will also teach you to be very creative when reading the cards. Still adhering to its meaning, symbolism, etc. you develop a kind of intuition about the cards that will take you beyond the 21 ways of reading the cards shown here.
As with any book, you will find some techniques that you like more than others. Some of the exercises, depending on your taste and believe, might not be that useful. You might even question their value. And that is all fine. By removing all the exercises (which I don't recommend) we are left with a beautifully written book that will not only entertain but thoroughly inform you about history, occultism, symbolism and divination. With this book Mary K. Greer proves to be one of the most erudite and best writers on these subjects at the moment. Definitely looking forward to reading some of her books.
The book comes from Greer's development of what she calls R.I.T.E. "a reading that is interactive, transformational, and empowering; a reading that uses the twenty-one steps in this book." (p. XI) The introduction talks about readings from a variety of perspectives; a section not unlike a course catalog listing, although much more detailed. The "How to Use this Book" section is like the course syllabus.
Greer lays out two paths for working through the book: the Way of the Apprentice and the Way of the Adept. They Way of the Apprentice is what I would call Tarot 101. It provides the basics of looking at the card you choose to work with in Step 1. The Way of the Adept, obviously, goes more deeply into the card. Greer writes "After becoming familiar with the principles of the first ten steps, you can explore remaining ways in any order you choose." (p. XX) I would say that the first ten steps would be Taro 201, after which the reader moves on to Tarot 301.
While there are 21 ways to look at a card and the paths of the Apprentice and the Adept, there are more than 42 different exercises. Not every exercise will appeal to every person, but most people should find at least a few that speak to them. I particularly enjoyed the chapters on Embodiment and Myth & Archetypes.
I originally purchased it shortly after it was first published, and I return to it again and again. I would recommend this book for people interested in working with the Tarot by themselves and for people who read, or want to read, for others.
Top reviews from other countries
- It is written in a very easy to read and entertaining manner. You can just read it, or do the exercises which are graded in order of effort and complexity (so its easy to choose how far you want to go with a particular topic.)
- The book will work with any set of cards - and there is a useful chapter on using different decks in combination, and on drawing your own cards.
- This is not a dictionary type of book that lists what each card means! (although she does devote a chapter on exactly how to use those those types of books for maximum effect). By doing the work you actually learn an approach to interpret any card (and I suspect that with practice you don't even need the cards!)
- Little or no new age mumbo jumbo - its just practical advice with a good psychological basis.
- I was a bit disappointed that there not are lots of different spreads, but I now realise that she gives all the tools to create your own spreads.
Again; thank you.
Please take my feedback seriously. I have written twenty-three of my own therapy books, and these concentrate / specialise in 150 human emotions. So, does your book resonate with me ... oh-yes!
AW CRIBB (Amazon)
Hugs!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 19, 2015
Again; thank you.
Please take my feedback seriously. I have written twenty-three of my own therapy books, and these concentrate / specialise in 150 human emotions. So, does your book resonate with me ... oh-yes!
AW CRIBB (Amazon)
Hugs!












