After the success of Tarot: Unlocking the Arcana I sat down to decide what my next project was going to be. It came to me, a tarot journal! If I could go back in time to the beginning of my tarot journey to do something different, I would journal more. I did attempt journaling, but that failed. Blank notebooks were uninspiring. They left me wanting. Printing out online PDF’s and
Google Sasha Fenton and you will get enough book results to make you as happy as Charlie in the Chocolate Factory. Red Wheel/Weiser already republished one of her successful titles on Fortunetelling by Tarot Cards and depending on your location December or January 2018 another one will be available for the masses again. If you are all about foreseeing the future Sasha Fenton’s latest reprint, Fortune Teller’s Handbook | 20 Fun and Easy Techniques for Predicting the Future, might be right up your alley. Based on just reading the blurb my prediction is: fun reading for the beginning diviner and a way to decide which rabbit hole you want to fall down in. Fenton’s Fortune Teller’s Handbook is a 186 pages counting paperback. Orange tinted back and cover with a classic Zohar gazing into a crystal ball. The subtitle basically gives away the angle of the book and the fact it won’t be an independant study of a particular way of divining. The Handbook shows “20 fun and easy techniques” and the intro adds these twenty chapters are “merely the tip of the iceberg. In all cases there are excellent in-depth books available on divination method in question (..)”. So, you…
What’s new in the world of Traditional Tarot for the coming months, up until 2018? A few decks mentioned in last year’s article are still being worked on. Michael Bridge-Dickson’s Arcanum X Tarot for example*, the Tarot Maria Celia is supposedly coming end this year through USGS, the New Choice Tarot (see below). The entrees below were the designers and publishers that answered my call when asked: who is going to treat us on some mighty fine traditionally inspired tarot books & decks? SOLA BUSCA BOOK AND DECK: pre-order The “first faithful reproduction in 500 years” of the enigmatic 1491 Sola-Busca tarocchi will be available from the fine esoteric publishers, Scarlet Imprint, in the Fall of 2017. The pre-order for the deck started in September, shipping commences from mid-October. The Sola-Busca is not only the earliest complete tarocchi deck in existence, created by a master engraver, it is one of the finest in execution, richness of symbolism and esoteric import. Created for a Venetian patrician client, it’s fully illustrated minor suit provided Pamela Coleman-Smith with the template for the minor cards of the Smith-Waite deck. The deck will be accompanied by a 66 page sewn booklet, ‘A Guide to…
When you’ve written over a 100 books on spirituality and divination two things can happen: you either have the experience and knowledge to write a kick-ass Tarot beginner’s book that actually holds up in the stack of ever growing beginner’s titles. Or…you write something that is obligatory, boring, a dime a dozen, repetitive or focused on myth, so a newbie better stick with the well-known books. I took up Sasha Fenton’s rereleased* Fortune Telling by Tarot Cards. A Beginner’s Guide to Understanding the Tarot to find out which one it is.
Every deck that goes a little deeper than merely being a clone of TdM, Thoth or WCS deserves a decent companion. But unfortunately there aren’t many good ones out there. Book of Seshet is one of the exceptions. This guidebook, written for The Rosetta Tarot by MM Meleen, also happens to offer slightly more if you’re into Golden Dawn and Thoth.
