Wednesday, December 27, 2006

The Complete Book Of Tarot Reversals

The Complete Book Of Tarot Reversals Cover

Book: The Complete Book Of Tarot Reversals by Mary Greer

Mary Greer pioneered the psychological, experiential methods of reading tarot that have now become the norm. Her earlier books, especially Tarot for Your Self, are full of exercises to help beginning readers develop a personal relationship with their cards. I thus expected Tarot Reversals to follow this same pattern...a sort of workbook for getting comfortable interpreting reversed cards.

How do you read reversed tarot cards, the ones that appear upside down in a spread? In The Complete Book of Tarot Reversals, author Mary K. Greer addresses this commonly ignored or misunderstood situation. The most common wisdom about reversed cards is that they indicate resistance or problem areas. In fact, some readers simply abort a reading if too many cards show up as reversals, assuming that the person is too unreceptive, depressed, or dishonest to work with the reading. "Receiving too many reversals can make you feel like you have been dealt a 'losing hand,'" writes Greer, "but hopefully, this book will help turn that around." In fact, Greer claims that reversals offer a portal to the more mystical and esoteric influences in our lives. They "provide an opportunity to reach below logic and lead us into the realm of potentials and underlying causes where everything is connected and Magic happens." Greer (Tarot for Your Self), a seasoned reader and tarot teacher, suggests 12 possible reasons for a reversal. For instance, it could indicate a blocked or resistant situation or it could be due to the questioner getting ready to break through the condition pictured. Greer then offers Interpretations of all 78 tarot cards (both reversed and upright), while giving more lengthy coverage to the fascinating twist of reversals.

Although there are some very valuable exercises in this book, nearly 70% of it is devoted to card-by-card interpretation, typically a page or so describing the upright meanings of the card, then a somewhat lengthier description of the reversed meanings. These descriptions are an incredible resource for any tarot reader, especially if you use reversals in your readings. There is nothing even remotely comparable anywhere else. (Other tarot books explain the meaning of the upright card, but limit reversed meanings to a few keywords.) Besides the welcome in-depth look at reversed meanings, these card interpretations are just plain good, reflecting Greer's decades of experience as a tarot reader and teacher. A welcome inclusion is shamanic/magical meanings for each card, and healing/disease implications as well. This section of the book holds its own against any of the card-by-card interpretation guides on the market today. Although this book is part of Llewellyn's series on "advanced topics in tarot", a complete beginner could learn how to interpret cards very well by using this book.

The remainder of the book consists of general advice on using and interpreting reversals. Greer goes far beyond "reversals as opposites", describing twelve different senses a reversed card can have. The book includes a lengthy listing of words that can be used to modify the upright meanings of the cards. This is very useful, especially if your own deck is a little too far removed from conventional meanings to make use of the card-by-card descriptions.

There are a number of excursions into various tarot topics, such as elemental dignities, and some really interesting spreads. I could hardly read a page in this book without coming on something new I wanted to try out.

Although this book is not intended to be a substitute for a basic tarot book, it could probably be used as such without much difficulty. And as a resource for working with reversed cards, it is unique and indispensible.

Buy Mary Greer's book: The Complete Book Of Tarot Reversals

Books in PDF format to read:

Raymond Buckland - Bucklands Complete Book Of Witchcraft
Ralph Blum - The New Book Of Runes
Pamela Ball - The Ultimate Book Of Spells.pdf
Anonymous - The Secret Book Of Artephius

Sunday, December 3, 2006

Divination For You

Divination For You Cover This seems like a fairly good time of year to be talking about divination. What
is it, why do we do it, and what's in it for us? Lots of people think it's a
way of avoiding responsibility - if the future is preordained, we might as well
go back to bed.

Of course, that's not it at all. Divination is the use of any one of several
methods to obtain Information which is not directly accessible to the conscious
mind of the person asking the question. Whether you use cards, crystals, a
pendulum, ink, lead, dice, the flight of birds or anything else, what you are
really doing is opening your end of a channel to higher wisdom. I consider the
"actual" source of that wisdom irrelevant and immaterial; it could be one's own
subconscious, the collective unconscious, the Gods' will, telepathic insight, or
a big computer buried in the Balkans. It's still additional information which
is not as tainted by ego and intellect's limitations as most.

So what do we do with it? The same things we do with any other information; add
it to what we already know and develop a synthesis that can help us do our
decision-making. The easiest way to analyze the process is with a concrete
(well, maybe jello) example:

A young man has been between Relationships for some time. He wants very much to
link up with the great love of his life, but is not aware of anyone on the
horizon. He is putting himself in a position to meet new people, presenting
himself as attractively as he can, and generally taking care of business, but no
results. He has to decide whether to take a work-related course at night or
not. It will take a lot of time and there are not likely to be any women
attending. His progressed horoscope is neutral. He gets his cards read. They
say:

[PAUSE]

1. Nothing at all about love, but a lot about skilled craftsmanship and
satisfaction through work. He decides to relax and wait for a better time,
takes the course, and is rewarded with a modest promotion which enhances his
satisfaction with his job.

2. A lot about increasing social activities, leading to the start of a new
romance, leading to great happiness and satisfaction after some difficulties are
resolved. He does not take the course, and meets a really nice interesting lady
at a party given by a friend (which he couldn't have attended had he taken the
course).

3. That he is overlooking sources of emotional gratification in his current
situation. Given the information, he starts looking around and discovers that
one of his quieter friends is a really thoughtful and insightful person who
helps him learn to know himself better, and that a young cousin needs a mentor
and this Relationship gives him a lot of pleasure and fulfillment. He begins
to feel much more ready for a good
relationship, and much less impatient to have one start.

These examples illustrate the point made above; divination provides you with
choices, and you take the consequences, no matter what the oracles say. Treat
them with respect, not adoration or blind compliance, and may they always show
you the truth.

Books in PDF format to read:

Anonymous - Dictionary Of The Forgotten Ones
Aleister Crowley - Invocation
Brian Swimme On Chardin - The Divinization Of The Cosmos
James Eschelman - Invocation Of Horus
Anonymous - Divination Spreads