/lit/ - Literature

>>12792960

Tarot decks commonly come with a basic instruction booklet which gives basic information about each card, which gives you ideas for how to interpret each card. Just get yourself a tarot deck.

Tarot is evil.

>>12793031

Yes, it is, but not in the metaphysical sense that you mean. Tarot is only evil, in exactly the same sense that Christianity is: the promulgation of fictions and pseudo-knowledge which have a net negative effect on human development. Because that is the proper criterion for good and evil.

>>12792960
Meditations on the Tarot

>>12792960
Read Eliphas Levi's History of Magic and Secrets of Magic.

You can also read Aleister Crowley but beware.

>>12793124
this

>>12793027
Which deck should I get?
It looks like the most common ones are the Marseilles tarot and the Rider-Waite tarot. Is one of these better than the other or does it not matter?

>>12793124
This is really good but explicitly Christian.

https://www.amazon.com/Holistic-Tarot-Integrative-Approach-Personal/dp/158394835X is nice as a reference, it is practically orientated. I'd suggest you real more about Hermeticism generally since Tarot is part of the larger Western esoteric tradition.

>>12793173
Marseilles/RWS for your first because of the popularity You can find out what the symbols mean, people discus them, etc. I suggest RWS.

>>12792960
Calvino, castle of crossed destinies

>>12793173
The Thoth Tarot is another good deck and pic related is a good introduction to it, if you want to learn more about it get Aleister Crowley's Book of Thoth
If you get the Marseilles deck get Alejandro Jodorowsky's book The Way of the Tarot
The Pictorial Key to the Tarot is by A.E. Waite explaining the symbolism behind his deck

>>12792960
Doont mess wit dem caads boi, deybs pure ebil

>Yugioh kids ITT

>>12793082
>promulgation of fictions and pseudo-knowledge
it’s just interpretation of symbols

>>12793257
lol :3

>>12793257
>Butterflies in my head :3

>>12793324
yeah yeah yeah btw there was a post earlier of some gay shit with my emoticon. I am not gay and I don't like gay shit okay thank you :3

>>12793173
the rider-waite is the classic tarot deck used by many "orthodox" career tarot readers, i.e. new age faggots who make a living charging people per minute to tell them if their husband is cheating or not by giving noncommittal and vague answers so as to have plausible deniability in case a divorce/murder results. so if you want what the pros use, go with rider-waite

>>12792960

since /lit/ is also a leading culture board, it should be pointed out that the Rider-Waite-Smith deck (properly so-called, as Smith is the actual artist of the images which have captured the modern imagination, and so is really the most meaningful creative contributor) is a reversed line-trace of Dürer's "Knight, Death and the Devil", one of his masterpieces. I realized this quite quickly upon getting my own deck.

I found tarot readings to be an extremely useful self-reflection tool.

Can I use tarot cards without knowing what they mean? That is, can I just buy a deck and not read anything about it and still find something useful in it? Or will it just be pretty pictures?

>>12793082
Fucking utilitarian

>>12793612
Reading without knowing the common interpretations might be better

>>12793612
Do a one-card reading on me off of OP’s pic: why do i feel drawn to self-help books as of late?

If you can’t do it, then you probably need to learn the meanings.

>>12792960
Paul Huson's Mystical Origins of the Tarot.
Shows you all systems at once in each card, so you can compare them and see why certain cards have certain meanings.

It has Marseille, Etteillia, Golden Dawn, Picatrix, and Waite-Smith. Dense but not hard

For Thoth Tarot the definitive is The Book of Thoth, but it's good to read Mathers' Liber T and Duquette's Understanding the Thoth Tarot first. The Book of Thoth is one of the last writings Crowley made at the end of his life so it's gonna be dense and it's full of references to his own magical system.

Both Waite and Thoth decks are based on Mather's Liber T so when you read that you understand what the decks add or alter

>>12792960
bump

>>12792960
http://www.shogix.net/en-links#books

>>12793148
>You can also read Aleister Crowley but beware
Yes, he may leap out of the book and try to strangle you.

>>12793257
Kill yourself.

>>12793511
>Smith is the actual artist of the images which have captured the modern imagination, and so is really the most meaningful creative contributor
Not really. She painted what Waite told her to, and the actual pictures are so murky and indistinct the details are lost. Thankfully there are many "cleaned-up" versions of the Waite deck now available.

>>12793612
>can I be a wizard without doing my homework
No.

They're just game cards. When did they start being used fortune telling faggotry?

>>12795766
>how do I search engine

>>12795766
The 15th-century Mantegna Tarot was used for moral instruction, you pseud.

>>12795779
Do you want me to kick your ass?
>>12795831
literal non sequitur

Mouni Sadhu has a book on the tarot, but it might be a bit advanced

>>12795899
Try looking up what words mean.

>>12795766
Fortune-telling predates playing cards by a long fucking way. If it wasn't the first thing the tarot was used for, it was a very close second.

>>12796095
Fortune telling does not predate competitive games, my dude.

>>12796244
I said it predated playing cards. Do you even English?

>>12793332
>my emoticon
sure :3

>>12793173
I’ve got the book of azathoth deck and the art is fantastic.

I recommend either the Rider Waite, Marseilles, Hermetic, or Thoth tarots for beginner's. Whichever appeals most to you.

Meditations on the Tarot is an excellent primer on the esoteric worldview and major arcana albeit with an odd Catholic slant and not good for divination with the minor pips.

The Quabalistic Tarot by Robert Wang is a classic for divination. In all its complexity. Good if you want to learn all the baggage. Probably the best book to get and refer back to.

Way of the Tarot by Jodorowski is excellent for learning Marseilles and has a stripped down intuitive psychic shamanistic approach which resonates a lot with me as a chaote.

Book of Thoth is essential for Thoth deck. Duquette is for turboplebs.

I think Austin Osman Spare has a short primer on reading playing cards...

Is there a mystic/magic(k) reading list?

>>12797923
The Occult Philosophy
Golden Dawn
Liber ABA
The Book of Pleasure
Initiation into Hermetics
Liber Null & Psychonaut
Thundersqueak

>>12792960
Good beginner stuff:
Bunning, Learning The Tarot
Pollack, 78 Degrees of Wisdom.

>>12798077
Bunning's website is decent.
http://www.learntarot.com/
A heads-up about Pollack: she's a tranny, if that kind of things matters to you. She also wrote a run of Doom Patrol. It's not recommended. Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol run is, however, fantastic. Exposure to Grant Morrison may improve your tarot.

>>12797436
>Thoth tarot for beginners
Yikes. Thoth is confusing.

>>12798055

>>12793612
Yes, you can. In the same way as you could learn to drive without getting an instructor or learning what the controls of a car do. It'd take you ages and you'd likely come out a worse driver at the end of it.

>>12793082
>the promulgation of fictions and pseudo-knowledge which have a net negative effect on human development.
If you believe fiction has a negative effect on human knowledge you're on the wrong board.

>>>/sci/

>>12797923
98% of magick is unironic LARPing. My honest opinion is to stay away from the Golden Dawn inspired ceremonial shit. It's mostly a waste of time and psued af. Check out the literature of Late Antiquity. Read up on Middle and Neo Platonism. Read the Corpus Hermetica. If you have a background in Biblical studies, read the Nag Hammadi library. The entire basis for the Western magick tradition is in that body of literature. No robes required.

>>12797923
Wouter J. Hanegraaf

>>12798199

Very piss-poor, disingenuous take which intentionally misread what I wrote. Fiction, of course, is important to human imagination (moral and otherwise) and is a valid means of self-expression.

The trouble arises when people mistake fiction for non-fiction.

>>12795721
>Aleister Crowley
I can't bother to reply to everyone mentioning him, nor can find the right words, but he tends to be more flashy, sensational, not very very different from silly English mysticians from Golden Dawn, when it comes to occult related stuff, plus plenty of his ideas come from his invention.

>>12799213
The tarot is about possibilities, imagination, speculation, intuition, these generate insight. It's a useful tool, it works. Your posts have demonatrated no understaning of what it is or what it does. Have you used it?

>>12799213
Fair point though, that was disingenuous of me. Mitigation: late night flippant post. You seem far too assured about what constitutes fiction and what it does.

>>12793173

typically if you want to play to the roots of the decks, they are supposed to be received as gifts

>>12793257

way to reveal you're a shithead zoomer

>>12793031
Divination is fine.


>>12795721
I think he means take it with a grain of salt

>>12792960
It was a parlor game same as the standard 52-card deck but with less history.

>>12799852
Nothing wrong with Golden Dawn. They did a lot of good early comparative religious study and at least attempted to practice what they learned unlike armchair scholars.

>>12793173
In my experience Rider-Waite is the closest to a ‘standard’ and has the most material out there for beginners.

Tarot is bullshit. Just like the i-ching.

>>12793082
this is you

Meditations on the Tarot