If you have ever been intrigued by tarot and went searching for a book, you were probably overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of items sold on this subject alone. To make choices even harder, there are many, many available decks out there too.

Where to begin? What to use? Are all books equally good?

If you are new to tarot, your best bet is to begin with the Rider-Waite tarot deck because it is not only the most popular deck, but it’s images are (for the most) easily understood and assimilated and there are many books available which discuss this deck.The images were drawn by artist Pamela Colman Smith, to the instructions of academic and mystic A. E. Waite, and published by the Rider Company. The images seem to be very simple, but once you learn to look at them and study them you will find a wealth of details and symbolism packed into them without washing out the clarity of the card message but rather enhancing it masterly. Also, the cards remain close to the earliest tarot decks and don’t diverge into fields far off the path, mostly they show added details to clarify the meaning of a card.

When it comes to books, you will have a tougher choice. You will find everything, from cheap fortune telling (partially with the most horrendous descriptions) to highly in-depth and mystic books. Definitely look for a beginners book, but be aware that your understanding of each card will evolve and change over time and that what you read can only be seen and used as a basic starting point.

It is not what others write about the card and it is not what is written in the stars, it is what YOU see in the cards and what YOU put into the cards.

As an example take a white card with nothing drawn or depicted on it, no text, no anything but being a plain white card. Look at that card. What all can you see in this card? Emptiness, voidness, nothingness, not connected, not visible, not there, hidden, not yet created, clarity, clean slate, no idea, blank, not revealed, not yet written… and so on. Each of these single items can now be interpreted positively or negatively: “nothing there” can be a ‘bad’ thing if you want to figure out if you should think of your latest lover as your soul mate or not, but on the other hand it can be a ‘good’ thing when you are hoping for a clean slate and fresh start.

What all can you associate with it? This is up to you, your past and your current viewpoint of things, next to your agreement of what to put into the card after reading what others say it is. In the end it all mounts up to association.

Next time we will have a closer look at this.