Lessons from a Professional Tarot Reader
Most people, if they really want to, can learn the meanings of tarot cards. Where things often get more difficult is learning to be a good reader. A reader does more than simply interpret the cards one by one. A reader weaves together layers of meanings and of symbolism with the spread, the querent’s energy, and the question. They access intuition. They create an alchemical event.
Teaching how to do this is almost impossible. However, Josephine Ellershaw has. Because so many of her students and her fans (of her first work, Easy Tarot) begged her, Josie took on the monumental task of documenting everything that goes on in a reading. You, the reader, get a behind the scenes look at what goes in her mind during a reading. Each case study includes follow-ups with the querent, up to a year beyond the reading, to see how it all played out. Each case study ends with practical advice, tips that we learn from the various readings.
This book is an amazing achievement and will be helpful to you no matter what level you consider yourself.
*adds another book to my ever-growing “things to read” list*
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Barb, On this I would disagree with you for once. I not only think it is possible, I think it is essential, if we look across the hall at the practitioners of Astrology, no one would dream of publishing a Astrology book that does not refer to actual charts, and the aspects and placements in those charts.
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I firmly believe that if Tarot is ever going to have a literature comparable to the immense library available to Astrologers, then the norm will have to become looking at the cards not by themselves, but in the context of a reading; From what I can see this book is very much about that and I welcome it myself.
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Not that I belittle the task, I have been working on a Manuscript of 21 Readings; based on essays to one of my online groups; and after three years I only now feel like I have a good chance of finishing a acceptable result in the next 3-6 months. Not to blow my own horn here, but my experience my own project gives me a good feel how much work Josephine must have put into hers.
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Sounds very interesting, Blessings, BB.
I won this book in a competition on Blog Talk Radio, where Josie was being interviewed by Dax Carlisle from the Tarot Guild, on Tarot Today.
I’m not yet halfway through the book but I am loving what I’m reading so far. It’s great being able to see how another tarot reader thinks and explains their methods and process.
I’ll be buying the first book soon!