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Living the Qabalistic Tarot is a 22-week course, a book version of author Amber Jayanti's popular and widely acclaimed tarot classes. Unlike other books that focus heavily on theory, background, and card interpretations, Living the Qabalistic Tarot offers readers a step-by-step guide to experiencing tarot in their daily lives. Jayanti combines years of teaching tarot and Qabalah into an accessible guide that even beginners can experience at their own pace and comfort level.
Experienced tarot students will find fascinating connections between Qabalah and tarot to deepen their daily experience of tarot.
Each of the 22 lessons is followed by suggestions and guidelines for practical application and integration into everyday life, as well as testimonials from tarot students about the power of tarot to transform daily living.
Pagan News Review by PaganNews.com
There are things I like about this book, and things I don't like.
Amber Jayanti is the author of many books, including the Principles of the Qabalah and Tarot for Dummies, and in this latest book she again shows her great ability to simplify complex subject matter in a way that makes it enjoyable and easy to understand.
In Living the Qabalistic Tarot, Jayanti takes us through the Major Arcana from the point of view of the Qabalah, including the four worlds and the four related stages of life, examining each card in detail and explaining how it fits with the Tree of Life.
The book includes exercises, meditations and key phrases to help you better understand the Tarot, as well as a useful Table of Correspondences at the end.
What I don't like, and frankly find mystifying, is that the book deals only with the Major Arcana, and in that sense it is only half a book. Although the cards of the minor Arcana are not located on the tree, they do have significance within the realm of the four Qabalistic worlds, and their omission can only mean that there is a sequel to this book in the works...
One other thing, which may simply be a personal peeve, is the inclusion of Student Experiences in the book. You know the sort of thing: Mary, a divorced drug addict is faced with the loss of her home and children when she follows the author's advice and meditates on the Strength card and suddenly her life is completely turned around and she has just been elected to Congress.
This sort of thing always sets up red flags for me, since it reminds me of all those self-help books that take the wisdom of Plato, Emmanuel Kant et al. and mush it into McNuggets for digestion by a hungry populace.
Leaving aside my personal distaste of this one particular inclusion in the book, Living the Qabalistic Tarot is an excellent resource for the advance Qabbalah student who wants to get a better handle on the Major Arcana.
