DESCRIPTION | PRAISE | READ EXCERPTS
MEDIA | STUDY GUIDES | AMENDMENTS
The following study guides are intended to help you get the most out of your copy of Holistic Tarot. The book, plus these supplements, are designed to cover three levels of tarot education: beginner, intermediate, and advanced.
Start by determining which level you are at and download the corresponding study guide and supplements below. The guide acts as a syllabus for independent tarot study and will instruct your way through the book. Please also note that the below guides are based on the author’s teaching approach only, and do not represent any other tradition or set tarot pedagogical lineage.
Also, this study is keyed specifically to the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot system.
To Tarot Instructors and Mentors: Yes, of course, please feel free to use any of these Study Guides in whole or in part, the contents or topic organization for educational purposes with your students. You can use these study guides to get a sense of how you might want to structure your own syllabus, class, or workshop. Although you’ll never get in trouble with me for not crediting, a lot of the content herein come from Holistic Tarot, published by North Atlantic Books, so to make nice with the publisher, please be sure to include attribution to the book title (Holistic Tarot: An Integrative Approach to Using Tarot for Personal Growth) or the publisher (North Atlantic Books, www.northatlanticbooks.com).
STUDY GUIDE FOR THE BEGINNER TAROT STUDENT
If you’re new to tarot and have just acquired a Rider-Waite-Smith deck, then start here. The Study Guide for the Beginner Tarot Student is a syllabus for learning tarot on your own with the Holistic Tarot text. Click on the above button to download the PDF. Also be sure to download and save the below supplements.
You are a Beginner if…
- you are not sure exactly how many cards are in a standard tarot deck;
- some of the imagery on the Rider-Waite-Smith deck seem a bit intimidating to you;
- you’re kind of wondering what all this Rider-Waite-Smith tradition talk is all about;
- when I say “tarot journal,” you draw a blank;
- you are not familiar with the Celtic Cross; and
- you find it incredulous that anyone in this world could know from memory the meanings to all those cards.
| Study Guide for the Beginner Tarot Student |
Beginner Checklist
- Get a Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot Deck. It’s not that I think every tarot reader should begin on the RWS tarot deck. Rather, I recommend that you work with a tarot deck that is pictured in the beginner tarot book you’re studying from. Holistic Tarot is keyed specifically to instructing with the Rider-Waite-Smith, so if you plan on using your copy of the book and this free course to learn tarot, then I also recommend starting with the Rider-Waite-Smith.
- Your Copy of Holistic Tarot. Get yourself a copy of Holistic Tarot. Be sure to check out the Amendments to Text section on this website and mark all corrections into your book.
- Read Lesson 1 from the Supplemental Downloads. Begin by reading the supplement provided below, titled “Transcript of Lesson 1 in Beginner Tarot” (PDF linked to title).
- Print out the First Study Guide. Print out the “Study Guide for the Beginner Tarot Student” linked above. Follow the study guide syllabus, starting with Session 1, About Tarot.
Supplemental Downloads
| Transcript of Lesson 1 in Beginner Tarot | LINK | |
| Read Me: “Holistic Tarot and the Practitioner of Craft” | LINK | |
| Blank RWS Card Meaning Entries for Tarot Journal | DOCX | |
| Log of Celtic Cross Practice Readings (Version: Waite Cross) | ||
| Rider-Waite-Smith Flash Cards for Rote Study ** | ||
| Log of Readings | ||
| Tarot Spreads Practice: Quick Reference Sheets from Appendix A (for printing convenience) | ||
| Log of Monthly Projection Readings | ||
| Morning Routine Reading Practice (Template) | DOCX | |
| Template Form for Logging a New Tarot Deck | DOCX |
** For the Rider-Waite-Smith Flash Cards for Rote Study, make sure your printer settings are set to: “Print on Both Sides” and “Flip on Short Edge.” Otherwise the front and back alignment of the flash cards will be wrong.
Beginner Guide Created: 12/17/2014
Beginner Guide Last Updated: 11/08/2016
Beginner Supplements Last Updated: 08/17/2017
Tarot Card Meanings (“Cheat Sheets”)
The following are quick reference “cheat sheets” to tarot card meanings that you can download and/or print out to keep on hand. DOCX Word versions of each document is provided so you can edit and tailor the printables to your own approach to card meanings. Thus, feel free to build on the templates provided. Alternatively, if you would like to use as-is, or keep a digital copy of for quick reference, then work off the PDF.
| RWS Card Meanings at a Glance | DOCX | |
| THOTH Card Meanings at a Glance | DOCX | |
| SKT Card Meanings at a Glance | DOCX | |
| ETTEILLA Card Meanings at a Glance | DOCX |
For more free downloadable pdf handouts of card meanings,
S E E A L S O :
- Tarot de Marseilles Card Meanings from The Tarot (Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, 1888) via “An ‘Ancient’ Mode of Reading the Tarot”
- Meanings of the Cards from Tarot of the Bohemians (Papus, 1889) via “Jailbreaking Tarot of the Bohemians by Papus”
- Card Meanings for Geopolitical Readings from Le Monde Primitif (Antoine Court de Gebelin, 1781)
- The Tarot Keys of Your Birthday from Tarot and Astrology (Muriel Bruce Hasbrouck, 1941) | Keyed to the RWS | Keyed to the Thoth
STUDY GUIDE FOR THE INTERMEDIATE TAROT STUDENT
The Study Guide for the Intermediate Tarot Student presumes that you are learning tarot under the Rider-Waite-Smith tradition, have a copy of the Holistic Tarot book, and have completed the Study Guide for the Beginner Tarot Student above. Alternatively, one with a basic proficiency in tarot can also start here, skipping the Beginner Guide. You can skip the Beginner Guide and start here if you are proficient with the below-listed bullet points. If you’re somewhere between Beginner and Intermediate, still go back and start with the Beginner course.
You are Intermediate if…
- you have a working tarot journal of some sort;
- you can draw any one of the 78 cards and interpret it with semi-confidence;
- you have a basic, working knowledge of all RWS card meanings;
- you’re familiar with the Celtic Cross spread and read proficiently with it;
- okay, you don’t want to brag, but you’re kind of a pro with the three-card reading;
- you’ve dabbled with different tarot spreads before and have a strong sense of what works and doesn’t work for you; and
- you’ve done a minimum of 50 tarot readings (closed book, that is!).
| Study Guide for the Intermediate Tarot Student |
Supplemental Downloads
| Reading with Signifiers (or Significators) | ||
| First Operation Practice Log | ||
| Court Cards Practice Exercises | ||
| Elemental Dignities and Affinities | ||
| Elemental and Numerological Correspondences | DOCX | |
| Astrological Correspondences in the Tarot (Golden Dawn System) | ||
| Daily Readings | ||
| Ruminations on the Major Arcana | ||
| The Three Septenaries | ||
| Card Counting (Majority View) | ||
| Worksheet for Devising Your Own Spread | ||
| Critical Theory Technique to Interpreting Tarot Cards (Companion Course Handout) | ||
| Glossary of Gemstones and Their Metaphysical Uses (Supplement to Chapter 21) |
Intermediate Guide Created: 12/17/2014
Intermediate Guide Last Updated: 12/22/2014
Intermediate Supplements Last Updated: 09/27/2017
STUDY GUIDE FOR THE ADVANCED TAROT STUDENT
The Study Guide for the Advanced Tarot Student presumes that you have completed the Study Guide for the Intermediate Tarot Student, are proficient with the Rider-Waite-Smith tradition, and have a copy of the Holistic Tarot book. For Session 4 in the Advanced Study Guide, it is also recommended that you have a Tarot de Marseille deck and a Thoth deck to work with. Click on the above button to download the PDF. Also be sure to download and save the below supplements. Note: In traditional esoteric tarot teaching approaches, astrology and the Qabalah basics would be taught at the beginner’s level concomitant with the tarot basics. The approach here is to integrate these areas of knowledge after a strong foundation in tarot has been built.
The Advanced study guide may be right for you if…
- you have been reading Holistic Tarot by following along through the Beginner and Intermediate study guides and now see there are still chapters that the guides didn’t cover and you want to cover those chapters, or
- you’ve been studying tarot for some time under the Rider-Waite-Smith system, are proficient at the Intermediate level, and now you want more, or
- you’re thinking about going professional with tarot and offering your reading services to the public.
| Study Guide for the Advanced Tarot Student |
Supplemental Downloads
| Sample Code of Ethical Conduct for Tarot Professionals | ||
| Glyph Correspondences for the Opening of the Key | ||
| Interpreting Tarot through Astrology | ||
| Shadow Work with the Tarot (Workbook) | ||
| Sample Privacy Terms for Tarot Reading Websites | ||
| Tarot Reading and Social Inductive Reasoning | ||
| Professional Tarot Startup Business Plan Workbook | ||
| How to Earn $50K or More as a Part-Time Tarot Reader | ||
| Excerpt Chapters to “Sole Proprietorship in the Sacred Arts” |
|
|
| Study Notes on Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung |
|
ARE YOU AN ASPIRING TAROT PROFESSIONAL? Check out my archive of blog posts with the category tag “professional-tarot.” Link here.
Advanced Guide Created: 01/30/2015
Advanced Guide Last Updated: 09/01/2016
benebell wen 
Pingback: Book Review: Holistic Tarot by Benebell Wen – A Comprehensive Guide for Tarot Enthusiasts – TarotTriage.com
Hi, the links for tarot card cheat sheets are broken. Can you fix the links? Thanks, looking forward to digging in, just got the book!
LikeLike
Tarot Card Meanings (“Cheat Sheets”)
I would like to see these, but he links to these are missing:
RWS Card Meanings at a Glance
THOTH Card Meanings at a Glance
SKT Card Meanings at a Glance
ETTEILLA Card Meanings at a Glance
LikeLike
Hi Ms. Wen,
I hope you’re doing well. I’m currently taking your wonderful free online Tarot course — thank you so much for your generosity in sharing it with us! I noticed that the links to the Tarot Card Cheat Sheets don’t seem to be working. Could you please check and re-enable them when you have a moment? It’s such a valuable resource, especially coming from you.
Also, congratulations on your book Holistic Tarot — I recently got my copy, and I truly admire your work and the clarity and wisdom you bring to the field.
With gratitude and warm regards,
Adriana Olmos
LikeLike