Tag: tarot study

Tarot for Real Life by Jack Chanek – A Review

On By benebellIn book review, tarot1 Comment

Tarot for Real Life by Jack Chanek, published by Llewellyn Books, presents one of the best approaches to learning tarot that you can find. I love its focus on the Minor Arcana rather than the Majors, though it most certainly gives due treatment to the Majors as well.

The structure and layout of the book also makes it user-friendly, and the go-to reference you’ll want at your fingertips. If you’re looking up a specific card, there’s a separate table of contents in the front pages just for the 78 cards.

The meat of the book is subdivided into six parts: Practical, Intellectual, Emotional, Aspirational, Personal, and The Big Picture. Respectively they correspond with discussions on the suit of Pentacles, Swords, Cups, Wands, the court cards (under Personal), and the Major Arcana (under The Big Picture).

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Tarot Card Meanings with Benebell: Video Series

On By benebellIn beginner tarot deck, cartomancy, Holistic Tarot (book), Learn the Tarot, tarot, tarot community, tarot symbolism35 Comments

Tarot Card Meanings with Benebell is going to be an educational video series covering the 78 keys or cards of the tarot, showcasing the distinct attributions for four different deck systems: the TdM, the RWS, the Thoth, and my own deck, the SKT.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

Here are my objectives for the course:

(1) Facilitate familiarity of the TdM, RWS, Thoth, and SKT so you become proficient at reading any and all of the four systems,

(2) Offer a card by card primer designed to help memory retention of the key meanings in a more visually engaging way than studying them out of a book, and

(3) Supplement your course work with Holistic Tarot (North Atlantic Books, 2015).

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Sightsee the Tarot: Video Series

On By benebellIn Sightsee the Tarot, tarot, tarot community35 Comments

SIGHTSEE THE TAROT is a video series on my YouTube channel that takes you on a tour of the tarot, from discovering new books and tarot thought leaders to workshopping classic tarot spreads and tinkering with particular tarot decks.

Together, we’ll work through specialized reading techniques, provocative topics in the world of tarot, or explore notable perspectives and points of view. I’ll guide you every step of the way through these hands-on presentations. Pause as needed and resume the video only when you’re ready for the next step.

When you can’t have a tarot instructor in your home with you, in person, this Sightsee the Tarot series is the next best thing. As your host for this series, here is my objective: to coax you out of your comfort zone and get you to try out a diverse range of approaches to the cards.

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Beginner Learning and Teaching of Tarot: A Socratic Method

On By benebellIn beginner tarot deck, cartomancy, divination, Holistic Tarot (book), tarot, tarot symbolism7 Comments

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I often get asked how I would teach tarot to a beginner, what Lesson 1 would be, and also how to learn tarot if you are a beginner with no past exposure to tarot.

Recently I had an encounter where I gave my version of Lesson 1 of beginner tarot and I’ve been granted permission to share a transcript of it. Of course, this is paraphrased, but my memory for details is pretty good. I dare say this is a pretty accurate representation of the conversation and discourse that took place. I taught by the Socratic Method, though I wonder if she realized that.

The cards drawn and as identified are the actual cards from the Lesson 1 reading experience. For those who are more familiar with tarot techniques, basically what I did was first have her select her significator card, perform the Opening of the Four Worlds from the First Operation of the Opening of the Key, and then from the card pile she found her significator, draw three cards at random and perform a three-card past, present, and future reading.

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If you’re at all curious how I might teach Lesson 1 of Beginner Tarot, here it is, as a downloadable PDF.

Download “Beginner Learning and Teaching of Tarot: A Socratic Method” (PDF)