Magical World of the Tarot: Fourfold Mirror of the Universe Paperback – September 1, 1996

Gareth Knight is an all time favorite author of mine and he has not disappointed this time either! I have used Tarot for a long time, but he has taught me an enormous amount and expanded my knowledge. He has given life to the cards!

If you would like to read this book you need to know about the amazing world of the Tarot. It is not complicated but you may have knowledge about what the writer wants to let you know.

An excellent but unorthodox approach to "reading the cards." Knight takes divination seriously as a ritual act as opposed to a party game or a quick fix insight machine. Although he does give a traditional meaning for each card, there are no dry lists here. Instead, he shows the reader how to use meditation to get a solid understanding of the forces that the cards represent. He also has some interesting notes about how the images on the cards have evolved over the last 600 years or so.

Gareth Knight gives us the in-depth study of the Tarot that we yearned for while reading his mammoth A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism. Knight might be the greatest historian of all things Qabala and delivers on that in this book with his knowledge of the origins of the cards and also the key meanings for each card. He is also able to keep this clear across several decks. Knight also gives the reader several options on reading techniques. This book is a great place to start your study of the Tarot.

More rationally reasonable on tarot.Reapproaching tarot.

I love this book. The insights offered are very beneficial to me.

Nowadays most books on the Tarot are derived entirely from the Rider-Waite Tarot which comes from the British school of thought on the subject. In this book, however, Knight goes back to the earlier variants of Tarot originating from Continental Europe as exemplified by the Marseilles Tarot which was considered the standard prior to the advent of the Rider-Waite. Before reading this book I was only vaguely aware of the original Tarot and what it symbolized. This book gives an excellent understanding of how the Major and Minor arcana developed and what their meanings originally were. After reading it, the ordering and organization of the Tarot seems a whole lot less arbitrary than it did before.The format of this book did leave a bit to be desired, however. Personally, I did not go through the series visualization exercises that Knight proposes to guide the reader through. These sort of exercises can be of great help in gaining an intuitive sense of the cards, but I just didn't have the patience for it at the time. I was a bit bored by the question and answer sections at the end of each chapter as most of the questions covered were quite elementary. Overall, though, I enjoyed this book and am very thankful for the alternate view of the Tarot it has given me which has certainly expanded my understanding.

I assume any book I pick up, that has Gareth Knight's name on it, will be a book that will bear thoughtful readingand LOTS of personal application. This book is exactly like that.Most books I've seen are aiming to inform the intellect and not necessarily train the consciousness or the mind. This book takes you straight to the inside where the keys themselves become your teachers.Some friends have recently asked my input on what to study/read to gain more insight into the paths of the Tree of Life.I gave them my copy of this book.It is also a useable companion to Gareth's classic Guide to Cabalistic Symbolism, a must-have on any aspirants bookshelf.Thanks Gareth, for another practical, useable book.

Excellent and meaningful insights into not only the Tarot itself but a workable course of acclimatisation to and sympathetic use of the images and insights that the Cards can present. A worthwhile investment if you want to get closer to and deeper into the possibilities of the Tarot.

I am not particularly impressed by this book. I was expecting a great deal more from it knowing Gareth Knight as a good writer on many esoteric subjects. I found the book to be more of a work book full of exercises, and then questions and answers of what people who had done the exercises had discovered. As everybody will see the Tarot so differently, I don't feel it was necessary to personalise these sections so much. There were some meditations in the book to meet various characters, but I found them to be long-winded and lost interest pretty quickly. Not a book for me, I'm afraid.