Lisa Chamberlain’s Tarot for Beginners: A Guide to Psychic Tarot Reading, Real Tarot Card Meanings, and Simple Tarot Spreads is a quick, cheap Tarot reference book. It can be used as a very basic beginner’s guide, but I got it more for the size and the reference aspect.
The book is one of those print on demand type books and in the same form factor as most of the smaller ones (roughly letter paper bound in the middle). It’s short too, coming in at only 120 pages with a relatively large font. It has a lot of good content, but don’t expect it to be the one and only Tarot book you’ll ever want. Let’s go over the layout, what I like about it, and any considerations you should take into account before buying.
Layout
Tarot for Beginners is divided into 3 main sections. The first is about the Tarot, the second details the Tarot card meanings, and the third shows how to use the Tarot. The first section is divided into the usual history lesson, and then goes over some of the symbolism that goes into the cards. Each of these is a bit sparse for content and covers the bare minimum, but it’s not really a slight against the book. You don’t buy a dictionary and expect great prose from it.
The second section is by far the largest and covers the interpretation of each card in the Major Arcana and the Minor Arcana. Since the Major Arcana are regarded as much more important for Tarot, these descriptions are a bit more fleshed out. Each card gets about 4 paragraphs about the symbolism, what it means, and an interpretation for regular and reversed readings. The Minor Arcana focuses on a quick introduction to the suit, then proceeds to give a short list of attributes for regular and reversed, as well as a quick description of the cards more general meaning.
The final section deals with how to do spreads and interpret the cards. This section teaches the most fundamental spreads of a one card reading, a three card reading (and how to pick each criteria), and the Celtic Cross reading. If you’re starting out, this is enough to get going, but it’s a very quick introduction to Tarot.
Why I Like It
A lot of the cards are interpreted more in line with the traditional meanings. Death isn’t necessary a bad card contextually, nor is the Tower. The Devil isn’t Satan either. This book fits more in line with more traditional Tarot interpretations (Golden Dawn and similar).
I bought this book originally because the reference which came with my first ever Tarot deck was terrible (though I ended up changing decks). This book shored that issue up early on.
I also like this book because it’s such a compact reference. It’s great for when you want to see if there’s something you’re missing about a card or if you are crossing systems and want to see how it fits with the more traditional style Tarot. The process of reading the text and thinking about the implications with my spread helps me meditate (in a sense) on a card if I’ve lost context somewhere.
Considerations
If you’re getting this as a beginner, it might be a little difficult to follow on some parts for the introduction to the cards and the spreads. Most of that can easily be fixed with a little bit of time on Google, but it’s still something to be aware of. This should augment what came with your deck or be something for a different reference rather than the only way you learn about Tarot. While it can stand alone, it works best with something else.
You’ll get great descriptions and interpretations of the cards which fit in with the standard occult view of them, but the descriptions may not work as well for some creative interpretations of the Tarot. I don’t and didn’t really ever use this book for the Shadowscape Tarot because of the change in symbolism. It definitely won’t fit a Thoth Tarot deck or any non-standard sized deck (just like how a poker book won’t help with Tarot cards).
The book really doesn’t go that into depth of much besides what the cards mean. Some of the imagery is introduced and explained, but very little is elaborated on to the point of complete clarity and understanding. That’s not this book’s function mind you, but something worth explaining since some people get this expecting a lot more in this arena.
Is It Right for You?
If you want to learn more about Tarot or want a good reference, this book is great. It’s best to learn in conjunction with something else, but this book can actually stand alone for quite a while. Tarot is great for meditating or dealing with problems, and this book enables you to interpret the cards in a more consistent way.
If you want more out of a standard Tarot deck, or you want a different way of looking at the cards, consider this book for your library. For spreads and the like, this book probably won’t be what you want or need. If you want to understand the western traditional Tarot associations as used by the Golden Dawn or other secret societies, you’ll need to go elsewhere as well. While this work interprets them in similar ways, it doesn’t go into depth as to how it interpreted them. The book is a great, concise reference, but not much more than that. That’s what makes it good for my use case though.