Mindful Tarot Review
Mindful Tarot is written by Lisa Freinkel Tishman, PhD and published by Llewellyn Worldwide. This softcover book is 318 pages long.
Quality:
Tishman’s book is free of typos and the quality of the physical book is pleasing. The cover has a matte finish that feels good in your hands, and the pages are smooth and bright without the glare that certain waxy finishes produce. The writing is clear, professional, void of Internet slang and swearing, and about as close to free of political commentary as you will find in the “New Age” market right now. The book also includes a decent bibliography and footnotes.
Content:
Mindful Tarot seeks to provide readers with a new approach to Tarot. Tishman proposes a style of reading that promotes fully experiencing the here and now rather than approaching life as being incomplete, problematic, or in need of “fixing.” Meeting challenges, obstacles, and decisions with the mentality that you are not lacking and don’t need to focus on the past or the future can help you to savor the current moment. These mindful readings help you dig into the present and generate questions for probing your immediate experiences. I love this idea, especially as a reader who doesn’t do predictive style readings, and as someone who could certainly use some help with relishing the present moment.
First, Tishman’s book discusses mindfulness as a concept, and then she connects principles of mindfulness to the Tarot. For example, the Asian teachings of the Four Boundless Abodes (care, compassion, calm, and cheer) are applied to the Tarot suits. What I found especially interesting was the analysis of the court cards within this context. Since each court card is traditionally represented by two elements (one for its suit and one for its rank), it is also represented by two of the abodes, and the combinations provided some fascinating new perspectives on the Tarot court.
Once the concepts and connections are discussed, chapter 7 walks through a mindfulness style Tarot reading called the Daily PULL. This chapter focuses the most on how to take the mindfulness concepts being applied to Tarot and use them within the reading framework. After this, the rest of the book is devoted to descriptions of each Tarot card with mindfulness perspectives incorporated.
Tishman provides an excellent card by card analysis of the deck that stays true to classic Tarot traditions while applying some of the thought provoking concepts of mindfulness practice. Her knowledge of mindfulness and her explanation of it in conjunction with Tarot and on its own is straightforward and interesting. Even if you’ve been reading cards for a long time, you will probably find a useful and fresh tidbit of wisdom in her card by card analysis.
The only thing that was a disappointment for me with this book was that I would have liked to see more examples of mindfulness style Tarot reading in practice. Because this reading style is so deliberately different from other methods, even those based in self-improvement, I feel that a diverse array of examples are imperative for giving the reader a solid grasp of this new approach and the confidence to use and explain it to someone else. Aside from the “Daily PULL” chapter where a mindfulness style reading is conducted from start to finish, only one other spread is referenced early in the book, and from it just one card is examined within the mindfulness context. To put it in perspective, mindfulness and Tarot are discussed generally and conceptually through page 89, the chapter of the mindfulness method in practice covers pages 89-110, and pages 115-310 encompass individual card analysis – which is the bulk of the book.
Therefore, although I feel like I can explain the idea of mindful Tarot after reading this book, and I think I could probably use it with the spread described in the Daily PULL chapter, I don’t know how confident I feel about crafting my own spreads around this concept or expanding its use to more specific situations. For me, more tips and examples are always better when dealing with innovative approaches like this, but that may not be true for every reader.
Target Audience:
This book is a treat for folks who enjoy exploring ways to use Tarot for self-development and enrichment. It is accessible for newer users to Tarot, but those who have a basic understanding of classic Tarot themes and deck structure will probably feel a bit more like they are on the “same page” as Tishman.
Conclusion:
Tishman’s book is professional, accessible, and introduces new ideas and associations with Tarot. Her individual card descriptions contain some original ideas, though I do wish she spent more time on examples than on exploring the cards. Nevertheless, this book is full of wisdom, anecdotes, and thoughtful explorations of Tarot themes and archetypes. I would recommend it for anyone who likes approaching the cards from a psychology or self-help perspective.
Quality: *****
Content: ****
Target Audience: (N/A)
Overall Score: 4.5 out of 5
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