Introduction to the Golden Dawn Tarot

Rating:
Summary: The most essential Golden Dawn tarot material
Review: Far more than acting merely as the companion book for Wang's own tarot deck (based on an actual Golden Dawn tarot deck), this little book reprints most of the relevant Golden Dawn tarot material that appears elsewhere at a much higher price. If you are just starting to explore the Golden Dawn teachings in respect to Tarot, this is the place to start. After working with this, you may want to branch out and read Wang's excellent but very advanced "The Qabalistic Tarot."

Please note, however, that if you already have Israel Regardie's big "Golden Dawn" book, you already have most of the information reprinted here.

Rating:
Summary: An first class introduction to the G.D. tarot.
Review: This book is a concise introduction to one of the most influential tarot decks of our time, namely the Golden Dawn deck drawn by the Mathers.

The book begins with an invaluable 50 pages introduction by Robert Wang, who is an expert on the subject, and a black and white reproduction of his Golden Dawn deck (which can be bought seperately).

It includes Book T (which describes the minor arcana in detail), "The Complete Symbol of the Tarot", Mrs. Felkin's paper "The Tarot Trumps" (the closest thing there is to a public description of Mather's original major arcana), Waite's explanation from the Pictorial Key to the Tarot to the Celtic Cross spread, and an explanation of a 15 cards spread.

I warmly recommend this book to anyone interested in tarot, and especially to those who are interested in decks influenced by the Golden Dawn (Waite's Rider, Crowley's Thoth, the Ciceros', etc).

The only downside of this book is that, beside Wang's excellent introduction, the material is available elsewhere, though it would take some effort and time to get all of it collected to one place.