Michele Morgan's book may appear square; it is anything but.
This week, I read A Magical Course in Tarot by Michele Morgan. It was an unexpected treat; veering away from the well-worn territory of most tarot books into uncharted and even inspiring territory. At times, the author’s pride in her originality can be tiresome (pretty much my only complaint and it’s a very small one); but, on the whole, Morgan’s book is a success.
The magic of this book lies within the author’s love of the tarot and her willingness to break the rules. Instead of emphasizing the study of each individual card or the typical rules of reading tarot, she encourages and demonstrates how to use intuition when reading the cards. This is something I’ve found books teaching tarot rarely capture. Oftentimes, you’ll find author’s introductions share personal experiences and breakthroughs with the tarot (in Rachel Pollack’s book 78 Degrees of Wisdom, which I am currently reading, she tells the reader about how the tarot revealed her friend’s extra-marital affaris, among other things but never explains the experience which led her to this conclusion) but the meat of the books is rarely about how to find these breakthroughs for oneself. Instead, they focus on the metaphysical and spiritual significance of the cards, which is absolutely interesting but not quite as practical. Morgan’s book is a wonderful exception to this norm. She does not need an introduction to give readers a bird’s eye view of what it is like to read the tarot, because that is meat of her book. Her writing style is personal, encouraging and practical.
A few of the exercises and ideas in A Magical Course in Tarot were new to me, which sparked a fresh appreciation for the tarot and a few new reading techniques (a bit of a feat, considering how long I’ve been a student of the tarot!). For example, Morgan encourages readers to forget using a tarot spread and just placing cards wherever your intuition leads you to. The idea surprised me and the outcome was indeed magical; I found the relationship between images stronger than usual. This spread-free style also brought out the artist in me, which made my insights more spontaneous. What’s more, reading without a spread really forced me to look at the cards and find those links.
A Magical Course in Tarot also includes the obligatory section where the author lays out the meanings of each card (on a personal note, I wonder if it’s possible to write a tarot book without this section and still have enough pages to justify publication..? Maybe something to think about for a future project??). I enjoyed Morgan’s interpretations because of their simplicity. I enjoyed them even more because of the black and white illustrations that accompanied the meanings. They were equally simple and made me wish they were a tarot deck I could go out and buy. Because tarot card meanings can be found in virtually every book on the tarot I own, the strength of the is A Magical Course is not found in this part except, perhaps, for those new to tarot.
In short, Morgan’s book was a pleasure to read and it taught me new ways to throw out the tarot rule book and let my imagination roam free. New and old readers, alike, will find her enthusiasm for the tarot contagious and her ideas on reading intriguing. I recommend this book to anyone who is new at reading tarot or anyone who wants to refresh their relationship to the cards. Think of this book as jumper cables directly connecting you to a fresh, new, and inspired source of tarot-reading enthusiasm.
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