The 2 Hour Tarot Tutor

by Wilma Carroll

Reading Tarot cards is really very easy. All you have to do is look at the cards and say what you see.

The goal of this book is to get past all of the dictionary definitions, astrological interpretations and reverse-card meanings that overwhelm the tarot student. Instead, Carroll says, you should familiarize yourself with the cards and free associate based on the images and symbols you see.

In the first chapter, for example, Carroll creates the following three-card spread for a young student:

After asking him to describe what he sees in each card, Carroll instructs him to "make up a story about the three cards all together." He blurts: "Someone carries a message about a wedding party. An invitation to a wedding!" This, she tells him, is his first tarot reading.

The "2 hours" in the title refers to the first, two-hour long exercise in the book. During that exercise, you take time to look at every card in the deck, then do several basic card spreads. You are supposed to do this exercise before reading the rest of the book, in one solid two hour block of time.

The 2-Hour Tarot Tutor was one of the first books on tarot that I ever read. I remember doing the first exercise on a table at the library, hoping nobody was watching me. Although I was helped by the book, it still took me some time to get familiar with the tarot. Still, this book is a good place to start if you are overwhelmed by all the information on tarot, as I was.

Many of the spreads that Carroll recommends, including the Celtic cross spread, are not really for beginners. I would recommend lots and lots of practice, and several repetitions of the first 2-hour exercise, say once every day for a weeks, before proceeding further in the book.

For more advanced students, The 2-Hour Tarot Tutor is an interesting approach which they can only benefit from. By following one's intuition, instead of cogitating and analyzing, one can reach some interesting and surprising results, in tarot and in life.

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