Booknote: Psychic Tarot

Nancy Antenucci, with Melanie A. Howard, Psychic Tarot: Using Your Natural Psychic Abilities to Read the Cards. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2011.  ISBN: 978-0-7387-1975-7.

Genre: nonfiction
Subgenre: Tarot, divination, psychics, supernatural
Format: paperback
Source: I bought it at Half Price Books.

The book claims to offer "intuitive Tarot reading made simple." It has its strengths and weaknesses, and much of that depends on how much or not you believe in psychics and other "spiritual" things. If you have a fairly strong belief, then a lot of this book will resonate with you. If you are more skeptical or a nonbeliever, a lot of this book will sound like a lot of "woo." Still, for Tarot students, there are some good tidbits and exercises, but your mileage may vary.

The book is arranged into 20 chapters. The chapters are fairly short at about 6 to 12 pages each. The first six chapters cover Tarot and reading basics. From chapter 7, you start getting into concepts like energy, seeing the unseen (which includes things like ghosts and spirits),  the sight, and related principles. This is the part of the book that you may or not relate to depending on your beliefs or lack of beliefs. Still, wherever you stand, in chapters 7 to 18, the authors do lay it on a bit thick and even get away from Tarot. I found myself wondering if this book was about Tarot or just about psychics and the supernatural stuff with Tarot as a side note or afterthought. Then the last two chapters deal with boundaries, as in setting reading boundaries, and traits of a reader. The book also features two appendices. Appendix B, the Self-Study Guide, serves as a book summary as well as a checklist to study Tarot based on the book; this part does contain some useful exercises.

The strength of the book is in some of the practice exercises dealing with Tarot cards. Chapters 4, 5, and 6, which deal specifically  with  Tarot cards are probably the strongest parts of the book. The book loses strength and focus once the authors veer off into more "supernatural" topics that may or not be relevant. I'd say pick and choose the exercises that work for you and skip the rest.

Overall, the book was just OK. I'd consider it as optional; there are probably much better books on Tarot out there. For libraries, this can be optional if you are looking for Tarot books to add to the collections. As librarian, this  would not be a first nor a second choice for me. However, if books about psychics and spirits are popular in your library, this book would fit in for those readers.

2 out of 5 stars.