Search the Community

I recently finished Portable Magic: Tarot is the Only Tool you Need by Donald Tyson. It was a very interesting book and the goal of it was basically to compress an entire system of ritual magic into Tarot cards so that you can perform simplified rituals on the fly without all the excess baggage. I feel i can say to a large extent i feel he has succeeded in this goal (i have yet to test any of his methods). It was very interesting to see how he managed to construct the circle and triangle with the cards and utilize an astral space for his working, i actually thought it was quite and ingenious ingenuity. I have no doubt that the system he works with is effective. Also what i also found very interesting is that although he works purely with Tarot for the sake of the book. If you open it up to utilizing tools in combination with the tarot, simple things like candles, bowls...etc....it would seem to greatly enhance ones flexibility in doing work. The only bad thing i would say was the amount of repetition in the book, it got a bit annoying sometimes. Also for someone who knows very little about ritualistic magic and the Golden Dawn i found the introductory chapters very interesting. Others whom are more well informed than i might find them extremely boring. Also i would also say that in general i am not a fan of ritualistic magic and the Golden Dawn. Therefore in regards to using their system of correspondences as well as using triangles and circles i was a bit skeptical. I think a lot of using circles and triangles is fear-based. Thought that is just my extremely novice opinion given i have never used any ritualistic methodology. Overall, this was a good book on using the Tarot for Ritualistic Magic albeit at times it could get a bit complicated and it is my personal preference to keep things simple. I have already ordered Tarot Spells by Janina Renee in order to give me a taste of the opposite side of spectrum of using Tarot cards for magical workings in order to balance out my perspective. I may also read Tarot Spell Caster by Terry Donaldson if it ever comes out on Kindle. http://www.amazon.com/Portable-Magic-Tarot-Only-Tool/dp/0738709808/ref=pd_sim_b_3 My 2 cents, Peace