The full title of this book is “Heart Vision – Tarot’s inner path” and it has been written by Michael Orlando Yaccarino. It was published by mandrake.
“Another Tarot book?” – You might say, and yes, of course, it is another book on the Tarot and as a base, it also uses the well known Raider-Waite cards. But to me, the book has a very special touch and is not just another book to fill the Tarot section shelves of some esoteric bookstore. It is a genuinely fresh and revealing book that is well worth having, reading and working with. This starts already in the Introduction by the author. In a very clear and straightforward way, Yaccarino presents what this book is all about, what it should be and also what it is not! The book clearly focuses on the spiritual path deeply rooted inside each of us. And it wants to help mostly the solitary worker to develop his or her own path across the Book of Thoth, as the Tarot is also often called.
What I really like about this book is that the interpretations of the cards that are given by the author here are on one hand rather new and original, many of them I have not heard in such a way, and the ideas are really interesting and often opened new paths to me. On the other hand, Yaccarino is never dogmatic as many other authors might be. He suggests, he tries to open and provoke your own thoughts about what you see and experience. In my opinion, this is the only way to open the Inner Path anyway, but with this book, you don’t have to overcome an obstacle getting there.
One of the reasons why the author is achieving this is that he obtains the wisdom in this book from all kinds of different sources and from a diversity of spiritual traditions – Hinduism, Crowley, but also contemporary thinkers like Shani Oates and Julian Vayne. The book really shows that Tarot is not an old-fashioned tradition, but a living art that lives in our time and really also points towards the future, its own and ours.
Also among the spreads that Yaccarino presents towards the end of the book are many that I have never seen being done that way, which strongly suggests that they have been developed genuinely by the author. So this book is truly original and new in a good sense.
I also like a lot the big number and detailed footnotes which do not only clearly show the references the author has but gives the interested reader an enormous amount of supplementary information to access if he or she wants to do so.
What I deplore is that the images of the Tarot cards are rather small and in black and white. But this is probably a question of cost for the editor and understandable if you want to keep the book at an interesting price. And to be honest, the book is not meant to replace the real Tarot deck in your hands, so this criticism is in fact really minor.
Altogether I was very pleasantly surprised to discover this book and can only fully recommend it to all of you. It is not just one other book on the Tarot, but for anyone who wants to get a fresh approach on a subject he thinks he already knows all about just as necessary a read as for the starter who does not want to be blocked by overcome interpretations and Tarot dogmatism.
