Book Review: Mantis's Truly Easy Tarot
My friend Mantis wrote an introductory tarot book, Truly Easy Tarot, so he asked the publisher to send me a review copy. Now, you might think that I would be totally biased toward the book because, duh, my friend wrote it. But honestly, I was a little nervous starting the book because there are a lot of resources for tarot beginners and, as with each research project on Shakespeare announced by my friends in a former life, I wondered what fresh take there could possibly be. But of course, with someone as talented with the cards and as gifted a writer as Mantis, there’s something really special about this book. And, frankly, if you’re new to tarot and don’t already have more books on the subject than you have time to read, I recommend that you buy yourself a copy.
Truly Easy Tarot really does make tarot easy. I know that may sound stupid because it’s the damned title of the book, but it’s true. And why overcomplicate something when it could truly be easy? There are many ways that Mantis does this, but I want to highlight the ones I think will likely be the biggest boon to a new tarot reader.
The first chapter begins with a short and fact-based history of tarot that is exactly what a new tarot reader needs. While there are no inline citations to support the history that Mantis recounts, it is both broad enough and specific enough to not need them. And, no, there’s no real discussion of Marseille or Thoth decks, but most beginners aren’t going to find those super helpful or “easy” deck systems, so I’m not mad about it.
The important takeaway for me from this very brief section of history is that tarot was a card game before it became very mysterious and mystical and serious. Now, that’s good to remember. At the end of the day, a tarot deck is (for most people) a bunch of pieces of paper that can be fun, as well as serious and mysterious. Coming to terms with this helps put into perspective what a beginner’s tarot practice should be (if it should be anything): it should be fun, and it should be about the experience of reading the cards. Yes, beginners who want a serious tarot practice can get very deep and serious readings full of psychic downloads and all the rest. But honestly, a lot of early tarot readings are going to be total trash, and you shouldn’t beat yourself up about it.
Truly Easy Tarot is filled with Mantis’s fun personality and voice. As a result, the book provides guidance about setting the right expectations, reminding the reader that you can get deep but that you don’t have to get deep. And you probably shouldn’t get too deep too fast. The rest of the first chapter shows that there is a baseline set of parameters, and then the rest can be pretty simple and still be quite powerful. Those who are more experienced readers may bristle (or maybe only I may bristle) at the simplified approach for reading reversals, but the purpose of the book is to demystify, so I actually kind of love that Truly Easy Tarot sticks to its mission.
The middle two chapters, the real meat of the book, cover meanings for the 78 cards of the tarot with images from the Smith-Waite deck. For each card, Mantis provides a list of keywords or concepts for upright and reversed positions, and they usually include the heavy hitters that you’d expect. Some, however, are more nuanced and surprising, and that’s always exciting. But what’s most successful about the book’s presentation of card meanings is the combination of keywords and exposition.
Each card’s entry spans a two-page spread (facing pages) that not only teaches meanings but demonstrates a reading technique that beginners will find useful. That technique is the linking of keywords into a narrative. In the card entries, this is to explain the card’s upright and reversed meanings, but in a reading it’s to actual tell the story of the card. A lot of readers eschew keywords or phrases because they are simplistic. I agree that they often are simplistic, but Mantis demonstrates that you can relate a more nuanced story that is held together through those keywords. Honestly, that’s a great strategy for new (and not-so-new) tarot readers to adopt. And it’s presented that way to readers; it’s not some subtlety that could get lost. No, no, it’s right there in boldface type.
Side note: When skimming through the book at first, I thought, Why in god’s name are all those random words bolded? Are they the most important keywords? No. Is it one word from each phrase or concept? No. They’re bolded because they’re used in the paragraphs that further explain the cards. It’s a map for using keywords to tell a story. I love that technique. It allows for robust readings using just a few introductory data points, and that makes it a great strategy for tarot readers looking to make things easy on themselves.
The final chapter offers a variety of spreads that range from the simple one-card to a seemingly complex 21-card Romany spread. The explanations are succinct and neither overbearing nor vague. Card positions are defined in direct terms without worrying about outlier cases or combinations of cards. For a reader of more complex (or maybe just overly complicated) readings, it might seem like too little explanation or nuance, but I think that the vast majority of readers, both new and veteran, can appreciate the outlines provided. If more is needed, the reader has enough of a base from which to figure out the rest.
Of the spreads, I’m most excited to see the Collective Reading since Mantis is such a talented reader for the Collective. It’s something from which even more experienced can learn. The New Moon and Full Moon spreads are also great treats that can enhance most readers’ practices. The 15-card Golden Dawn spread is a personal favorite of mine, but Mantis’s take (gifted to the book by the creator of the Luminous Void Tarot) is different from what I think of as the “official” method. This version doesn’t bring in the Thoth Tarot complexity of the role that court cards play or the importance and meaning of elemental dignity, and an experienced reader of the spread can gain much from those factors, but this version of the spread provides useful touchstones for getting juicy insights from the spread in mini stories that I also use even though they aren’t part of the “official” way to read the spread. Presented in this way, it feels organic and authentic and … you guessed it, easy. (Let’s remember that it’s a 15-card spread, so “easy” is relative.)
Overall, I’m very excited for Mantis and the book that he has released, and not just because I like him as a person. I think that there is a lot to gain from this book, especially for beginning tarot readers, and I hope that many folks find Mantis’s guidance here to be helpful in learning or advancing their tarot practice.
You can read more about Truly Easy Tarot: Simple Readings and Practical Teachings by Mantis on his site. The book is published by Rockridge Press, an imprint of Callisto Media Inc. © 2020 Rockridge Press, Emeryville, California.