Two Books by John Gilbert

[ecosophia]

I'm delighted to announce that two books by my late teacher John Gilbert, The Doors of Tarot and The Tree of Spirit, are in press and available for preorder. John himself was never willing to see his writings go through the publishing process, but with the help and encouragement of his widow, I assembled and edited these two volumes from his writings for a couple of defunct websites.

Here's the blurb for The Doors of Tarot:

"An accessible and practical introduction to Tarot divination.

"John Gilbert was an extraordinary tarot diviner and teacher, and this book draws on his knowledge and expertise to provide a clear and comprehensive outline of how to accurately and easily understand and read the cards.

"Beginning with an introduction on how tarot cards work, their symbology and divinatory meanings, this is the perfect starting point for anyone looking to understand these fascinating cards and glean a deeper understanding of the world.

"Gilbert also provides a selection of different tarot spreads, a discussion of tarot and astrology, as well as key tips on developing your intuition."

I would add to this that John specialized in a skill you'll rarely encounter in today's tarot circles: he was an expert at doing one-card readings. A client would ask him a question, he'd draw one card, and give them a clear, concise, and accurate answer. I've never known anyone who did that as well as he did, but some of his students came close, and he spends much of this book explaining just how to do it.

Interested?  You can preorder here in the United States and here anywhere else in the world.

Here's the blurb for The Tree of Spirit:

"A fascinating exploration of the symbolic foundations of the Western magical tradition.

"Using the Cabalistic Tree of Life and the tarot deck, this book takes the foundations of Western esoteric tradition as a basis and goes onward into the deep places of magical spirituality.

"Written by the influential American tarot teacher and occultist John Gilbert, it is enriched by insights drawn from modern Gnosticism, spiritual alchemy, neopagan nature worship, and ceremonial magic.

"This book offers a wise and practical path to awakening for the modern student of the mysteries."

Here I'll add that this gives a great deal of additional information on the version of the Tree of Life John used, which is also the version central to the initiations and practices of the Fellowship of the Hermetic Rose, which I posted here last year and which seems to be finding a good-sized audience among students of the Western mystery tradition. Both these books make good supplementary reading for the FHR coursework, as well as being good solid guides to their respective corners of occult tradition.

Interested?  You can preorder here in the United States and here anywhere else in the world.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

You might want to know that Flowers/Thorsson's The Book of Ogham had another edition by Rune-Gild master Michael Kelly (books on paper at https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/manxbull , on Kindle at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Michael-Kelly/author/B0045FHLZI , Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/michaelkellyauthormagician ); there's also The Ogham Roads by him, about pathworking - both contain a table of correspondences appendix, but it's entirely inside references associated to Ogham.

While I'm not qualified to judge his work, I've been interested, and had thought about recommending Aegishjalmur (he wrote without the accent mark) to your list of books including runic magic; it was his Rune-Gild masterwork, the base idea is from his first book Apophis, but the "Draconian" (derived from the Temple of Set) ideas are framed in terms of Sigurdhr killing Fáfnir and gaining its power.