Messages from the Archetypes: Using Tarot for Healing and Spiritual Growth [Paperback]

Toni Gilbert seems quite intuitive and really devoted to helping clients. She has been able to amplify her professional skills through the use of tarot and this is commendable. Tarot is an excellent tool for empowerment and personal transformation. However, Messages from the Archetypes fails to give us a real view on how her technique can be transferred to the client. Her examples are quite limited and there is no real follow up.

The Dream Work chapter has the old example used by so many dream analysts about Daniel and Nabuchadnezar and doesn't even elaborate on the excellent use of tarot to clarify or amplify dreams. Dream incubation is not mentioned at all, except in a brief appendix and she sticks to traditional meanings of the cards as described by so many tarotists before her. She, therefore, doesn't really add anything new in this book. She never tells us how the clients eventually empower themselves after their session(s)or how they can work on their own to tap into the wisdom of the "archetypes." In fact, she never really gives the clients enough archetypes to work with. She suggests, but really there is no convincing follow up. The examples that she includes in the readings she does with clients are from either Osho Zen or The Voyager decks, but she continually applies the "traditional" meanings to the cards, using definitions from the Rider Waite deck instead of allowing the archetypes to speak for themselves. This is very irritating and takes too much from the intention of the book. Then, the last chapters are just rehashed meanings of what she calls Upper and Lower Levels for each card, trying to fit all these archetypes into loose transpersonal psychology definitions. She tells us that she doesn't "give much credence to reverse cards," but doesn't tell us how just by drawing one card she can determine if she should apply the "primitive" or the "refined" interpretation and guess what, she uses, of course, the Rider Waite tarot deck pictures and meanings. Also, the book could use some editing. Too many typos. It's a shame.

You are better off buying the Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom by Rachel Pollack or the Forest of Souls, or any book by Mary Greer.

The term 'Tarot' most often raises an image--for those of us who have had little or no experience with the ancient technique of interpreting archetypal art on cards--of gypsy fortune tellers dressed in gaudy clothes and primitive jewelry.

But I was pleasantly surprised by Toni Gilbert's book, Messages from the Archetypes: Using Tarot for Healing and Spiritual Growth: A Guidebook for Personal and Professional Use. She illustrates how a modern, educated and 'regular' person can benefit from the symbolic art of Tarot.

I found it enlightening that Tarot can be used by professional healers and counselors to help people articulate deeply personal issues that may not have been previously evident. Gilbert's book helped me understand the value of Archetypes in the human experience, how they relate to me as an individual, and more important, how to use the information to access my own personal issues.

For the last 10 years, I have been using the tarot as a tool in my life. Although I have read many books about the Tarot (ranging from the history of Tarot to its use and interpretation), Toni Gilbert's Messages From the Archtypes is the first book to give me clear insight into how the archetypal imagery impacts my own psycological, emotional, and spiritual growth. Now I understand why the Tarot, its images and symbolism first intigued me and I am consciously using this new found awareness to deepen my own readings into lasting healing experiences. I recomend this book to anyone who has a connection with the Tarot and wishes to deepen their relationship with this form of divination. In fact, I have already given the book to several friends.