The Ultimate Guide to Tarot Card Meanings

by Brigit Esselmont

The Ultimate Guide to Tarot Card Meanings
A modern, practical guide to interpreting the ancient wisdom of the Tarot cards.

Finally! Here's a fresh, modern, and practical guide to the meanings of the Tarot cards that makes reading Tarot as easy as reading your favourite magazine!
Brigit Esselmont, Founder of Biddy Tarot (the #1 Tarot card meanings website), shares her most comprehensive guide to the Tarot cards yet!

Inside The Ultimate Guide to Tarot Card Meanings, you'll find upright and reversed Tarot card meanings for every card, interpretations for everyday situations from relationships to career, finances and well-being, journaling prompts, keyword charts, and so much more.

Why waste time and money on outdated and confusing Tarot books when you can get the most relevant, modern and useful guide to Tarot card meanings you’ll ever need? It’s all here for you in The Ultimate Guide to Tarot Card Meanings.

"This is the most complete, comprehensive and informative book on Tarot I know." Inge Brust

"The Guide is a complete lesson in reading, explaining, and simplifying the 78 cards of the Tarot. It is the best learning tool and reference book on the Tarot I have ever seen." Robert Neal

"I am in complete awe of your book. It is truly The Ultimate Guide To Life – not only for Tarot card meanings but also for delving into our lives, finding paths to more enriching lives, seeking answers, and so much more." Cheryl Janzen

Genres: Tarot, Nonfiction, Occult, Reference, Spirituality, Witchcraft, Divination

436 pages

First published April 1, 2017

About the author

Brigit Esselmont is known worldwide as a professional Tarot reader & teacher, intuitive business coach, and spiritual entrepreneur. She is the Founder of Biddy Tarot and inspires over four million people each year to live more mindful and enlightened lives, using the Tarot as a guide. A self-confessed Tarot lover, Brigit can t help but spread the love to other Tarot enthusiasts. She is the author of two popular Tarot guides and has taught over 1,200 students to read Tarot with confidence. Brigit is also a successful intuitive entrepreneur and business coach, helping heart-centered professionals build business empires that are aligned with their soul purpose. Brigit believes anyone can read Tarot. She doesnt own a crystal ball nor a crushed velvet dress. She s simply a down-to-earth, practical Taurus who likes to use the Tarot cards in everyday life. When she s not reading Tarot, Brigit loves spending time with her two daughters and husband on the Sunshine Coast in Australia.

Reviews

[Selene · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ll start by saying I don’t believe in tarot as a supernatural or divinatory thing and I like that this book does not push that either. I was drawn to tarot because I have always had a deep appreciation for Jungian psychology. Using tarot and its archetypes are a powerful tool for better understanding your own subconscious and enhancing your intuition. This book is a great beginners guide to tarot and how to interpret your card spreads.

[Marius · Rating 5 out of 5]

Esselmonts book is a very exhaustive interpretation of every card in the RWS Tarot deck. It is definitely the best I have seen so far. She has around 5 pages on each card, concentrating on the actual real life interpretation of the cards, rather than just describing them. Interpretation includes; keywords, quotes, description, general meaning, career/work, personality, relationship, spirituality, health, reversed meanings and suggested interpretation of card combinations. Even though this book does not cover all aspects of tarot, it does cover the most important part; the interpretation, extremely well. This book is well worth the read for the novice and expert alike. This is a reference book to be sure too.

This book can be found on Amazon; https://amzn.to/3WGkuzJ

[Meredith · Rating 5 out of 5]

So helpful and clear.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very helpful, this book is truly ultimate. I have found none that can compare to its depth and completeness.

[ghida · Rating 5 out of 5]

i love the journal prompts so much, and it goes into a lot of detail which is very helpful!

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent modern interpretation of the classic tarot. I recommend the Kindle version to throw on your phone for an easy way to look up the classic meaning after you do your intuitive / visual read. I like more far out interpretations but really like contrast it with something mainstream.

[D Pires · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just what I was looking for

I really enjoy the way every card has its own section and its separate in the table of contents. It has made it extremely easy and help to reference when I'm studying. I also enjoy the description breakdown of each card and the different elements of the card is worded perfectly and easy for anyone to comprehend whether you're new or even a veteran the way this book is written is perfect. I also enjoy the visual quick references for each card in the beginning of its chapter brilliant. This is by far my favorite tarot book that I've come across and before I found this one I have purchased a lot of ebooks and paperback books and this one basically has replaced them all. I will also be buying the hard copy of this book as well, it's worth every penny.

[Countess · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been a practicing witch for 20 years (older than I look) and have worked with tarot for the last five. I am by no means an expert, and have read a few books on the subject.

Esselmont has a clear grasp of the card meanings and suits. I am truly impressed with the multitude of information and particularly love my kindle format, which makes it easy to take along for readings. The layout of the book is well organized without having a dry academic tone.

[Sarah Gibbs · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazingly informative book! I highly recommend it! Every single card is gone into incredible detail.

[Sylvia Moore · Rating 2 out of 5]

Brigit Esselmont’s The Ultimate Guide to Tarot Card Meanings might be popular, but I found it to be more of a letdown than the essential guide it claims to be. The book is definitely comprehensive—there’s no shortage of information on every card, both upright and reversed—but it reads more like a dry reference manual than a truly insightful exploration of Tarot. If you’re just looking for keywords and basic meanings, it might do the trick. But if you want something that actually deepens your understanding of the cards or sparks a more intuitive connection, you’re going to come away disappointed.

The biggest issue is that the content feels almost too formulaic. Each card gets a detailed breakdown of various aspects like relationships, career, and well-being, but it’s all very compartmentalized and repetitive. There’s no real flow or sense of personality to the interpretations—just a laundry list of meanings that feel pulled from generic sources rather than anything rooted in deeper wisdom or experience. By the time I’d read through a handful of cards, it felt like I was just skimming a thesaurus for Tarot, rather than engaging with the symbolism and energy of the deck.

I also found the book’s “modern” approach to be more superficial than refreshing. The interpretations are straightforward and practical, but they lack the richness and nuance that make Tarot such a powerful tool for insight. It’s as if the cards are being boiled down to their most mundane aspects, stripped of their mystery and spiritual depth. Sure, it’s accessible, but it’s also flat—there’s nothing here that truly inspires or challenges the reader to think beyond the surface level.

The journaling prompts and keyword charts are useful for beginners, but they’re presented in such a textbook manner that it’s hard to get excited about using them. I expected more creativity and insight from a book with “Ultimate Guide” in its title, but instead, it’s just more of the same keywords and basic interpretations that you can find for free on any Tarot website. For something marketed as a must-have, it feels oddly lacking in originality.

The Ultimate Guide to Tarot Card Meanings might be fine if you need a quick reference book to have on hand, but it’s hardly the groundbreaking or inspiring text it’s made out to be. If you’re serious about deepening your practice or finding a guide that really connects the dots, you’ll want to look elsewhere. This one is more of a collection of surface-level meanings, dressed up with a lot of marketing language, than a true guide to the complexities of the Tarot. Save your money for a book that actually respects the cards and challenges you to see them as more than just a list of predefined meanings.

[Kasandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been following Bridit's tarot interpretation for quite some time and this year I decided to get a hard copy of her book, kinda to limit my digital time but also because of the extra stuff.

Great book! I feel like the interpretations speak for a lot of people, hence why it is a popular tool with tarot readers. There's more information per card in the book compared to the website pages. You get an overall description and upright/reversed meaning, and then specific meanings about work/finance/love/spirituality. And near the end, there are some important card combinations and their meanings. You can really tell a lot of time and attention has gone into this, as Brigit has been a learner and teacher of tarot for a long time. At the start of each chapter, there are also some quotes relevant to the card, which is a nice addition and they summarise the overall meaning of the card really well.

I'd recommend this for anyone no matter what stage they are at with tarot. It is a great, comprehensive guide :)

[Oliver · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought the physical format of this book when it first came out, in 2016 or 2017. I don't need to look up card meanings much these days but it was invaluable to me when I was first starting out. Everything is clearly explained and the information is well organized. I love that it not only have the typical upright and reversed meanings, but also specific sections for career, relationships, personality, health and wellness, and spirituality. Reading this, you can really see the author has done her research. I highly recommend this to those who are first starting out, as well as those who are in a more intermediate level and looking for something they can reference when need more guidance.

[gudetamama · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very detailed, gives interpretations first General then by area (Career, Work and Finances / Personality Type / Relationships and Love / Spirituality / Well-being and Health ) then Reversed. One of the best references! But more for advanced beginner, because it's quite comprehensive, but well worth the time.

One of the best features of the e-book is that each card is hyperlinked from the Table of Contents. (Compared to others that tend to group the Minors together under one chapter.) Very useful for quickly jumping to a particular card.

[Savannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Bible when I need more guidance interpreting tarot readings. I love that it includes different perspectives for the meaning of each card: professional, spiritual, love/relationships, health… The card descriptions are easy to comprehend and so, easier to remember. Said card descriptions are also summed up into keywords, which allows readers to simply skim the pages to find the information they’re looking for vs reading the whole text every time. That said, I dislike the book format. I would’ve preferred it smaller.

[Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best guide I have.

[Marjaana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tykkäsin! Yksi parhaimmista tarot-oppaista, joka on kirjoitettu englanninkielellä

[Jenny Trout · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my go-to tarot book.

[Yasmin Madia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible.

[Honour Harlowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most comprehensive tarot manual. I learned off this and still refer back to it

[Sylvie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found the book very useful in my first days of reading the tarot cards. I recommend it as comprehensive and well structured for beginners and more experienced tarot readers.

[Aubri · Rating 5 out of 5]

I refer to this book for almost every tarot reading now! I’ve never learned so much from a book and I highly recommend it.

[Amit · Rating 5 out of 5]

very nice book

[JJ Snipes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book really helped as I was learning tarot

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great reference work, with loads of extra material not found on the website!

[lucrezia · Rating 5 out of 5]

una delle mie guide preferite per leggere i tarocchi con il mazzo RWS ❤️ molto intuitiva ed esaustiva, mi sono piaciute molto le divisioni in base al tipo di lettura e le diverse combinazioni fra carte. l’unico aspetto da migliorare secondo me è la sezione della carta rovesciata, che potrebbe essere approfondita e rispecchiare la completezza della lettura della carta in posizione normale!

[Sonee Singh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Comprehensive description of every card, considering general meaning as well as career, personality, relationships, spirituality, health, and reversed meanings. It also includes journaling prompts. I’ve been working with tarot cards for many years and I still learned some things.

[Meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book does not disappoint. Wonderful descriptions of the tarot cards. Very in depth and even describes what the cards mean in certain combinations, love meanings, career meanings, reversals, etc. Tons of condensed information. Very helpful for learning card meanings and a killer reference.