Finding the Fool: A Tarot Journey to Radical Transformation

by Meg Jones Wall

A timely, liberating tarot workbook for everyone—regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, etc.—showing us all how to trust our own unique natural sense of intuition, wisdom, and magic.

Tarot isn’t about following rules or adhering to a strict set of narrow meanings; it isn’t only for a certain kind of person—instead the cards offer readers an opportunity to expand their understanding of the world around them, and to learn to trust their own natural sense of intuition, wisdom, and magic. This book aims to make space for readers of all identities and urge everyone to work with the tarot to find their own unique voice and path.

Finding the Fool is a tarot resource, workbook, and study guide that makes space for readers who may not feel represented by the traditional decks that so many other books focus on.

Featuring introductory sections on tarot related topics as well as clear and contemporary explorations on every card in the tarot, Finding the Fool provides the tools and information needed to create a personal, lasting relationship with the cards. For beginners and lifelong practitioners alike, this workbook offers substantial tarot resources as well as space for personal interpretations and study, making it a powerful companion for readers of all levels.

Genres: Tarot, Nonfiction, Spirituality, Divination, Self Help, Astrology, Reference

288 pages, Paperback

Published March 1, 2023

About the author

Meg Jones Wall (she/they) is a queer, chronically-ill tarot reader and teacher, who creates tarot resources and courses for spiritual misfits through her business, 3am.tarot. Meg is the author of Finding the Fool: A Tarot Journey to Radical Transformation and Tarot Spreads: How To Read Them, Create Them, and Revise Them, with another book on the Devil tarot archetype forthcoming. They are based in NYC.

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5, rounding up for Goodreads.

The first sentence on the back cover of Finding the Fool characterizes the book as “a tarot resource and study guide that goes beyond standardized, traditional interpretations, opening the door for readers of all genders, identities, and experience levels to build a unique and personal relationship with the cards.” This is, for me, where this book shines: the clear focus on building a relationship with tarot, particularly as a tool for self-exploration through reflection and journalling. The reader is invited to consider not just how each card’s energies and themes might relate to their own life but how the reader might learn simultaneously from and about each card, seeing lessons in each card as well as seeing, in life, ways that card turns up and how one tends to respond to its themes. Wall incorporates journalling prompts for every card, which I consistently really liked – I think that many readers, experienced and beginner alike, would really get a lot out of the experience of working through the book and journalling all the prompts, and on that basis I imagine I’ll be recommending this book often.

I really appreciate Wall’s approach to encouraging beginners to engage with multiple perspectives on tarot. Going beyond the well worn ‘take what works for you from this book, and leave the rest,’ Wall notes that “tarot is a language, and fluency takes dedicated effort, focus, and determination” [4]. While Wall encourages following one’s intuition, they also make very clear the value of engaging with a diverse range of texts + authors’ perspectives, as well as of looking at a wide range of artistic interpretations of each card. I really appreciate the way that Wall seamlessly integrates both the importance of doing what works for you with the value of learning from others’ expertise here (and Wall includes a list of ‘further reading’ at the end to get a beginner started); I like the range of Wall's bibliography and the inclusion of diverse sources, though I'm disappointed to see Jodorowsky in a list of further reading in a book focused on being (among other things) anti-oppressive.

Wall makes a few quite unconventional choices for a beginner tarot book. For starters, there are no tarot images and Wall advises the reader to work with whatever deck they have and feel most drawn to. The very idea of ‘traditions’ in tarot (RWS, Thoth, Marseille) is not mentioned in the introduction at all, nor are reversals. I really appreciate that the book doesn’t counsel beginning with the RWS, a deck which is definitely not inclusive and that won’t interest many. That said, the commitment to “[start] with a blank slate, offering only hand-drawn glyphs of planets, zodiac signs, and alchemical symbols to reinforce correspondences and connections” [10] is not particularly consistently realized. Experienced readers will note immediately how RWS-based many of the card meanings are: keywords like ‘defeat, unwillingness to act, rock bottom, victim mindset, darkest before the dawn’ for the 10 of Swords make a lot of sense in an RWS framing and with an RWS-inspired deck to work with, but they aren’t keywords that a beginner reader will ever land on themselves if they’re working with a Marseille deck and a “numerology plus element” approach – an approach this book also incorporates throughout the text. These meanings are not starting from a “blank slate” [10]: they come from somewhere. While I love Wall’s decision not to write a deck-specific book and to encourage the reader to choose the deck that works for them, I do think some brief mention of different tarot traditions as well as acknowledgment of when those traditions are being drawn on (with citations!) would’ve strengthened this book.

Wall’s approach involves layering of correspondences onto tarot, an approach many (including myself) share to some extent in their reading style. The book includes numerological correspondences (with numbers 1-10 explained at the outset of the minor arcana section), elemental associations (re: suits), and an introduction to astrology (including signs, modalities, and elements, as well as correspondences for the major arcana with dedicated journal prompts inviting exploration of one’s birth chart). I will note that the back of the book promises “astrological and numerological correspondences for all 78 tarot cards” but astrology is only really incorporated into the meanings of the majors; the minors include card keywords, numerology keywords, element keywords, and written meanings which makes zero mention of astrology. I like this ‘building blocks’ approach for beginners a lot. I do think it would be worth mentioning somewhere that these are frameworks layered on to tarot, not inherent in tarot historically. I also feel like some of the keywords attributed to astrology and numerology feel more like they came from tarot – for example, “sensitivity, intuition, psychic wisdom” (three of the keywords repeated for the number two) feel more like High Priestess keywords to me than any numerology independent of tarot that I know of. This is fine, but I feel like it warrants stating – numerology can be taken up from a lot of places, and numerology learned in context of traditional playing card reading is going to read differently than, say, if life path numbers are one’s primary influence, and a beginner likely won’t be familiar with this. In the journalling prompts on astrology one of the repeated questions asks about what element a sign is in; this confused me a bit as, for instance, Pisces is a water sign always (this isn’t chart specific). The astrology reflection questions also ask about houses but the book’s introduction to astrology doesn’t mention houses at all, so some further research will be needed for a total beginner to understand this.

I like the structure of the book very much. It opens with an introduction including, as mentioned, some basic astrology and numerology, ideas for choosing a deck, and an explanation of the book’s approach. The major cards each include astrological, numerological, and more general keywords, a lengthy description, more details on the correspondences, journal prompts, and an ‘In Readings’ section (more on these sections later). The minor arcana section begins with overarching discussions of numbers and court ranks, then each card includes numerological, elemental, and more general keywords, a description, an ‘In Readings’ section, and a journal prompt. I appreciate that the minors are given their due here; while they receive fewer words than the majors, the descriptions are thorough. The descriptions are well written, and I really like how Wall draws connections between different cards, conceiving of the majors as well as each suit as a journey or trajectory. I struggle a lot with the use of “we” in books like this – and this one is no exception – as it implies (presumes?) some agreement from the reader, but I did find Wall’s descriptions of the cards relatable broadly speaking so the “we” bugged me less than it has in some other books that felt much less inclusive than this one is. Inevitably any seasoned reader will find card meanings in any book more or less proximate to their own, but Wall’s descriptions and keywords are capacious and open-ended in the best possible way.

Overall, I found Wall’s book very inclusive. Wall does not gender the cards at all, noting in their introduction that “it’s not [their] place to put these massive, infinite archetypes into neat, orderly little boxes” and encouraging that everyone can find themselves in every card [10]. Wall doesn’t set up an Empress/Emperor binary though they do discuss the relationship between them, and their approach to courts is based on experience level – with Pages as students / seekers, Knights as adventurers / explorers, Queens and Kings both as leaders who take different approaches – a structure common to many contemporary decks. While I have been disappointed to find many ostensibly ‘inclusive’ books actually make very narrow presumptions about their readers’ lives (often due to the author taking their own experiences as somehow universal), I was very happy to find that Wall’s book does not do this.

That said, I do think that this book is written with a quite particular reader in mind – I note this as a description, not a criticism. I feel like it is relevant to readers of all experience levels – as a long-time tarot reader I found new angles on cards here, and enjoyed working through the book – but particularly geared toward beginners, specifically beginners who are interested in tarot as a tool for introspection. While the book covers other ways to use tarot – creative inspiration / artwork, spellwork, divination, etc – briefly, it is very clearly oriented toward tarot as a reflective tool for personal exploration and growth, and the ways the meanings for each card are written reflect that. There is a section in each card’s description called “In Readings,” but many/most of these would be rather difficult to apply to readings about, say, whether one will get a job. The major arcana “In Readings” sections, in particular, would be challenging for a brand new reader to translate into tangible answers to practical questions, but they do invite reflection and would be very supportive to a reader more interested in asking the tarot questions about their spirituality, what they might need to reflect on, etc. It is telling that in the final section of the book on taking one’s tarot journey deeper, spirituality, meditation, and prayer/mantras all appear before divination as options to do this; tarot is here characterized as “already an introspective and contemplative practice” [247] but divination is presented as something “many” do that the reader could consider how they feel about, as though it is a less obvious purpose for the cards. I do appreciate that fortune-telling is not demonized here, but it’s also definitely not the focus and I don’t know that this book would be ideal for a beginner specifically interested in going in that direction.

In short, I would recommend this book to beginners who are interested in tarot as a tool for self-exploration, processing, and reflection, as well as to more experienced readers taking this approach who are interested in an inclusive, thought-provoking take on the cards and/or in journalling their way through the tarot deck.

[Whitney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! I love her take on tarot as a whole and the very generous interpretations of individual cards. Any things stood out to me but my favorite concept is that tarot helps us figure out who we are instead of reinforcing who we’ve been trying to be. I will be using this as a reference for a long time and look forward to using her journal prompts.

[Valerie Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this through to enjoy the poetically beautiful explanations in each chapter but I look forward to using this book over and over again to reference as I venture into the world of Tarot.

[Avory Faucette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finding the Fool is a beginner’s guide to the tarot that embraces a way of working with the cards I’ve seen becoming more and more popular with a particular profile of reader—often queer and/or neurodivergent, social justice inclined, anti-capitalist, and interested in the cards as a tool for personal exploration but highly critical of both dogmatic occult lenses and New Age “love and light” law of attraction type approaches to spirituality. As an audience that I’d count myself among, we tend to be interested in embracing our intuition but not necessarily affiliated with paganism or any particular religion, and we’re nerdy about the potential of the tarot but more into cross-referencing it with personality typing system, psychological tools, and the dynamics of oppression and privilege than we are digging into the esoteric history of the Smith-Rider Waite deck. Some of us have studied under Lindsay Mack, or enjoy reading the archives of the Little Red Tarot blog, and we’re drawn to the archetypes of tarot as filters for our experience but not interested in reading predictively (often because future prediction doesn’t fit our cosmology, but also with respect to the Roma people whose divinatory practices are often appropriated).

While some tarot books have hinted at this approach, Finding the Fool may be the first I’ve seen that’s geared towards the beginner and goes pretty much all in on this direction. While an overview of each card is provided, author Meg Jones Wall is clearly trying to create space around the card meanings through focusing on the energies of the cards and asking a lot of questions to nudge the reader in their own direction. It’s a slightly different approach from some of the modern books that were formative in my own education like Michelle Tea’s Modern Tarot or Bakara Wintner’s WTF Is the Tarot?—rather than modernizing the meanings through personal storytelling, Wall relies more on the energetic structure of the tarot to ground the card meanings. For example, the Empress section focuses on wild creative abundance and the energy of putting things into form, while the Emperor section discusses the organization and structure that one might then apply to the raw creative output. Throughout the card descriptions, there are references to other cards and the way the whole system fits together.

This approach works well with the choice not to discuss any traditional symbolism in the cards, and instead to recommend that the reader choose a deck that resonates most with them as a starting point. This may be a little more challenging for visual learners, or at least require a more DIY method of finding ties between the meanings and the images in a chosen deck without help in that regard, but I appreciate that Wall isn’t holding up the Smith Rider-Waite—a deck grounded in a very specific (anti-Semitic) magical tradition and featuring, let’s be honest, a lot of skinny white people—as a universal reference point.

While I have found learning about the Smith Rider-Waite deck helpful in understanding some of the choices in modern decks, as well as some of the assumptions that commonly show up in guidebooks, there’s something powerful in starting with a deckless lens. The reader gets an opportunity here to explore their own understanding of card meanings before being steered into the biases of a particular tradition, and skip the step of assuming that a traditional interpretation is just an agreed-upon meaning of the card—something I’ve found myself having to help a lot of folks unlearn!

The introductory material puts the reader in an important frame of mind, making it clear that there are no magically correct keywords for each card, and that even the systems for understanding the tarot are flexible and open to play. For someone who doesn’t know much about tarot, this is critical, since it’s pretty easy to approach the deck assuming that there’s some esoteric key a reader is supposed to unlock through study, that there might be a single historical source text that holds all the answers. In fact, tarot is a symbolic language that has some shared meanings, but like any language it’s constantly evolving and culturally relative. Wall includes card keywords, but they tend to be more expansive than the standard set, and the inclusion of keywords for numbers, elements, and signs / planets as well give the reader some space to play.

Of course, it’s impossible to write a book without any point of view, and there are certainly cards covered that I see differently, even at this more energetic level. Since the approach is not to contrast common interpretations or consider imagery, it’s a little harder to read a description and consider whether you would agree with Wall’s interpretation. That said, I thought Wall did a good job of introducing each card with consideration of the interplay of opposing dynamics or takes on certain energies, and in particular with the minor arcana, the focus on number and element (similar to a Marseilles style) allows the reader to adjust their own conclusions from first principles. It’s worth noting that reversals are not included, but I actually didn’t mind this, as I find separate “reversal descriptions” are often the most regressive and annoying part of a tarot guidebook, and it’s easy for a reader to learn to read reversed cards from principles once they understand that basic interpretation.

There are more ways to view the cards than what’s described here, but these interpretations are a starting point that doesn’t necessarily exclude the additional layers of meaning that came to mind for me with specific cards, nor do they limit the reader in a harmful way as I’ve seen some tarot definitions do. There was only one description I really had a qualm with, which was the Devil card—although this wasn’t one of the worst takes I’ve seen, I still was hoping for a more liberatory approach. Some of the other majors pleasantly surprised me, for example a Justice card take that doesn’t rely on interactions with the law or government institutions.

In the minor arcana, some of the card descriptions might be a bit difficult to adapt to the question or suggest something coming in the future that may not be quite right, but there’s a lot more flexibility than in most books, and I appreciate that the suits don’t box the reader in, for example around romance for the cups or money for the pentacles, as some guides do. The court cards are interpreted in a non-gendered way, and while options such as significator cards are mentioned, the courts can be read purely energetically as well, which I appreciate.

Since each major arcana card description includes a section on the numerological and astrological correspondence, I do wish there had been at least a brief note to make it clear that those systems themselves come from specific traditions that aren’t inherent to the tarot. As an astrologer, I found some of the astrological material to feel a little derivative from the card, rather than acknowledging that the Golden Dawn associations are honestly pretty clunky in places. The inclusion of prompts referencing the birth chart is a cool mechanic, but I found it confusing that for cards associated with a sign, the questions start with “Where is [sign] in your natal chart? Which element does it live in?” since the element of a sign doesn’t change from chart to chart.

There’s also a brief section at the end of the book that includes a bunch of different suggestions for how to use the tarot outside of just pulling cards, as well as other tools tarot plays well with. The approach to tarot spreads, also in the concluding material, is particularly clever—rather than focusing heavily on a bunch of unique spreads with different numbers of cards and layouts, which I personally find rarely matters (with a few exceptions for very creative spreads and those where meaning is really tied to the geometry of the layout), Wall gives a whole list of two and three card spreads with single keywords for positions, so the reader has quite a few options to choose from, as well as a list of four-card spreads based on each of the cards of the major arcana. I really like this approach, as I’ve found some of the most powerful spreads to be some of the most simple!

This book is going to be most relevant to those who do want to dive deep into introspection, as the whole point of reading tarot this way from Wall’s point of view is to get closer to our own truth. Wall provides many prompts for self reflection with each card, and always turns things back to the reader’s own experience. These prompts the reader to consider where and how an interpretation might apply in their own lives, and have a kind of “self-therapy” feel that would support a journaling practice even for those who never actually pick up a deck of cards. If you’re more interested in self-exploration and diving into the subconscious than you are looking for a history or esoteric guide to the tarot, this book is for you!

[ARC provided through Edelweiss.]

[Indre Simuntyte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finding the Fool – A Journey in Self-Discovery Through Tarot

Meg Jones Wall’s Finding the Fool feels like a breath of fresh air in the tarot world and is a great way to start the journey, if you are new to it. Instead of laying down set meanings and rules, Meg invites you to see tarot as a tool for self-discovery, adapting it to your own life and making it personal. Let’s break it down part by part and let me give you a glimpse into the journey you’re about to embark on.

In the opening section, “Preparing Your Way,” Meg gives practical advice on picking a tarot deck that truly resonates with you, rather than just going for the usual Rider-Waite. She encourages readers to choose a deck that feels natural in their hands, making the practice more about connection than tradition. For anyone who wants to start but is shy, this is a bigger deal than you might think - simply choosing the deck that you love rather than spending hours researching the best one, could be a deal-breaking for someone wanting to start with tarot. Meg’s approach to rituals is simple and flexible, encouraging you to find what works for you, whether it’s pulling a card with your morning coffee or winding down at night with a bit of reflection. She’s big on journaling, too—she calls it “the backbone of any tarot practice,” a way to track your journey, notice patterns, and reflect on your own story. Making it seamlessly slide into your daily practices is the key.

In Part Two, Meg goes deep into the Major Arcana—the cards that capture life’s big shifts, lessons, and moments of change. She sees each card as a “mirror,” encouraging you to look within and find where these themes fit in your story. The Fool, for instance, isn’t just a card about new starts as it might be commonly known among beginners; it’s a reminder to have faith in yourself and take that first step, even if the path ahead is unknown.
The Minor Arcana, meanwhile, keeps things grounded, linking each suit—Cups, Wands, Swords, and Pentacles—to everyday experiences like emotions, creativity, ideas, and the practical side of life. Meg isn’t pushing memorisation; instead, she invites you to let each card reflect bits of your own day-to-day. It’s about noticing what’s going on in the present moment and understanding how you feel about it.
All in all, Finding the Fool is perfect for anyone who wants to make tarot less about strict rules and more about personal discovery. Meg’s message—“We are all fools, endlessly growing, learning, and exploring”—is a refreshing reminder that tarot, like life, is a journey filled with curiosity and growth. Her tone is warm and approachable, making this book a helpful guide whether you’re just starting or already familiar with tarot. If you’re looking for a way to make tarot feel personal and meaningful, this book is an inspiring place to begin.

[Heather Hogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll never forget the afternoon Meg Jones Wall slid a couple of boxes of tarot cards across the table toward me. We were sitting in a deli in Brooklyn, and even though I had no experience with tarot, and felt wildly intimidated by the prospect of even trying to learn, Meg sensed an eagerness in me and casually tossed them out there. I hesitantly said, "Can I... touch them?" And she didn't even laugh at me; she just smiled and said, "Of course." That was the beginning of such a journey. I have taken every class Meg has offered, read every Queer Tarotscopes column she's ever published, bought and devoured all her books. And I am so happy to say that Finding the Fool is absolutely everything I have come to love about Meg's teaching — her wit, her candor, her incisiveness, her deep deep knowledge, her conversational style, her questions — and more. I actually read through the book in one single day, and now I can't wait to go back and actually really dig into it with some cards in hand. (I'm just finishing up her Everyday Fools class right now, so the timing is perfect.) I loved this book and by this time next year, anyone who looks at it will be able to tell, because it's going to be marked up, dog-eared, highlighted, and read read read over and over. A lifetime favorite already.

[Gabriela Kozhuharova · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It’s delightfully written and has a lot of depth. The focus is not on the esoteric symbolism, occultism and etc. (although the author emphasizes the astrological and numerological correspondences), but on how we experience the cards and that makes it quite unique and compelling, especially if you read Tarot through a more psychological, day-to-day lens. After listening to the audiobook, I’m definitely buying it on paperback. I want it permanently parked on my Tarot table next to Tarot for Change and Tarot for Life.

[E. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not sure how I found this, other than the fact that I read a lot of tarot books in general. It was probably on a page in Libby. Anyway I immediately got a visceral nope as it started out (I guess in the foreward) with this navel gazing tone about how the person is not the same as when she picked up her first tarot cards at 16. I'm really not here to go on a mental trip to that age right now. I might return to this when I'm less acutely stressed and I would probably skip this part. I noped out of this as hard as I noped out of Jessica Dore.

I viscerally feel weird that Theresa Reed is everywhere in the tarot writing world, and I might really adjust my library suggestions and tbr to avoid this tone. I need something intersectional. No navel gazing required. I can just pull my own tarot but thanks

[Electric · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. It's alright, I suppose. I find that it's much like other tarot books, except this one seems to reference binary and nonbinary crap, which is, quite frankly offensive and unnecessary. I'm not reading the book for one's social commentary. Thank you.
The reference of the archetypes is somewhat dull and standard for "beginners" genre, although there are journal prompts included, which is a nice touch.
Hey Wildstar. Nobody cares what you fucking think.

[Jessica Schwartz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meg Jones Wall is one of my favorite people in the tarot community. They write really beautifully about the cards, providing lots of nuance and fresh takes. Meg manages to be the type of person that tolerates no bullshit, but is also incredibly kind, generous, and patient. This is a book to savor and come back to again and again.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Love the concept of this book, but by choosing not to anchor any of the interpretations to the images of the tarot cards, everything gets muddy and confusing quickly. I wish I had started with a different book, as I don't think this is the very best option for someone with zero tarot knowledge, and I think I would like this more if I read it after some other books

[Awkward-ness · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating and super informative book on tarot history, symbology, and practice. It's very beginner friendly but has in-depth and thoughtful information on the symbolic associations between each cards. I found it very accessible and I definitely will keep referring to it as a resource.

[Alyssa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a beginner - I love this guide and turn to it often. Its concise and highlights the main themes of each card while offering journal questions to explore. It touches on numerology, which adds a dimension that has helped deepen my understanding of how the cards relate to one another!

[Michele Walter · Rating 2 out of 5]

This rating will likely change as I move through this book, but when you find glaring inconsistencies, lies, and disconnectedness between the forward and introduction, it kinda makes you not want to continue.

[Valenzia Stokes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is by far the most thorough and enlightening book I've read on tarot. It goes beyond the standard "little white book" interpretations of the cards and invites one to think more holistically about their practice.

[Michelle Cornish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book! While much of the information reinforced my current understanding of tarot, I also gained many new insights and inspiration for using my tarot cards in different ways. I can see myself returning to this book again and again!

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A unique approach to tarot perfect for beginners. Love the author’s insights and the journal prompts for all 78 cards. Wall gives the Minor Arcana the attention they deserve!

[~m · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Tarot book!!!!

[Stella · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best tarot books I've ever read. The language suits beginners and offers a new perspective for more advanced readers.