About the Book
A groundbreaking approach to the practice of divination.
Historically, fortune-tellers have always stood on the margins of society and been villainized by the Christo-colonial powers that view divination as competition. The Modern Fortune-Teller's Field Guide takes a contemporary and engaged approach to divination, with a strong focus on social responsibility. Because fortune-tellers can see the world as it is, they serve as a threat to structures that benefit from secrecy.
The Modern Fortune-Teller's Field Guide is an essential guide to anyone seeking theory and history alongside divinatory knowledge. Though anyone today can pick up a pack of tarot cards or begin casting bones, fortune-tellers have a responsibility in taking up that work to not only consider the forebears who suffered for that art but also to understand the systems of oppression that impact our clients. We must understand that spiritually bypassing a client's reality is not only ineffective but also cruel.
About the Author :
Tom Benjamin is your friendly neighborhood fortune-teller. From a childhood terror of tarot to a reader and teacher with twenty-plus years of experience, Tom's aim is to help seekers get the answers they need to all of life's puzzles and to help students find their unique voices as card slingers. Through popular YouTube channel and online courses and workshops, as well as the independently published Tarot on Earth and Your Tarot Toolkit, he shares tips, techniques, and even some affectionate slandering of long-beloved dogmas, in the belief that finding your own path is the only way to grow-whether you're a client or a student.
Review :
"If I had to describe The Modern Fortune Teller's Field Guide in a single word, that would be 'necessary'. Tom Benjamin's work touches poignant subjects that most shy away from, in both divination and life, and offers technique, encourages skill development through self-awareness and, above all, gives back legitimacy to prediction in a world in which it's treated like a dirty word."
--María Alviz Hernando, author of Tarot Tableau Revolution "Tom Benjamin's The Modern Fortune Teller's Field Guide dismantles tired stereotypes and reframes fortune telling as an act of truth-telling, resistance, and liberation. This book offers an ethical framework for reading today, while highlighting that modern fortune telling draws on Romani and other often-erased or appropriated BIPOC divination traditions. With humor, humility, and a refreshingly iconoclastic voice, Benjamin invites readers to embrace the discomfort, curiosity, and power of this work with an aim to be a more effective and grounded reader."
--Jezmina Von Thiele
"This is not your grandma's tarot guidebook. It's a bold and much-needed step towards a new era of divination. It shook me up and rewired my brain in the best possible ways. This is a must-read for any cartomancer who is serious about walking a path of authenticity, compassion, and real-world impact."
--Liz Worth, author of The Power of Tarot and Going Beyond the Little White Book
"In a modern tarot landscape where 'fortune telling' is taboo, The Modern Fortune Teller's Field Guide is a searingly insightful, rigorously considered, and delightfully witty love letter to fortune telling as truth-telling. Tom Benjamin reveals the liberatory potential of fortune telling as a practice that inherently resists oppressive power structures and reconnects us with our capacity to interpret the future and contact the Divine. This book will challenge your preconceptions, shore up your foundations, open your mind and heart, and make you a more skilled, courageous, and truthful reader. Whether you are a beginner or an expert, The Modern Fortune Teller's Field Guide is an absolute necessity for tarot readers and diviners of all levels. People say that about a lot of books, but in this case, it's true. I wish I'd had this guide at the beginning of my tarot journey, but I'm so grateful to be learning from it now, twenty-something years later. I love this book!"
--Charlie Claire Burgess, author of Radical Tarot, Fifth Spirit Tarot, The Gay Marseille Tarot, and Queer Devotion
"If you're in love with the tarot but find your practice needs some shaking up, The Modern Fortune Teller's Field Guide is just the jolt that will wake up your readings. Tom Benjamin's real talk will have you confronting any comfortable notions you have about divination and turn your practice inside out and possibly even upside down (and I don't mean reversals). Like a trickster friend who calls you out to get you thinking, Tom's humorous and engaging writing and the unique exercises he gives throughout will open your eyes to fresh new ways of working with the cards. If you're willing to let go of those pearls you're clutching, you'll find deep wisdom in this book and most assuredly will never see fortune telling the same way again."
--Madame Pamita, author of Magical Tarot, The Witch's Guide to Animal Familiars, Baba Yaga's Book of Witchcraft, and The Book of Candle Magic
"This is the book I have been waiting for. It boldly demolishes dogma and fiercely promotes creativity. It's filled with energizing mindset shifts to help you examine your insecurities as a reader, strengthen your practice, and clarify your approach to working with querents. It encourages you to ask deeper and more complex questions about your role as a cardslinger. This book manages to be playful and heartwarming whilst also being deadly serious and -at times- divisive. Tom Benjamin gives Tarot its rightful place in our consciousness, through highlighting its truth-telling potential and honoring its marginalized, political nature. By the time you finish this book, you will be more in love with Tarot and more solid in your foundations as a fortune-teller."
--Kelly Ann Maddox "For anyone brave enough to don the mantle of Fortune Teller, Tom Benjamin's book is a candid, thought-provoking guide that strips away the stigma from this often maligned and misunderstood approach to divination."
--Elliot Adam, author of Fearless Tarot and Tarot in Love
"As a writer, teacher, and tarot reader, Tom Benjamin is the most wonderfully tempered blend of a warm, supportive friend with a sharp, witty, "tell it like it is" provocateur. In The Modern Fortune-Teller's Field Guide, he challenges readers to dig deep and discover just what we mean by fortune and fate, truth-telling and empowerment. While poking at our fears, biases, and unconscious loyalties and assumptions, he simultaneously provides a comfortable, conversational container to support our growth. Anyone who strives to be a modern soothsayer (truth-speaker) would do well to immerse themselves in Tom Benjamin's delightfully stimulating Socratic schooling."
--Lane Smith, author of 78 Acts of Liberation: Tarot to Transform Our World
"The Modern Fortune Teller's Field Guide pushes past stereotypes of carnivals and con artists to reveal author Tom Benjamin's deep, rich, and insightful reflections on the politics, ethics, and praxis of divination. Tom's philosophy and sense of humor make this an essential guidebook for anyone who divines. Beginner or professional, this book's engaged approach is guaranteed to amplify every fortune teller's practice."
--Amy Torok, co-author of Missing Witches and New Moon Magic and co-creator of the Missing Witches Deck of Oracles and the Missing Witches podcast, zine, coven
"The Modern Fortune Teller's Field Guide offers nuanced yet practical insights and clear guidance to working as a knowledgeable fortune-telling professional, to being on the ground and in the action of saying What is and what will be because that's the only way to really learn. And I wouldn't expect anything less from a talented reader, teacher, and writer like Tom. But Tom's book isn't just a guide to fortune telling as a craft. It's also the real-life story of becoming and unbecoming and becoming a diviner once more, much bolder and truer as a result. And that's something that will resonate with and give hope to so many readers who have been on that same circuitous path (or who will be at some point). Tom's done it the hard way so you don't have to. In The Modern Fortune Teller's Field Guide. Tom reminds us that there's always a reason to come back to the questions at hand and many, many ways to do it."
--Thomas Witholt, founder of Hermit's Mirror and author of the Seaborn Kipper and Tarot Tableau: The Fool's Journey
