The Way of Tarot -- What a Disappointment

Rosanne

Very, very glad I read this.
That is an exacting review.
It reinforces for me that forum information is often better than a book.
(Wow! Did I really say that something was better than a book :D )
I have notes from various sources, here and other sites that when collated have formed a book on the Marseilles.

Thank you.
~Rosanne
 

Bernice

Thank you Greg Stanton

Many thanks Greg for taking the time to give this very indepth and revealing review.

Bee :)
 

sapienza

Thanks for the review Greg.
 

thorhammer

I echo Lee - please put it up both there and on Amazon (if applicable). My thanks also, to add to the clamour.

I find it downright disgusting (going, at least on your review and not the book itself) that someone claiming to be anti-occultist in their Tarot persuasion should bastardise so much of the occult usage of the deck. As many here would know, I'm more of the occultist leaning myself, but dabble in the historical Tarots a little out of interest and a need for context, and I was, quite literally, shocked at some of the things you pointed out, notably the titles of the *Trumps* and suits. I might have been able to forgive Jodo that on the grounds that the translation could be faulty and subject to the more popular (English-speaking) occultist leanings, were it not for the excerpt you reproduced for us. All that guff about the cosmic force and the Pentacle (!) representing perfection . . . ugh.

I feel dirty :D Kudos to you for having made it through the book.

\m/ Kat
 

Greg Stanton

I think that he'd just just said "here are my personal thoughts on the tarot" I would have been fine with it. It was the sheer arrogance of claiming to have restored the "authentic" tarot when it was so obvious that was not the case.

I did publish it on Amazon. I think I may want to clean it up a bit before submitting it to Solandia.
 

conversus

Greg Stanton said:
For example, he uses their elemental attributions of the suits -- and never once questions it. He simply says something along the lines of "Why not? Makes sense to me.". At least a discussion of why a weapon forged in fire is attributed to air, or why Sticks (excuse me, Wands) is attributed to an element that consumes it, would have made this section more interesting. Unfortunately, Jodorowsky is neither a scholar or an intellectual; he's an artist, and he's simply not equipped to deal with problems such as these.


Greg:

Thank you for this very informative, honest, and really dispassionate review. Many will profit from it. I have been reading at my copy of The Way of Tarot for a couple of days now and I can corroborate your statements and conclusions.

However, Mr. Jodorowsky unequivocally states on page 47 that :
The four suits of the Tarot are not the four elements of alchemy or other systems (Sword/air, Cup/water, Pentacles/earth, and Wand/fire) . . .

For the next page or so he goes to some lengths to discern correspondences which coincidentally support the following GD standard : Sword/air, Cup/water, Pentacles/earth, and Wand/fire. A perfect confirmation of your observation of his ability to make a statement and then simply contradict himself in the same paragraph.

This is not a work of Tarot History, it is a work of Tarot Myth. Mr. Jodorowsky seems to be doing what many of his predecessors have done : pick up a deck of cards, redesign them, and tell a pretty story that warms his heart and fills his purse. In this he is a very well realized Magician.

As a companion book for his deck of cards, The Way of Tarot may be monster. It certainly can give a reader insight into how the creator of a particular deck actually approaches the structure of the cards. His method may gel with the images he created or restored. In this he is no different from the creator of any other deck of Tarot Cards.

As a Librarian, I don't think that I could really recommend it, but if one could pick it up at Half-Price books for 5 dollars it might be worth it.

Again, thank you for a well crafted review. I'm glad to hear that you have posted it on Amazon and hope that you post it here, too.

If you have further thought regarding his numerology for the pips, I'd be grateful if you were to share them.

CED
 

thorhammer

conversus said:
This is not a work of Tarot History, it is a work of Tarot Myth. Mr. Jodorowsky seems to be doing what many of his predecessors have done : pick up a deck of cards, redesign them, and tell a pretty story that warms his heart and fills his purse. In this he is a very well realized Magician.
Very fair point, that. And good luck to him, as I wish all deck creators good luck, from Ciro to Hannafate to Riccardo. But as Greg said, the author of the book has intimated, whether explicitly or implicitly, that it is a work of Tarot fact and history, and plainly that is misinformation.

It sounds, to me, like it would be a reasonably rewarding general book on Tarot, but as a companion book to a "restored", supposedly historically accurate Tarot, it fails.

\m/ Kat
 

Greg Stanton

If Jodorowsky's premise was something along the lines of "here are my ideas about the Marseilles tarot" rather than "I've restored the [supposedly] missing original Marseilles tarot and here is what it's creators meant", I would have been fine with the book. The arrogance was off-putting from the onslaught.

Thing is, all of his little changes and additions to the cards are tiny details that nobody would ever notice, but which he gives great importance to. I do graphic design for a living, and I've never created art as Jodorowsky claims the creators of the Marseilles tarot did. It's far more likely, for example, that plants were added to landscapes to balance out the composition, rather than to hide secret messages. Same with the number of teeth in the lion's mouth on Strength, etc.

Regarding the suits and the elements -- conversus, this was the very example I was thinking of re AJ's habit of contradicting himself. He does it throughout the book, but this was the part that pushed me to recognize what he was doing.

thorhammer, I think perhaps the opposite is true. It could be used as a companion book to the Jodo/Camoin deck, but I wouldn't recommend it as a general book on tarot.

As far as the pips go, I didn't think the section was original -- many of us use numerology to construct a system to interpret the pips. I liked that he presented all of the Aces together, the twos, threes, etc. I need to re-read the section more carefully to write about it (my brain was pretty frazzled by the time I got there). Though as I read, I must admit I emitted several "say what?"s.
 

fchiaramonte

I really like this book (that was co-written by Marianne Costa, by the way) and Jodo's other works in general. Jodorowsky's contribuitions to Cinema and Comics are unprecedent - he is without a doubt an amazing artist and The Way of Tarot is surelly an amazing book and piece of art - specially in the "If The Cards Spoke" segments.

I suggest that all the Tarot enthusiasts check it out before getting any kind of conclusions - the book is very well formated and didatical, for this matter, and can be read in segments.

As for his reading style, I suggest checking the quick Tarot card readings that he has been doing ultimatelly as thanks for the contributions for a campaign for his next film:

https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCX93hv72qDkiEzaMVc8nS0w

Cheers!