Greg Stanton
Very little of Jodorowsky's book is based on actual research. What he has chosen to include on his deck (as opposed to an actual historical deck), is arbitrary and often without precedent (like the curly knife on the Juggler card). He sees things that aren't actually pictured on the cards (like eagle feathers, extra fingers and toes, and vaginas). The color scheme for his deck, we are told, was taken from a "very old" deck found in a shoe box, but no explanation is offered as to why this very old deck is more "correct" than other very old decks. He ridicules the esotericism of the Golden Dawn and Waite, but freely incorporates many of their ideas (like the elemental attributions of the pips — and why should they have elemental attributions at all?), again without a valid reason, other than "it works, so why not?" Chapters on the trumps are given modern names rather than historical names (like "The High Priestess" rather than "The Female Pope" or "La Papessa".) Odd for a book that claims to be the definitive, final argument for a historical tarot.
Jodorowsky's book is poorly researched, and even more poorly reasoned. For a thinking person it is one of the most frustrating books on Tarot ever written.
