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The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards Paperback – November 17, 2009

by Alejandro Jodorowsky (Author), Marianne Costa (Author)

4.8 474 ratings

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Filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky’s insights into the Tarot as a spiritual path

• Works with the original Marseille Tarot to reveal the roots of Western wisdom

• Provides the key to the symbolic language of the Tarot’s “nomadic cathedral”

• Transforms a simple divination tool into a vehicle for self-realization and healing

Alejandro Jodorowsky’s profound study of the Tarot, which began in the early 1950s, reveals it to be far more than a simple divination device. The Tarot is first and foremost a powerful instrument of self-knowledge and a representation of the structure of the soul.

The Way of Tarot shows that the entire deck is structured like a temple, or a mandala, which is both an image of the world and a representation of the divine. The authors use the sacred art of the original Marseille Tarot--created during a time of religious tolerance in the 11th century--to reconnect with the roots of the Tarot’s Western esoteric wisdom. They explain that the Tarot is a “nomadic cathedral” whose parts--the 78 cards or “arcana”--should always be viewed with an awareness of the whole structure. This understanding is essential to fully grasp the Tarot’s hermetic symbolism.

The authors explore the secret associations behind the hierarchy of the cards and the correspondences between the suits and energies within human beings. Each description of the Major Arcana includes key word summaries, symbolic meanings, traditional interpretations, and a section where the card speaks for itself. Jodorowsky and Costa then take the art of reading the Tarot to a depth never before possible. Using their work with Tarology, a new psychological approach that uses the symbolism and optical language of the Tarot to create a mirror image of the personality, they offer a powerful tool for self-realization, creativity, and healing.

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From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A profound work that is both penetrating and fascinating. It offers thought-provoking commentary on the cards from a pair of authors who are among the world's most deeply knowledgeable authorities on the tarot." ― Kooch Daniels, co-author of Matrix Meditations, Oct 2009

"The Way of Tarot is a very impressive work. Whether you agree with the authors conclusions or not, it will make you think outside of the box, and will perhaps be the impetus needed for someone out there in the Tarot world to connect the dots between their thoughts and present them for examination. . . . This is a worthwhile addition to the Tarot library of anyone that wishes to move beyond the divination aspects of the cards into self-realization." ― Bonnie Cehovet, certified Tarot Grand Master, Aeclectic Tarot, Oct 2009

"An excellent all-around guide to both the nuts-and-bolts practical and the spiritual sides of Tarot, The Way of Tarot is filled with invaluable insights for Tarot practitioners of all skill and experience levels." ― The Midwest Book Review, Library Bookwatch, Feb 2010

"The beginning of this book reads like a sophisticated treasure-hunt adventure. It also happens to include a history of tarot cards, which will be invaluable to people who are studying tarot seriously. . . . a reference they can go back to over and over again as they gain experience with the cards." ― Anna Jedrziewski, New Age Retailer magazine, Feb 2010

"The purpose of this book is to show the reader how the tarot can be seen and used in a practical way that is holistic, balanced,and grounded. . . . The Way of Tarot can be a guide along this path." ― New Spirit Journal, Vol. 5, No. 12, April 2010

"The beauty of this deck is that Jodorwsky puts aside the Kabalistic and other Western influences upon the tarot and just studies the primal and bare gestures, numbers, and minute details . . . " ― Indras Net, blog: The Sync Whole;@The Heart of Jupiter-Evolve!, Mar 10

From the Back Cover

TAROT / SPIRITUALITY Alejandro Jodorowsky's profound study of the Tarot, which began in the early 1950s, reveals it to be far more than a simple divination system. The Tarot is first and foremost a powerful instrument of self-knowledge and a representation of the structure of the soul. The Way of Tarot shows that the entire deck is structured like a temple, or a mandala, which is both an image of the world and a representation of the divine. The authors use the sacred art of the original Marseille Tarot--created during a time of religious tolerance in the 11th century--to reconnect with the roots of the Tarot's Western esoteric wisdom. They explain that the Tarot is a "nomadic cathedral" whose parts--the 78 cards or "arcana"--should always be viewed with an awareness of the whole structure. This understanding is essential to fully grasp the Tarot's hermetic symbolism. The authors explore the secret associations behind the hierarchy of the cards and the correspondences between the suits and energies within human beings. Each description of the Major Arcana includes key word summaries, symbolic meanings, traditional interpretations, and a section where the card speaks for itself. Jodorowsky and Costa then take the art of reading the Tarot to a depth never before possible. Using their work with Tarology, a new psychological approach that uses the symbolism and optical language of the Tarot to create a mirror image of the personality, they offer a powerful tool or self-realization, creativity, and healing. ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY is a filmmaker who made the legendary El Topo and The Holy Mountain. He also is a psychotherapist and author of many books on Tarot and spiritualism, including Psychomagic and The Spiritual Journey of Alejandro Jodorowsky. MARIANNE COSTA has worked with Jodorowsky since 1997, coteaching workshops on Tarot and family-tree therapy. She is the author of No Woman's Land. Both authors live in Paris.

About the Author

Alejandro Jodorowsky is a filmmaker who made the legendary El Topo and The Holy Mountain. He also is a psychotherapist and author of many books on Tarot and spiritualism, including Psychomagic and The Spiritual Journey of Alejandro Jodorowsky. Marianne Costa has worked with Jodorowsky since 1997, coteaching workshops on Tarot and family tree-therapy. She is the author of No Woman’s Land. Both authors live in Paris.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter Six

L’Amoureux / The Lover

Union, Emotional Life

The name of this card is not, as often thought, The Lovers plural, but The Lover, singular. However, on it we see four human-shaped figures (the three individuals and the angel) and, if we really want, two entities that are the Earth and the Sun. Among them, who is The Lover? The central figure that is often interpreted to be a young man? The figure on the left, who some view as a transvestite? Or even the angel, the little Cupid aiming his arrow out of the sky? These questions arise because Arcanum VI is, along with The Tower, one of the most ambiguous cards of the Tarot, and one of those that is most poorly understood. VI represents in Tarot numerology the first step into the square of Heaven. It is the time when we stop imagining what would please us and begin doing what we like.
The major tone of this card concerns pleasure and emotional life. This is the very reason why it is so complex and so rich in conflicting meanings. It opens the field to countless projections, and a thousand meanings can be attributed to it, each of which can be right at a given moment. What is taking place with this trio? Is it a quarrel, haggling, a choice, a union? The two figures on the left are looking at each other while the one on the right is looking off into space. The whole of humanity can be comprehended through this card. The relations of its protagonists are extremely ambivalent.

Key words

Eros, Heart, Choice, Emotional Domain, Conflict, Ambiguity, Trio, Social Life, Community, Siblings, Doing What You Love...

The position of these figures’ hands is extremely interesting to observe. Five hands in various positions symbolize the complexity of the relationships in play. The first figure, on the left, has placed her hand on the second one’s shoulder in a gesture of protection or domination, either pushing him forward or holding him back. Her right hand is touching the hem of the boy’s tunic. The movement of her extended index finger can be interpreted as a desire to slide over to his penis or, to the contrary, a prohibition on doing so. The boy has his right hand pressed against his belt. In passing, we should note that this yellow belt has three bands and is the same as that worn by the woman on the left. But who is the owner of the arm touching the belly of the young woman? She and the boy both are wearing clothes with deep blue sleeves that are so closely matched it makes the movement of this arm ambiguous. In some way they make this a “commonly shared arm.” While the young man is touching the young woman’s belly close to her genitals, his gaze is directed away from her toward his right. The card will have an entirely different meaning if we consider this arm to be her own arm protecting or pointing toward her belly while the boy is holding his arm behind his back.
The woman on the right is wearing a headdress consisting of four five-petal flowers. It could represent a splendid awareness, poetic yet nevertheless solid. The violet heart of the flowers concentrates the wisdom of love, truly the ability to sacrifice oneself. The woman on the left is wearing a crown of green leaves; it is active (the red band), and if we agree that these are laurel leaves, we could say that she has the mentality of a victor or a dominatrix.
We can speculate infinitely on the relationship of the three figures: a boy presenting his fiancée to his mother; a woman discovering her husband with his mistress; a man attempting to choose between two women, or, as the traditional interpretation views it, between vice and virtue; a pimp offering a prostitute to a passerby; a young girl asking her mother for permission to wed the boy she has chosen; a mother in love with her daughter’s lover; a mother preferring one of her two children over the other, and so forth.
The interpretations are inexhaustible. All of them lead us to the conclusion that The Lover is a relational card that depicts the beginning of social life. It is the first Arcanum on which several individuals are presented at the same level (The Pope’s disciples are smaller than he is and seen from the back). This is a card of union and disunion, of social and emotional choices. Several clues present in the card direct us toward the notion of union. On the one hand, the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Vav (the nail), represents union. On the other hand, we can see patches of color (light blue then red) between these individuals’ legs that also represent a continuity, a union between them. On the symbolic plane, we could say that the three figures represent the governing centers of the human being: the intellect, the emotional center, and the sexual center joining together to become one.
The ground beneath these individuals’ feet has been plowed. This means that in order to reach the VI, it is necessary to have performed some preliminary psychological, cultural, and spiritual work. This is how we manage to realize what we love and what we want. The red shoes of the central figure are the same as those worn by The Fool and The Emperor; they can be considered as three stages of the same being. It can also be noted that the ground ends between this figure and his neighbor on the right, there is only the red patch. We can then see them as representations of the animus and the anima, two masculine and feminine aspects of one single person.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Destiny Books; 1st edition (November 17, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 552 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1594772630
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1594772634
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.9 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.4 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #74,417 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #17 in Prophecies
- #245 in Tarot
- #1,920 in Personal Transformation Self-Help

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4.8 474 ratings

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Alejandro Jodorowsky

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Alejandro Jodorowsky Prullansky (Spanish: [aleˈxandɾo xoðoˈɾofski]; born 17 February 1929) is a Chilean film and theatre director, screenwriter, playwright, actor, author, poet, producer, composer, musician, comic book writer and spiritual guru. Best known for his avant-garde films, he has been "venerated by cult cinema enthusiasts" for his work which "is filled with violently surreal images and a hybrid blend of mysticism and religious provocation".

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Photo by Lionel Allorge (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or FAL], via Wikimedia Commons.

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RNT and CAT

The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards

Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2010

Verified Purchase

(Review by RNT's wife, C. A. Taylor)

I firstly purchased the Jodorowsky tarot deck which quickly made it plain to me that I needed to brush up on my numerology, symbols and so forth in order to understand this particular deck, so I was compelled to buy the corresponding book for the price of two cheesecakes. A month into my study of the book, I can say that it has impacted my perceptions beyond what words can describe. This inability to describe "that which is beyond us" is precisely why we are given symbols, colors, all elements in their respective places (etc.) on the cards - and I feel that I moved quickly from "novice" to "humble minor expert" without straining my brain one iota. This book would be sufficient for understanding and employing all decks of cards.

Jodorowsky approaches the wisdom-seeker as a patient teacher who does not strive to sound omniscient but, rather, presents his insights and information logically and with a respectful eye-to-eye style of delivery.

Upon reading The Way of Tarot, the mind opens, receptive as the beak of a birdling, to numbers, orientation, suits, degrees, order, color; the infinite possibilities of card combinations; mind exercises and layouts devoid of that "hocus-pocus" feel. Contrary to the singular negative review, I find this book to be abounding with logic and coherence even in its esoteric obscurities. It seems to make perfect sense once the various pieces are put together. Jodorowsky seems well aware that the more angles from which we study a subject, the greater our understanding:

He addresses the Major Arcana and how the cards correspond to one another in various ways. He works the reader up the suits of the Minor Arcana and across by level, which thoroughly ingrains the essence, value and placement of each card. As if that were not enough, he (firstly) divides the individual card into sections: receptive versus active; earth/matter versus air/spirit; and the interplay and perpetual cycle of the suits.

He trains the reader to apply common-sense in scrutinizing details such as the direction of leaves and the openness of flowers, and to expand the impressions through the understanding of colors, the direction of gazing eyes, etc.. Everything within the Jodorowsky tarot, right down to the dots, is deliberate and worth study for as broad an interpretation as possible and, in turn, for an invitation to the subconscious mind to awaken and unleash its divining potential.

But one of the most valuable pleasant surprises within this book, in my opinion, is its lesson of the practical application of the Tarot in determining one's placement in life for guidance on one's personal path, and it even hints toward how one can analyze the dynamics of relations with others according to where The Fool lands in their lives and their development within their representative suit (actually, one can analyze anything by way of the Tarot).

The possibilities are boundless, and now, as each and every card presents its universal wisdom, my mind opens, confidently, expansive as a rainbow, to define a plethora of possibilities within each moment, and to divine that vital truth to resonate deeply within me.

I can only assume that, except by plagiarism, there will not, for a long time, be a more worthy, resourceful and helpful book on understanding the Tarot in general than that which was simply yet eloquently presented as Jodorowsky's The Way of Tarot.

(I am very grateful to the team of individuals who put this book together. If I were to not yet own this book while knowing what I do of it, I would buy it - right now. It's worth a cheesecake's weight in gold!)

97 people found this helpful

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C.M. & T.M.

essential for a deeper study of the history, imagery, and symbolism of tarot

Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2018

Verified Purchase

If you are remotely interested in going beyond the "basics" in Tarot, this book will be invaluable to you.

I have to admit, my approach to Tarot is definitely more academic at this point than spiritual- I use the cards for insight and meditation, but I honestly enjoy *studying* different decks, systems, and approaches to Tarot more than anything else. It's like each deck is its own little art museum and library, in a way, and there so much to unravel and find if you take the time. I just love getting a new deck and taking as long as it takes to go through each image on each card and untangle all the knots.

This book is *so* good for that. If you are looking for something just a tiny bit more informative than the Little White Book that comes with decks, this would not be a good book for you. But if you're familiar with the meanings of all the cards, and want to dig deeper, and are open to a slightly unusual approach to Tarot, this book is a gold mine. It took me a while to get familiar enough with tarot to be able to appreciate this book- it was actually the Mary El, Jonasa Jaus, and Margarete Petersen decks and my desire to truly understand them that made me realize how valuable this book is. Even though none of those decks are traditionally Marseilles, this book has been essential in helping me really grasp those approaches to Tarot.

A few notes on content: this book is geared towards the old-school Marseilles decks, and the information about the imagery and symbolism is strictly Marseilles. BUT, the general information about the cards can really work with any system. There is tons of information on the majors, and just a paragraph on each minor. But I find even the shortest blurbs on the minor cards really informative and insightful.

Sorry for my unfocused and poorly written review, but I just wanted to take the opportunity to share my experience with this book. If any of the content appeals to you, go ahead and add it to your library.

30 people found this helpful

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Gustavo Rosales

Amazing book

Reviewed in Mexico on January 15, 2022

Verified Purchase

This book contains precise information about reading the Marseille Tarot, but as well a good deal of extra info and anecdotes.
I enjoyed very much this book
But if you’re simply looking for a manual then this book isn’t for you

One person found this helpful

Tomasz Kocewiak

Uszkodzony egzemplarz

Reviewed in Poland on March 16, 2024

Verified Purchase

Zwrot. Przecięta okładka.

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Ricardo Ribeiro

Revals the secrets of the original Tarots

Reviewed in India on April 28, 2023

Verified Purchase

The book os one of few that explains the Tarot de Marseille. It gives insights into the mystic side, the Numerology of Tarot de Marseille, philosophical insights. And some 102 pages on how to do readings and guide people.

Enrico Tassinari

La bibbia dei Tarocchi

Reviewed in Italy on March 26, 2023

Verified Purchase

Questo libro è il capolavoro della coppia Jodorowsky e Costa, due studiosi che hanno dedicato la propria vita ai Tarocchi. È il testo più importante, quello più adatto sia ai principianti che ai praticanti più avanzati. Si rivolge ai tarocchi Marsigliesi, e non ai tarocchi RWS, detti "americani", ma la sua conoscenza è utile a chiunque, anche a chi usa mazzi diversi. Per i miei gusti, affronta gli arcani Minori con un approfondimento non comparabile rispetto a quello che dedica ai Maggiori. Un tesoro, che spiega le tecniche e la storia dei tarocchi senza abbandonarsi a pratiche magiche, ma cercando di arricchire la vita e l'esperienza dei praticanti. Consigliatissimo. Il mazzo che viene usato negli esempi è il Camoin-Jodorowsy, che non è propriamente tradizionale, adotta alcuni piccoli particolari originali, ma è comunque molto evocativo e suggestivo.

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