Book Review: MARSEILLE TAROT, TOWARDS THE ART OF READING – BY CAMELIA ELIAS.
If you have been following me for the last six months or so you know that I have gotten downright evengelical about the Tarot deMarseille and even more importantly the French methods of reading the cards. “SMASH your spreads!” I have been telling people. The readings are so much better when the cards are not locked in those solitary positions with no chance to interact with each other and tell a real story.
I am not alone, interest in the TdM has exploded as people have discovered that exactly the type of common sense and down-to-earth reading style used with Lenormand and Playing Cards is exactly the way Tarot can be read, had been read for three hundred years, and still is read by those that are not trying to nail it to Kabbalah, Thelema, or other esoteric systems.
There are alot of people working with the Marseille these days: Alejandro Jodorowsky, Yoav Ben-Dov, Enrique Enriquez; but my favorite has been Camilia Elias, the mind behind the excellent blog Taroflexions. Camelia’s style of reading combines the meanings of cards drawn from the largely oral cunning traditions that have surrounded the cards in France with the direct apprehension of the visual picture as advocated by Enrique Enriquez. The two modes together have unlocked Tarot for me and brought a new joy and accuracy to my consultations.
Her new book MARSEILLE TAROT, TOWARDS THE ART OF READING , is even more amazing than her blog. Her manner of writing reveals the cards in a more intimate way than I have ever seen in another book. The meanings are all there of course, but so is a list of what that card might mean when it appears with others – a feature I have not seen in Tarot book before, and one which gets to the heart of this style of reading, She also includes traditional health issues indicated by the different cards, and an example of that cards appearance from a reading she has done. It is is this last feature, seeing the cards interpreted alongside others and within the context of a question that demonstrates the shifting meanings, the manner of finding agency in the reading, as well as how to interpret the cards at face value rather than according to some grand esoteric system.
After her explanations of the cards she speaks about various styles of reading, and shows how linking the cards is the key to unwinding the narrative. Sometimes a very complex narrative can emerge from just three cards, but she always is urging the reader towards “the sentence” – a strightforward interpretation of what you see before you.
An added treat of this book is that it is illustrated with the unique version of the Marseille Tarot done by Carolus Zoya, made in Turin at the end of 1700. The images of this deck, never seen in public before this publication, are absolutely a Marseille style deck – but with unique features such as exposed nipples on the Empress, an X on Deaths Skull, and wings on Justice. When she explains what is different about this deck in comparison to others it makes you appreciate both the solid foundation of the style that remained quite intact for several hundred years, and also the small differences that can spin the meaning this way and that. You find these differences in other decks as well: the exposed genitals of the fool in the Noblet, the way that card 13 seems to be the skeleton of the fool in the Conver and Dodal decks, and so on.
If you are at all interested in the Marseille Tarot, or even just in a more natural, fluid, and down-to-earth style of reading whatever deck you currently use, this book is a must have.
