The Way of Tarot

554 Pages·2009·19.11 MB·English

by  Alejandro Jodorowsky

Way
The

TaroT
of
The Spiritual Teacher
in the Cards
alejandro Jodorowsky
and Marianne Costa
Translated by Jon E. Graham
Destiny Books
Rochester, Vermont • Toronto, Canada
Destiny Books
One Park Street
Rochester, Vermont 05767
www.DestinyBooks.com
Destiny Books is a division of Inner Traditions International
Copyright © 2004 by Éditions Albin Michel
English translation copyright © 2009 by Inner Traditions International
Illustrations © 1997 by Camoin Éditions
Originally published in French under the title La Voie du Tarot by Éditions Albin
Michel, 22, rue Huyghens, 75014 Paris
First U.S. edition published in 2009 by Destiny Books
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by
any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jodorowsky, Alejandro.
[Voie du tarot. English]
The way of tarot : the spiritual teacher in the cards / Alejandro Jodorowsky and
Marianne Costa ; translated by Jon E. Graham.—1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ).
ebook ISBN 978-1-59477-656-4
print ISBN 978-1-59477-263-4 (pbk.)
1. Tarot. I. Costa, Marianne. II. Title.
BF1879.T2V6513 2009
133.3'2424—dc22
2009028132
Printed and bound in the United States of America by Lake Book Manufacturing
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Text design by Jon Desautels and layout by Priscilla Baker
This book was typeset in Garamond with Baskerville and Franklin Gothic used as
display typefaces
Inner Traditions wishes to express its appreciation for assistance given by the
government of France through the ministère de la Culture in the preparation of this
translation.
Nous tenons à exprimer nos plus vifs remerciements au gouvernement de la France et
le ministère de la Culture pour leur aide dans le préparation de cette traduction.
Contents
Preface by Marianne Costa vii
Introduction by Alejandro Jodorowsky 1
Part One
Structure and Numerology of the Tarot
Opening: The Tarot Is a Complete Entity 20
To Begin 28
Composition and Rules of Orientation 30
The Numerology of the Tarot 55
The Ten Stages for Constructing the Mandala 85
The Eleven-Color Scale 95
Part twO
The Major Arcana
Opening: An Architecture of the Soul 104
To Begin 117
Le Mat/The Fool 121
I Le Bateleur/The Magician 127
II La Papesse/The High Priestess 133
III L’Impératrice/The Empress 139
IIII L’Empereur/The Emperor 145
V Le Pape/The Pope 151
VI L’Amoureux/The Lover 157
VII Le Chariot/The Chariot 163
VIII La Justice/Justice 169
VIIII L’Hermite/The Hermit 175
X La Roue de Fortune/The Wheel of Fortune 181
XI La Force/Strength 187
XII Le Pendu/The Hanged Man 193
XIII L’Arcane sans Nom/
The Nameless Arcanum 199
XIIII Tempérance/Temperance 207
XV Le Diable/The Devil 213
XVI La Maison Dieu/The Tower 221
XVII L’Étoile/The Star 227
XVIII La Lune/The Moon 235
XVIIII Le Soleil/The Sun 241
XX Le Jugement/Judgment 247
XXI Le Monde/The World 253
Part three
The Minor Arcana
Opening: The Humble Guardians of the Secret 260
To Begin 269
The Degrees of the Numerology 271
The Aces 271
The Twos 280
The Threes 284
The Fours 287
The Fives 290
The Sixes 293
The Sevens 296
The Eights 299
The Nines 303
The Tens 306
The Numerological Degrees by Suit 311
Swords • Cups • Wands • Pentacles 311
The Honors or Court Cards 324
The Pages 324
The Queens 328
The Kings 331
The Knights 334
A Summary of Meaning by Suit 339
Swords • Cups • Wands • Pentacles 339
Part FOur
The Tarot Two by Two
Opening: Consciousness as a Joint Work 346
To Begin 351
The Duets of the Two Decimal Series 353
I The Magician—XI Strength 354
II The High Priestess—XII The Hanged Man 355
III The Empress—XIII The Nameless Arcanum 355
IIII The Emperor—XIIII Temperance 356
V The Pope—XV The Devil 357
VI The Lover—XVI The Tower 357
VII The Chariot—XVII The Star 358
VIII Justice—XVIII The Moon 358
VIIII The Hermit—XVIIII The Sun 359
X The Wheel of Fortune—XX Judgment 359
The Couples of the Tarot 361
The Fool—The World 363
The Magician—Strength 365
The High Priestess—The Pope 374
The Empress—The Emperor 382
The Chariot—The Star 387
Justice—The Hermit 392
The Moon—The Sun 396
The Pairs That Add Up to 21 398
Numerical Succession and Transfer 407
Part Five
The Reading of the Tarot
Opening: How to Become a Mirror 418
To Begin 435
First Steps to Reading the Tarot 437
With One Arcanum 438
With Two Arcana 443
With One, Two, Then Several Arcana 448
With One Partner 452
Reading Three Cards 456
Reading Four and More Cards 493
Reading Ten and More Cards 504
Conclusion: The Tarotic Philosophy 524
Notes 536
Preface
How does one write a book about the Tarot? It is like trying to empty
the sea with a fork.
For more than forty years, Alejandro Jodorowsky has been investi-
gating the dynamic and multiple aspects of the Tarot through readings,
lessons, discoveries, conferences . . . If it had been necessary to tran-
scribe this work in its entirety, we would have ended up with tens of
thousands of pages—each equally impassioned and disorganized, each
touching on the various aspects of this art that refuses to let itself be
imprisoned within any kind of rigid structure.
As this was not possible and we needed one book, and only one
book, Alejandro and I chose to present the Tarot from a variety of dif-
ferent perspectives that would allow this book to serve both as a manual
for beginners and a serious tool for experienced Tarot readers, while giv-
ing all its readers a work that would be a pleasure to read.
This is why all the parts of this book include an introduction writ-
ten in the first person by Alejandro, retracing the unique path he has
carved out over a lifetime in the company of this demanding teacher
and powerful ally known as the Tarot.
With respect to all the technical parts, our chief concern was to be
faithful to the extreme plasticity of the Tarot, which is light and pro-
found, linear and multidimensional, gamelike and complex. It refuses
to be reduced to any one of the countless possibilities it opens. This
is why we sought to create a book that could be read either in sections
vii
viii Preface
or straight through, in which each subject is both summed up briefly
and discussed in great depth, and whose illustrations provide a ceaseless
echo to the text, based on the truth that the Tarot constitutes first and
foremost an apprenticeship in seeing.
The book has been organized into five parts. The purpose of the
first part is to familiarize the reader with the overall structure of the
Tarot and its numerological and symbolic foundations. The second part
examines each card of the Major Arcana, while the third does the same
for the Minor Arcana. The fourth part represents what we intend to be
a first step in the dynamic reading of the Tarot: the study of pairs, the
various combinations between two and more cards. For all intents and
purposes, every element of the Tarot is linked in this fashion to all the
others. Finally, the fifth part is dedicated to the actual art of reading
the cards.
We want to take this opportunity to thank Barbara Clerc in par-
ticular, who has been transcribing and archiving the unpaid lessons and
readings given by Alejandro Jodorowsky. She put all these archives at
our disposal. Without her, they would have remained only part of oral
tradition.
Marianne Costa
Note: The cards reproduced in this book are taken from the Tarot of Marseille
restored by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Philippe Camoin, and reproduced
here with the generous permission of Camoin Éditions ([email protected]).
Copyright © 1997. All rights reserved.
Introduction
I first met the cards when I was seven years old living in Tocopilla, a
small Chilean port town nestled between the glacial Pacific Ocean
and the mountainous plateaus of Tarapaca, the driest region on Earth,
where not a drop of rain has fallen in centuries. The town merchants
would close up shop at noon until five every afternoon because of the
extreme heat. My father, Jaime, would lower the metal shutter of his
Casa Ukrania [Ukraine House]—which sold feminine undergarments
and household items—and go play billiards at Crazy Abraham’s, a
Lithuanian Jewish widower who had washed up here under mysteri-
ous circumstances. In this warehouse where women never set foot, the
normally competing merchants declared a momentary truce and gath-
ered around a green table where they showed off their virility by mak-
ing cannon shots. According to Jaime’s philosophy a child’s brain was
already formed by age seven, and should be treated as an adult. So on
my seventh birthday he allowed me to go with him to play billiards. The
deafening noise made by the balls striking each other and the white and
red trails they left across the olive-green felt failed to impress me. What
did catch my eye and fascinated me was a card castle. Crazy Abraham
was obsessed with building large castles out of cards. He would leave
these huge and imposing constructions, no two of which were ever
alike, on the bar counter far from any drafts until he got drunk and
intentionally knocked them down, only to immediately begin building
another. Jaime would mockingly tell me to ask the “loony” why he did
1