Alejandro Jodorowsky Tarot Deck

[Prospero Barela]

Youcan also use a spread to inspire a new story or chapter sequence where each card becomes an act. This could be done with as few as 3 cards: beginning, middle, end, or add as many cards as you like for a more detailed and twisting plot line.

Wearyily, he looks ahead, knowing an arduous but necessary journey could drain all his creative energy, but go he must. A new land must be found. He sets off. The water is choppy, sleepless nights abound, demons must be wrestled, but eventually, he reaches the other side of the shore and begins anew again, in a fertile garden of his own making. All his hard work was worth it.

At the beginning of this year, knowing little about Tarot, I attended a \u201CYear Ahead Tarot Workshop,\u201D with my witch pal Sabrina Scott, who is also an award-winning non-fiction author, graphic novelist, artist, thinker, YouTuber, teacher, and all-around creative, intelligent person. I thought Tarot was hokey before she educated me on the matter.

In the workshop, we pulled a card for each month and made a spread for the year. Knowing little about the images, numbers, and meanings of cards, but intrigued by my year\u2019s spread, this kicked off a period of self-study for me on the tarot.

I learned the basics of this ancient art from a few books, including H. R. Giger\u2019s Tarot, Alejandro Jodorowsky\u2019s Way of the Tarot, and Michelle Tea\u2019s Modern Tarot. I also listened to an audiobook written by a peer of Sabrina\u2019s, Tarot: No Questions Asked: Mastering the Art of Intuitive Reading, by Theresa Reed, which was free on Spotify.

Now, I\u2019m not a Tarot expert, but learning and thinking about the cards is fun. I love looking at the different sets of cards and all their art. I went from thinking it was bunk to owning four sets of tarot cards pretty fast.

One set, I\u2019d had for ages, the Naga deck, a gift from the artist Robert L. Pepper, and the other sets I acquired since the workshop. The cards pictured in this post are all from The Rider Tarot deck.

Alejandro Jodorowsky writes of the number six in the tarot: \u201C\u2026the beauty of the Six can be considered to be the root of reality. If we add up the three successive out of the infinite series of numbers, we will always obtain a number that can be reduced to six. For example:

Jodorowsky continues, \u201CIn the Six of Swords, we are witnessing an act of internalization. We attain beauty through meditation, by going toward the ecstasy that is the heart of our awareness. The central flower, whose stem has been cut, separated from its plant and consequently the world, is blossoming in solitude. It is single. Assuming its individuality, its solitude, its uniqueness, is the primary joy of the intellect.\u201D

After studying each month\u2019s card, I also engage with the cards in the year\u2019s spread surrounding it. This creates a story arc, and it\u2019s little surprise to me that well-known authors like Stephen King, John Steinbeck, , and Michelle Tea spent time with the tarot, added tarot to their books, or worked as tarot readers in the past. It\u2019s very much a mythical storytelling method.

If you\u2019re a writer, you can use the cards to help move ahead a stuck story by pulling a single card and applying it to your character or plot. You could also pull a card to generate backstory or motivation for your characters. Shuffle the deck, select a random card, think of your character or story and stare at the card, study it. For me, this usually generates a clear idea that comes in like a dog looking for its dinner.

May\u2014III of Wands in Reverse: Be wary of gazing too far into the future. You know a journey awaits you, but if you focus too deeply on it, you risk neglecting or losing your creative viewpoint and your creative passions. (Wands relate to creativity. I think of them as wizard staffs.)

June\u2014Six of Swords: The journey has begun. You\u2019re heading into new territory, leaving behind the past. You must stay in front of the conflict to reach smooth waters. You are with your child on this journey, but larger, darker forces are pushing you through. Use your intellect to stay afloat at all costs. (Swords relate to intellect/facts/logic.)

August\u2014Nine of Pentacles: But have no fear, the journey will end well. You will feel relieved and abundant when it\u2019s complete and you can enjoy the fruits of your intellectual labor and turmoil.

When I apply this spread to my personal life, which I do for comfort and clarity, I see that the sequence of cards mirrors a journey I\u2019ve been going through recently with my teenage daughter and her high school.

I bought Alejandro Jodorowsky's tarot book, which concentrates on TdM, hoping for more insight into reading my Ancient Italian Tarot. It's not TdM but it does have unillustrated minors (pips). I was not much helped. Although the book has extensive chapters on the courts and numbered cards, the vast majority of example readings in the book were trumps-only. Which seemed to confirm what I've read about TdM readers in the past - in practice, the majority of them read trumps only.

So this is my proposal, which I'm framing as a modest and therefore at least somewhat satirical one. If you want to begin reading TdM or other historical decks, throw away everything that isn't a trump, or a court card, or maybe an ace. That's 42 cards which is plenty to start reading with. Professional authors of TdM books don't read using numbered cards, so why should you? Including courts and aces makes for a more well-rounded reading without overstretching your memorization needs.

I said this was a modest/satiricial proposal rather than a serious one because I'd never follow it myself, not with my beautiful soprafino deck. But I do wonder if it is a good idea for readers less bull-headed than me.

I've heard that Continental readers often do that. Also that they read Majors and pips separately.

But Jodorowsky DOES explain reading pips - it's done with number and suit. Who needs sample readings?

I just blogged this last night. The second paragraph links to Kaph's playing card blog and gives some book suggestions as well.

One that I neglected to mention is Caitlin Matthews Untold Tarot - there's some helpful stuff in that one, too.

And guess what? The Thoth is a pip deck. If you're already a Thothie, you can incorporate that. Pip decks give you leeway to use your preferred reading style,

I do like to read Majors only decks - my favorites are Wirth's decks and King Kahn's Black Power Tarot - but when I have a full 78 card deck with pips, I just shuffle the whole thing up. For me, it's just playing cards with Majors. ?

I just finished Alejandro Jodorowsky's tarot book myself earlier in the month. Since then, I have been practicing 3 card Major only readings without establishing what each place would represent and it has been enjoyable. Not more or less than other kinds of readings, but it definitely does have me paying a lot more attention to directionals (how the figures are facing) and the flow of one card to another.

But having read Yoav Ben-Dov's book immediately before Jodorowsky and comparing both of their TdM decks, side by side, as I was going through Jodorwksy's, I can say I learned so much abut the TdM pip between the two authors that doing a 40 card (pips only) or 56 card (pips + court) deck would likewise be satisfying now.

It is kind of tempting to practice some of that next.

Very simple - look at the cards. The Minors feature one Cup, two Cups, three Cups, etc.. and the same with the other suits throughout the series. There's embellishments, but no RWS-style theatrical people acting out scenes. TdM has embellishments, too. Those are pip decks.

I do suggest familiarizing yourself with Crowley before using that one, or you'll end up looking silly like Angeles Arrien. But you can see the progression of number and suit in the deck. It's rooted in the same ideas as the others mentioned, under the heavy occult wash.

That's what I'm getting at, that leeway. You can incorporate your preferred astrological methods or anything else you find enhances the reading. And if you don't do any of that, you can start with a simplified and stripped-down method. You're learning the meanings of ten numbers and four suits. That's just 14 things to learn, and you're already reading pips. Once you get that down pat, it's natural to enhance the method with more techniques.

Up to a point, yes. I had been using Thoth for a very long time and I have the illustrations/keywords of the minors memorized. Mostly. So my method for reading soprafino minors was just to recall the corresponding Thoth card. That was less satisfactory than I had hoped because there are some cards I blank on but even more so because it's not really the experience of reading the soprafino. I'm always back-translating from Thoth.

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