Best Books for Pip Interpretations

[Teheuti]

What are the best books for pip card interpretations for Marseilles-style decks? Please note the language they're in. Also, would you consider the interpretations "traditional" or created by the author? What makes them especially good?

Thanks,

Mary

 

[Kissa]

Hi Mary

The best book on TdM imho is A. Jodorowksy "La Voie du Tarot" http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/2226151915/aeclecticta06-21/ which covers both majors and minors. In french, also available in spanish. It is extremely deep, detailed, overwhelming sometimes! Includes not only judeo-christian references but also zen buddhism, african myths etc. Wonderful, but maybe hard to read if you are not fluent in french.

Carole Sédillot's book "Ombres et Lumières du Tarot" (french) http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/2710706091/aeclecticta06-21/ is also often referred to. She isolates each symbol of every card and gives her explanations about it. There is a reproduction of Marteau's deck in the middle of the book, all 78 cards, in colour. The other illustrations in the book are b&w.

I have books by Corinne Morel, who wrote a trilogy. First tome about "Arcanes mineurs" http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/285090077X/aeclecticta06-21/ then "Arcanes majeurs" http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/2850900885/aeclecticta06-21/ then "Pratique du tarot divinatoire" http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/2850900974/aeclecticta06-21/ . More traditional way of discussing the cards, she doesn't explain much why she gives this or that meaning to a card. But she has sometimes quite interesting takes on the majors.

As you have guessed by now, most of the Marseilles literature is in french but we'll need to ask TdM experts to be sure. My two cents...

Welcome on the board btw, it's an honour to have you here.

Blessings,

Kissa

 

[Moongold]

Not having easy access to books in French, I use some nurnerology texts, a book on alchemy, some astrological knowledge and then wing it, trusting my interior voice.

Colours on the cards are also important too.

It is very liberating to read this way. You really have to manage on what you hear internally.

 

[Fulgour]

From what I've seen of "French" interpretations,
I'd have to say thanks but no thanks. Why do
we persist is supposing there's something there?

Reading cards is not a science either, so any book
is just that, and the reality will likely be more you.

 

[Sophie]

I'll second Kissa on the Jodorowsky. He's personal in his approach, but not eccentrically so, and leaves room for personal exploration. Kissa gave a few of his references - I'll add he looks at the 78 cards as a whole (with a mandala), looks at the elements, the way pips relate to Majors, etc. His book is exciting all round and he doesn't go for wild theories about the birth of the Tarot de Marseille.

Carole Sédillot gives good explanations, bringing in shape and numerology, without over-doing the details (no petal-counting). Her language is simple.

The classic text is by Paul Marteau - not easy to find but I believe he was translated into English.

Like Moongold I read numerology texts (chaldean, pythagorean, medieval), and I also look at sacred geometry, and shapes in general. I use colours too, but only on modern recreation decks, because on the older decks we are not sure of allt eh colours they used, nor is it certain of what the colours meant.

In terms of personal work on the pips, I do quite a bit of "written meditations", which might start with something formal (the number or shape) but then follow the vine curves, the flowers, a sword point, etc. I also work with the idea of numbers/shapes in relation to each other and to other numbers/shapes. I'm very much trying to develop as intuitive an approach as possible with the pips and I find their shapes very inspiring.

 

[Teheuti]

The best book on TdM imho is A. Jodorowksy "La Voie du Tarot" etc.

Kissa - Thanks for the recommendations. I don't speak French at all, but can make my way very slowly through very simple writing - which this doesn't sound like at all. I might be able to manage the Spanish edition.

If there could only be one book translated from French into English - which book should it be? Marteau? Jodorowksy? or someone else?

Aren't there any decent books on the Marseilles Minors available in English?

Mary

 

[Teheuti]

From what I've seen of "French" interpretations,
I'd have to say thanks but no thanks. Why do
we persist is supposing there's something there?
Reading cards is not a science either, so any book
is just that, and the reality will likely be more you.

One of the biggest arguments going on regarding Golden Dawn-based interpretations is whether there are "correct" meanings for the cards or not. There's a lot of scorn expressed for those who say "whatever comes into their heads" - versus knowing and using the meanings given by Waite, Crowley, Mathers, or even Etteilla - as if these form a special pipeline to "the Truth."

What I understand you to be saying is that this isn't an issue with Marseille-style decks - at least for the pips. So the 'tradition' is to use your own meanings (based on a personal understanding of number and suit?) or whatever intuitively comes to you in the moment?

Mary

 

[Sophie]

Hello Mary,

As far as I've been able to compare the French books, everyone comes up with their own meanings for the pips - some of them based on Marteau (he wrote his book in 1930) some not.

I don't know of any Marseille minors book in English - it is one big gripe most English-speakers have (rightly so). But I do know that most French books on minors are written from two formal standpoints:

- numerology (whatever is historical)
- observation of the card itself - the curves, straights, flowers- which every author will translate in her own way. Some people count petals.

Very few authors go into geometry, though it's obviously a feature.

None of the above is specific to Tarot, or Tarot of Marseille - that means you can learn to read minors with any decent numerology book and a good look at the cards - not by sticking to a firm tradition. One other way is to relate the minors to corresponding Majors of the same number or number group (so the 7 of Swords would relate to the Chariot and the Star). This can work with traditional numerology as well. Personally, I find a flexible mix of all the above with an important dose of intuition and imagination works best for me.

When I first started with the Marseille, I used some of the exercises you describe in your book (Tarot for Yourself) adapted to non-scenic cards, to read them intuitively.

I've followed some of the arguments around the Golden Dawn based traditions - I started off with RWS years ago, and learnt with it and later with Thoth. When I decided I wanted to learn to read the Marseille, I was lucky that I do speak French, but I would say that with the Minors, as Fulgour says, the specialised books have not been more useful than a mixture of intuitive/observation reading and other sources such as numerology and sacred geometry. The specialised books are one among many inspirations I use, and unlike the Golden Dawn tradition, they are not written by the creators of the decks (not that that ever made a difference to me in my interpretation of Golden Dawn-inspired decks!).

My current favourites are two numerology books in English: a little book called Chaldean Numerology, by Leeya Brooke Thompson, and an equally small, but very dense book called Medieval Number Symbolism, by Vincent Foster Hopper. (The one problem with Chaldean Numerology is that it is based on a 1-9 system, so you need to adapt it to the 1-10 system).

In French-speaking countries, including where I live (Geneva) most people read Tarot only with the Majors - very few use the Minors. There is an old French cartomancienne tradition (fortune-tellers with cards), but it's not really used. If you really want a book that discusses the Marseille minors specifically, Marteau was the first to rehabilitate the Minors and study them carefully. He's a good source, though sometimes a bit nit-picky. If you can make your way through Jodo in Spanish, I would do so.

Sophie

 

[Lee]

Hi Mary,

You're probably already aware of this, but there's a book called "The Tarot" by Joseph Maxwell, written around 1920 in French, which has been translated into English. It's out of print but probably easily available from used book retailers.

Here's some stuff I posted about it a couple of years ago. I wasn't too impressed with it, but it's the only book or translation I specifically know of in English which discusses the Marseilles minors:

I just received the Maxwell book and skimmed through it. I wish I could say I liked it, but this book isn't my cup of tea. Maxwell was a French lawyer who held high positions in the French judiciary and wrote books on many subjects. This is one of only a few of his books to be translated into English. It's hard to tell when it was written, because it isn't explicitly stated by the publisher or the translator, but it seems to have been sometime between 1900 and 1930. It was translated in 1975, and my copy is a paperback published in 1988.

Maxwell has his own approach to the Tarot, although he seems to have been influenced by authors in the French tradition (and not by the Golden Dawn).

Interestingly, he apparently was unaware of an Italian origin for the cards and instead posits Southern Germany as their birthplace.

His chapters on the Majors are obscure and (for me) unreadable. He concentrates heavily on numerology and the pages are filled with numbers and equations, as well as difficult-to-follow esoterica.

For the Minors, he does indeed discuss the pip cards with relation to the pictorial elements of Marseilles decks and how they relate to the meaning. But there are difficulties. First of all, he uses a completely non-standard (for modern readers, anyway) assignment of elements to suits:

Wands = Earth
Cups = Water
Pentacles = Air
Swords = Fire

Secondly, he has a chapter for each suit, but he doesn't break the chapters down into individual card numbers. Instead he wanders from one number to the next, out of order, doubles back to add new material about previous numbers, so that if you want to find out the meaning of a specific card, you have to read the whole chapter. Some cards have their pictorial elements explained, some don't. The combination of the non-standard suits and the amorphous organization make it difficult for me to read, and my eyes start glazing over.

The blurb on the back of the book says that Maxwell is now "strangely neglected," but I don't think it's strange at all. I would say, rather, "deservedly neglected."

-- Lee

 

[prudence]

not trying to hijack...

Helvetica,

Have you ever thought of writing a book for us English speakers that helps explain the approach you have just described?



~just wondering, since I know you are writer, naturally intuitive, and a historian, it seems you can blend the best of all these worlds...if this is something you have already addressed in another thread, I do apologize for overlooking it.