MARSEILLE TAROT
MARSEILLE TAROT: TOWARDS THE ART OF READING
CAMELIA ELIAS
This book is about the art of reading the image, semiotics, and the poetics of cartomancy. Camelia Elias offers an introduction to the Marseille Tarot cards combined with readings of the cards in context. For each description there’s an interpretation that combines the cunning-folk method of reading the cards – based on making logical inferences about the meaning of the cards – and the visual argument method, which relies on the subjective and individual art of perceiving. The book also features full-length readings, based on real-life tarot consultations.
The book aims to cover four basic questions: Why do we read cards? What’s so special about the Marseille Tarot? How can the cards uncover our blind spots? What does it mean to live a magical life, when we allow the stories that the cards tell us to offer solutions to our real problems?
The book is also the first to introduce the readers to the wonderful and strange cards of Carolus Zoya, a most rare and unseen Tarot de Marseille deck made in Turin at the end of 1700. It is a book that engages with the card maker, Carolus Zoya, through storytelling.
6×9” | Color illustrations | 200 pp
ISBN 978-8792633422 paperback
ISBN 978-8792633637 ebook
CATEGORY
Divination
EDITIONS
Standard paperback 2014 | $25
Ebook 2020 | $18
NOTE
Essays in method
REVIEWS
This book is a must-have addition to the bookshelves of anyone who works with historic decks and unillustrated pips. The author has given profuse examples of divinatory encounters, giving both question and card response with laconic vigour: Camelia is not a reader from the school of tarot longeur! The cards speak cartomantically and colloquially, with a ‘take it or leave it’ speed, which is very much to my own taste. — CAITLIN MATTHEWS, writer & ritualist, in Soundings
This book is brimming with fantastic, raw intelligence, unadulterated by the need to pander to anyone. It is a rare thing in this day and age, to read something pure, intellectual, wonderful, undiluted. Don't read this if you’re expecting a basic book of keywords. This book is about alive readings, in context. Context, and the question, are EVERYTHING, as Camelia will show you. Buy this book and enjoy a dose of authenticity with cards. I love everything about this book, thank you Camelia for writing. — NIRMALA FAULKNER, Amazon
Deeper than any previous book I’ve read on tarot, with a fresh and educated insight so rare in this genre. The author has a rich, unique style with wit and intelligence which invites you into her way of thinking. Practical lessons abound too. I’m so thrilled with this book and I think it will surpass all your expectations. — NINA COUSER, Amazon
