Credit Where Credit is Due¶
The most well known and popular Tarot deck is the Rider, or is it Rider-Waite, or Rider-Waite-Smith, or Waite-Smith? A lot of ink and bits have been spilt on this debate, and I will not be contributing to that.
I bring it up because it reminds me of another Tarot deck, a somewhat controversial restoration of the Tarot de Marseille. I of course speak of the Camoin Tarot de Marseille, or the Jodorowsky Tarot de Marseille, or the Camoin-Jodorowsky Tarot de Marseille, or the Jodorowsky-Camoin Tarot de Marseille, or …
Ok, so Alejandro Jodorowsky and Philippe Camoin made a Tarot deck, and sometimes people use one or the other name, or perhaps both, but in an inconsistent manner. This might seem a bit pedantic, but it also ignores the role of Marianne Costa, and that’s what I want to delve into.
Unlike Pamela Colman Smith, Marianne Costa was not involved at all with the creation or production of the physical Tarot deck itself. Still, both women have been unfairly side-lined in discussion of these Tarot decks. Before we get into that, let’s clear a few things up about this restored Tarot de Marseille.
There is a French and Argentine printing of this Tarot deck (a detailed description of the differences to be discussed in a future post.) Calling this deck the Camoin Tarot de Marseille comes from the prominent Camoin on the bottom of the box of the Tarot deck. It is there because that is the name of the printing house. The Argentine edition lacks this Camoin marking, as it was made by a different printing house. Unless we are to say the French edition is the Camoin Tarot de Marseille and the Argentine edition has a different name, which seems ludicrous, then this is not the name of this Tarot deck.
Neither French or Argentine edition makes use of anything like the Jodorowsky Tarot de Marseille. This is a name that would be applied to it by fans of Jodorowsky who see his role as the meaningful selling point of the deck. Perhaps a bit of this is true too of those who call it the Camoin Tarot de Marseille, just with different subcultures seeing a different man as being more notable.
In both editions and on both sides of the box, we see the names Alexandre Jodorowsky and Philippe Camoin, and on the rear of both editions Jodorowsky & Camoin (though it should be noted that the Argentine edition uses the spelling Jodorowski.) Jodorowsky & Camoin Tarot de Marseille or Jodorowsky-Camoin Tarot de Marseille being the proper name for the Tarot deck itself.
The Jodorowsky-Camoin Tarot de Marseille restoration is a lovely, though controversial Tarot deck (and this controversy, and the misunderstanding it arises from will be discussed in a future blog post.) It includes a short book called The Art of Tarot, written exclusively by Alexandre Jodorowsky. The included book is actually an abridged copy, likely owing to being printed in multiple languages (and this abridgment is again to be discussed in a future blog post.)
One might wonder how well this Tarot deck would be known, if it was just a Tarot deck. However, from this Tarot deck arose two distinct schools of reading the Tarot, and this seems to be where Jodorowsky and Camoin went their separate ways. Philipe Camoin began teaching his method of interpretation, publishing the book Les Codes Secrets du Tarot, the supposed first of an uncompleted trilogy, which may eventually be translated into English. Alexandre Jodorowsky of course continued to teach Tarot and offer his regular free readings, as well as writing what can be seen as the true companion book and the reason for the lasting popularity of the Jodorowsky-Camoin Tarot de Marseille.
This book is of course The Way of Tarot, and it was co-written with Marianne Costa. Perhaps lesser known is the book Metagenealogy, an equally lengthy tome, which combines Jodorowsky’s theories of Psychomagic with the ideas presented in The Way of Tarot, and was also co-written by Marianne Costa.
The Introduction to The Way of Tarot closes with Jodorowsky writing, “The initiate needs his female complement, and vice versa, for both to attain a reading guided by Cosmic Consciousness.” In Metagenealogy, in the chapter on The Couple, we are told, “Together, united by magic love, in a state of detachment, without possessing anything or being possessed by anything, they represent spiritual androgyny. The deepest desire of the human race is to reach a perfectly complementary union between a man and a woman capable, in their internal and external interactions, of bringing physical and spiritual fulfillment to humanity.” It is no accident that The Way of Tarot includes a chapter called The Couples of the Tarot. These books successfully communicate because the process of their creation is in direct sympathy with their messages. We see reflections of this in the relation of the tarologist and the querent, the therapist and the patient. For two not to write these books would be impossible, or perhaps just hypocritical, so it is important to give credit where credit is due.
To sum up, we have the restored Jodorowsky-Camoin Tarot de Marseille Deck, the Camoin school of the Tarot de Marseille, and the Jodorowsky-Costa school of the Tarot de Marseille. In explaining this, it should also be noted that Marianne Costa has since developed her own school of the Tarot de Marseille, and her book El Tarot Paso a Paso is a must read, of which we will hopefully soon be graced with an English translation (and of course the subject of future blog posts here.)
In explaining this, I hope to clarify why in the future you will see me referring to The Jodorowsky-Camoin-Costa Tarot de Marseille, or perhaps in times of brevity JCC TdM. The Jodorowsky-Camoin Tarot de Marseille is a classic, but it would not be without the Jodorowsky-Costa The Way of Tarot. Credit where credit is due.