The Marseille Tarot Revealed: A Complete Guide to Symbolism, Meanings & Methods

I bought this book years ago at a fantastic bargain and have only recently given it a read. Having read it now, I am of the opinion that even at full price, this would be worth it for how good of a resource it is. An important thing to note is that this book is apparently a higher-quality reprint of the book "Tarot - The Open Reading" by the same author. If you don't already have that book, get this one. The glossy paper and full-color images are pleasant and demonstrate the author's examples in an easy-to-read way, but where this book really shines is in how informative it is.The content is explicitly about the Marseille-style tarot, using the author's own published deck for the examples. The author worked for years on creating the CBD deck (which I also own and would recommend) and his comprehensive knowledge of the Marseille tarot as a result is easy to see here. Many of the principles explained such as basic numerology and correspondences are interesting knowledge for any tarot enthusiast and may be applied to any deck depending on how you decide to read.Learning "open reading" is part of what drew me to this book and to the Marseille in general and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Basically, instead of using rigid meanings for each card in a spread - one would take all of that into account as well - but interpret the cards more so based on their context to each other and to the querent, particularly taking into account the imagery of the cards and the scene that is created by the spread altogether. I'm probably not explaining it very well, but intuition and the art of the cards themselves play a bigger role in an open reading and I find that attractive because it's like reading in a more visceral, primordial way as opposed to the more heady reliance of knowledge of occult traditions, etc. If that sounds interesting to you, then this is a good place to start.This book has possible interpretations for every card, so it makes a fantastic reference for beginners, but it also has much more than that. The way it's written is so nuanced, evocative, thought-provoking - yet concise and down-to-earth, never rambling on for too long about anything or going too far above your head in terms of mysticism or magic. You can tell just by reading it that the author is intelligent, humble, respectful, thoughtful, detail-oriented, and full of love and devotion for the tarot because all of that comes through in the gentle and thorough instruction of this book.I'm a beginner in tarot who has chosen to work primarily with the Marseille and I cannot get over how wonderful of a book this is. Tarot-related or not, few books are as well-balanced, well-paced, well-written, and full of useful information as this book is. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the Marseille tarot, beginner or otherwise. Highly recommended.

This book is ok, I am not sure why the publisher went for glossy paper stock and not a longer book with less quality paper.This is a well written book from a traditional perspective , the symbolic depth, and the history rehash have been done before but this is still a good rehash.Mostly traditional Christian/Jewish reference , with Waite, Crowley, reference as the outlier usual suspects .Spreads and shuffling are concise and practical and the depth of symbolic interpretation is good to a point, the reference for color is not contiguous through all card explanations, it varies, in some details color is not carried through as well as it is in the overview on symbolic color.This book is worth the money and it is very well written...in fact some of the best tarot text , very clear and to the point.The book is framed by the context from the historic age when it is was written, therefore the great feature is it supports that historic world and society viewpoint and the is what makes it excellent, it does not try to smother and update the text to the stereotypical "New Age" fluff or turn of the century Romantic view of the occult.The author has a laser focus on practical interpretation and there are the usual Jungian type of references but he does not beat them to death.The references to Jewish influence and tables from the Golden Dawn are simply that , casual references for information, the author does not try to rehash all of that, only what is needed for the immediate context of the history being portrayed.This book has it all, history, application, symbolism, fantastic sharp text, again more within the context of practical application as the end objective, in other words, this book is not a tarot as" internal meditation guidebook", it covers the usual applications of money, fame, romance, relationships, conflict, and the usual boring stuff like that is found in every other tarot book, if you are looking for more of a mental exercise interpretation for the symbolism like that found in a book about TIbetan Buddhism, this book is not that kind of symbolic depth. The wealth of symbolism and symbolism history is great, but it is an applied context, and somewhat stereotypical context.The major thrust of the book is still written from a kind of card reading for a client perspective within the boundaries of what would be a Renaissance and Christian viewpoint in the archetypes, male , female, passive , aggressive, social order ( great writings on social order symbolism), and very good lessons on card symbolism continuity and card scenario integration.The book has a few Asian or India reference, but that is not within the major scope of the book.The book is not a relational table book, there are only a few and only as a comparative reference.I think the writing is so well done and clear, I think another 200 pages on normal paper instead of high gloss and snappy colors, would have been preferred, the illustrations are nice but easily overshadowed by the writing style.It really does not matter whether you are a beginner , pro, etc. , this book is a great read about the history and specific symbolism of this unique deck, tarot scholars might debate some of the authors points on some of the details.The only downside for me was , it still is bogged down on the day to day mundane application for the stereotypical use of day to day tarot to ease the suffering of people trying to understand their lives .The author references the "magic" of the tarot, however in general he stays centered on matters of the earth, thankfully the continuing focus on the specific history of the deck, justifies this approach. The author emphasizes the magic as more of a channeling method rather than formulas for invocations , there are no spells, or pages of esoteric rituals for preparation, just one simple little prereading exercise.Per the usual, there are more pages on the major arcana per topic than the minors , and that seems to be a tradition, only because I think the minors got so connected to the day to day game or regular card playing games, they lost some of their depth, I raise this point because if you were expecting the more in depth image analysis of Pamela Coleman Smith or Frieda Harris in the areas of the minors, this deck does not have that. The interpretations are specific to the simplistic symbolism of the minors in this deck, but at least they are covered.Why this is a wonderful book, is not because of tarot, but rather because it is a biography of one long lived tarot deck that has evolved and mutated over time, and the author does a great job of trying to stay on the track of the original intentions.To read the interpretation of Presidents and their meaning in general in US history is different than reading of the biography of one president in depth, this book is about the tarot and this deck first, and about the tarot in general second.I have a lot of tarot books, and from a writing perspective this is one of the clearest, succinct, in depth, interesting about one specific deck publisher and style, even if it consolidates and is a summary of many other books on general tarot.......it is a good read, and the book format and quality are top notch.You would not regret buying it, the writing is so pervasive an pinpoint , it is just a great read even if you did not agree with all of the symbolic interpretations. I think this is a posthumous book and that is sad, I would have looked forward to other books by this author.

Very good

The book is amazing, very interesting. I'm not reading beginning to end but it is very nice still. My 1st Marseille book, I must add.The packaging... not good. I'm sorry, but the book was not wraped at all, it came inside a paper bag that was to big and thin, with no protection at all, due to that... the book arrived very smashed... I did not complain because i did not want to wait more to get the book... still.. very, very annoying... the spine of the book was destroyed when it arrived. If the book were in a proper padded envelope that would not happen. :-( I recomemd the seller do that for future packagings.

Everybody, who ist interested in TdM, should get this book.

A great book. This book explain the Marseille tarot in a simple way, and I loved the open reading method. I had problems to understand the TdM, but finally I found a good method to approach it. The material of the book is of high quality, and is full color!It arrived on time and in good condition

this book is probably the best starting book for tarot de marseille, along with towards the art of reading by camelia elias. both use a similar approach and both are really friendly. whereas camelia gives examples and teaches that way, ben dov gives a bit more space to theory and explaining the method. wonderful, wonderful book.