Twenty-two cards,
two journeys.
This is one of the very first exercises Alejandro Jodorowsky and Marianne Costa give in The Way of Tarot, in the chapter “Composition and Rules of Orientation” (pp. 31–33). Before learning a single meaning, take the 22 Major Arcana of the Tarot de Marseille and lay them out like this, then simply look.
How to lay it out
- Take The Fool and The World out of the Major Arcana.
- Lay I to X in a row, in order, from The Magician to The Wheel of Fortune.
- Lay XI to XX in a second row underneath, from Strength to Judgement, so that each card sits under the one with the same last digit.
- Put The Fool on the left, walking toward the rows, and The World on the right, dancing at their end.
Laid out this way, the Major Arcana stop being a list of 22 separate pictures. They become two series of ten, and a frame.
The frame: The Fool and The World
The Fool is the only Major Arcanum with no number. The book treats him as the energy that starts everything, still without a shape, and The World as the archetype of realization: where that energy arrives once it has gone through every step (p. 57). The order matters. With The Fool on the left he walks toward The World, and she seems to be calling him in. Turn them round, and the same two cards tell a story of escape that leads nowhere (pp. 38–39). Like a line of writing, the Tarot is read from left to right.
The first row: I to X, rising
The upper row shows people and animals in situations you could recognise from ordinary life, and the book calls it the “light” series (p. 32). Look at what the figures do with their hands, and most of it points up: The Magician lifts his wand, The Empress, The Emperor, The Pope and the prince in The Chariot raise their sceptres, Justice holds her sword toward the sky, The Hermit lifts his lantern. Jodorowsky and Costa describe this row as human beings working to raise themselves toward the spirit, matter becoming spiritual (pp. 33, 353).
The second row: XI to XX, descending
The lower row is more like a dream: a skeleton, an angel, a devil, a tower struck from above, a moon and a sun, an angel blowing a trumpet. The book calls it the “dark” series, and its actions point down (pp. 32–33). Strength holds the lion’s jaw against her lap, The Hanged Man hangs head down, the skeleton of XIII mows the black ground, Temperance pours from a higher vessel into a lower one, and The Star empties her jugs into the river at her feet. Here, the book says, spiritual forces travel down into the depths, the spirit taking on matter. It links the first row to conscious life and the second to the unconscious (p. 353).
Reading the columns
The most surprising thing the layout shows is in the columns. Each card in the top row has a partner directly below it, the card ten numbers on: I with XI, II with XII, all the way to X with XX. Jodorowsky and Costa read them as the same degree of a ten-step numerology, lived once in the light and once in the depths, and write that “each card of one cycle is the shadow of the other” (p. 353). The two images often echo each other too: The Magician and Strength wear nearly the same hat, and in V and XV a large figure stands over two smaller ones (p. 32).
In a reading, this gives you a second card to consult. When The Empress comes up, The Nameless Arcanum is her shadow, and you can look at it to deepen her message, not to contradict it (p. 353).
The ten degrees
- 1 · A beginning, all potential
- “The Two Beginnings”. The Magician begins with the mind and his skill, reaching up. Strength begins with the body and the animal, reaching down. The book compares them to the branches and the roots of one tree. (pp. 32, 354)
- 2 · Gathering, gestation
- “Gestation and Interiority”. Both have withdrawn from the world to wait. She holds what she has learned in a book; he has let go of knowing anything at all. (pp. 32, 355)
- 3 · An explosion with no aim yet
- “Creative or Destructive Explosion”. The Empress makes things grow without end; the Nameless Arcanum clears the ground again. Growth with no clearing overruns everything, and clearing with nothing to grow leaves scorched earth. (pp. 32, 355)
- 4 · Stability
- “Security on Heaven and Earth”. The Emperor holds the material world steady and protects it. Temperance brings an inner, spiritual steadiness. Without her he hardens; without him she floats off into a dream. (pp. 32, 356)
- 5 · A bridge to something new
- “Temptation in All Its Guises”. The Pope builds a bridge toward the heights; The Devil shows the way down into desire and instinct. The book’s image is a lotus and the mud it grows out of. (pp. 32, 357)
- 6 · Pleasure, the first taste of love
- “The Appearance of Pleasure”. The Lover joins people together; The House of God breaks open what was closed in. Closeness without an opening turns in on itself, and an opening without closeness pulls people apart. (pp. 32, 357)
- 7 · Action in the world
- “Action in the World”. The Chariot moves forward and conquers. The Star stays in one place and makes it fertile. Each needs the other, or the advance leaves nothing behind and the gift never travels. (pp. 32, 358)
- 8 · Perfection, balance reached
- “Faces of Perfection”. Justice takes in the laws of the universe and applies them in the human world. The Moon is perfect by receiving, reflecting a light that is not her own. One never changes, the other always does. (p. 358)
- 9 · Crisis, and a way through
- “Crisis and Regeneration”. The Hermit carries his light alone, for the few who seek him out. The Sun gives light to everyone. Experience and renewal: each goes astray without the other. (p. 359)
- 10 · The end of a cycle
- “What Begins Comes to an End”. The Wheel of Fortune stops and waits for a hand to turn it, and that hand belongs to Strength, the first card of the next row. Judgement answers a call from above. A whole cycle is finished, and the next one is ready to begin. (pp. 33, 66, 359)
The ten steps run from a beginning full of potential, through gathering, a first explosion, stability, a bridge to something new, pleasure, action in the world, perfection and crisis, to the end of a cycle, where the next one is already waiting (pp. 59–66). The Wheel of Fortune at the end of the first row even needs someone to turn its handle, and that is Strength, the first card of the second row (p. 66).
How to look
The book’s advice for this first contact is simple: notice what comes to you. Which way is each figure looking? Justice, the face in The Sun and the angel of Judgement look straight back at you (p. 31). Which cards draw you in, and which put you off? Those first reactions say more about your own history than about the cards, and that is exactly what makes the Tarot a mirror. In their words, “Trust your eyes” (p. 32).
This page uses the card names of the CBD Tarot de Marseille, so the book’s High Priestess is The Popess here, and its Tower is The House of God. The titles of the ten degrees are the headings Jodorowsky and Costa give each pair in part four of the book, “The Duets of the Two Decimal Series” (pp. 353–359); everything else is a summary in our own words.
The same two rows reappear inside the Tarot mandala, where the Major Arcana form its central axis. Want to draw cards instead? The card table has the whole deck. And if you would like help reading what you see, you can book a reading with me.
Source: Alejandro Jodorowsky and Marianne Costa, The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards (Destiny Books, 2009). Card images: CBD Tarot de Marseille by Dr. Yoav Ben-Dov, www.cbdtarot.com, used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.