Review by Bonnie Cehovet
I had greats expectations for this book - and as
often happens when we start out with expectations, they
were not met. The very nature of Tarot is that it is a
spiritual journey, a guided journey taken through the
auspices of Jungian archetypes. I was very excited by the
title of this book - I had visions of deepening my
understanding of the archetypes and trotting through Jung's mind
and works with great abandon. What actually happened
is that I encountered a book that, while it had its
moments, was very unevenly written, so that one was never
sure what to believe and what not to believe.
The first sentences from this book read:
"The Tarot is a
mysterious deck of cards of unknown origin. At least six
centuries old, this deck is the direct ancestor of our
modern day playing cards."
For a supposedly scholarly
work, the author lacks depth in her understanding of the
history of Tarot. The Tarot can be traced to northern
Italy, during the time period of the early fifteenth
century, where they were comissioned by nobility. As for
the supposedly "mysterious" nature of the deck - this
smacks of "hidden information" and elitist fraternities,
and really has no place in a book of this
caliber.
Nichols goes on to talk about the Tarot "suddenly" coming
into the public consciousness. This book originally
came out in 1980, so we need to reference that time
period. Tarot decks were not as easily accessable then as
they are now, but they were there. The plethora of
books on Tarot that we have now were not available then
- but they were there.
"Jung and Tarot: An
Archetypal Journey" is presented as a study of the major
arcana (the archetypes of the Tarot) - drawing upon the
author's background in Jungian psychology and delving into
mythology, literature, art and other sources. The purpose is
to facilitate accessing the archetypal parts of our
psyche. Nichols has chosen to do this through the use of
the imagery in the Marseilles deck - calling it one of
the earliest example of "true" Tarot. She goes on to
say that she chose the deck because it had no
accompanying text, so that the learning of the deck was
facilitated strictly through its imagery.
Nichols feels that
any book that accompanies a deck is of little
importance, that it simply reflects the world view of the
author, and is basically not staying "true" to Tarot.
(Here she includes A. E. Waite, Aleister Crowley and
Paul Foster Case.) Nichols also has strong objections
to "non-Tarot" symbology - the decks that include
other systems, such as the Hebrew letters, or
astrological associations.
We also need to remember that
Jung himself had little to to with the study of Tarot,
or with its evolution. His thoughts and writing have
been applied to the Tarot, and provide a tool for
understanding it, but the two are separate entities.
From the
book:
"The pictures on the Tarot Trumps tell a symbolic
story. Like our dreams, they come to us from a level
beyond the reach of consciousness and far removed from
our intellectual understanding. It seems appropriate,
therefore, to behave towards these Tarot characters pretty
much as we would if they had appeared to us in a series
of dreams picturing a distant unknown land inhabited
by strange creatures. With such dreams, purely
personal associations are of limited value. We can best
connect with their meaning through analogy with myths,
fairy tales, drama, paintings, events in history, or any
other material with similar motifs which universally
evoke clusters of feelings, intuitions, thoughts and
sensations."
Nichols begins the book with a basic description of the 22
trumps of the major arcana, and the "journey" that they
comprise. She presents The Fool, the one who takes the
journey, as separate from the rest of the cards. She then
proceeds to group the remaining 21 cards in three rows of
seven cards each, which is a traditional representation
of the Fool's Journey. This section is fairly lucid,
and fairly well written.
From there we look into the
Fool and each of the 21 trumps. There is a interesting
process of presentation here - comparisons of the same
card in different decks,the symbols included on the
cards, real life figures that embody the principle of the
card (I was amazed to see "Squeaky" Fromme presented as
the Fool!), as well as paintings and art work that
reference each archetype.
The problem with this book -
aside from a lack of understanding of Tarot history - is
that Nichols simply does not write well. She is wordy,
and her thoughts are often very disconnected. One
would have to have a strong background in the Tarot, and
the study of the archetypal energies, to separate the
wheat from the chaff. It would be all to easy for a
novice to accept her premises - many of which are without
a solid foundation. That thought gives a whole new
meaning to "fuzzy logic"!
There is a very short, general
section at the end of this book on how to read the cards,
with one spread presented. It was interesting, and
would give the reader a chance to put any new found
wisdom from the book to work, should they choose to do
so.
The one "bonus" to the book - a fold out
section at the very back with color scans of the
Marseilles deck. This made me smile.
I would recommend this
book to very few people. To those who are new to Tarot,
it would be very confusing. To those who want to
study Jung in relation to Tarot, either read Jung's
works directly, or go to the more Gnostic Tarot books.
To those who want to read a more cohesive, coherent
view of Tarot history, Tarot and the Jungian
archetypes, read "Tarot Celebrations", by Geraldine Amarol and
Nancy Brady Cunningham.
Those who might enjoy and
benefit from this book are those who are in their
intermediate to advanced level of study with the Tarot, are
interested in working with symbols, and are open to coloring
outside of the box. Nichols, through her presentation of
multiple streams of consciousness (art, myth, personal
experience) encourages the reader to experience the Tarot in a
very expansive manner. This is not really a referrence
or a resource book, it is something that may be fun
to read if one can ascertain what is fact and what is
fiction, and doesn't mind giving the author a great deal of
leeway!
Bonnie Cehovet is Certified Tarot Grand Master, a professional Tarot reader with over ten years experience, a Reiki Master/Teacher and a writer. Bonnie has served in various capacities with the American Tarot Association, is co-founder of the World Tarot Network, and Vice President (as well as Director of Certification) for the American Board For Tarot Certification. She has had articles appear in the 2004 and 2005 Llewellyn Tarot Reader.
| 
