Working with the Tarot de Marseille (TdM) is an art form. Full of poetry, inspiration, and beautiful art. This course will share the techniques of 5 modern day Marseille readers. Enrique Enriquez, Yoav Ben-Dov, Camelia Elias, Christophe Carrozza, and Andrew McGregor will each share insights into how to read with the TdM. The emphasis on the course is on practical reading techniques, working spreads, and giving wonderful readings with the amazing deck.

If you’d like to get a better sense of these wonderful teachers you can listen to great talks with them on The Hermit’s Lamp’s podcast.

This course won’t cover card-by-card meanings, theories about how the cards work, or long talks about the history of the TdM. If you have no foundation in the Tarot de Marseille please consider taking Part 1 of this series first. It is available vis streaming video and MP3 here.

If you are new to TdM you might want to take this class first.

Ready to sign up?

This class is manually fulfilled and you’ll get your login during business hours Tuesday to Friday 12-5pm.

Cost is $250 Canadian Dollars

Full Class Descriptions

Reading Nuances with Enrique Enriquez
Notes on a suggestive way of reading.

Half of a tarot reading has to do with seeing what we see. The other half involves how we say what we see. Building on the notions we explored in the first course, this class will be an introduction into the conscious use of words, voice and gesture in the performance of reading tarot. This way we will explore the idea of using the Marseille tarot instead of just reading it, while enhancing its visual language by means of our interaction with the images.

Open Reading and Psychomagical Focusing
with the Tarot with Yoav Ben-Dov

In this class we will cover Tarot techniques in the “open reading” spirit. Starting with the idea that cards don’t have a fixed meaning once and for all. Instead, they are a visual tool helping us to project and express our own inner contents and intuitions – emotional, psychological or mystical.

We will play with the cards and explore the idea the idea that we can play games wit them. We’ll speak about:
• Working with a blank card
• Projective work with court cards – in a consultation or group setting
• Spreads: basic 3-cards, full deck in a background or row configuration, the words spread.
• Psycho-magical focusing with the 4 aces (and the world card)

Marseille Tarot: Some like it Snappier with Camelia Elias

Welcome all, to this second round. My workshop will focus on the art of reading. We will discuss reading protocols and strategies of reading the cards according to classical layouts: the three-card sequence, in-line sentencing, the French Cross. Which is best?

We will also look at the challenges in determining what action is appropriate for what reading, particularly when we’re dealing with the following:

Direction: We read from left to right, BUT we can also start from the other end.
Gender, Class, Age, Race: A woman on a card is woman, BUT sometimes she can also stand for a man (who may be either rich, poor, old, young, black, white, etc.)
Agency: The first card in a straight sequence often represents the reader, BUT this card also represent an other whom the sitter has dealings with, or it can represent a specific situation.
Dialogue: The sitter may identify herself with a certain card, regardless of the rule of thumb, BUT what if she does it for the wrong reasons? What do you tell a sitter who insists on identifying with and adopting the role of the victim, when it is clear to you that she is the one dominating the situation (take the example of La Force).
Finally we will also practice reading the cards ad hoc, that is, we will draw cards spontaneously, in situ, and formulate one-liners about them. The method of formulating oracular sentences goes back to the antiquity, and has been used ever since particularly by practitioners using the Marseille cards.

The participants are welcome to bring to the class their examples as well.

I’m a professor of American Studies at Roskilde University. My research interests are in esoteric movements, occult and folk practices of reading and producing spiritual texts. Of relevance here is my latest book on the practice of divination with the Marseille cards, Marseille Tarot: Towards the Art of Reading (available from amazon).

The Reading is in the Patterns with Andrew McGregor

One of the wonders of the Tarot de Marseille is its simplicity. Patterns, colour, and line combine within a limited spectrum to create a near infinite web of possibilities. These patterns can be explored through the placement of the cards and through the patterns on the cards themselves. Both options can influence and inform each other. What we see in a card can create a spread. The positions we set determine how we interpret the symbolism in the cards. The Marseille style decks are especially well suited to playing fluidly between levels of symbolism. In this workshop we’ll explore this line and how to meaningfully drift across it in readings to provide deeper cohesive readings with a minimum of structure of dogma.

A Marseille Reading, Inner and Outer Position with Christophe Carrozza

This workshop deals with the necessary fact that the Tarologist is studying him/herself. Why is this important? Because there is an impact on a consultant if the Tarologist is out of balance within themselves.

First of all he/she is the main subject of study of the Tarot work. He/she has to transmit as little neurosis to the consultant as possible. To do this requires being aware of his/her psychological patterns. Especially since he/she will meet people that are resonating psychologically, spiritually with him/her. (The advices a Tarologist gives to a consultant he/she gives to him/herself!)

Everything speaks in a reading, a clothe colour, a position of head, a jewel, and so on. A reading requires a great deal of calm from the tarologist. How do we find it? How do your problems relate to the consultants reading?

With all this in mind we will look at the process of reading. What positions are absolutely talking? What does the last card form the deck shows? The first one? How about the middle of the deck?

Now the readings begins; What do I need to explain ? How can I work with his/her unconscious as well as conscious part ? What about the talent of observation, listening to every word, the emotional charge behind each word used? How to react in front of tears, anger? These are the transmission of some experiences lived during readings…