The Grail Tarot Review

I received The Grail Tarot in the post this morning, which was a nice surprise. John Matthews has long been associated with the Arthurian myths, so I suppose this unification with the Templars (the subtitle is ‘A Templar Vision’ ) is not surprising.

First thing to do is google, and it seems this was published last year, if the comments on Aeclectic Tarot are anything to go by. Certainly, I found a cover image different to this edition.

The artwork is by Giovanni Caselli, and it is in the style of ‘The Middle Ages’ the accompanying book says ‘echoes’, so presumably neither artist nor author are certain. I much prefer the artwork to Caselli’s previous tarot deck. The sequence of Major cards cards creates a frieze that takes the tarot reader on a journey. With each card is a question designed to elicit greater meaning. I suppose this parallels the Christian Stations of the Cross found in Catholic churches and pilgrimages. In the tarot spread at the back, Matthews uses the ground plan of the Templar church in London which apparently has 22 buttresses; for the purposes of the tarot, they correspond to the 22 Grandmasters. Matthews denies any numerological connection, which is surprising since he finds numerical significance in other circumstances. Anyway, I find the pairing of the cards interesting, as this is a significant technique, and takes us to the Atbash method described in supertarot.

Cutting the cards precisely must have been a nightmare to the printers, and in my deck, there is an overlap in some of the cards.

What I find refreshing in the deck is an absence of the Tree of Life and all that baggage. Here, progression is horizontal, through the landscape, as opposed to vertically into the sky. The Hebrew alphabet has also disappeared. And that is where I hit a problem. Ever the pragmatist, anything which makes me stop and wonder what card I am looking at, for me is not good. Apart from the Wheel of Fortune, none of the titles are close to the traditional ones we know, although some can quite easily be guessed at.

The High Priestess is now The Magdelene; the Empress is Sheba – black and comely, as they say. The Lovers becomes The Two Knights of the Temple; brotherly love of course. There has always been a suggestion that this card is more than the lovers, so I do not particularly have a problem with that.

On to the Minor Arcana. The Swords are still Swords, but the Pentacles are now Stones, Wands become Lances, and Cups are Vessels. The Neophyte enters the story, which I find slightly baffling as I thought that was all to do with Freemasonry, which does not appear to the enter the story. For a number of years I have been diligently paring down the divinatory meanings of the Tarot, so the Grail Tarot meanings sail blissfully over my head. I can see that if the journey of the Grail is very important to you, they will come very handy.

On the several times I have met Caitlin (at the launch of her Da Vinci Tarot), I am sure I have gone on to moan (as professional readers do to other professional readers given the chance, on a number of topics) about the pervasive menace of the Celtic Cross spread. I do hate it, and in particular any new ‘versions’ that appear in just about every book on the Tarot. I am pleased to see that John Matthews has avoided it. He has assumed that the reader is familiar with the Tarot, and how to reader the Tarot, which is very refreshing. The spreads are consonant with the theme, and I particularly liked the example reading, apparently for a real person in each case.

A lot of care and thought has gone into the design and production of the book and the cards. It is not a deck for beginners because the traditional names and divinatory meanings are missing. I found it difficult to relate the cards to my own knowledge and understanding, but this may be because I am not familiar with the Grail mythos. However, if you have an interest in the Templars this is the deck for you.

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