The Grail Tarot: A Templar Vision [Paperback]

This deck and book set is a remarkable collaboration between scholar John Matthews and artist Giovanni Caselli, based on stories of the Holy Grail and the Knights Templar. For those unfamiliar with the subject, the Grail is, among other things, the cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper, long sought and perhaps obtained by the Knights Templar and other spiritual seekers, both historical and legendary. The basis of the set is a mystical, heroic Christianity that even this "recovering Catholic" finds intriguing.

Matthews, a lifelong scholar in this field, illuminates the essentials of the stories, cites the most important sources, and provides descriptions, keywords, divinatory meanings and meditative questions for the cards. There's a lot of material, and if it's absorbed slowly and carefully, the reader will be amply rewarded.

Caselli's artwork, in the late-Medieval style, is absolutely first-rate all the way. A unique feature of the deck is that if the cards are laid in order, side by side, they form five continuous friezes (long artworks), one for the Major Arcana and one for each of the four suits. This is a sumptuous visual banquet. The Majors and suits are based on the traditional tarot designations, with some variations that are explained in the book with a helpful comparative chart.

Card zero is the Grail Seeker, card one is the Gnostic Christ, card two is Mary Magdalene, card three is Queen Sheba, and so on. The "Queens" are beautifully realized aspects of the Virgin Mary, patroness of the Knights Templar. The rest of the deck is quite masculine, concerning the spiritual and worldly journeys of the young male Seeker from novice to Grand Master, with a fair amount of bloody swordfighting along the way. Incidentally, the Arthurian legends are only briefly touched upon, since Matthews and his wife Caitlin have explored that theme in depth in many other works.

This is a superb set for committed spiritual seekers; art, history, literature and mythology lovers; tarot collectors and anyone interested in this fascinating subject.

Visually breathtaking, extremely scholarly and useful for both divination and contemplation. Excellent from a visual, historical, mythic and mystical standpoint, with extremely high production values. This is Matthews at his best, working with the "Matter of Britain" and the mythic underpinnings of the Western Mystery Tradition. It is some of his best work in recent memory.

This is indeed magnificent in its presentation and artwork. Even non-Christians find it compelling. However, the imagery does not always clearly symbolize the divinitory meanings and especially does not have the traditional Rider-Waite symbolism.

Thus, it is not easy to use for divination. Eventually I hope to carefully study and learn the symblolism, but I have to say a lot of the cards show a person walking or in some other way going from here to there, not noticing a stone or a grail. It seems that the symbolism seems to repeat variations on this theme, which I think will render it hard to read. The meaning is not obvious from the picture, and the names of the major cards have often been changed to something unrecognizable.

People I have shown it to seem delighted with the way the major cards join together to make one large painting. Actually it is a little gimmicky, once you start to put them all together. But it is fun anyway and well done. The deck is VERY MALE ORIENTED. I guess that is to be expected, given the theme. There are no female adepts or seekers.

Somehow I think that this deck is more for meditation. The stock is thick and hard to shuffle, the box is not good for storage (the cards tend to slide under parts of the inner packing.) One of the cards had a slight crease in it which make me think that their quality control needs some attention at the printer from what I have read in the other posts.

However, this is a very intriguing and beautiful deck and perhaps it will take me years to truly appreciate it.

The price on Amazon was GREAT!