Tarot, Truth & The Cosmic Joke
Jody Barton
Artist, illustrator & zine creator
Taurus Sun, Aries Moon, Scorpio Rising
Copenhagen, Denmark
Web: www.jodybarton.co.uk
IG: @jody__barton
KickStarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jodybarton/the-rotten-tarot-an-oracle-deck-by-jody-barton
The Rotten Tarot
Jody Barton, creator of The Rotten Tarot, opens up about his creative journey behind this bold, weird, and wonderfully quirky indie deck—in what he cheekily calls “Jody awkwardly interviews himself.”
(Layout by Mariia Snebjørk Damkjær)
TAROT: The Rider Waite Smith influence
Well, I’ve always had the Rider Waite Smith deck nearby, and I’ve used it along with various other means to find a thread in difficult times, and also for fun. It’s a classic deck for a reason - I think it perfectly straddles the distance between the early Tarot of Mantagna Tarocchi and the 18th century romantic revival of the Medievalist culture and its esoteric romanticism. It’s lovely. So that has always been there on a little siding running alongside my artistic practice as an illustrator and zine artist.
The strange thing maybe is that I never thought to integrate the two forks of the road until now.
Somebody suggested that I make a version of the classic RWS archetypes and I gladly agreed with them! It seemed like an excellent idea. I got started but got bogged down right away.
The Rotten Tarot by Jody Barton. Promo pic by Mariia Snebjørk Damkjær
TRUTH: The journey toward ‘The Self’
There was a problem but I couldn’t figure it out. I had the first ten cards of the Major Arcana finished. It was sapping my enthusiasm, I think partly because the territory is so familiar that it’s easy to stay asleep while negotiating it as an artist - there are so many others who have gone before. I took a short break and remembered that the 20th century has been a feverish time of invention, appropriation and innovation regarding the journey toward ‘The Self’ - fabulous theories, bizarre discoveries from both antiquity and biology, psychedelics, psychology and political theory can’t be ignored. So I started again. I tried at first to get 24 examples just as titles that summed up all these new archetypes of the growing soul.
Oh my, I was overwhelmed by the greatness of so many minds that have quested in the last 100 years. It is impossible to grasp. But I stumbled around and very slowly the lights came on.
One thing led to another and I got to an imperfect 32. And honestly does it matter if it’s imperfect if it’s interesting? Everything is always the beginning of something else. We all stand on each others shoulders. So after a lot of false dawns and thickets I’m now nearly at the end of a very successful Kickstarter campaign with 47 cards and 47 detailed texts pretty much ready to go to production. It’s been a vast undertaking, and a way bigger project than I could have guessed at. It is the very beginning of a life’s work I think! A life of exploring the metaphors and descriptions of the most important journey we make: the journey back towards ourselves.
The Rotten Tarot by Jody Barton. Promo pic by Mariia Snebjørk Damkjær
THE COSMIC JOKE
One of the most amazing things for me is the great enjoyment I’ve had writing texts. I really wanted to give the reader a jolt - to tell ‘The Cosmic Joke’ as I see it. I wanted to peel back the layers that hide truth, and then peel back that truth to discover… what? another joke!
So it’s not a comedy in the modern sense, but it is a comedy in that it attempts to point a finger at pomposity and delusion and act as a democratising force for good.
Some of the ideas I’ve repurposed certainly have spent time in the world of psychology, but as a regular client of the therapy industry I feel that many of the revelations it has are badly served in the consulting room. Can’t we have some magic please? I want to see the card turn over in a candle filled room! I don’t want to sit on modernist furniture paying hourly for platitudes. Give me some romance dammit. All the great figures of 20th century psychology were mystics, not accountants. And I think it goes further… even Marx, to me, is just as much a romantic poet as Percy Bysshe and Mary Shelley. The themes are the same! The very emancipation of the human soul from the tyranny of a vengeful and careless overlord.
The Rotten Tarot by Jody Barton. Promo pic by Mariia Snebjørk Damkjær
The Classic Hierarchy VS. A Collaborative Approach
In the process of testing my raggle-taggle band of cards on various brave souls I repeatedly came across the strong conviction that many amateur tarot readers see themselves in a position of power over the person seeking counsel. I have some feelings about this classic hierarchy that often happens in a card reading. I believe that the 'subject' of the reading and the 'diviner' are working together, and it is the cards which hold the power.
It is not for the 'diviner' to press interpretations onto the 'subject'. It should be a collaboration of respect with the mysterious. No one should be 'in charge' or be trying to 'cold read' the other.
I want to recommend a new, more collaborative approach to questioning ‘the other’, where both diviner and questioner are travelling together down a twisting road. Many vistas are revealed, many messages come through, and they are for both parties to muse on. To read and to be read are mirrors of each. The true reader is ‘The Oracle’ and we are the subject of its capricious and crafty whims.
The Rotten Tarot by Jody Barton. Promo pic by Mariia Snebjørk Damkjær