Camelia Elias – författare

''Don''t have any children,'' the author''s mother said, in response to the question: ''what''s your greatest wisdom?'' posed to her by her own daughter when she was 10. Forty years down the road this book springs out of investigating just what this wisdom is all about. The book thus offers reflections on the state of being childless. The author''s own experiences blend in with her analysis of childless artists and the part of their work that mirrors particularly the significance of being childless.

In this book, either via personal encounters with the author or across the arts, we meet drummer Zohar Fresco, butoh dancer Carlotta Ikeda, opera singer Maria Callas as Medea through Pier Paolo Passolini''s lens, and filmmaker Maya Deren.

At the heart of the book is a simple investigation: Who poses true questions? The figure of the witch holds an interesting answer.

Lovers, villains, murderers, magicians, spirit conjurors, and ghosts. You''d think this was a popular book of fiction blending tales of love, war, and magic. It isn''t. It''s a book written for the curious reader who might like to know what some of the greatest literary figures in Western literature are up to when they read the Tarot, or use divination as inspiration for their work. Italo Calvino, Robert Browning, W.B. Yeats, and Rachel Pollack gather in a concatenation of voices across the page; voices that the author traces as if using transparent paper, a good ink pen, and an occasional draw with the Tarot cards for the idea that baffles, or the philosophy that resists the gratuitous. The result is a sustained focus on the classic theme of love and war as seen through the prism of a discourse on poetics, magic, occultism, hermeticism, esotericism, shamanism and divination.

This book is an omnibus edition that gathers three types of texts around the Marseille Tarot: two previously published works out of print, here in re-edited form, unpublished lectures, and new essays. The book features applications of the basic principles of reading the Marseille Tarot to the contextualization of current questions and concerns. The approach to reading the trump, court, and pip cards is informed, first, by observing the rules of formal design and composition as it connects to rhetoric and storytelling, and second, by martial arts in the Zen tradition of deconstructing language. The book offers pragmatic readings in relation to the diviner''s larger aim and scope: to see the obvious. The range of the questions spans from reflections on personal power and agency to examples of how to seduce the plumber when he can''t fix your pipes.

This book aims to cover four basic questions: Why do we read cards? What''s so special about the Marseille Tarot? How can the cards uncover our blind spots? What does it mean to live a magical life, when we allow the stories that the cards tell us to offer solutions to our real problems? The book is also the first to introduce the readers to the wonderful and strange cards of Carolus Zoya, a most rare and unseen Tarot de Marseille deck made in Turin at the end of 1700.

This book is for all the diviners who want to hear what else we can do with the Tarot cards other than what a particular school or tradition prescribes. It''s a treat à la carte for all the diviners who ever felt burnt out, after having served the same dish over and over to people. There''s only so many times you can excitedly deliver messages à la ''the Empress means nurturing'' and ''the Emperor means stability.'' How about the countless other situations when that is not the case, when the standard meaning is not applicable?

This is a book that deconstructs everything you know about the most powerful cards in the Tarot pack, the trumps. Although my example is the trumps of the Marseille Tarot, the book can be used as an inspiration in work with any other Tarot deck.

The book introduces the reader to the fundamentals of reading a visual text, offering as well descriptions of the Tarot trumps according to the question, followed by a sustained analysis of how each trump card can be read in contexts of common concern.

The nerve of the book is anchored in a rigorous Zen perspective, the method of reading like the Devil, and martial arts cartomancy, all primary ingredients in this chef''s authorial voice and original concoction. The numerous examples of card readings and personal stories are also flavoured by hints of magic, curses, and merciless non-spirituality.

This book is the first in a trilogy of books based on courses in cartomancy under the signature Read Like the Devil. It is packed with examples of student work and teacher feedback. Camelia Elias lives up to her reputation of a cartomantic martial artist, taking no prisoners. Her cuts through misunderstandings and misinterpretations are clean, leaving the serious student of cartomancy with a sense of wonder. The aim is to establish a top-level cartomancy that gives the possibility for all the students of the Marseille Tarot to reach the level of competence where they are beyond comparison, in a league of their own.

This course book offers rigorous deconstructions and revisions of traditional approaches to reading the Marseille Tarot, establishing a unique, oracular voice that''s efficient, convincing, and poetic. The fortuneteller that emerges from these pages is analytical, deductively logical, and contextually situated. Her Read like the Devil method fuses the obvious with an incisively penetrating Zen clarity.

This book depicts manifestations of folk magic, black magic, and practical magic as courage and everyday wisdom, and it demonstrates how reading cards can entice us to concrete magical action. It thus goes beyond reading cards for personal and spiritual growth and demonstrates how the cards create connections between people, from the living to the dead. It talks about objects magically landing in your kitchen, family secrets that get untangled in necromantic sessions, power and how we use it.

At the heart of the book is a guide to storytelling and spellcrafting with cards, demonstrating the transformative power of stories that makes us skillful in the arts of asking the good question, knowing, having, giving and receiving.

Fully color illustrated with the unique and rarely seen Marseille cards of Carolus Zoya (ca. 1790), and accompanied also by the author''s original art, the book is a delight to the eye.

This book is the third in a trilogy of books based on courses in cartomancy under the signature Read Like the Devil. It is packed with examples of student work and teacher feedback. Camelia Elias lives up to her reputation of a cartomantic martial artist, taking no prisoners. Her cuts through misunderstandings and misinterpretations are clean, leaving the serious student of cartomancy with a sense of wonder. The aim is to establish a top-level cartomancy that gives the possibility for all the students of the Lenormand Oracle cards to reach the level of competence where they are beyond comparison, in a league of their own.

This course book offers rigorous deconstructions and revisions of traditional approaches to reading the Lenormand cards, establishing a unique, oracular voice that''s efficient, convincing, and poetic. The fortuneteller that emerges from these pages is analytical, deductively logical, and contextually situated. Her Read like the Devil method fuses the obvious with an incisively penetrating Zen clarity.

In addition to method and technique, the book features extensive in-depth readings of the grand tableau, demonstrating dazzling detective skills that emphasize the beauty of interpretation at its finest expression.

This book is the second in a trilogy of books based on courses in cartomancy under the signature Read Like the Devil. It is packed with examples of student work and teacher feedback. Camelia Elias lives up to her reputation of a cartomantic martial artist, taking no prisoners. Her cuts through misunderstandings and misinterpretations are clean, leaving the serious student of cartomancy with a sense of wonder. The aim is to establish a top-level cartomancy that gives the possibility for all the students of the playing cards to reach the level of competence where they are beyond comparison, in a league of their own.

This course book offers rigorous deconstructions and revisions of traditional approaches to reading the playing cards, establishing a unique, oracular voice that''s efficient, convincing, and poetic. The fortuneteller that emerges from these pages is analytical, deductively logical, and contextually situated. Her Read like the Devil method fuses the obvious with a penetrating Zen clarity.

In addition to method and technique, the book features an incisive discussion of how to use playing cards in a magical setting, contributing fresh and original insights to the emerging interest in magic.