Tarot Shadow Work: Using the Dark Symbols to Heal Paperback – October 8, 2000

Christine Jette is brilliant! Her work is so important for each of us! The book may be $200+ but that is cheaper than a lot of himming and hawing with behavior! Let's live our best lives

This book is the best shadow work book I have come across. Well written and full of great information.

I bought this for my daughter as a way of bringing her interest in Tarot on to what I felt was a more practical footing: the Jungian examination of the self. She's enjoying this.

A friend of mine, loved my copy so much he ask that I purchase a copy for him. This book is great for helping to identify our talents, abilities, gifts and challenges.A positive approach to shadow work.

I think I was expecting something else when I picked up this book. There are just so many ways of working with shadow energy. But I am not at all disappointed (even though my copy apparently had a few printing errors, fuzzy pages, etc.) This book fills a little gap in my Tarot library.Author Jette provides readers with a little-explored area of working with Tarot Cards. It involves using the Tarot to release yourself from the grips of your shadow, be it an addiction, bad habit, an illness, or unresolved feelings or conflicts. The first thing to mention is that Jette only utilizes the 22 Major Arcana cards, noting that they symbolize the spiritual journey, and shadow work itself is a spiritual endeavor.Jette provides some primer information on the tarot -- background, Jung and the Tarot, the care and use of the cards and setting the proper tone and atmosphere (meditating, grounding, etc) for the readings. She also spends plenty of space discussing the shadow and shadow work, including, for example, how to prepare for shadow work, building a shadow altar and forgiveness as part of the letting go process.What is truly inspired are the readings you follow along, and do in sequence, as you make your way through the book. They all use a star-patterned spread design. The "Star of Discovery" spread is about uncovering exactly what you need to know about your shadow. The "Star of Recovery" spread examines, in greater detail, one of the cards from the first reading that troubled the reader the most, in order to focus in on what may be in need of healing or coming to terms with. The next spread, "Star of Illumination", reveals the gifts of working with the shadow -- the positive energy you receive through self-acceptance and awareness. It again involves one of the cards from the first spread. The "Star of Hope", the final spread, allows you to plan and visualize a possible future, one of hope.There are even more exercises, affirmations, meditations, etc. provided for seekers, and an appendix of Major Arcana meanings -- the shadow meaning and the shadow gift interpretation of each card.The author is an RN, health educator, and theraputic touch practitioner who has 25 years experience in working with and studying the Tarot. This is a wonderful book for those seeking healing and recovery, or for anyone looking for methods of deeper self exploration.

The book looks great! Is there a deck to go with the book?

I bought this book based on the unanimous positive reviews here at Amazon. I'm glad I got a used copy, because what I received is a volume of weak-minded New Age pabulum. I thought it would be interesting to see how the symbols of the tarot might be used for shadow work, but I was expecting--hoping for?--something considerably more rigorous and credible, something with the clarity and common-sense applications of, say, a Robert A. Johnson book. But, unlike Johnson, Jette is not an analyst, and so we get a lot of pseudo-pagan nonsense about casting circles of protection and crystals. I can't take seriously declarations like, "Onyx can cause depression in some..." or "Rose quartz radiates universal love," or "Diamonds hold, absorb, magnify, and transmit pain." Is there really any clinical evidence to prove this, or is the author just passing along the standard gruel that she has read in other Llewellyn publications?The author's method uses only the trump cards. I guess the standard wisdom is that the major arcana represent archetypes, and the Jungian psychology on which shadow work is predicated also relies on archetypes, but that seems to be as much of a reason that we get for limiting ourselves to 22 of 78 cards. It seems arbitrary an unnecessarily restrictive. After all, the entire deck presents a much wider range of experience than the 22 cards do, and to limit ourselves to the major trumps just because they have been historically referred to as "archetypes" seems silly and illogical. The unconscious--where the Shadow dwells--speaks the language of symbols, and there is no reason whatsoever to assume that it can only respond to the symbols presented in the trump cards.The author claims to be non-sectarian in her presentation, but that seems to really mean that she is non-religious, at least in the sense of any mainstream religion. But her repeated references to "Crone wisdom" and her exhortation to call upon "Crone power" during shadow work belie that. The rituals she presents use wiccan rhetoric. Here's an example: "I ask that the Dark Goddess...bless and protect me during this rite. I ask for wisdom, guidance, and comfort as I deeply mourn my losses. I release the past and I am free. This is correct and for the good of all. May it harm none. So shall it be." Non-sectarian, my eye.I don't really have a problem with the use of ritual, or candle-burning, or any of that. I don't think this stuff works in any supernatural or magical way--and there is certainly no credible evidence to suggest they do--but the unconscious does seem responsive to the symbols of ritual, and I think a good argument can be made for making healthy, life-affirming rituals a large part of our lives. But calling on "Crone power"....well, I don't think so.This book is written by a woman and seems aimed primarily at women, although that might not be obvious on first reading. I don't think it excludes men, but where gender-specific issues are brought up, they tend to be female issues like rape and menopause and domestic abuse. That's fine, I guess, if you're a woman, or a Sensitive New Age guy who responds to the nurturing warm fuzzies this book throws around. I'm not that kind of guy, though, and don't respond to it--that is my own subjective experience, and not a problem with the book, which is free to find any audience it wants. (Readers might object that the crystal-healing nonsense is also free to find its own audience, and in a sense they might be right, but I think it is a completely different thing to pass off crystal-healing mumbo-jumbo as therapy.)I still think that the symbolism of tarot might be used effectively for shadow work, and that the author's idea was a good one. Jette is sincere in what she offers, and her writing strong. She seems to genuinely care about helping people.

My book arrived on time and in good condition. I received a lovely handwritten cat postcard too. Thank you Jill and the Moggies!

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Lost my original copy of this fabulous book so I'm delighted to have it back in my tarot library :o)

I bought the digital version and it is not working on my phone. Not readable this way. Half cut. Sideways. Missing chapters. I asked for a refound but I am still disapointed because the subject was interresting.