View Full Version : Marseilles being used for Divination originally?
by DianaExcept I am tired of being politically-historically-documented correct.
The Marseille Tarot was never designed as a "game". This is obvious to anyone who has studied it and has an inkling of French history. But because there is no written documents, they are shouted down by those who need written proof.
There can be no written proof for it was destroyed a long time ago.
The Marseille so-called Major Arcana were never any game........
The very idea is quite ridiculous.
Diana said this in the thread about the progression from the Visconti decks to the modern Jeu de Tarot decks, and it seemed a very interesting assertion to make. I would like to see this idea discussed a little further...
What aspects of French history would point to this use of the Marseilles deck? And how come it bears so much resemblence to gaming decks, if it wasn't used for gaming purposes?
I also see no reason why (with all due respect to my friend Diana) the Trumps of the Marseilles would be any different to the trumps of the gaming decks. And even to the 'trumps' we use today in the game of Whist, which aren't actually a set of themselves, but one of the suits of a regular playing deck is chosen at the start of the game. A set of trumps in a game like Whist is essential for it to work. The Tarocchi games are like Whist: All trick-taking games, and thus there is a necessity for some set of cards which 'trump' all others, and some set of cards which has a scoring value.
I look at the Visconti decks and other early decks, and find very similar images to those found in the Marseilles deck. Can it be possible that decks used for entirely different purposes (Gaming and divination) have exactly the same images in them?
Diana, when you speak of all the proof being destroyed a long time ago, are you referring to a specific event in history which caused it? (Such as the Library of Alexandria, as an example, not that it happened in the time frame we are looking at, but it's an example of what I mean! :D) Was it deliberate, or an accident? If it was an accident, what are the chances of every single scrap of the evidence being destroyed? And if it was deliberate, why do we have other records of the Tarot deck being used for divination?
These are all burning questions, and I look forward to the responses!
Kiama
Cerulean
15-05-2003, 04:27
If any of you do decide to touch on history---which was not Diana's original purpose, but is wonderfully approached by Kiama here, may I suggest some Italian-French crossroads to begin? They may be dead-ends, but they may also help touch on the variety of tarocchi patterns with Milanese influences.
What seems to be substantiated at the very least by the card-playing historian Michael Dummett:
He observes that the Visconti Milan pattern known as the Pierpont Morgan had a very direct effect on Marseilles patterns after the circa 1450 date that Michael Dummett specifies, under Francesco Sforza-Visconti, husband of Bianca Maria.
I'm too wrapped up in the Italian Ferrara side to investigate, but I suggest that if people do start, it might be with the previous generations of the Visconti interacting after the marriage of the French Duke of Orleans and Valentina Visconti. Another crossroads would be through the invasion of Italy by the French king in 1497, the first invasion of successive conflicts where the French were sweeping through Milan.
For interested people, one of the Marseilles/Milan pattern endpoints at least with French-Italian patterns might be the Neoclassical Tarot of 1806 or circa 1811 by Di Gumppenberg---Di Gumppenberg was given the printing approval (?) or at least has the last recorded tax stamp in the Napoleonic regime to do Milanese style card printing.
These are ideas that may bridge to large a timespan, but at least these are easily available tarots to begin your studies...Mark Filpas' Pasteboard Masquerade does review some available reproduction/recreations that include an earlier (1999) Visconti Gold and two of the reprinted Di Gumppenberg tarocchis. These reprints do not seem to have game rules, with the exception of the small book by Giodarno Berti in the set of Ancient Tarots of Lombardy, only available through Trigomo.
Giodarno Berti's English/Italian site might also be a starting point.
Best wishes,
Mari H.
Kiama: I am not a Historian, nor a Scholar. It is one of my regrets, but I am just not talented for such things.
But I can give you a clue, and then you can go and do some research.
I am talking here of the Tarot of Marseilles, but I do believe that it is just a continuation of something started a long long time before.
The Templars were destroyed by Philippe le Bel and the Pope Clement V in 1307, accused of not being Christian (but also because they were getting far too powerful due to their great riches and their patronage of various movements, one of which probably became what we know as FreeMasons). They were bearers of ancient initiatory and esoteric knowledge. That seems to be pretty established fact. Stuff that the Church would NOT have wanted anyone to know about. Definitely not. Would shake their very foundations! (Like a Tower....) The Tarot of Marseilles, as is known today, was probably re-designed by the Templars. They did this in the form of symbols and codes that only the initiates would know about. This would ensure the perennity of their knowledge so it would not disappear forever.
Not long after the brutal destruction of the Templars, Tarot was forbidden by the Church in most European cities (including Marseilles). Did you never wonder why they forbade a simple game?
I think you have a Tarot of Marseilles. Look at the card XIII (The Card that has no name). Most intriguing to see whose heads have been chopped off. Then you have the Papess - believed by many to be Mary Magdalene, who was Jesus' wife. There are other clues too. Like the Devil. And others.......
Oh yes, any documents concerning this affair would have been definitely destroyed along with the Templars. Burnt like they were. The Church had far too much to lose by keeping any of it. Far far far too much.
But they have not won yet. They cannot win you see. How clever to make sure that Tarot becomes part of popular culture through a vulgar game played in the local inns……
And then along came de Gébelin. (I often wonder about de Gébelin's blood-line.) The Church tried to kill him too.
They really never stop trying, do they?
(Just a thought: In French we never refer to the Majors as "cards". Always they are referred to as "Arcanes". Which means mystery/secret...... and with what reverence are they spoken about. It would move you to tears! :D )
But... the Church was forbidding the playing of tarocchi (as well as other forms of gambling) for centuries before the Marseilles deck existed...
-- Lee
Cerulean
15-05-2003, 10:42
http://www.tarot.com/about-tarot/library/index
Both Robert O'Neill's iconigraphic essays card by card and Christine Payne Towler's essays on esoteric tarots are here. Christine Payne Towler surveys the esoteric and occult tarots and raises questions, some about esoteric symbolism, based on her looks at many different designs and styles of historic decks.
Christine Payne Towler does point out her essays are a beginning point and her suggestions give one food for thought.
Mari: Thank you so much for this wonderful link. I have just read the essay: http://www.tarot.com/about-tarot/library/essays/history
I would advise everyone who is interested in the origin of Tarot to read it.
Back to the link with me. :)
Originally posted by Diana
Not long after the brutal destruction of the Templars, Tarot was forbidden by the Church in most European cities (including Marseilles). Did you never wonder why they forbade a simple game?
You have an interesting theory there, and it is such a shame that we can find nothing to add to it or back it up... Which is why so many people would disagree with it. These days, it's unfashionable to talk about the Templars in connection with the Tarot! With reference to your point I have quoted however, I believe that the Tarot was banned then because it was gambling, which had been seen as unholy for a long time in that area. Even these days some Catholics I know find gambling abhorrent.
I'll go and read that essay you linked to now...!
Thanks for responding to this thread. I find it interesting to know where other peopel are coming from when they discuss Tarot's origins.
Kiama
Kiama: of course it's unfashionable. But fashions come and go....
I remember once Holmes getting a bit annoyed in the Chat Room with someone because that person was saying that one needed Written Documents to prove something.
He tried to explain that there is nothing written down to back-up the Native Indian's history. Does this mean that it is to be dismissed with a flick of a finger?
And African history? They never wrote it down. Does that mean we cannot give credence to their stories? Or did their history begin when the White Man appeared on their continent.
There is something called Oral History. Oral tradition.
Anyway, just because it's written down, doesn't mean it's true.
If I write here "Switzerland is a country in Asia." In two hundred thousand years time, someone finds my words written here and they formulate a whole theory about it. Doesn't make it true.
Propaganda and lies can also be spread by the written word. It's actually a perfect way to spread lies.
Did you look at the cards and their details like I suggested?
I quote Christine Payne-Towler from her article:
"Nor can we afford to hold out for manuscript evidence before we decide where Tarot "came from." Unfortunately, many of the manuscripts where we would expect to find records that are contemporary with the earliest cards and their underlying images have been destroyed. This was a calculated effort undertaken by the Roman Church over several centuries, designed to keep the European people from turning away from Catholicism and toward the Gnostic heresies of the Middle Ages. The devastation that the Church visited upon the culture of southern France in the twelfth century obliterated the conditions that germinated the Tarot as we know it now. We are infinitely lucky that the cards themselves survived.
Now we have to learn how to "read" the surviving images in all the glory and variety that they still show. In them we can see the ideas flowing and evolving in "pictures worth a thousand words." We must cease viewing the images and symbols on the faces of the cards as secondary evidence, and learn to follow the protocols of the Art Historian when we investigate the Tarot. Insisting on text evidence for proofs of our theories is illogical given tthe underground status of its originators and the persecutions that it engendered."
It is also worth noting that the northern Italian region, when under French rule, was referred to as the department of Taro (after one of its rivers).
That the Jeux de Tarau/Taro/Tarot may have originated as a game there does not indicate that its iconographic provenance is there also.
'From whence did it come' has a number of meanings, only one of which is 'where was the first deck physically made'. The others includes 'from whence do the images come', and 'from when were they combined into specific Tarot number and sequence'.
Esoterically, one may also question Tarot's raison d'être, and the spiritual impulse guiding Tarot's manifestation and transformations. It is also quite interesting that the Marseille's own rebirth occurs in the 1930s with the Grimaud Marteau rendition, quickly replacing, in France, the earlier more personalised and popular renditions of the Eteilla (which, in many ways, was the francophonic equivalent to the RWCS) and others.
But I too will wish to make further comments when I have a little more time...
Originally posted by Diana
There is something called Oral History. Oral tradition.
I'm all for an oral tradition (I'm from Britain: Nearly all our early history began as an oral tradition!) However, the problem with an oral tradition is that it is prone to the Chinese Whispers Syndrome... The oral tradition may have started as:
"The Tarot is a pack of cards which we use for gaming purposes. It has pretty pictures of some states of humanity on it."
It may then have progressed through time to...
"The Tarot is a pack of cards which we use for gaming purposes. It has mysterious and powerful pictures of some states of humanity on it"
"The Tarot is a pack of cards which we use for gaming purposes. It has mysterious and powerful pictures of some states of humanity on it, and these are there to secretly reveal hidden knowledge to those that study the cards..."
"The Tarot is a pack of cards we use for gaming purposes, but it is also used to see into the future. You see, it has mysterious and powerful pictures of the states of spiritual enlightnement embedded in it, and if we study them pictures enough, the hidden knowledge will be revealed to us..."
And finally we end up with...
"The Tarot is a pack of cards we use for gaming purposes, but it is also used to see into the future. You see, the Knights Templar embedded within it secret knowledge for the initiated, so that their oppressors would not know that the knowledge was still being made avaiable... If we study the cards enough, the hidden knowledge will be revealed to us..."
It is well-known that an oral tradition changes over time. Look at the Irish. Their Gods, the Tuatha de Danaan, gradually became immortal beings, then they became demi-Gods, then they became humans, but a different race... Finally they became mischievous fairies. The point of an oral tradition is that not only does one get across the history of the world, etc, but one entertains (Thus making it easier to remember). But to entertain, one needs to add bits which aren't necessarily true to it. This is what could have happened with the Templar theory of Tarot. (This might not be my view on it: I'm just expressing what many would say! I haven't made my mind up yet...)
Also, it is true that there is no written history of the Native Americans or Africans... But we do have archaeological evidence which helps us track their history. With the Templar theory of the Tarot, there is no such archaeological evidence.
When people ask for proof, they don't just mean written documents... They also mean evidence... Bits of stuff. Basically! (Us humans like our 'bits of stuff! :D)
Kiama
Kiama: Did you look at the pictures on the cards?
Stick with me here...
JC resurrected? That is the premise of the entire Paulist (St. Paul was originally named Saul of Tarsus) movement. However resurrection and “died for our sins” and Son of God or just a man…all of that was Voted on (Counsel of Nicea – 325 CE), by a bunch of guys, who were under the threat of death by Constantine (who himself was a pagan) who sought to use a religion to bind his people together. So he ‘invented’ Christianity, based on Paulist doctrine, moved some holidays around. Constantine’s use of torture, death, and extreme censorship continues to this day.
The Cathar’s entire religion was based on the teachings of James (JC’s Brother) and not Paul – which lead to the Inquisition (also known as the Albigensian Crusade)…The Cathars were the heretics…not witches…).
James, son of JC went to England with Joseph of Arimathea, traveled around…did stuff…coincidentally, St. Gildas, a 5th-century historian wrote about a leader in west England named Aurelius Ambrosianus. It was 400 years later that Nennius of Bangor renamed him as Arthur.
Now years and years later – we still have the story of Joseph of Arimathea visiting Glastonbury with a young man. Some say it was Jesus…?
…and his bloodline to this day exists (or so it is said).
Of course it’s a whole different question between if JC was;
1 Resurrected, or
2 Resuscitated.
One I don’t believe…but two has possibilities. Let’s just look at the Shroud of Turin for a second. It was “Proven” to be real (anatomical anomalisms that a medieval forger would not have known about, pertaining to crucifixion, and pollen deposits, plus the textile type) until carbon test dating in 1988.
Those carbon test datings have been called into question due to bioplastics present upon the cloth.
We know that whoever was buried in the Shroud of Turin, was ‘executed’ by crucifixion and was not dead.
Jews had a strict rule. Wash the body and bury it. The body in the shroud was not washed, but covered with oils (to promote healing?). Further, the body, once in the shroud bled. The dead do not bleed.
It has been claimed that he was taken from the tomb and nursed back to health by the Essene sect. It was reported that he was alive as late as 45 CE.
In Crucifixion, what really happens (the cause of suffocation) is that there is a massive increase of fluids into the pleural sac, creating pressure on the lungs – so they cease to function…suffocation ensues.
By piercing the abdomen with a spear, it would drain the pleural sac, relieving pressure, and allow JC to breath…
Now the Essene’s had their roots among the Therapeutae, a healing group that lived in the Nile Delta…what a great place to escape to…
Come to think of it, did not Levi and Waite both contend that JC was of an Osiris cult and a follower of Isis.
Don’t the 10 Commandments echo the Judgments of the Soul in the Court of Osiris in the Egyptian book of the dead?
Are not the Proverbs are a plagiarism of the works of the Egyptian Amenemope…
And then to take it one step further...
The Essene's were an initiatory sect, as were the Ebionim (who followed the teachings of JC after his 'death' - lead by James the Just), as were the Cathars...
The Cathars believed that Sacred Knowledge came from God through the true teaching of JC and that a spiritual union with God was the ultimate result of their gnosis. Their sacred knowledge was passed from JC to John the Evangelists, and then to the Cathars. they believed in reincarnation and transmigration of the soul.
They believed that Christ came to reveal the true way to sacred knowledge and not to redeem mankind from sin.
They denied all Christian sacraments, especially that of Holy Communion. They did not venerate the cross, and the death on Golgotha was dismissed, as JC was not a redeemer, but a teacher.
Teaching boards were in common usage in all initiatory sects, and as such went hand in hand with oral traditions.
Freemasons today use teaching boards and oral histories for each of the degree 'lectures' (lasting about 45 min each, memorized verbatim for hundreds of years)...
So what if...just what if...the images on the Tarot began, as teaching board illustrations - for a doctrine that had to be hidden from the church under pain of heresy...?
Just a thought...
Why do I cut a talking (or teaching) board into 21 (or 22) Pieces?
Why does one of them (card) NOT fit (The Fool) (le mat = le mot = the dead?)
It begins with initiatory sects; Osiris sects, the Essenes, the Nazarenes, the Ebionites, and the Cathars.
Initiatory sects use Teaching boards (talking boards) to help maintain continuity. Freemason’s still use them, virtually unchanged for 400 years. Teaching boards allow large amounts of oral history to be passed essentially unchanged – they work as reference points and add cohesiveness.
The tale is filled with treachery – the Council of Nicea, the Albigensian Crusade, and the suppression of the Knights Templar.
It is a tale that speaks of having to hide the teaching board that displayed the bloodline of Jesus Christ the Teacher (not the savior), and his true teachings.
Where did they other 4 cards go to? The knights are glaringly absent in regular playing cards. And what a great place to hide the teaching board…as a game.
We know we have to hide our teaching board because...
The Church - even to this day - would go to whatever lengths possible to suppress that:
1) JC left Heirs.
2) that He was not a redeemer, but a teacher (Messiah does not mean “of god” but is a title used by the Nazarenes to indicate Priest-King).
3) that they knew all along.
Why does the Major Arcana resonate so much? Because it should - it is a lesson - it carries the underground stream of wisdom and knowledge that has flowed throughout our early history...
Think on this...How could, the Cathars follow the teachings of James and his Ebionites nine hundred years later? What method did they use to escape oppression for damn near a thousand years?
What tied together certain houses in Europe throughout a thousand year time of chaos?
An underground river to knowledge – teachings – tied up in a talking board of 24+1 pieces.
You see – if I hide, a talking (teaching) board inside a deck of normal cards…
Originally posted by Diana
There is something called Oral History. Oral tradition.
Anyway, just because it's written down, doesn't mean it's true.
If I write here "Switzerland is a country in Asia." In two hundred thousand years time, someone finds my words written here and they formulate a whole theory about it. Doesn't make it true.
Propaganda and lies can also be spread by the written word. It's actually a perfect way to spread lies. Diana, it's true that the written word can lie. But if that means that we must accept any premise, no matter how unsupported by any kind of evidence, then we might as well just toss all history out the window, because anything will have to be accepted as true just because someone says it.
If I say to you, "the moon is made of green cheese," and you say to me, "of course it's not, there's all kinds of evidence against it," and I say, "well, the evidence can lie, it can be faked, it's all a conspiracy by the Church/the Government/the Establishment," then where are we? Anything can be true. We didn't land on the moon, it's a conspiracy by the U.S. Government. The Holocaust didn't happen, it's a conspiracy by the Elders of Zion [I'm being facetious, of course; the Elders of Zion are an invention of anti-Semitic conspiracy fanatics].
Yes, written words can lie, which is why we have to be vigilant. But if we ignore written words, and (as Kiama points out) archeological or any other kind of evidence, and believe what we want to believe simply because it appeals to us, then we will be in a sorry state.
-- Lee
Cerulean
16-05-2003, 15:43
I'm hoping to rephrase a few questions for a new thread. As I read many of the voices, I recognize some names as people who really like to read tarot pictures--and they've done wonderful jobs writing about their responses to different styles of pictures they read. I'm not certain, but moderns might call that a form of divination.
Some questions that ask for us to look at the pictures and draw conclusions has me looking at my own response--it probably has little to do with the question of Marseilles being a divination tool. It's more of trying to grasp Western style thinking and culture surrounding Marseilles styles and what they/we would call divination.
The learning to recognize symbolic pictures and draw allegorical examples or play games is quite a sophisticated learning process--at least for me. And that the Western-style Triumphs games focused on human forms is a choice that is wonderful to me. I actually think it was a learning process, an experiment that went along with being able to play chess and make up triumph poems and games where one allegorical character 'triumphed' over another.
I've not grown up with the ability to read Western-style pictures and it's never been intuitive to me to read symbols. But after extensive (four to five years) in English-speaking schools, I started reading extremely fast and being able to pick up symbolic languages. A little exposure to Asian pictograms gives me a vague recognition to do mind-to-mouth pronounciation of line squiggles. But it's reading English text and doing art studies that taught me to do more of the associative picture-to-idea-to-allegorical storytelling that I see the gifted readers here do.
The start of written language to convey meaning--according to my teacher of Western Civilization--started between 2500 to 3000 BC in five civilizations and it has always been a highly prized skill. In terms of religious attitudes, at least for traditional Catholic congregrations--if people were being taught in the local Italian/European churches by lessons--someone who was brought up Catholic said that the Bible was READ and interpreted to the laypeople, the common congregation did not read the Biblical books themselves--those who attended the churches would look at magnificant alters, paintings, etc., that did allegorical tribute to the heavens they were striving toward. Or looks at the hellish places they were trying to avoid.
The educational suggestion that surrounded the Mantegna prints originally put in a sheet rather than cut up into cards--it makes sense to me. If the original three main early tarots, Visconti-based, were lordly minature paintings for the glory of the local ruling family and their gaming tastes, than this was an innovation in itself by the 1400s. From there..I don't know which French patterns or when would have touched upon divination. The early Italian patterns (prior to 1520s) really seemed more playful or allegorical.
I think I'm wandering too far, but hope some of these thoughts make a little sense...
Thanks,
Mari H.
Originally posted by Lee
Diana, it's true that the written word can lie. But if that means that we must accept any premise, no matter how unsupported by any kind of evidence, then we might as well just toss all history out the window, because anything will have to be accepted as true just because someone says it.
The evidence IS there. In 22 cards. From the Bateleur (the pro-fane, the one who is Outside of the Temple) to the Mat. I am quoting myself from another thread here, but just study the cards and place them in the historical context.
A picture is worth a thousand words.
There are not only the Cards. There are history books as well.
Read Umbrae's post. Each sentence should be a whole chapter of a book, but I think he didn't have time. But if anyone is interested, they could take each of his sentences and go and do a Google search on each one of them. (Buying a book per sentence would be very expensive.)
Mari: Your posts always fascinate me. Thank you!
Originally posted by Diana:The evidence IS there. In 22 cards. Well, sure, internal evidence is important, but it can't be all we rely on. The problem there is that different people can see internal evidence differently, in different contexts, based upon their biases. That's why it's so important to look at the physical evidence, or lack of it.
The lack of physical evidence, by the way, could mean that it's all been thoroughly destroyed by some dominant authority in a massive cover-up, but it seems much easier to believe that the evidence never existed in the first place. After all, there's plenty of physical evidence from that time about other things the Church didn't like.
Also by the way, Diana raised the issue of propaganda. The only way to fight propaganda is to look at the physical evidence with a reasoned approach so one can actually see for oneself where the propaganda is lying. Oral histories can be interesting and can help point one to the truth, but oral histories are not necessarily the best place to go if one wants to find the truth. There are plenty of examples of oral histories being contrary to facts. In fact, the Anasazi Indians in Arizona left no oral histories, no trace of themselves at all except for some physical evidence. If we ignored the physical evidence, then the Anasazi would never have been known to have existed.
I am not impressed with Christine Payne-Towler's writings. I'm sure she's much smarter than I am, but she has an annoying tendency to state things as facts when they are not facts, they are merely her speculations, and she has not even made an attempt to make a convincing case for them. For example, when she says "Insisting on text evidence for proofs of our theories is illogical given tthe underground status of its originators and the persecutions that it engendered," she has not shown or proven or made a reasonable case that the originators of the tarot were underground or that they had been persecuted. She's simply taking a wild speculation with no physical evidence whatsoever and then assuming it to be fact to support further arguments.
She also makes the assumption that the lack of evidence indicates a vast cover-up conspiracy, rather than the more reasonable assumption that the lack of evidence means there never was any evidence.
By the way, I've been looking at the Marseilles images and their details for around 20 years now, although I'm always happy to look at them again! :D
-- Lee
firemaiden
16-05-2003, 20:05
Originally posted by Umbrae
By piercing the abdomen with a spear, it would drain the pleural sac, relieving pressure, and allow JC to breath…
Wow, Umbrae! Fascinating stuff!!
What do you think about Perceval? (I read the Chrétien de Troyes version) The idea of secret knowledge of the ressucitation of Jesus makes me think right away of Perceval's encounter with the Fisher King. Perceval fails to ask important questions about what he sees: had he asked 1) about the white lance whose tip oozes with blood, 2)who is being served by the grail, and 3)what ails the Fisher King, he would have saved the whole kingdom ; instead, the whole castle disappears when Perceval leaves.
Perhaps what Perceval might have saved by asking questions, is the secret knowledge of ressucitation of Jesus! I wonder if it is significant that Chrétien died in mid-sentence!
Umbrae: Have the by any chance read 'Jesus The Man' by Barbara Theiring?
Have you taken a look at 'the Jesus Mysteries' and 'Jesus and the Goddess'.
What about 'The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail'?
These are all wonderfully entertaining books about theories of what happened to the real Jesus.
Notice they ALL have a different story.
The one you gave is close to Barbara Theiring's theory. Unfortunately however, it has little evidence to back it up, and what she say in the book is largely speculative. She uses, as you did, one fact (The piercing of JC's side on the cross) and then moves from that to speculation upon speculation. And then she bases her conclusion upon those speculations. As Lee previously said: To base an entire argument on speculation is dangerous and unfounded.
firemaiden: I've read the story of Parsifal. I interpreted the Fisher King as being the representation of how the Land's health is the same as the King's. The fact that the King was wounded in the thigh, is symbolic of infertility. The land was infertile, because the king was. (Symbolically) I'm not explaining this very well, but if you ever get round to picking up any book by John Matthews on the Fisher King, you'll see where I'm coming from.
Diana: I have looked at the cards. What am I looking for?
Kiama
firemaiden
16-05-2003, 21:13
As an outsider to the church, the thing that strikes me everytime I am paid to sing in a service is the feeling that they are missing the whole point about Jesus. I supposed he had cool things to teach, like about love and stuff, but the sermons I have heard, and the prayers and songs never go into that, they just focus on the death and redemption, which automatically makes me suspicious and I wonder if what Jesus had to teach was so subversive that even now noone can take it.
I am looking at the cards Diana to see a tale of ressucitation herein. XII-XIII-XIV are suggestive to be sure, of cruxification, then healing. Might you be willing to share a few more hints? (Perhaps we could have a secret thread!)
An Aside about the Shroud of Turin: I thought it was pretty much proven to have been a veery early experiment in photography!
Originally posted by firemaiden
Might you be willing to share a few more hints?
Seek and thee shalt find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you.
I have always thought the Devil was quite cute, myself.
Is the Devil supposed to be based on somebody specific?
Kiama: As you probably know, the Templars confessed under horrific torture to worshipping a creature named Baphomet.
Historians have recently uncovered a reference to what was perhaps the first card game ever devised. A Latin manuscript that survived the burning of the monastery at Monte Cassino refers obliquely to the game of "collige LXVIII," or "collect 78." We can surmise from the title that this game resembles the traditional and still currently played games like "Cat and the Janitor" or "52 Pickup." It was apprently the first game ever played with tarot cards.
We now return you to your previously scheduled discussion. . . .
Wonderful, ihcoyc... do you have further details? Your brief mention calls to mind how, for example, games evolve from often already available materials.
As I read Kiama's opening post, in which the important question was raised, I recollected that boule arose as a game from materials which were around by infantry waiting for the next round in the battle. Here, balls were used for a game - though of course the balls were designed with the canon to propel these. That the game outlived the type of canon does not mean that the balls were designed for the game.
No doubts some of the early historical reference to Tarot are regarding games and their, in the eyes of the then 'authorities', inappropriate uses.
__________
I do agree that oral traditions can, and do, change over time. Though, as Umbrae pointed out - with evidence I too have experienced - massive amounts of words and tradition can and are memorised verbatim, especially of stories, explanations and initiatory catechisms which are of importance.
If there are oral traditions pertaining to Tarot early history, these need to also be properly investigated, not disgarded. Part of the problem with regards to Tarot is that some of these have been invistigated and seem not ancient, but traditions which likely stem from more recent claims and writings.
As pointed out by Kiama, oral changes can occur due to subtle shifts in linguistic emphasis, resulting in altered meaning. For example, one which seems to have occured just over the past twenty years is of the names suggested by Dummett for particular sequences in Tarot imagery. The 'Milan' pattern does not necessarily begin in Milan, but is found there in some of the earliest extant decks. Nonetheless, what is slowly occuring amongst more historically oriented Tarot enthusiasts is that Dummett's appelations have somehow gained more than warranted by the evidence.
____________
Another mention in the discussion is that the written word may be a misrepresentation of what occured. This, though true, is not really important with regards to the very early Tarot, for the images speak more often and with more importance than the (so far) found texts.
It would be interesting to find, for that matter, clear documents which refer to the Tarot - though I suspect that when such is found, it may be under another name (similarly, pre-12th century Kabbalistic texts are more likely to refer to Merkabah mysticism).
__________
The cards may have been iconographically somewhat more heretical than I suspect - but their iconography nonetheless contains much which is deeply Christian. In a similar vain, much of Freemasonry is well-grounded in Christianity, though not specifically Christian in its use of symbols and rites. Like the Tarot, the most obvious of (post 4th century) Christian symbols, the cruxifiction, is missing.
__________
Diana talks of the 'bearers of ancient initiatory and esoteric knowledge'. Whoever may have carried this, what is of high significance is that the Tarot iconography also exemplifies this... and here is our beginning point.
If Tarot began as a game, what was at work beyond the scenes for such iconography?
What is more likely, however, is that the images were not designed for a game, but that, as with boule and many other games, people used instruments around them to creatively construct games... something we have, on the whole, lost a little in our 'pret-à-porter' society.
Originally posted by jmd
What is more likely, however, is that the images were not designed for a game, but that, as with boule and many other games, people used instruments around them to creatively construct games... something we have, on the whole, lost a little in our 'pret-à-porter' society.
I could turn this round the other way.
The last 3 years of my life I have spent studying divination systems from all around the world, and creating some of my own. I have discovered that it doesn't matter what one uses to divine the future, as long as one sticks to the same basic features of a divination system. And what's more, I found that most cultures used for divination, things they were already using for other purposes... Some used shells. Some used rods. Some used stones. Some used coins. Some used Celebrations chocolates. Some used playing cards.
Others, possibly, used Tarocchi cards. Couldn't it be possible that these playing cards were used for divination because they were there, and would be a very effective tool to use, just as one might use stones, shells, or playing cards...?
And couldn't this weird iconography in the Triumphs be a way of taking the mickey out of things a little... The Devil, looking rather humourous... The Tower... Hey, if we look at teh Devil, doesn't he bear a striking resemblence to the Pope? Strange that, but it coudl be taken very comically.
And notice how four cards were missing from the decks used by the nobles. If I remember correctly, these cards included the Tower and Devil... What were the other two?
Could it be possible that the iconography of the Triumps was originally a way to poke fun at certain institutions, only for the non-nobles of course.
Just a theory.
Kiama
RiccardoLS
20-05-2003, 21:53
Originally posted by jmd
It is also worth noting that the northern Italian region, when under French rule, was referred to as the department of Taro (after one of its rivers).
Just reading the beginning of the thread.
In Italian the river name is: Tanaro. And the word Tarot is Tarocchi. I have never been looking on the origin of the word Tanaro, but I'm almost sure it has nothing to do with Tarocchi.
That, by the way, were called Trionfi in Italy.
Quite so, RiccardoLS - in Italian! (as it should be). When it was under French rule, however, and for better or worse, those names were different. Living in the antipodes, I do not have the nationalistic sensibilities for what may possibly offend in this domain - I merely pointed out something which I personally found of interest:
The word 'Tarot' is claimed to be of French origin. I am here merely pointing out that the northern Italian region (and remember that we are at any case talking about pre-Girabaldi unification of Italy), when under French rule, was named 'Taro', had one of its rivers named (in the French of the time) 'Taro', and was also the region which included an early sequence of Tarot cards...
Incidentally, one may as well say that 'Tarot' came from Fribourg (in southern Germany), for its more ancient appelation was Tarodunum!
felicityk
20-05-2003, 23:56
Originally posted by Kiama
And notice how four cards were missing from the decks used by the nobles. If I remember correctly, these cards included the Tower and Devil... What were the other two?
The Three of Swords and the Knight of Coins. Those two are legitimately "missing", but it is unclear whether the Devil and Tower were ever included in the first place.
I just put together a page that shows the replacement Devil and Tower cards from various modern reproductions:
http://home.attbi.com/~felicityk/tarot/visconti/
We are discussing this in another thread.
Felicity
Originally posted by Diana
Kiama: As you probably know, the Templars confessed under horrific torture to worshipping a creature named Baphomet.
Only TWO Templars admitted worshipping Baphomet. It has been postulated that it was a corruption of the name Mahomet (or Mohammed); it could have been a corruption of Abu Fihamet, or Father of Wisdom (or Understanding). It has also been theorized to have come from the Greek words Baph and Metis. Baph Metis would have meant Baptism of Wisdom.
More damning was the rumor that the Templars ‘worshiped’ a skull. It has been surmised that as opposed to worship, they venerated the head, or likeness of the head of John the Baptist.
Crowley stated that the numerical value of the name Baphomet was the same as the numerical value of the sacred title given to Peter by Christ. So it has also been speculated that it may have been a misinterpretation of their veneration of the Apostle Peter, a disguise of his name to protect the sacred from the infidels.
Baphomet has no Hebrew or Aramaic roots (etymology).
catboxer
09-06-2003, 01:40
I don't have much to add to what Kiama and Lee have already said here, but I would like to make a few comments about history in general, and maybe expand that into an evaluation of the history of tarot's pseudo-history.
The argument presented here -- that the Marseilles trumps are an encrypted form of an ancient secret doctrine, and were never intended for use as a game -- has been around more than two hundred years, and was most recently reasserted in a paper by Christina Payne-Towler. It reminds me of the trial scene in "Alice in Wonderland:" the king wants the verdict first and the evidence afterward.
It also reminds me of the argument I use with my wife when she wants me to fix the roof. I tell her I can't do it because it's raining. When she asks me why I don't fix it when the sun is shining, I tell her there's no point to that, because it doesn't leak then. If the trumps encoded a set of deep truths that would have threatened the all-powerful religious authorities, then devotees of this doctrine had to keep their activities secret. If we ask to see evidence that proves this, we're told it was all destroyed. And if we ask why it was destroyed, we're told that said destruction was necessary because the evidence we need to prove the theory would have incriminated its authors. In other words, the lack of proof is offered as proof, and the argument concludes by drawing a very tight circle back in on itself.
There are several problems with this theory other than the obvious one, not the least of which is that the evidence we DO have tends to impeach it. The first is the Cary Sheet, a fragment of an uncut sheet of cards from mid-1500's Italy which contains the earliest known examples of the Marseilles-style versions of several of the trumps, such as the "lobster by moonlight" and the kneeling Star lady pouring the contents of her urns into a pool. Other trumps on the same sheet are unlike the corresponding Marseilles images. This suggests that the iconography of the Marseilles trumps evolved over time rather than being articulated out of whole cloth, as you'd expect of the iconography encoding a secret doctrine. (Note: I've posted a poor copy of this sheet on the thread called "The Cary Sheet," on this forum. You can see a good copy of it with extensive commentary on the individual images in Kaplan's Encyclopedia, Vol. II, pps. 285-287).
Secondly, pictures of people using tarots from the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries all show people playing cards. None of them shows a tarot reading, or tarot being used as a teaching aid, or tarot meditation. The written evidence echoes this exclusive theme.
And here, just a quick word about defining history. Earlier the question was asked, "There is nothing written down to back-up the Native Indian's history. Does this mean that it is to be dismissed with a flick of a finger?"
Actually, except for the MesoAmerican civilizations, who had writing and calendars, the Native Americans don't have a history. They have a past, but not a history. The general outlines of a people's past can be reconstructed by archaeology and the physical evidence human groups always leave behind, but a detailed, day-by-day, year-by-year history is only supplied by documentation. Thus, without literacy, there is no history. We might be able to reconstruct the migratory patterns of the Sioux through archaeology, but a history of their wars, and the names of their war chiefs cannot exist, because the resources necessary to provide it don't exist.
As for Oral history, Kiama (I think) pointed out that the term is something of an oxymoron, as this kind of history tends to become transformed over time into myth and legend. Thus we are left with "oral histories" such as the one provided by Umbrae, in which James, the brother of Jesus, and Joseph of Arimathea are found to have visited Glastonbury. Such quaint tales are entertaining, but have about as much historical value as the stories that come out of Roswell, New Mexico.
Finally, I agree with Diana and Christine Payne-Towler that the cards themselves are primary, not secondary evidence. But when it comes to interpreting the images on the cards, an accurate analysis of what's there depends as much on the cultural inventory of the viewer as it does on the contents of the image itself. In the case of some trumps, Justice, for instance, the meaning of the card is immediately intelligible to moderns because that image is still in our pictorial vocabulary. But as Michael Dummett points out, the Hanged Man is "the subject of wild speculations by occultists; but it would have been immediately intelligible to any citizen of Renaissance Rome, Florence or Milan" as a symbol of treason. ("A Wicked Pack," 45.) Since that image and its associated meaning are not part of our pictorial vocabulary today, it stands to reason that it's bound to be misinterpreted, usually in a manner that emphasizes "deep secrets" which have been "passed down by a select group of adepts," for which "even the beginnings of understanding" will require "years of study."
Christine
16-09-2003, 17:38
From Hugh Schonfield, author of _The Passover Plot_ and _The Essene Odyssey_, Nobel Peace Prize winner (1959) and one of the original scholars who worked on the Dead Sea Scrolls (other illustrious things as well):
In Appendix A of _The Essene Odyssey_ , called "the Essenes and the Templars"(p. 162-5) , Schonfield looks over the claims of _Holy Blood, Holy Grail_. He states right up front that he is not able to support their theme, but he follows with this: "...their researches turned up information which in important aspects comes into conjunction with [my own].... The Templars...were to become noted... as repositories of unorthodox and esoteric teachings. The authors of HBHG state that they had a 'sustained and sympathetic contact with Islamic and Jewish culture.' this is very important, as it enabled them to gain access to some of the methods and mysteries of Eastern occultism.
Moreover the Templars had an increasingly intimate relationship with the Cathars, expecially in south-western Europe in the Languedoc, and many Cathar nobles enrolled in that Order....Through these associations the Templars would have been able to gain access to much Essene teaching, as latterly channelled through Gnostic and Kabbalistic concepts. These esoteric matters could only be pursued... in secret and under strict pledges of silence...
The [Templar] mysteries... have never been explained. But the evidences of links with Essene lore suggested to me that these reports might have a foundation in fact. I decided to treat the obviously artificial name Baphomet as another case of the use of the Hebrew Atbash Cipher for purposes of concealment. Setting down Baphomet in Hebrew characters produced...{heb.}, which by Atbash converted immediately into {heb.} (Sophia), the Greek word for Wisdom {greek}. So this centuries old secret was for the first time revealed!
So Schoenfield is voting for a Gnostic thread among the Templars, and Baphomet is a referent to Sophia, aka The Virgin of the World, aka the Shekhinah. "There would seem to be little doubt that the beatuiful woman's head of the Templars represents Sophia in her female and Isis aspect, and she was linked with Mary Magdalene in the Christian interpretation. The mythological and cosmic origins would seem to have been known to an appreciable extent by the Templars."
To get the full story, we have to cast our net wide! ;-)
Christine
16-09-2003, 17:59
Looking again at the title of this thread, I can see that my last post moves the conversation further away from the topic than it had gone before. Perhaps I should have put this in another place? (still learning how to use your wonderfully sophisticated system...) I guess this could also go under Gnostic/Mary Magdalene Tarot. if someone has advice I will be happy to follow...
To come back around -- Marseilles ordering comes "late" in the developmental spectrum, and now that I have had five years arguing with Bob O'Neill, I respect the fact that Tarot ~developed~ over its first century or so. (I learned a lot from the thread on the Mamluk deck, btw! some wonderful links there to support multiple cultural inputs.) Nowadays I draw my lines from the point that the card-count was 78 and the ordering was Marseilles style -- that's the "Tarot" I'm talking about. And even within that family, I see a "before" and "after", marked by the dividing line expressed in the Noblet and Viville decks, when the Lovers became the Two Paths and the hairy, medieval Devil became Baphomet. Maybe we can call them the "primitive" form and the "refined" form of TdM....
I also nowadays contend that Tarot has been "esoteric" since it got the Trumps, and I talk more about magic and metaphysics on the cards rather than divination. Sometimes the way a thing is said can either expedite or interfere with the content of the message. So, given that we have no direct "proof" of divination but lots of references to Tarot the Game, our search for meaning can now shift to a search for evidence of "esotericism" as defined by modern scholarship (Faivre and Hanegraaff, Versluis). I think this is a more defensible way to characterize what seems to have been built into and projected onto the cards by users of the times.
A relevant resource: Ioan Couliano's _Eros and Magic in the Renaissance_. Couliano's appreciation for the "learned games" of our target times is an eye-opener!