Religious Symbolism

I just now drew the Ace of Cups for my daily reading. It could be considered a blatantly Christian image. I don't consider myself a Christian (although I have some affinity with Valentinian Gnosticism). Some people regard the religious aspect of the RWS a distraction, but I find that it enriches the deck. Opinions?

Personally, I have no problem with this. My brain just automatically converts the "Christianity-ness" of an image into an abstract concept meant to represent a religious/spiritual aspect in general.

Canadian Girl said:

Personally, I have no problem with this. My brain just automatically converts the "Christianity-ness" of an image into an abstract concept meant to represent a religious/spiritual aspect in general.

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Yes, Same here.

with my catholic/lutheran background, i have no problem with it either...
representing faith, the Holy Grail, Communion, even Agape...
if someone doesn't like the religious thing about it, it can symbolize the human psyche and emotions, love, peace, abundance, renewal, rebirth...

There is the formula of the Xristos which is esoteric and mystic in many aspects. The Ebhyonim (The Sect that became the backbone of the Coptic Christians, called the Ebionites by the Romans, from the Hebrew word for "poor") apply Egyptian and Greek elements entirely. There are sects that pray to God, and employ Magic alot. The regard the Messiach as not of divine immaculate conception, something the book of Matthias (Matthew) does not establish.

There were two main sects of the Ebhyonim, those who beleived all must adhere to Mosiac Law of the Torah, and those who believed that the religion of the Xristos was not bound specifically to Mosiac Law, and said every people have their own covenant with the Lord, each according to their own profession and their own providence and ancestry.

http://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Christian-Magic-Marvin-Meyer/dp/0691004587

Here is a wonderful textbook on the subject, and useful to those who know the keys to barbarous names and other essential premises of occult practice.

The fact is that there are those committed to a dark ignorance plaguing modern Christianity and controlling entire sects of it. It fundamentally identifies itself is very dissimilar to the accounts of Jesus, but very similar to the accounts of Saul of Tarsus. The one thing that al parties can agree on is Paul came along LONG after and was not true to the Xristos. These modern claimants to the title "Christian" who use the Xristos to preach hate vaccilate like he did between persecuting and persecuted, glorify their affliction, and do not desire or cannot see see those they preach to and those they condemn are one in the same; their fellow Men and Women of which al of us have capacity for the Holy and the Unholy moment to moment.

http://ebionite.com/Evidence_of_the_Ebionites.htm

There is no way of getting around the fact that in some major Christian denominations the Mass does involve ritual magic. I suppose one could call it theurgy or alchemy, but euphemisms notwithstanding, the fact remains that transubstantiation is a magical process.

brightcrazystar said:

.....http://ebionite.com/Evidence_of_the_Ebionites.htm

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Interesting material about the Ebionites.

It's generally acknowledged by Christians as well as non-Christians that most branches of the Church adhere to some version of Pauline theology, but it has been this way for so long that it doesn't strike people as odd. One wonders what the churches were like before Paul bombarded them with his Epistles.

CHILD: Mommy, mommy, my Sunday School teacher said that Jesus was a Jew!

MOTHER: Now, now, don't worry about it. Everyone knows that God is a good Presbyterian.

In some cards I find the christian symbolism very much a distraction (hierophant, devil, a few more), and more than the distraction aspect it's symbolism that I don't often really understand at a deep level. But in the ace of cups I didn't even notice it. I saw it as a hand and cup and bird with water. The symbols on the cup and the wafer didn't even register as more than shapes until I looked it up to see what you were talking about. I didn't realize the round shape in the dove's beak was a communion wafer, for instance. In this case it adds other possibilities for interpretations of the card.

The winged goatlike figure on the Devil card is based on Eliphas Levi's drawing of Baphomet, a creature which the Templars were thought to have worshipped. As far as I know there is nothing remotely like it described in the Bible, although the image seems to have crept into Christian folklore and is sometimes identified with Satan or Lucifer, although they were angelic, not demonic, critters.

The Hierophant looks like a church dignitary, probably the Pope. In PKT, Waite states: "he is not religion, although he is a mode of its expression." Notice the similarity of the positions of the right hand in the Devil and the Hierophant. The word "hierophant" originally referred to a priest of the Eleusinian Mysteries.