Tarot and the World...

Ange

As I start to type this, I feel that I must put that the following post intends no offence to anyone.....especially any of our American friends. Or indeed, to anyone with strong religious beliefs.
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Once again as I look at my tarot deck, the Majors, I am struck by the Tower.....and it always makes me start to think.....and now I am going to put those thoughts down on the forum.

The Tower shows people falling/jumping from the top, with fire near the top floors.......and it always, without fail, makes me think of the Twin Towers in New York. It brings back for me that horrific day as I sat and watched events unfold on the TV.

Then my thoughts go to the Fool......if the Tower bring thoughts of the Twin Towers, then might the Fool be one of the first men to walk the earth.....the first to start out on a journey of discovery....

The Magician......and this is where I hope to not offend anyone who is religious......might the Magician have been Jesus....one who could make anything happen, heal the sick, turn the water into wine etc....

The World.....will that be the end, when the world is complete and has run it's cycle?

Thinking of Old Moore's almanack, are the cards representing more than we think they are? Do they show major events and people through the life of the world itself....and not through our life?



Ang x
 

MeeWah

Ange: The more traditional Tarot images of the Major Arcana of the archetypal genre of symbology.

Thus, the capacity of the archetypal to encompass or pertain to the myriad levels of existance via the allegorical applications. & to apply to the individual level event or experience, to the broad human experience, to the worldly event.

Accordingly also to the three immediate levels of the human existance: the physical, materlal/conscious level; the mental or subsconscious; the spiritual or superconscious.

It also explains the limitless lending of such imagery & symbology to the themed & other types of decks.

Thanks for taking the time to share the thoughtful musings on the subject.
 

Cerulean

Ms. Ange, your personal reflections are a nice tie-in

...to how you are exploring images and experience the majors for your own thoughts. And others might agree with your insights--that these are symbols are of the outer world, not our world.

I have read and glimpsed similar thoughts on how the Tower card has an added sadness because of what people associate with the 9-11-2001 fall of the twin towers with that card. If the Tower as a card means fierce and radical change, lightning bolts of drastic action, catastrophe--the images of pain, hurt, attempts at recovery, loss and bravery...those memories that are associated with that time is very clear still to some.

But I think if we or I were to use tarot in a useful manner, bringing the archetype or the greater symbolism into a situational reading that brings the meaning home to ourselves might be the best. I understand you are thinking you might be seeing world events--for instance, if you pulled the tower and heard on the radio about a horrible earthquake in another country, you might be shaken out of your normal view. You might feel wierd, scared.

The change of perspective, though--at least to me--means that I am suddenly realizing the people affected behind the event are very similar to me. And what if I were in that country, trying to dig out my loved ones? Or trying to get food or shelter...that can shake one out of an every-day perspective and I can feel and act with charity and better compassion in ways that really matter.

While I pulled the Tower card yesterday in a deck draw, it was more pertinent to me really clearing and changing old and tired ways--so the image of the twin towers did not come to mind in my reading. I moved out of my small mind and said to myself, "whatever is happening here, instead of feeling sorry for myself--how can I contribute to the atmosphere in a better way?"

And 24 hours later, no tree limb or building has crashed into me, although a thin, long stick and a small potted plant on an upper shelf needed to be righted and cleaned up. Incidently, I've had three very productive work days,
by keeping my attitude up and keeping in the flow of things--in my case, the unexpected at work was met with helpfulness by many, so we pulled through...

So in my case, the pulling of a card such as the Tower is met with a thoughtfulness of 'how does this factor in my own life and how will I see this through..."

Best wishes,

Cerulean
 

Ange

Thank you both for your replies. Here is more of how I see the acrds....

Temperence....the hippy era...

The Devil.....how the world is now....unstable.....

We've done the Tower...

The Star.....a last time of peace, thinking we have done what is needed to save the world.

The Moon....a time of the moon going out of track with the world....causing the huge tidal waves and floods that are spoken of as a possibility.

The Sun....The ozone layer comes to it's end and the world starts to get unbearably hot....

Judgement.....time we have to reflect on what has happened to the world we live in.

The World......the planet gives up. Something like the Armageden in the Bible.

I'm afraid I see these things every time I look at the Majors. I see them not as things that can/will/may happen to us, but I see it as the history and the future of the planet and mankind itself. Why I see it like this I haven't got a clue......I wish I knew. Maybe this is why I find the Tarot disturbs me on some level.....not that I'm against it, or dislike it....I'm facinated by it....but I think that I see things in it that others maybe don't see.

Ang x
 

kwaw

Ange said:
The Magician......and this is where I hope to not offend anyone who is religious......might the Magician have been Jesus....one who could make anything happen, heal the sick, turn the water into wine etc....

In The cursur o the world A Northumbrian poem of the XIVth century written in middle English, in the section ‘How Jesus was first put to School’, a teacher amazed by his pupil says:

12248 A tregetour* i hope he be,Or elles godds self es he
12249 Or sum angels wit him deles
12250 lede his wordes þat he meles.


Later in the poem [Pilates Letter To Rome] Pilate writes:

18555 Of mani wranges þai him wreid,
18556 And mani lesing on him lieid,
18557 And said he was a tregetour*,
18558 And again þair lau traitur.


*tregetour (n.)
Also tregetoure, tregettour(e, tregitour, trejetur, trejectour, trechetour, trigettur.
[OF tresjetëor, tregiteor, AF treget(t)our, tregetur, trejectour.]
(a) An entertainer, a sleight-of-hand artist, a juggler, an illusionist, etc.; (b) one who practices black magic, a sorcerer; ~ ayen laue, a heretic (prob. from erroneous transposition with traitour n.); (c) a deceiver, charlatan; (d) as surname.

In Chaucer’s House of Fame we can find an example of the tregetour performing the cup and ball game with a walnut shell at his table:

1277 Ther saugh I Colle tregetour
1278 Upon a table of sycamour
1279 Pleye an uncouth thyng to telle --
1280 Y saugh him carien a wynd-melle
1281 Under a walsh-note shale.


If the experts of Middle English have it right the object he shells is a small representation or token of a windmill? Christ as a child was symbolised as playing with a toy windmill; and there is also a possible play ‘mill’ between the above wynd-melle and meal meles; as in “sum angels wit him deles / lede his wordes þat he meles” .** [/i]

Of the walnut William Langland wrote:

141 Preisede pouerte for beste • yf pacience hit folwe,
142 And boþe bettere and blessedere • by meny folde þan richesse;
143 Thauh hit be sour to suffre • þer comeþ a swete after.
144 As in a walnote, with-oute • ys a byter barke,
145 And after þat biter barke • be þe shale aweye,
146 Ys a curnel of comfort • kynde to restorie;
147 So, after, pouerte and penaunce • pacientliche [y]take,
148 Makeþ man haue mynde in god • and hus mercy craue,
149 The whiche is curnel of comfort • for alle cristene saules.
PASSUS XIII Incipit passus tercius [de dowel] c.1362-1393

So yes 'tregetour' may be seen as Christ, and / or antichrist as in þe day of dome and of takens þat sal cum byfor (the day of doom and of signs that shall come before) from The pricke of conscience (stimulus conscientiæ) another Middle English Northumbrian poem by Richard Rolle of Hampole, 1290?-1349 (lines 4210-4230) :

For þus in þe first he sal be born and bredde,
And in þe secunde be nuryst, and regne in þe thredde.
He sal gader fast til hym þan
Alle þat of þe devels crafte can,
Als negremanciens and tregettours,
Wiches and false enchauntours,
Þat þe devels crafte sal hym ken
Whar-thurgh he sal decayve þe men.
Afterwarde thurgh ledyng of þe fende
He sal even to Ierusalem wende;
And þar sal he duelle in þat cité
And in myddes þe temple make his se,
And say til alle þat þar sal won,
Þat he es Crist, Goddes son,
And mak þe folk hym to honour;
And sal say þat he es þair saveour.
He sal say þat na right cristen man
Was never byfor his tym bygan,
Bot fals anticristes he sal þam calle;
And say þai lyved in fals trowthe alle
Þat has bene fra þe worldes bygynnyng
Until þe tyme of his commyng.

And there were and are those people, as Erasmus wrote, who "do make Christe a iugler or a trogeter and a wonderfull deceiver o men."

Kwaw
** As in Christian interpretations of the common trope of mill, meal, bread (e.g. as many kernels of wheat become one in the loaf; communion of members in the body of christ); and also reference to the seperation of good from evil at the second coming Two women will be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left. And remember too the juggler's magic words hocus pocus or hoc est corpus.
 

kwaw

kwaw said:
And there were and are those people, as Erasmus wrote, who "do make Christe a iugler or a trogeter and a wonderfull deceiver o men."

Which was one of the charges brought against Giordano Bruno, as accounted by Christian Bartholmèss, that "Christ is not God, but was a magician who deceived men, and for this reason he was justly hung (impiccato), and not crucified and that the prophets and apostles were corrupt men and magicians who were hanged for the most part."

"que Christ n'est pas Dieu, mais a été un magicien illustre; qu'il a trompé les hommes, que pour cette raison il a été justement pendu (impiccato), et non crucifié; que les prophètes et les apôtres ont été des hommes corrompus, des magiciens, et furent pendus pour la plupart."

Christum non esse Deum, sed fuisse magum insignem et hominibus illusisse, ac propterea merito suspensum (Italice impiccato), non crucifixum esse; prophetas et apostolos fuisse homines nequam, magos, et plerosque suspensos.

Kwaw

Jordano Bruno de Christian Bartholmèss (1846) p.337
http://books.google.fr/books?id=fChIAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA337&dq=&as_brr=1&ie=ISO-8859-1

Erasmus quote:
"Neither are the Manicheis lesse mad... which do gyve unto Christ from parte of the Diuine nature: but they do stiffly affirm that he toke upon hym mannes body nat a very body in dede: but only a phantafticall body likewise as we do rede that aungels... have otherwhiles apered i bodily shape and lykeness unto men. These persons do make Christe a iuglere or a trogeter and a wonderful deciever of men. But a phantasme is nat borne of a woman."

A playne and godly exposytion or declaration of the commune crede : (which in the Latin tonge is called Symbolum apostolorum) : and of the .x. commaundementes of Goddes law (1533) Erasmus, Desiderius, p.65

http://www.archive.org/stream/aplayneandgodlye00erasuoft
 

Cerulean

I enjoyed reading all this

Kraw's contribution to the thoughts--as usual--give radiant food for thought.

Ange, thank you for giving more insight into your thoughts. I could see how you could find creation, green wisdom, the warning of nature and environmental concerns and hope for better or forbidding truth coming to play in your path to the majors. I believe you aren't the only one to see events and passages of truths/time. I linked below to an older form of tarot designs and wonder if you'd enjoy looking at them and thinking of meanings as well...

I was wondering if you'd like to peek a bit at an older "Etteilla-style" design--in this particular Grand Etteilla, I like to look at the majors.

http://www.tarot.com/tarot/decks/index.php?deckID=9

In this deck...I added some thoughts below. The cycle is different to me because of the designs...it is a more personal journey when I look at the majors...perhaps if these designs are interesting to you, they still might fit your framework or add a different aspect to how you view the majors? I added my own notes in hopes they might be helpful.

-the Fool as a begger,

-the Magician as an entertainer,

-The High Priestess as Eve...

-The Empress as the creation of life on the earth, birds and fishes

-The Emperor as Day to Night,

-The Heirophant as a radiant sun causing moisture and rain for life-giving atmosphere,

-The Lovers as an earthly marriage between opposites, or choices,

-The Chariot as physical triumph or beginning of the journey,

-Justice as a balance and should rightfully follow as number eight, as this is an old fashioned deck.(In the pictures, Strength was placed in the eighth position, but the number of the card is 11 and it should follow the Wheel at the tenth card, as the old-fashioned decks used to place the card.)

-The Hermit who is the pilgrim who walks outside, beyond a pillar in front of him and with an old temple or stone building in back (the building looks similar to the one in the Tower)

-The Wheel of Fortune with a monkey, mouse and climbing being, all equally products of nature's creation--whose on top? Oh, time and the turn of the wheel of fate will tell...notice the serpents...

-Strength as 11, where she tempers savage nature with soothing words and hands and her being

-Prudence or the Hanged Man--where the difference is that Prudence as one of the cardinal virtues adds another dimension...there is wisdom in the staff that she carries.

-Death is the traditional grim reaper, with a foundation of stone behind him...but even as the work of man as a building seems to stand, we also face outside our own man-made structures certain things: mortality, the soft sky, the green field.

-Temperance, our angel of life-giving waters.

-Devil - materialism and physical bonds and blindness--we chain ourselves

-Tower--here a structure we might have called in the past 'the house of god-beings' may pass away and crumble to the right under the guise of ligntning and natural elements...even though we believe these manmade structures are protected and whole.

-Star - faith and promise of hope and nurturing from our vulnerable selves...innermost and stripped of all falsity

-Sun--here creation of a hearth in the background, the passion of humanity in
the form of innocent children who can stand hand-in-hand, and a star that guides us toward good and enlightened selves

-Moon--here the savage and the secure lie together beneath two pillars constructed with truer ideals in mind. No grand towers; only pillars in the night, a calmer moon shining over them quiet and strong.

-Judgement - there is a kind of heavenly arbitration that gives us life back.

-The World - Here we stand, at the end of the cycle, looking beyond. We have been reborn after we lived through these past cycles and the signs of the heavenly with the material world frame our reference in a circle; and as we look back to the past, we hold an olive branch and our hips are wreathed with a garland of flowers. All is united in a more peaceable way.

-----Thanks for reading through this all, if you get through it. The reason I posted this here, is because I just wanted to explain why my views on reading
majors take on a more personal slant. The meanings that I seem to have developed from some of the older tarot pictures sometimes affect how I read the majors. Just my personal take...

Thanks for the interesting discussions, all!

Cerulean
 

kwaw

þe day of dome and of takens þat sal cum byfor

Ange said:
... Something like the Armageden in the Bible.

I'm afraid I see these things every time I look at the Majors. I see them not as things that can/will/may happen to us, but I see it as the history and the future of the planet and mankind itself. Why I see it like this I haven't got a clue......I wish I knew. Maybe this is why I find the Tarot disturbs me on some level.....not that I'm against it, or dislike it....I'm facinated by it....but I think that I see things in it that others maybe don't see.

The fool's or soul's journey to its return from exile to the new jerusalem present in the sequence of the tarot is not only a personal journey of the soul through an individuals life, but the journey of the world soul through history; the providential hand of God directing mankind / the world from its fall (XV) to its restoration in the world to come (XXI). The tarot sequence is in fact commonly interpreted in part at least as an apocalyptic trope, something which it seems you have read into it yourself with your personal intuition of the day of doom and the tokens that shall come before.

Kwaw
 

Splungeman

I would hope that our future as a species is not quite so bleak. I do not agree with "how the world is now...unstable..." This is to me looking at things pessimistically. The world is no more unstable than it has always been. Was the world stable in medieval times? In the 40s or 50s? At any given moment in history there are people flourishing and people suffering. People healing and people killing and inflicting all kinds of brutalities on one another.

If all that refers to is the state of the environment, then there are times in our planet's history when the environment was much more unstable. The planet has actually gone through quite a long period of relative stability recently when you look at its history as a whole. Granted, all it ever takes is some kind of catastrophe (ie a Tower moment) like an asteroid from space, a caldera forming volcanic explosion, or a global nuclear war to throw the planet into turmoil.

I don't think we'll see a time when there is no ozone layer. I think we have the canny ability to figure out a way out of that mess. And I cannot accept that our final chapter as told by The World is some armageddon event, which by the way, refers to a book in the Bible I consider no different or more significant than any other prophetic tome predicting worldwide divine upheaval (of which there are many) in which those on the prophet's team are spared and those not are thrown into torment.

Predicting calamity always gets more attention than predicting restoration or hope. It's also a safe bet. At some point the prediction of misery and woe will come true. It's a further symptom of our species' enslavement to fear...and here I think the Devil card is appropriate. The Devil is that which keeps us chained to our tribal mentalities and fears. It keeps the cycle of peace, war, peace, war, ever continuous.

I would hope The World card signifies our escape from that cycle, our liberation from the primitive fears that cause us to brutalize one another. Final victory over the Devil. Perhaps even our uniting as a species and exploring the reaches of the universe...free from fear and free even from the planet that sired us.

That's what I hope.