rwcarter
What layouts are people aware of for studying the interactions between the cards of the Major Arcana?
My interest in this subject was first piqued by dangerdork's thread on what has come to be known as the Seven Stations. (You can see this thread here: http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=84592)
Basically, the cards are laid out as follows:
Seven Stations Layout
....3...6...9..12..15..18..21
0...2...5...8..11..14..17..20
....1...4...7..10..13..16..19
Each of the seven columns has a theme and each of the three rows is a path. (You can check the thread for more details.)
In looking to see how/if the the Seven Stations could be applied to decks with more than 22 Majors, I discovered something called the Chain in the book "The Complete New Tarot" by Onno and Rob Docters van Leeuwen. They are the creators of De Tarot in de Herstelde Orde, an 80 card deck that adds Jupiter (+, Truth) and Juno (-, Intuition) back into the Major Arcana. The Chain is laid out as follows:
The Chain Layout (with 24 cards)
..2...-...7...10...13...+...18...21
0...3...5...8...11...14...16..19
..1...4...6...9...12...15...17...20
They also show the progression of the layout as Juno and Jupiter are obscured by the Priest and Priestess. The final layout with Jupiter hidden behind the Priest and Juno hidden behind the Priestess becomes:
The Chain Layout (with 22 cards)
..2...5...8..11..14..17..20
0...3...6...9..12..15..18..21
..1...4...7..10..13..16..19
(As an aside, the Station designations from the Seven Stations layout can be applied to the Chain of 22 Majors. I haven't figured out (yet!) what the 8th station would be with 24 Majors.)
So, excluding the 0, the middle row of the Chain has all the same cards as the top row of the Seven Stations, but the two rows have different meanings. The top rows of both layouts deal with Spiritual issues, but they contain completely different cards!!!!!
The first thought that crossed my mind was that one of the systems must be wrong. Well, that thought lasted for a few seconds before an even greater thought occurred - it doesn't really matter HOW the cards are laid out because ALL of the Majors should be able to interact with one another and by studying those interactions I would gain invaluable knowledge of the Major Arcana.
So, of course, I couldn't stop there. In a multi-subject notebook that I used when I first started studying my first decks many years ago, I had written down two other layouts and applied them to those decks. Unfortunately I don't remember which book(s) I got them from. (If anyone recognizes them, I'd love to know where they originated.) One's a 3x7 layout and the other is a 3x9 layout:
3x7 Layout
..............0...............
1...2...3...4...5...6...7.
8...9..10..11.12.13..14
15.16.17..18.19.20..21
Cards 1-7 represent the Body and are Powers and Potencies
Cards 8-14 represent the Mind and are Laws or Agencies
Cards 15-21 represent the Spirit and are Conditions or Effects
The relationships are read down in columns as "The powers/potencies of (card) work through the laws/agencies of (card) to modify the conditions/effects of (card)."
3x9 Layout
.1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9
10..11.12.13.14..15.16..17.18
19..20.21.22
The cards are laid out by their numerological association (and the Fool is assigned 22 instead of 0). The associations are determined by reading down the columns to see what similarities the cards with the same reduced number have. There are 3 cards in the first four columns and two cards in the last five columns.
So I spent quite a bit of time on Sunday creating spreadsheets in Excel. I applied each of the four layouts (Seven Stations, Chain, 3x7 and 3x9) to four different types of decks - Golden Dawn/Rider Waite Smith-based decks with the "traditional" numbering of the Majors, the Mythic Tarot which renumbered some of the Majors, the Navigators Tarot of the Mystic SEA which renumbered ALL of the Majors and the Restored Tarot with its 24 Majors. Then I created spreadsheets for each of the decks and created worksheets for each of the layouts. (There's also a Minor Arcana layout for the Seven Stations, but that's not the purpose of this thread.)
In a glance, I can see how the different numbering of the Majors controls which cards interact with other cards and I can see how the different layouts change the interactions of the cards in a given deck.
I know there have to be other layouts for examining the interactions of the Majors. I actually found a couple in Mary K. Greer's Tarot series of the 80's (Tarot for Your Self, Tarot Constellations and Tarot Mirrors) that I'll have to add in to the mix. I went to those books cause I thought that might be where I got the 3x7 layout from. She has two 3x7 layouts in Tarot Mirrors, but neither of them is the one I listed above.
I know I could just as easily randomly place cards next to/above/below each other and see what their interactions are, but I'm a little too methodical (could you guess?) for that. So I would love it if people could either post layouts they know of and/or use for the purpose of studying the interactions of the Majors or point me to layouts in books (book name, author and layout name should be enough info to get me started).
Sorry for the long post, but I guess I had a lot to get off my chest....
Rodney
My interest in this subject was first piqued by dangerdork's thread on what has come to be known as the Seven Stations. (You can see this thread here: http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=84592)
Basically, the cards are laid out as follows:
Seven Stations Layout
....3...6...9..12..15..18..21
0...2...5...8..11..14..17..20
....1...4...7..10..13..16..19
Each of the seven columns has a theme and each of the three rows is a path. (You can check the thread for more details.)
In looking to see how/if the the Seven Stations could be applied to decks with more than 22 Majors, I discovered something called the Chain in the book "The Complete New Tarot" by Onno and Rob Docters van Leeuwen. They are the creators of De Tarot in de Herstelde Orde, an 80 card deck that adds Jupiter (+, Truth) and Juno (-, Intuition) back into the Major Arcana. The Chain is laid out as follows:
The Chain Layout (with 24 cards)
..2...-...7...10...13...+...18...21
0...3...5...8...11...14...16..19
..1...4...6...9...12...15...17...20
They also show the progression of the layout as Juno and Jupiter are obscured by the Priest and Priestess. The final layout with Jupiter hidden behind the Priest and Juno hidden behind the Priestess becomes:
The Chain Layout (with 22 cards)
..2...5...8..11..14..17..20
0...3...6...9..12..15..18..21
..1...4...7..10..13..16..19
(As an aside, the Station designations from the Seven Stations layout can be applied to the Chain of 22 Majors. I haven't figured out (yet!) what the 8th station would be with 24 Majors.)
So, excluding the 0, the middle row of the Chain has all the same cards as the top row of the Seven Stations, but the two rows have different meanings. The top rows of both layouts deal with Spiritual issues, but they contain completely different cards!!!!!
The first thought that crossed my mind was that one of the systems must be wrong. Well, that thought lasted for a few seconds before an even greater thought occurred - it doesn't really matter HOW the cards are laid out because ALL of the Majors should be able to interact with one another and by studying those interactions I would gain invaluable knowledge of the Major Arcana.
So, of course, I couldn't stop there. In a multi-subject notebook that I used when I first started studying my first decks many years ago, I had written down two other layouts and applied them to those decks. Unfortunately I don't remember which book(s) I got them from. (If anyone recognizes them, I'd love to know where they originated.) One's a 3x7 layout and the other is a 3x9 layout:
3x7 Layout
..............0...............
1...2...3...4...5...6...7.
8...9..10..11.12.13..14
15.16.17..18.19.20..21
Cards 1-7 represent the Body and are Powers and Potencies
Cards 8-14 represent the Mind and are Laws or Agencies
Cards 15-21 represent the Spirit and are Conditions or Effects
The relationships are read down in columns as "The powers/potencies of (card) work through the laws/agencies of (card) to modify the conditions/effects of (card)."
3x9 Layout
.1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9
10..11.12.13.14..15.16..17.18
19..20.21.22
The cards are laid out by their numerological association (and the Fool is assigned 22 instead of 0). The associations are determined by reading down the columns to see what similarities the cards with the same reduced number have. There are 3 cards in the first four columns and two cards in the last five columns.
So I spent quite a bit of time on Sunday creating spreadsheets in Excel. I applied each of the four layouts (Seven Stations, Chain, 3x7 and 3x9) to four different types of decks - Golden Dawn/Rider Waite Smith-based decks with the "traditional" numbering of the Majors, the Mythic Tarot which renumbered some of the Majors, the Navigators Tarot of the Mystic SEA which renumbered ALL of the Majors and the Restored Tarot with its 24 Majors. Then I created spreadsheets for each of the decks and created worksheets for each of the layouts. (There's also a Minor Arcana layout for the Seven Stations, but that's not the purpose of this thread.)
In a glance, I can see how the different numbering of the Majors controls which cards interact with other cards and I can see how the different layouts change the interactions of the cards in a given deck.
I know there have to be other layouts for examining the interactions of the Majors. I actually found a couple in Mary K. Greer's Tarot series of the 80's (Tarot for Your Self, Tarot Constellations and Tarot Mirrors) that I'll have to add in to the mix. I went to those books cause I thought that might be where I got the 3x7 layout from. She has two 3x7 layouts in Tarot Mirrors, but neither of them is the one I listed above.
I know I could just as easily randomly place cards next to/above/below each other and see what their interactions are, but I'm a little too methodical (could you guess?) for that. So I would love it if people could either post layouts they know of and/or use for the purpose of studying the interactions of the Majors or point me to layouts in books (book name, author and layout name should be enough info to get me started).
Sorry for the long post, but I guess I had a lot to get off my chest....
Rodney