The High Priestess vs The Moon

Thirteen

High Priestess can have a hidden agenda, the Moon hidden motives. Neither one necessarily has the best interests of the querent at heart.
That's a very good point...but then, don't all the Majors kinda want you to go in their direction only? Being archetypes, they are bias of their way of thinking/feeling/doing. So the Hierophant wants you to join the community and follow traditions to find spiritual truths always, but the Hermit would have you always seek out the truth all on your own.

Then, again, we're looking at them in the abstract. Questions and spreads are how we make sure that we know this advice is what is best for a particular situation (or to be avoided).

Likewise the HPS and the Moon. Both want you to do things *their* way, but their way isn't always right and question/spreads are the way we figure out whether to follow their path or avoid it in this or that instance...though, it is possible that unlike some others of the majors, they both know that doing it their way helps their agenda. They may not deceive themselves (or really think) that it's only and purely for your own good.
 

Barleywine

That's a very good point...but then, don't all the Majors kinda want you to go in their direction only? Being archetypes, they are bias of their way of thinking/feeling/doing. So the Hierophant wants you to join the community and follow traditions to find spiritual truths always, but the Hermit would have you always seek out the truth all on your own.

Then, again, we're looking at them in the abstract. Questions and spreads are how we make sure that we know this advice is what is best for a particular situation (or to be avoided).

Likewise the HPS and the Moon. Both want you to do things *their* way, but their way isn't always right and question/spreads are the way we figure out whether to follow their path or avoid it in this or that instance...though, it is possible that unlike some others of the majors, they both know that doing it their way helps their agenda. They may not deceive themselves (or really think) that it's only and purely for your own good.

I think of the Major Arcana the way the Deists used to think about God, whom they said - in essence - created humankind and then walked away, never looking back. So I don't really anthropomorphize the majors at all; they are abstract, and the only desires they hold for us are those we choose to impute to them. As impersonal forces afoot in our lives, the High Priestess and the Moon aren't going to have a tug-of-war for our souls, nor for that matter are the Hierophant and the Devil. But of course, my personal take is that tarot is more hard-headed than soft-hearted anyway. "The Method of Science - the Aim of Religion" is an inspired point of view that is worth contemplating.
 

Thirteen

Well...now I'm really confused!

As impersonal forces afoot in our lives, the High Priestess and the Moon aren't going to have a tug-of-war for our souls, nor for that matter are the Hierophant and the Devil.
:confused: Okay. Now I'm totally confused. If they're impersonal, why take care in trusting either one? I mean, if impersonal means "untrustworthy, then, once again, ALL are untrustworthy (as all are impersonal) and there's no reason to single out HPS & Moon card.

But trusting or not trusting sounds pretty anthropomorphic to me. Especially when you add that "neither one has the best interests of the querent at heart..." Um...well, that suggests that they DO have other interests at heart (and getting us to do something will advance those interests, otherwise, why bother with giving us any advice that is not in our interests?).

Maybe I'm being obtuse, but I can't see how this fits with the deist view that they have walked away from humanity and are leaving us to our own devices. It's kinda hard, after all, to leave something behind that is *always* untrustworthy and not in anyone's best interest ;)
 

Barleywine

:confused: Okay. Now I'm totally confused. If they're impersonal, why take care in trusting either one? I mean, if impersonal means "untrustworthy, then, once again, ALL are untrustworthy (as all are impersonal) and there's no reason to single out HPS & Moon card.

But trusting or not trusting sounds pretty anthropomorphic to me. Especially when you add that "neither one has the best interests of the querent at heart..." Um...well, that suggests that they DO have other interests at heart (and getting us to do something will advance those interests, otherwise, why bother with giving us any advice that is not in our interests?).

Maybe I'm being obtuse, but I can't see how this fits with the deist view that they have walked away from humanity and are leaving us to our own devices. It's kinda hard, after all, to leave something behind that is *always* untrustworthy and not in anyone's best interest ;)

I was wondering whether you were going to catch the contradiction there. :) When storytelling with them, it's hard not to anthropomorphize since client (and even self-) understanding demands familiar tropes. When thinking of them in the abstract, tarot archetypes seem more like intellectual constructs built up around observed human behavior over a long period of time, very much like astrological correspondences. The assumption in that case is that they aren't conscious entities unless we imbue them with that quality through our efforts to grasp how they function in our lives (so it's basically a form of transference or maybe animism). It's almost like they inhabit a parallel universe that we try to penetrate in order to partake of their symbolic wisdom. These notions are probably why I've always appreciated the qabalistic model.