Why is The Moon card usually seen as negative?

SkylerK

ravenest said:
Pardon ?

Hey GD , IMO all the cards have a + and - . Even the Sun card ... and the Emperor and that 'Mars card ' (Tower) ... have a negative side ... the disturbing side of the masculine that women are afraid of. ( Actually I dont like that side of the masculine either ) .

Personally, the only thing I find disturbing about the masculine, is that he might not be masculine enough, when it comes down to it, as it is too often the case....and that is definitely NOT represented by Mars, the Tower or the Emperor...

SkylerK

Barleywine said:
What the Moody Blues said:

Cold-hearted orb that rules the night
Removes the colors from our sight
Red is gray and yellow white
But we decide which is right
And which is an illusion

In a single word, glamour in the old sense of a magic spell. Things seen by moonlight are often illusory, not what they seem to be under that "false" borrowed illumination, and thus not to be trusted. This is not limited to tarot, it has been a supposition of popular culture for a long time.

Very nice, Barleywine. I agree.

SkylerK

chaosbloom said:
I would definitely not place the Moon on the same category as the Tower. Probably not on the same category as Death either. I don't really see it as bad unless the context implies it. In fact, I think that being afraid of the negative aspects of the Moon is part of what's wrong with it. Imaginary fears, shadows that seem longer and darker than they really are. But that's only the downside. The upside is as you said intuition, imagination, dreams. Just because those things are connected to the un-real and inner world doesn't make them inherently bad at all. They're just as essential as the positive qualities of the Sun.

Sure, the Moon as a card (and the feminine side opposite the masculine-Sun side) can be a treacherous place but it's also beautiful and without it everything would be very boring. It's not as if the Sun can't burn you as well but it rarely gets mentioned.

The Moon is infinitely more subtle than the Tower, but can be no less dangerous in the long run. There's an element of deception and disquiet that is not present in the Martian explosion of the Tower, which destroys everything and after the storm, there's the possibility of quiet and hope to re-build on new foundations-the Star. The Moon state can drag on forever, unlike Death, and being there is not pretty. As lefou said, it can drive us crazy-if we aren't already-and, as barleywine implied, when it is about a female, there is the old idea coming back that it is about a female who will use her feminine charms to trick you and deceive you, and possibly drive you to self destruction and losing your soul, much like Eve did with Adam according to folklore.

chaosbloom

SkylerK said:
The Moon is infinitely more subtle than the Tower, but can be no less dangerous in the long run. There's an element of deception and disquiet that is not present in the Martian explosion of the Tower, which destroys everything and after the storm, there's the possibility of quiet and hope to re-build on new foundations-the Star. The Moon state can drag on forever, unlike Death, and being there is not pretty.

The main reason that the Moon is seen as dangerous and negative only is that in the average spread, there will be few uses for a card signifying imagination, dreams and intuition and more for self-deception, illusion and deception in general. You don't need to look out for imagination and dreams, the focus is on what might be dangerous and the Moon gets the short end of the stick because of that.

SkylerK said:
As lefou said, it can drive us crazy-if we aren't already-and, as barleywine implied, when it is about a female, there is the old idea coming back that it is about a female who will use her feminine charms to trick you and deceive you, and possibly drive you to self destruction and losing your soul, much like Eve did with Adam according to folklore.

Eve was deceived herself by the snake, she didn't deceive Adam. Any story that portrays women as deceitful and potentially dangerous is nonsense and I certainly don't ascribe to Abrahamic mythology that includes notions like those. This particular myth, meant to explain human mortality ends up blaming women which is incredibly vile and a huge distortion on the Middle-Eastern mythological background it's based on.

In any case, that has nothing to do with the Moon as I see it. The Triple-formed Hecate rules over the night, the Moon, spirits of the dead and necromancy, magic. Not just as a domain ruler but a protector from them as well. Artemis the Moon goddess was famous for bringing swift, sudden death to women but she is also a goddess that protects motherhood and birth. She's also very famous for killing rapists. Accordingly, her twin brother Apollo can bring swift, sudden death to men, despite being the Sun god. Persephone might be the wife of Hades-Pluto and Queen of the underworld but she also rules earthly wealth and takes pity on lovers separated by death. (Selene, Artemis and Persephone being all faces of the Moon, Hecate the triple-formed)

What does all that mean? That the Moon has power and that feminine passivity does not mean weakness, you can very easily drown in a perfectly calm lake just like you can wither and die in a desert. But recognising that power is no reason to act insecurely and fear it or label it as all negative. It should command respect and appreciation. Lose that nuanced duality of the feminine (same as the masculine) and you end up getting paranoid of witches gathering at night (remnants of Hecatean rituals probably) and organising inquisitions to weed them out.

SkylerK

chaosbloom said:
The main reason that the Moon is seen as dangerous and negative only is that in the average spread, there will be few uses for a card signifying imagination, dreams and intuition and more for self-deception, illusion and deception in general. You don't need to look out for imagination and dreams, the focus is on what might be dangerous and the Moon gets the short end of the stick because of that.

Eve was deceived herself by the snake, she didn't deceive Adam. Any story that portrays women as deceitful and potentially dangerous is nonsense and I certainly don't ascribe to Abrahamic mythology that includes notions like those. This particular myth, meant to explain human mortality ends up blaming women which is incredibly vile and a huge distortion on the Middle-Eastern mythological background it's based on.

In any case, that has nothing to do with the Moon as I see it. The Triple-formed Hecate rules over the night, the Moon, spirits of the dead and necromancy, magic. Not just as a domain ruler but a protector from them as well. Artemis the Moon goddess was famous for bringing swift, sudden death to women but she is also a goddess that protects motherhood and birth. She's also very famous for killing rapists. Accordingly, her twin brother Apollo can bring swift, sudden death to men, despite being the Sun god. Persephone might be the wife of Hades-Pluto and Queen of the underworld but she also rules earthly wealth and takes pity on lovers separated by death. (Selene, Artemis and Persephone being all faces of the Moon, Hecate the triple-formed)

What does all that mean? That the Moon has power and that feminine passivity does not mean weakness, you can very easily drown in a perfectly calm lake just like you can wither and die in a desert. But recognising that power is no reason to act insecurely and fear it or label it as all negative. It should command respect and appreciation. Lose that nuanced duality of the feminine (same as the masculine) and you end up getting paranoid of witches gathering at night (remnants of Hecatean rituals probably) and organising inquisitions to weed them out.

I think there is a slight misunderstanding here. I am not talking about my personal beliefs when I talk about the Adam and Eve story, the perception of the negative feminine who charms and tricks, etc, but about centuries if not millenia of tradition, which is certainly biased and the fruit of paternalistc societies. And like it or not, symbols and even tarot cards stem from that tradition. And it may well be true that in some cases, which we simply do not come across very often, the Moon stands for beautiful things like imagination and magic in the good sense and all that, but when talking about practical tarot reading, the reputation it has is not undeserved in my opinion.

Barleywine

Hmm, I wrote a lengthy reply to the last post and it seems to have become "lost in the ozone." Hopefully it will resurface, since I'm not sure I can recapture my thoughts in the same way.

starburst_au

Interesting that some people view the Moon card as scary...
Yeah, I guess it could be viewed like that - depending on what deck you use and intuitive stuff you pick up on...

I get the shadow side of the moon card, well pick it up in some readings regarding people's mood... But generally I love the moon card... I'm feel i'm strongly linked in with the moon + moon cycles and all the feminine stuff associated with the moon....

Thanks for sharing
Cheers,
SB

chaosbloom

SkylerK said:
I think there is a slight misunderstanding here. I am not talking about my personal beliefs when I talk about the Adam and Eve story, the perception of the negative feminine who charms and tricks, etc, but about centuries if not millenia of tradition, which is certainly biased and the fruit of paternalistc societies. And like it or not, symbols and even tarot cards stem from that tradition.

Okay, and the tradition I pointed to is equally old if not more so. What are you trying to say? That since there are Christian elements in Tarot, the negative interpretation of the card is somehow accurate? There's no accurate and inaccurate interpretation, those things were invented in the 18th century when Tarot started to be used for divination. And it's not as if Graeco-Roman elements are unrelated to Tarot. This reproduction of the Moon card from the Mantegna Tarrocchi depicts Selene on her chariot.

Barleywine

Here's what I think I said:

This gets right to the heart of the matter, mythological and political antecedents aside. I never see the Moon as universally negative, but it can certainly be a mixed bag. In a reading I treat it as a cautionary statement, not to "jump at shadows," so to speak. Before New Age artists overlaid it with a sheen of glamour, all of the old images - up to and including the RWS - implied "proceed with caution." Uncertainty holds sway where the Moon presides. Motives and intentions should be carefully weighed.

Eternus Discipulus

I personally think that the Moon card has been given a bad rap simply as a result of Waite's original (mis)interpretation. I view the Moon Card as unconscious forces - which can be either good or bad, depending on what they are.

Why is The Moon card usually seen as negative?

SkylerK

SkylerK

SkylerK

chaosbloom

SkylerK

Barleywine

starburst_au

chaosbloom

Barleywine

Eternus Discipulus