So I went to the local Tarot Meetup the other night, and was soooo stoked to show all this Seven Stations stuff to some actual live people who could appreciate what I was talking about. One of my new friends had even stumbled upon this thread, just that very day. The group's organizer is a Professional and ten times more knowledgeable than me about tarot, and after listening to my blather about patriarchal this and matriarchal that for just a couple minutes, she said, "Oh, the center row is a
synthesis of the other two." A point which had taken me days to reach. So back to, as
Scion would have it, our Hegelian Dialectic.
The Angels, the Virtues, The Inner Path, The Abyss. Those cards that inspired me to start this whole deal. Let's revisit them as the Synthesis portion of the triads we find in each of the Seven Stations.
The HP is the
synthesis of the Magician and the Empress.
The Hierophant is the
synthesis of the Emperor and the Lovers.
Strength is the
synthesis of the Chariot and the Hermit.
Justice is the
synthesis of the Wheel and the Hanged Man.
Temperance is the
synthesis of the Death and the Devil.
The Star is the
synthesis of the Tower and the Moon.
Judgement is the
synthesis of the Sun and the World.
Is this working? I think debating any of the above statements would make a worthwhile activity. Would anyone care to begin? (I'm going to be busy making handouts).
OH, and by the way, as we look at these triads and I continue to ponder different "Seven Stages" or Phases or Steps of various initiatory traditions from Mithraism to Alchemy: I can't BELIEVE nobody commented on my Alchemical Wedding cryptogram. I ALSO can't believe that none of you touchy-feely crunchy granola New Agers didn't point out another
obvious correlation that actually is very very interesting when applied to these triads of cards: Seven chakras. I mean, the colied-snake symbolism, secret tradition, SEVEN colors etc. A tradition which existed for more than a millenium before the first tarots. We can have some great fun with this. I feel a handout coming on.
And I should make another point: Maybe I've been trying too hard to correlate the Seven Stations with these different traditions. Why don't we just throw them out for now? (Not really, but let's put them in their box and wrap them in sik and place them over by the incense burner). We still
have a 7x3 grid. Looking for ways to examine the seven triads we've defined doesn't
have to be in terms of the categories dangerdork made up just a couple weeks ago, does it?
Have a look at this page, and see if you can't find some interesting correlations:
http://www.chakraenergy.com/seven.html
... and even if you can't, well... playing with this perspective on tarot just gave you an excuse to learn something.