Is there a canonical non-woowoo history of the tarot?

Zephyros

I know Payne-Towler created the Tarot of the Holy Light, but aside from that not much. What did she write, and why the animosity? I guess the movement hasn't reached my internet. :)
 

kwaw

I know Payne-Towler created the Tarot of the Holy Light, but aside from that not much. What did she write, and why the animosity?

No particular animosity, just a statement of fact. Actually I like much of what she has to say, but she does have an annoying habit of conveying speculation as fact. As well as her role with the Tarot of the Holy Light she is author of The Underground Stream, there are a couple of reviews of it here by Scion and Bonnie Cehovet:

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/books/underground-stream/

Also she writes the ArkLetters for her 'Tarot University':

http://www.tarotarkletters.com/
 

gregory

One person who IMHO covers ALL possibilities completely impartially is Cynthia Giles.
 

Richard

I know Payne-Towler created the Tarot of the Holy Light, but aside from that not much. What did she write, and why the animosity? I guess the movement hasn't reached my internet. :)
For example. Levi's Hebrew letter attributions are correct because they were revealed to him in some extraordinarily high degrees of Continental Freemasonry. The Golden Dawn leaders tried to get into these high degrees but were deemed unworthy. They made up some arbitrary attributions that are wrong because they didn't understand what they were doing. Moreover they appropriated a lot of Levi's ideas but didn't give him credit because they were jealous on account of the Freemasonry thing. This is all in one of the Ark Letters. I didn't take note of which one. Anyhow, Payne-Towler doesn't bother to distinguish fact from BS. Read Scion's review of The Underground Stream. })
 

kwaw

Another example:

“Etteilla must have known and taught these correspondences (Hebrew letter/Tarot) in the late 1700s, because a consortium of his Italian students redacted his Trumps back to the Marseilles model in the years just following his death (see the Cartomancia Italiana Tarot, dated by Kaplan to the beginning of the 19th century)...

“...In Italy, the 19th century Cartomancia restated the esoteric matrix sub-standing Etteilla's Trumps; that Tarot has made it considerably easier to unscramble which of Etteilla's images relate to which Trumps of the older Tarots...”

1. There is no evidence that Etteilla made any correspondences between the Hebrew letters and tarot trumps.

2. The Cartomancia Italiana is a modern reproduction by Solleone of a 19th century hybrid. The pips and courts are from the Jeu de la Princesse first published in 1843 in book form (something significantly greater than the years just following his death (1791). The trumps are a weird mix of some Etteilla like designs and those of the Gumppenberg Della Rocca (c.1835). It is a hybrid that differs so greatly from Etteilla that it strikes me more as pure invention than a representation of Etteilla 'secret teachings' to an Italian consortium. Whatever, it is something of a leap to go from Kaplan's early 19th century (actually closer to mid-19th century or after from the sources it combines - I doubt it is earlier than the French Jeu de la Princesse deck c.1865) to a period 'just after his death.'

3. There is no mystery to unscramble about which of Etteilla's trumps correspond to the TdM trumps, Etteilla himself gives this information (and the Cartomancier Italiana does not follow them!).

4. There is no reference to hebrew letters on the Cartomancier Italiana anyway (Christine seems to think that a conversion to TdM like trumps is sufficient enough demonstration).
 

gregory

Now calm down kwaw and tell me - what do you think of Giles ?
 

kwaw

From what I recall (a while since I read her, and my books are back in an attic in the UK) - Giles is unbiased, level-headed and reliable.
 

gregory

From what I recall (a while since I read her, and my books are back in an attic in the UK) - Giles is unbiased, level-headed and reliable.

Oh good. I thought she seemed safe :) I found her very helpful. So to the OP - go for it :D
 

Zephyros

I wonder what the point of such assertions is. After all, I don't think anyone still believes the GD creation myth of the Cipher Manuscripts, so why go to all the trouble about pushing other fairy tales about others, such as Levi.
 

Richard

I wonder what the point of such assertions is. After all, I don't think anyone still believes the GD creation myth of the Cipher Manuscripts, so why go to all the trouble about pushing other fairy tales about others, such as Levi.
She may not be entirely to blame. It may be a health problem of some sort. I really sometimes wonder if she can tell the difference between facts and her own fantasies.