Richard
Maybe so. I'm not sure. If so, it would have been a strange statement to include in a book such as PKT, about half of which is devoted to divination.
Reading Marseille VS RWS
Kingdubrock
I must confess that my post was a bittongue-n-cheek...
Personally, I am an esotericist, and my approach to the TdM is anything but mundane.
Ah, sorry. I misunderstood because internet.
Kingdubrock
This is probably my own lack of imagination here, because while I wholeheartedly agree with you about the trickster/con aspect of classical representations/identities of the magus figure, I tend to project a Golden Dawn person like MacGregor Mathers, dressed to the 9's, being very serious about their ceremonial magick activities on that card. But even still, Crowley (who I confess to not admiring) seemed to possess a substantial trickster aspect to his personality.
Kingdubrock
Maybe so. I'm not sure. If so, it would have been a strange statement to include in a book such as PKT, about half of which is devoted to divination.
I could be wrong but if I recall (havent read that book in ages and ages) his attitude was sort of "if you *must* use it for fortune telling, let me set the appropriate tone here.." - kinda thing.
Kingdubrock
My own sense of an "esoteric" aspect to the TDM, or at least a representation of a tradition or teaching or special narrative, which had a particular purpose beyond gaming, is that it is there. For me, the two extremes of projecting something foreign on it as being its *true* significance and stridently denying there is any such significance or purpose are merely somewhat hardened and competing agendas to make the cards into what one wants them to be.
To understand that the aristocratic decks often portrayed the aristocrats who commissioned the cards, or that some of the other images were common in the "triumph parades" or that the Mamluk cards portrayed basic polo sticks etc is helpful, imo, in grounding them in their historical context.
But as LRichard mentioned, to assume we know everything about how people viewed these images and symbols, (whether in a parade, a mamluk court, in bedtimes stories, in the streets, brothels and gambling dens, craft guilds or whatever) is misguided.
As well, while the Visconti-type decks appear to have notable variations in terms of additions, deletions and cards we dont even know whether they had or not, and the mamluk and Chinese cards, as far as I know didnt even have an elaborate trump system, what seems clear to me is that at least in the Marseille tradition, a careful (up to a point) systematization and ordering occurred and was preserved. As well, as Wilfried Houdouin shows in his wonderful deck and book, there seems to be convincing evidence that a pretty damned refined (sacred) geometric grid was being applied to layout and proportions. In this regard, at the very least, in the TDM cards we are probably looking at the kind of knowledge about structure and proportion (ie Vitruvius etc), generally kept within the domain of architects, masons, "initiated" craftspeople, great artists etc.
To understand that the aristocratic decks often portrayed the aristocrats who commissioned the cards, or that some of the other images were common in the "triumph parades" or that the Mamluk cards portrayed basic polo sticks etc is helpful, imo, in grounding them in their historical context.
But as LRichard mentioned, to assume we know everything about how people viewed these images and symbols, (whether in a parade, a mamluk court, in bedtimes stories, in the streets, brothels and gambling dens, craft guilds or whatever) is misguided.
As well, while the Visconti-type decks appear to have notable variations in terms of additions, deletions and cards we dont even know whether they had or not, and the mamluk and Chinese cards, as far as I know didnt even have an elaborate trump system, what seems clear to me is that at least in the Marseille tradition, a careful (up to a point) systematization and ordering occurred and was preserved. As well, as Wilfried Houdouin shows in his wonderful deck and book, there seems to be convincing evidence that a pretty damned refined (sacred) geometric grid was being applied to layout and proportions. In this regard, at the very least, in the TDM cards we are probably looking at the kind of knowledge about structure and proportion (ie Vitruvius etc), generally kept within the domain of architects, masons, "initiated" craftspeople, great artists etc.
Lee
"It will be seen that, except where there is an irresistible suggestion conveyed by the surface meaning, that which is extracted from the Trumps Major by the divinatory art is at once artificial and arbitrary, as it seems to me, in the highest degree. But of one order are the mysteries of light and of another are those of fantasy. The allocation of a fortune-telling aspect to these cards is the story of a prolonged impertinence."
BSwett
"The common divinatory meanings which will be given in the third part are largely arbitrary attributions, or the product of secondary and uninstructed intuition: or, at the very most, they belong to the subject on a lower plane, apart from the original intention"
These are the kind of words that make me really appreciate Mr. Waite.
And he continues....
"If the Tarot were of fortune-telling in the root-matter thereof, we should have to look in very strange places for the motive which devised it- to Witchcraft and the Black Sabbath, rather than any Secret Doctrine."
(Quotes from the PKT, part II. The doctrine behind the Veil)
Kingdubrock
I like this interview Enrique conducted with J.C. Flornoy...
http://newsletter.tarotstudies.org/2010/05/enriquez-interviews-flornoy/
http://newsletter.tarotstudies.org/2010/05/enriquez-interviews-flornoy/
Richard
I like it too. It is interesting that many of those who have been involved in the re-creation of the TdM (such as Flornoy, Camoin, Marteau, and Hadar) are much more creative, imaginative, and (I dare suggest with due trepidation) esoterically inclined, than the hard-core Tarot historians who emphasize the exoteric playing card aspect with sledge-hammer intensity.
prudence
If I were to be honest, (with myself mostly) I would note the same thing. Look up the Noblet threads, and what was said in regarding the Hanged Man/Le Pendu card.
