The wands look like, well...

I'm going to be blunt. When I got this deck and looked through it, one of the things that struck me was that many of the wands look particularly like penises. Now, I know wands are a traditional symbol of masculinity so this doesn't surprise me. My main question is whether you think this was intentional on the part of PCS or whether I'm just seeing penises where there aren't any!

GlitterNova said:

I'm going to be blunt. When I got this deck and looked through it, one of the things that struck me was that many of the wands look particularly like penises. Now, I know wands are a traditional symbol of masculinity so this doesn't surprise me. My main question is whether you think this was intentional on the part of PCS or whether I'm just seeing penises where there aren't any!

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There is another option: Perhaps she really did paint penises, but it was from unconscious promptings, not consciously intentional. This would be in accord with Freudian theory. Actually, I'm so accustomed to think of wands and towers as phallic that I seldom give a thought as to whether they are intentionally so.

My first thought was OF COURSE they look like penises, they ARE penises! But after looking at my Rider-Waite, I also thing they are what you are projecting on them to mean. Are you thinking about penis for some reason? Sometimes that is how we get new meanings of the cards (past the LWB) when we start seeing things in the pictures that look like something we have never seen there before.

I think, right now, that the wands in RW look like strength to me, and I am not sure what that means. But for today anyway, not penises for me.

But (slightly off topic, sorry!) as I mentioned on another thread, the Robin Wood Ace of Wands is SUPPOSED to look like a penis: two sunflowers at the base of a Wand with DNA inside? Oh, yes, and Robin confirmed it!
Ace

LRichard said:

Actually, I'm so accustomed to think of wands and towers as phallic that I seldom give a thought as to whether they are intentionally so.

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This.

Also, just consider that in traditional Italian cartomancy rules the Ace of Wands is called "la menghia", or something like that (it's not my dialect, so I wouldn't know), which is an extremely rude word for penis, and some of its most used meanings include "hot sex" and "well-hung".

Actually, as far as the RWS is concerned, I don't think they look particularly like penisis, unless you already know that such association exists, but that's just me. To tell the truth, I've always seen the RWS Tower as particularly phallic... and the Priestess too (I know it doesn't make sense, it's just my debauched imagination)

PS: I just took a look at the Five of Wands and couldn't hold a smile

Thanks for the input! I'm sure Pixie would have known that wands can be about phallic energy, so the more I think about it the more I think it was intentional on her part.

GlitterNova said:

I'm going to be blunt. When I got this deck and looked through it, one of the things that struck me was that many of the wands look particularly like penises. Now, I know wands are a traditional symbol of masculinity so this doesn't surprise me. My main question is whether you think this was intentional on the part of PCS or whether I'm just seeing penises where there aren't any!

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Errrmmm ... not sure what penises look like where you are but they dont look like RW wands here !

RW wand : http://auntietarot.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/rider-waite_8_wands_large.jpg

Local penises: http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/4327426-3x2-940x627.jpg