2 "Missing" Majors from early Tarot Decks

I saw a book in the bookstore the other day that was based on the idea that there are historically 24 Major cards and that modern decks are incomplete because of this. Unfortunately I did not write down the particulars of the book or buy a copy of it. The two missing cards were said to be JUNO and another Greek or Roman god which represent Knowledge for one card and I think Intuition for the other.

Anyone aware of this theory of modern decks being "incomplete" with only 22 Majors? Having the Majors with 24 cards throws a wrench in a lot of systems, for example that the majors correspond to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

This may tie in with your question: In some antique tarot decks (e.g., the Besançon tarot deck) used in Protestant Christian areas, the Papesse and Pope cards were replaced by Juno and Jupiter because of pressure not to have cards that might be construed as pro-Catholic.

http://l-pollett.tripod.com/cards28.htm

24 cards would suggest a link to the Greek alphabet and therefore to the Greek Qabalah (see Kieren Barry, The Greek Qabalah: Alphabetic Mysticism and Numerology in the Ancient World (Weiser) for the background.) However, no 24 card tarot deck has ever been found.

22

augursWell said:

I saw a book in the bookstore the other day that was based on the idea that there are historically 24 Major cards and that modern decks are incomplete because of this. Unfortunately I did not write down the particulars of the book or buy a copy of it.

Click to expand...

22-2 vs. 22+2

However, Cadmus, the founder of Thebes, preceded by several generations
the Trojan War; on this the Greek tradition is unanimous. Tradition also has
it that the Cadmeian alphabet originally consisted of sixteen letters and that
four additional characters were introduced later...

...about the time of the Trojan War.

http://www.varchive.org/dag/cadmus.htm
(this site is a quiet little gold mine of facts)

Oh, perhaps you saw Tarot in the Restored Order...

...and they offer their own Rider-Waite-Smith version. Did you know they believe that the tarot should have 80 cards?

Pictures:

http://www.themysticeye.com/pics/restored.htm

Here's discussion:

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=19749

I may be wrong, but even small looks into their work is singular and surprising to me, not repeated at all among the small sets of card historians that I've read.

It may be refreshing and of interest to many others who enjoy unique variations in their tarot. Or of interest to collectors of RWS variations!

Regards,

Cerulean

Yes, Onno Docters Van Leeuwen was one of the authors. I wasn't prepared yet to spend the money on the book.

The comment above about Juno and Jupiter replacing the Papesse anf Pope I think I've heard before as well as other historical decks with no similarity at all to typical contemporary Majors. The Kaballistic correspondence of the Majors to the Hebrew alphabet makes too much sense to me to want to try and add two more cards which may have been only replacements to two existing cards. Hopefully I will be able to read their theory in more detail at a later time.

Rusty Neon said:

This may tie in with your question: In some antique tarot decks (e.g., the Besançon tarot deck) used in Protestant Christian areas, the Papesse and Pope cards were replaced by Juno and Jupiter because of pressure not to have cards that might be construed as pro-Catholic.

http://l-pollett.tripod.com/cards28.htm

Click to expand...

Very interesting site, thanks.

Also I think one of the early Visconti decks had some extra cards (more than 2 though). There were extras for moral virtues (e.g. temperence; as well as chastity and fortitude or something similar)

The Cary-Yale Visconti has Faith, Hope and Charity, as well as 6 courts for each suit. We're not sure though how many trumps were there originally.

robert

Well, it's kind of like the difference between written English and written Chinese. Written English uses a simple set of characters, our alphabet, to form words and sentences. In Chinese a single character can represent one or more entire words. Because of that there are endless Chinese characters, virtually one for every word you might want to use.

The Minchiate Tarot decks, there is an example on the website link above, tries to include virtues and all of the zodiac signs on their own cards. You could come up with any number of cards, if you put your mind to it, to the extent that the entire deck is nothing but Majors with one card for every concept of your own particular philosophy.

With contemporary Tarot decks it makes sense to just stick to one alphabet, Hebrew (with associated ideas for each letter/Major), and the numbers represented by the pips along with the courts and you get a fairly good set of symbols that can cover most of those concepts.

Sorry, I'm rambling.