Defacing the Rider-Waite

[KariRoad]

Originally Posted by bogiesan

Every week on "Antiques Roadshow," the experts say, "Collectors want the patina of age to be visible on the original surface. This tarot deck would have much more value if you had not refinished it and left it as it was, all stained and torn and fingerprinted and scuzzy."
They also suggest, almost as often, "A properly trained conservator could repair this tarot deck for you and you'd get, oh, say, another $20,000 at auction."

I agree, and that's why whenever I find some old Tarot decks in the bottom of a 12th century Italian well, I call the pope. "Luigi" whisks them away before I can even get my paints out of the box.

[KariRoad]

Originally Posted by LRichard

Most acrylic paints here in the US have a very flexible paint film. (Acrylic = plastic.) However, as you say, it may deteriorate with use.

LRichard, Yes and no. Paint is (to me) poison, card-wise. But what works is the way to go.

On that subject ~ going/motion/force~ I've never attempted to alter VIII or XI on an RWS deck, as much as I'd like to... but in terms of Mathmatical Physics, if we were to return to the roots of the XI "Strength" card, and overcome the politically incorrect aspects of XI "Force" (the modern sense suggesting organized suppression, even brutality) do you think we could get a thread going where Force could be intelligently recognized as Universal Energy in Constant Action? ~ and let Justice get back home to VIII ~!

ie; La Force = the underlying principle found operating in all elements of our lives?

[LRichard]

Originally Posted by KariRoad

LRichard, Yes and no. Paint is (to me) poison, card-wise. But what works is the way to go.

On that subject ~ going/motion/force~ I've never attempted to alter VIII or XI on an RWS deck, as much as I'd like to... but in terms of Mathmatical Physics, if we were to return to the roots of the XI "Strength" card, and overcome the politically incorrect aspects of XI "Force" (the modern sense suggesting organized suppression, even brutality) do you think we could get a thread going where Force could be intelligently recognized as Universal Energy in Constant Action? ~ and let Justice get back home to VIII ~!

ie; La Force = the underlying principle found operating in all elements of our lives?

I think your view of Force/Strength is valid. However, the Strength and Justice interchange was in order that the cards would fall naturally into place on the Leo and Libra paths of the Tree of Life. Since so much of the symbolism in the Rider-Waite is derived from the Golden Dawn's Book T, I doubt that it can be extricated successfully from the Qabalistic correlations. The deck appears superficially to be exoteric, but, rightly or wrongly, it is as thoroughly enmeshed in the western magical tradition as is the Thoth. I don't want to get into a lot of details, but, as an example, Temperance is blatantly in one's face with the symbolism of the Middle Pillar of the Tree. All that stuff can be ignored, of course, but that leaves the problem of weird images that don't make any sense otherwise.

[KariRoad]

Originally Posted by LRichard

I think your view of Force/Strength is valid. However, the Strength and Justice interchange was in order that the cards would fall naturally into place on the Leo and Libra paths of the Tree of Life. Since so much of the symbolism in the Rider-Waite is derived from the Golden Dawn's Book T, I doubt that it can be extricated successfully from the Qabalistic correlations. The deck appears superficially to be exoteric, but, rightly or wrongly, it is as thoroughly enmeshed in the western magical tradition as is the Thoth. I don't want to get into a lot of details, but, as an example, Temperance is blatantly in one's face with the symbolism of the Middle Pillar of the Tree. All that stuff can be ignored, of course, but that leaves the problem of weird images that don't make any sense otherwise.

OK. But please explain The Emperor's long white Waite beard. As either tsaddi or heth (though actually daleth, MARS) how is it conforming to the cult of Crowley to depict a long bearded old man, frozen on a stone throne, as the VITAL sign of Aries?

Doesn't the scam reveal itself at every stage?

XI
La Force

[LRichard]

Originally Posted by KariRoad

OK. But please explain The Emperor's long white Waite beard. As either tsaddi or heth (though actually daleth, MARS) how is it conforming to the cult of Crowley to depict a long bearded old man, frozen on a stone throne, as the VITAL sign of Aries?

Doesn't the scam reveal itself at every stage?

XI
La Force

Crowley claimed to have had an epiphany that Tzaddi (Aquarius) is not The Star, so he interchanged the positions of The Star and The Emperor on the Tree of Life but kept the astrological attributions of the letters. The Emperor thus became Tzaddi/Aquarius and The Star Heh/Aries. (Daleth was the letter of The Emperor in Levi's system, but the Golden Dawn moved The Fool to the Aleph position, so all the Trumps except the last got pushed down one letter.)

I would rather not discuss your scam theory, pro or con, if you don't mind.

ETA. In the Thoth, Crowley restored the Marseille numbering of the Trumps, so that the card corresponding to La Force once more became XI, as the gods originally intended.

Another ETA. I notice that The Emperor does have Aries (along with Tzaddi) on the card. This doesn't agree with the Tzaddi-Aquarius correlation in my edition of The Book of Thoth, page 278. I think the mistake is on the card. The Sepher Yetzirah clearly specifies Tzaddi = Aquarius. It would be going way too far to change that, in my opinion.

Yet another ETA. Waite had nothing to do with any "Crowley cult." Waite's Emperor looks fairly potent to me. Even an Aries can get old. I'm an example.

[LRichard]

This post is mainly to apologize for having gotten off topic with the Emperor-Tzaddi-Aries thing. There are legitimate differences of opinion, and I'm certainly not dogmatic about my own position.

Also, however Justice and Strength are numbered is immaterial to me. I would still put Strength on Path 19 along with Teth and Leo, and Justice would go on Path 22 with Lamed and Libra. As far as I'm concerned, the Golden Dawn's numbering is just for their own convenience and to prevent confusion about the attributions.

So much for defacing the cards. Shame on USG for exhibiting so much possessiveness about the Rider-Waite. Their fairly recent printing of the deck, which I have, shows such scant respect for Smith's images that it almost amounts to contempt.

[KariRoad]

You ROCK LRichard.


USG

[LRichard]

Originally Posted by KariRoad

You ROCK LRichard.

USG

You are very kind, KariRoad!