Quote:
Originally Posted by Mallah
What I like about it is that all that esoteric stuff is there in the deck, and if I know it, (and to the degree I understand it) I can access it and be reminded of it and use it in a reading. If I don't know it/understand it, I can gloss right over it and still use the deck. The same comes with working with clients. I don't have to get into all that stuff with them...I can let it ride "behind the scenes", where it is tastefully obscured....
If I use a TdM deck, (which I love,) it's debatable whether it's depicted AT ALL: it's so concealed...to the degree that we normally consider it an exoteric pack...It's all SO veiled, in fact, that many doubt if it was ever intended at all....(But if not, then who is the veiled Papess?? She is mystery itself; why the hell is she there if there is no esoteric "gnosis" suggested?) When the material is so delightfully NOT THERE, I have to remember it-- it is called forth from my inner storehouse of tools--or not--on a case by case basis.
With a deck like THOTH which is in-your-face occult, it's hard to ignore all the occult refrences...it's all hangin' out...like hard-core porn...nothing subtle about it...which was the function of the deck: "It's TIME for this stuff to be REVEALED....ta-DAAHHH...." And while it's all "revealed" visually, like a dream, it takes some time (a lot of time) to begin to put it all together and "get" what it all means.
You can kinda-sorta see all this in the Fools and the Magi from these decks.... The TdM and historical decks before Waite all had "Low" Magicians and Fools (the Magician wasn't even called that until Wirth, I don't think...he was Le Bateleur...the street performer...the Fool was a raggle taggle gypsy.
(BTW I believe that these two cards in the TDM suggest how the deck became associated with Gypsies...these two would wander into town, beg or trick us out of our money, and be gone the next morning...)
The decks after RWS seem to feature HIGH fools and magi...occultists think very highly of themselves.
And this historical unfolding/development/evolution is reflected in the dating of the decks too...Tdm came first, then RWS, then Thoth. It's like the RWS is the middle way, the compromise deck, between the two extremes.
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Interesting post. A few additional thoughts...
Already the basic structure of the Tarot as it ties in with Numerology is highly esoteric. Then the symbolism even in a
seemingly so simple deck like the ToM is as occult as it gets - and not only as far as The Popess is concerned. (Bear in mind, 'occult' means
concealed.)
Doesn't The Juggler have all the four suits among his tools? Isn't his hat suggestive of a lemniscate? Doesn't his posture say "as above, so below"?
If throwing all that symbolism in was a totally conscious thing in the earliest versions of the Tarot or if it developed out of the collective unconscious, I, too, cannot say with certainty. But there it is, if you but have the eyes to see it! Esoteric systems do manifest in gradual stages as if pulled toward a Great Attractor by a
causa finalis - as the examples of Astrology and Kabbalah show us as well.
Then there is the view taken by Sallie Nichols in her book
Jung and Tarot that a deck like the ToM stands without description as to what the symbolism means, which she contrasts with modern occult decks like the RWS. This is true; but maybe the description has simply been lost long ago. Even Nichols ventures out i.e. into Egyptian mythology when talking about The Wheel of Fortune (if my memory serves me right).
To illustrate, the symbolism in decks like the RWS and the Thoth is open to infinite interpretation, too, notwithstanding the books written about them by their creators. Even those books invite a highly creative attitude toward them! So many threads on AT demonstrate this unambiguously. So, the way I see it, all those artificial distinctions break down in the final analysis.
