RWS suits tell a story in sequence?

Richard

......I want to know who made up this Masonic one , well, actually, first; what IS the Masonic story in the RW discs?
It is an article by Mary Greer entitled The RWS Minor Arcana. It is in the 2006 Llewellyn's Tarot Reader.
 

Richard

There is an interview with Marcus Katz and Tali Goodwin. They also talk a bit about the RWS Minor Arcana. They say the greatest influence was probably Shakespeare and her theater work.
http://www.thehermitslamp.com/Podcasts2014/THL_podcast_Marcus_Tali_final.mp3
So their research was predicated on the assumption that Waite had little or no interest in the Minors, which is the opinion of Robert Place. Of Course, Mary Greer thinks otherwise.

Thanks for the link to the interview. I don't have any books by Katz or Goodwin, and I have lost most of my interest in their new one.

By the way, to me the future of Tarot looks pretty bleak if their prediction is correct that eventually everyone will design and use their own deck. They must have a pretty low view of the established standard decks. The intricacies involved in designing a deck so that it has coherence and internal consistency are not likely to happen automatically, plus the psychic incest of feeding only on your own ideas is not conducive to any sort of growth. I suppose it does not make any difference to those for whom Tarot is nothing more than a fortune telling toy like a glorified Magic 8 Ball.
 

Zephyros

I never understood the whole "lack of interest in the Minors" theory, nor where it came from. What's the source?

In my opinion the cards themselves show Waite had great interest in the Minors, hence my curiosity at where this oft-repeated claim originated. Of course, people also tend to say Crowley had nothing to do with his deck, and it was all Harris. Convenient that both of these decks have the same kind of theories about them, although the rumors of Waite's lack of interest seem to be more prevalent.
 

Teheuti

Waite himself made clear on two occasions that he "spoon-fed" PCS with only some of the Major Arcana. The Court Cards generally follow the Golden Dawn ones found among Westcott's papers (possibly drawn by Moina Mathers). Obviously, he gave Pixie direction on all the Majors. I feel he left much of the specific imagery in the Minors up to Pixie, with some exceptions.

Swords and Pentacles are the most specifically Masonic suits with Swords being the Hiram Abif story (3rd Degree Masonry) and Pentacles following his outline of the role of the Initiate that he gives in Encyclopedia of Freemasonry. Three illustrations from the the Hiram Abif ritual carry elements that appear in the cards. Wands and Cups are more Grail, with Cups being the most literal illustration of a story: the Joseph of Arimathea story in The Metrical Romance of Robert de Borron (as Waite retold it in his book on The Holy Grail, published the same year as the deck). The 2006 Llewellyn's Tarot Reader was a much earlier report on my research and has been superceded by new findings.

It's also pretty obvious that Waite gave Pixie texts to work from - she was trained as a book illustrator (that is: how to illustrate a text). It's clear that with the time constraints, she drew very much from her own store of imagery, adapting visual elements from other of her works and from her surroundings.

Marcus and Tali have uncovered previously unknown sources for some of her images, some of which are very convincing and some which deserves consideration only in light of the truly convincing evidence.
 

re-pete-a

Thanks for that link, LRichard...

As an uneducated lay person I find it extremely difficult to accept that a person can create a deck of pictorial cards with an extra card, 14 , by four suits...without any prior knowledge of what they are ...in supposedly 5 months of casual work....Somebody would have had to periodically consult with PCS...in order to OK the progress ... and to accept the final product before payment...

I accept that she may /did call upon her knowledge of the stage and her ability to draw for advertisements and posters as a backup...but she would have needed an information base to work from ... and permission to do it...
 

ravenest

Swords and Pentacles are the most specifically Masonic suits with Swords being the Hiram Abif story (3rd Degree Masonry) and Pentacles following his outline of the role of the Initiate that he gives in Encyclopedia of Freemasonry. Three illustrations from the the Hiram Abif ritual carry elements that appear in the cards. Wands and Cups are more Grail, with Cups being the most literal illustration of a story: the Joseph of Arimathea story in The Metrical Romance of Robert de Borron (as Waite retold it in his book on The Holy Grail, published the same year as the deck). The 2006 Llewellyn's Tarot Reader was a much earlier report on my research and has been superceded by new findings.

Thanks, but still in the dark a bit (must be that blindfold) ... is what you outline above incorporating the 'new findings' ?

So if I get a copy of 2006 its dated, so I probably wont do that. Thanks for the above info but its a very brief outline... and I am still unclear - it reads like;

+ swords outline the story of Hiram Abif (which 3rd degree is based on) but not the ritual itself ... just the story ?

+ Pentacles follow an outline of the role of the initiate, according to Waite, that was written in his Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and not the initiations or ceremony itself ?

+ Three illustrations from the the Hiram Abif ritual carry elements that appear in the cards ? To me that seems to mean that ' the Hiram Abif ritual' (and there I assume you mean 3rd degree)in printed forms has illustrations within it ( from Waite's Encyclopedia ? ) and three of those illustrations have things in them that also appear in some sword cards (or pentacle cards? ) ?



Sorry, it just seems a round about way of saying or hinting at things. If , for example, one said, 'In Waite's Freemasonic Encyclopaedia, the 3rd degree ritual illustration shows a compass being .... and in the X of swords or discs shows a compass being .....

Then I could easily understand where its coming from. ... But no one has ever done that and I dont have the Tarot reader and its superseded anyway.

Would you detail it more here or are you saving it for publication?
 

Teheuti

I was saving it for teaching and publication. I'm not sure now. If I detailed it all here it would take several pages. Basically, the answers to all your questions are yes.
 

Zephyros

How knowledgeable was PCS? The Minors, even without knowing anything about the Waite imfluences, do show GD influences, the progression of the Tree, even subtle hints as to the decans. The make structural sense.

If it wasn't Waite who "spoonfed" her the information, would she be in a position to know what to do? They don't even seem to be based on divinatory meanings but on the source material.
 

Richard

How knowledgeable was PCS? The Minors, even without knowing anything about the Waite imfluences, do show GD influences, the progression of the Tree, even subtle hints as to the decans. The make structural sense.

If it wasn't Waite who "spoonfed" her the information, would she be in a position to know what to do? They don't even seem to be based on divinatory meanings but on the source material.
Presumably she did not even have access to Book T, yet the images are not incompatible with the Decan titles.

That they sometimes do not seem to be in accord with the divinatory meanings in PKT may be part of the reason why it is believed by some that Waite had no interest in the minors, but other factors obviously call into question this conclusion.