Tarot Orat said:
That looks very interesting indeed! I'm up for it if 5 other people are too
That's deucedly odd! <shakes head>
nisaba said:
<hero-music> This Sounds Like A Job For The <fanfare> Piedmont-Morgan Visconti! <drumroll>.
Er, it is in another room, and I have a lot of internet stuff to do first - forgive me if I join in later?
Well, I'm back, and armed with my Trusty Pierpont-Morgan Visconti! Don't you just love a deck with 600 years behind it?
Teheuti said:
One method in the "history of ideas" is to examine a myth in light of its expressing an inner need experienced by humanity at large or by a particular group at a particular historical period. (By "myth" I'm including made-up stories that get perpetuated as true. Joseph Campbell has called myth a "public dream.")
Here is the core myth told by Antoine Court de Gébelin:
1) Thoth/Hermes/Mercury (god of hieroglyphs, magic, medicine, etc.)
2) wanted to save from destruction
3) the Knowledge of the Golden Age (also known as Ageless Wisdom/Perennial Philosophy, etc.).
4) He coded it in sacred markings (hieroglyphs) that tell, through pictures that transcend individual languages,
5) the story of humanity's journey along the "Royal Road of Life."
6) These cards express a cosmology (a study of humanity's place in the Universe),
7) disguised as an innocent game.
Here we are looking for the “inner truth” concealed within an “outer lie” (which is another definition of myth). As Cerulean noted, it is because of this myth that almost all of us are involved in tarot.
(When I was younger, I used to talk about truth-in-lies like myths or fiction as "emotional truth").
Card 1: Hermes ... I pulled the Five Coins. Five is a number of change, of rocking back and forth, of instability. If you are in a bad position, instability is good - it promises positive change. If you are in a good position it is worrying, threatening unpleasant change, which is why, I suppose, so many modern Tarot writers have given the Fives a bad rap (thanks, Mr Waite!). In actual fact it is neither good nor bad, it just promises change. As does this godform: the messenger of the gods. All messages bring change with them, as they either inform you of changes that have happened, or cause you to make changes yourself based on their information. And Pentacles? Earth. Hermes in the structure of myth is the substance of the myth: if there is no change, there is no story to be told, no lesson to be learnt.
Card 2: ... wanted to save from destruction ... I pulled the Queen Staves. The Queen Staves is about internalising (queenship) drive, energy and ambition (staveness). So Hermes doesn't just have a passing whim to prevent destruction. In the case of this myth, it is deeply embedded in his very nature: It is not something he would be learning about if it were the Page, nor on show for the Knight, nor ruthless, for the King. No, it is just there, just natural and felt.
Card 3 ... the knowledge of the golden age ... I pulled the Star for this one. This body of knowledge is seen as a hope for the future glory of man. It has been reduced from the burning brilliance of the sunlight at noon to a mere point of light at midnight by the loss of the golden age of the ancients, but that piny pinprick offers a hope that the light of knowledge can be rekindled for the future.
Card 4 ... He coded it in hieroglyphs that transcend individual languages and tell ... I pulled the Pope for this part of the story. Fingers raised in blessing, the Pope, especially in the time this deck was designed, held the "hieroglyphs" of religion and acted as translator: few common people could read and fewer still could read Latin, the language of the Bible. Just as the ancient alphabets needed careful translation , the Pope represents the translation between the spiritual and the material, and carries the lessons in his mind, which he is entrusted to hand on.
Card 5 ... the story of humanity's journey along the road of life ... For this one, I pulled the Wheel of Fortune. You've got to remember this is an ancient deck, older than the oldest known Marseilles decks, and the Wheel reads quite differently than modern Wheels. It is not about change; it is about the journey through life. Centre of the wheel is the pure soul. On the left side, the youth rising from childhood to the powers of adulthood at the top of the wheel, then descending on the right side through middle age, to the bent figure of old age bearing the weight of life on his crippled back. This is the story of us all as we journey through life, watching and doing and learning, until like the elderly man, we eventually crumble.
Card 6: These cards express a cosmology ... Here I pulled the Chariot. Again, we need to remember this is not a modern deck. The chariot here is not about untrammelled force or impetus. Here the horses are disciplined, well-groomed, in lavishly coloured harnesses, and have golden angel-wings. Here, the Charioteer is a pregnant woman, clad all in cloth-of-gold, with a royal crown and aristocratic insignia all over her gown, holding an orb of material rulership. the pregnancy brings to mind creation. The orb in her hand and the many symbols of rulership being to mind the wide world. The horses, neat and disciplined, bring to mind mastery over the world, mastery over the wilderness, the superiority of the rule of mankind even over angelic beings. And yes, 600 years ago, European cosmology was based on worldly power: the world was the centre of everything, and the monarch was the centre of the world. At first I was a trifle disappointed when I saw that the card I pulled wasn't "the World" or something like that: now as I discuss it, it seems an impeccably perfect draw.
CArd 7 ... disguised as an innocent game. I pulled The Sun. A naked, chubby boy probably five years old, stands on a dark surface above ground-level in a posture that reminds me of nothing more than figure-skating, a form of play. Above his head he holds a shining gold mask - perhaps for a game of dress-ups or to appear in disguise or at the theatre? He has tiny little dark wings on his shoulders that are not consistent with his body in any way - is he already dressed up, and just about to put on the mask? A playful image indeed, redolent of games on different levels.
The cards that came up by chance seem rather apposite to this brief rendition of the myth that Teheuti offered us. I am delighted.
