Interpreting Minors in Marseilles Decks

Lee

Hi, everybody --

I've read that in Europe many people use a system of reading the Minors in Marseilles decks which is based on interpreting the abstract designs, flowers, curlicues, etc., and that there are several books in French which explore this system. I was wondering if anyone knows if there are any books in English based on this system.

Thanks --
Lee
 

jmd

I only rarely check posts in the Reading Tarot Forum... and you certainly post an interesting question.

I do not personally know of any book (in French nor English) which gives a specific meaning to the leaves and flowers (and peculiar object arrangement) of the pip cards of the minor Arcana of the Marseilles deck.

What I do know is that when a card appears in a reading, what may at (oft-) times happen is that the 'branch' formations and the degree of opening of any flower can become really significant and 'speak' in that specific reading.

What is often the case with Marseilles type decks is that their users use a mnemonic key-word numerological system, applied to the 'element' or area of life signified by the suit.

Here, for example, Swords may be related either to Air (common in the English speaking world), Fire (common in both the English speaking world and Continental Europe), or Water (less common but found in Continental Europe). For whichever used, appropriate elemental associations with personal activities will be made.

Swords may alternatively be related to professions or aspects of one's life which deal with the Law, with officialdom/bureaucracy, with struggles, &c..

The Ace through to Ten will each have a key-word, which will then be applied to the suit in question. For example, a two, often said to be a balance of dualities, applied to Swords, may indicate that the person or the situation may need to be aware of balancing/opposing factors in the situation at hand.

Again, in a nut-shell, the associations will more likely be with such mnemonic abstractions than pre-arranged meanings in the patterns of leaves or flowers, but these latter will often manifest in very meaningful peculiar ways for the reader in a specific situation.

If you come across a book which specifically deals with your questions, please post! I would be very interested to see what the person has to say.
 

Lee

Thanks, jmd! :)

-- Lee
 

Rusty Neon

jmd said:

I do not personally know of any book (in French nor English) which gives a specific meaning to the leaves and flowers (and peculiar object arrangement) of the pip cards of the minor Arcana of the Marseilles deck.


There are a number of books of such kind in French that deal with the pip cards of the TdM minor arcana. The classic is, of course, Paul Marteau's book. More recently, Carole Sédillot and Marie-Thérèse des Longchamps have come out with interesting books. All these are based on the Marteau deck and colours. As well, Alain Bocher has some very unusual, albeit interesting, books in his Cahiers du Tarot series. Bocher's books reference the 1760 Conver design.

Edited to say: In English, the only game in town in Joseph Maxwell's book _The Tarot_ (translated from the French). It was written by Maxwell in the 19th century. It has very mixed reviews.
 

Rusty Neon

jmd said:

Again, in a nut-shell, the associations will more likely be with such mnemonic abstractions than pre-arranged meanings in the patterns of leaves or flowers, but these latter will often manifest in very meaningful peculiar ways for the reader in a specific situation.

If you come across a book which specifically deals with your questions, please post! I would be very interested to see what the person has to say.

Hi jmd. You have me intrigued. I take it that you generally use the TdM pips having regard to suit and number but not to leaves, flowers, etc. Can you give an example of how the patterns of leaves or flowers have manifested themselves in specific situations?

Thanks in advance.

Rusty Neon
 

Cerulean

Site lessons in reading TDM

http://www.mypage.bluewin.ch/papus/vrac.html

It includes minors as well and I've been using the google translator to get the gist of how to read with general suit/numerology descriptions. It seems quite thorough and somehow different than some Italian meanings---it reminds me of the simpler descriptions I read in John Dee's book of the Marseilles based book that has the Ancient Italian Tarot

I don't know the system, but the sample readings seem very insightful and you can actually download the contents in a zip file.

What do others think? Does this seem helpful or strange?

Mari H.
 

jmd

Thanks for that link Mari_Hoshizaki...

Personally, I won't have the time to look through the site for a couple of weeks, but will look at its suggestions and comment.

With regards to Rusty Neon's question (which I obviously had missed - my apologies), the 'flower' and other details (such as any animals) may come to the fore. For example, a flowering bud may appear to be quite 'young' and in the process of being about to open. Alternatively, a flower may appear in the process of wilting. Another example, the threads of the stems may appear to be either full of life of entwined in either supportive growth or tangled strangulation.

In each of the above examples, how it may appear will be more 'in the moment', rather than a predetermined view - and at other times, such may not even be deemed too important.
 

Rusty Neon

Re: Site lessons in reading TDM

Mari_Hoshizaki said:
http://www.mypage.bluewin.ch/papus/vrac.html

It includes minors as well and I've been using the google translator to get the gist of how to read with general suit/numerology descriptions.

Thanks Mari.

Those of you who don't have the Grimaud TdM may find Mari's link useful as it contains scans of all 78 cards of that deck, albeit a bit blurry.

Click on "Majeures" for the Major Arcana and on "Mineures" for the Minor Arcana.

As Mari has noted, that site's divinatory system for the Minor Arcana would appear to be based solely on number and suit, with no regard to the pictorial details of the cards. This is different from the approach taken in our forum's recent forays into the 2s and 3s of the Minor Arcana.

By the way ... Does anyone know any other sites that show all 78 cards of a Grimaud or Conver TdM deck? (The www.tarot.com site has scans of all of the cards of a Marseilles-style deck -- the U.S. Games' Spanish Tarot -- which departs from both the Conver or Grimaud patterns.)
 

Myrrha

Re: Site lessons in reading TDM

Mari_Hoshizaki said:
http://www.mypage.bluewin.ch/papus/vrac.html

It includes minors as well and I've been using the google translator to get the gist of how to read with general suit/numerology descriptions. It seems quite thorough and somehow different than some Italian meanings---it reminds me of the simpler descriptions I read in John Dee's book of the Marseilles based book that has the Ancient Italian Tarot

I don't know the system, but the sample readings seem very insightful and you can actually download the contents in a zip file.

What do others think? Does this seem helpful or strange?

Mari H.

Mari thank you for posting this link. I am curious to know if this system relates to other authors' ways of looking at TdM pips. Rusty Neon, are they similar to the ones in your Paul Marteau book? The correspondances at the Kris Hadar site seem more human, and sometimes more useful. He seems to relate each number back to the major arcana.

I kept wanting to know *why* the numbers mean what they mean. Some of them could come from relating the number back to the major arcana, but not all of them. The meanings for nine and ten seemed particularly different from what I am used to. I thought ten was the number that meant the end of a cycle and beginning of a new one.

Here is a quick translation of the basic meanings of the numbers if that will help us talk about it. My questions are in brackets:

1-beginning, action, a very positive card

2-duality, opposition, dificulty [but why should duality necessarily mean opposition? Other things ¡§two¡¨ could mean are mirroring; truce (as in Nigel Jackson two of swords); choice (as in RWS two of wands)]

The meaning this site gives for two of cups is: opposition, bad intentions, difficulty, rivalry, deception, inquetude.

3-activity, movement, messenger (google says ¡§mail¡¨)


4-the matter has been realized, made firm and real (literally: conversion into money, selling-off); maturity, omen of success

5- renewal, number of knowledge (understanding, learning, struggles) [but *why* would five be the number of struggles? Knowledge and understanding I can understand because of the Pope. Because the golden section is derived from the pentagram five was an important number to Pythagoreans, but the golden section is about harmony and the underlying structure of things so why struggle?]

6- test, put to proof, sacrifice, card of being careful (literally: putting on guard)

7- success, power, positive transformation. [I thought six was the number of Venus and meant harmony?]

8-change, problems, fear of danger [again, *why*? Eight seems so solid, four on top of four]

9- end and beginning again, new cycle

10- evolution, success, a good outcome, hope

Myrrha
 

Rusty Neon

hi myrrha ... The system of divinatory meanings (DMs) given in the link that Mari lists would appear to be based on number and suit. The numerology used by French TdM authors is often based on Pythagorean number meanings, but oftentimes, those authors also use numerological meanings that link to the some principal DMs of the corresponding numbered Major Arcana in the TdM. (Note that TdM Trump VIII is Justice, not Fortitude.)

Lately, I have been trying to use correspondence to the Majors as the pip card numerology. As it turns out, this type of Major Arcana numerology seems coincidentally (or is it just coincidence?) to match (at least to some degree) the Pythagorean 1 to 10 numerology.

You asked about the DMs that Paul Marteau assigns, in his book, to the pip cards. In general terms, he uses number (Pythagorean numerology) and suit but also pays regard to the random details (e.g., colours; botanical details; how the wands, swords, cups, coins are arranged, etc.).

You may wish to check out a thread that I had started relatively recently on the topic of deriving DMs for the pip cards of the TdM:

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=13467