Tarot of the Silicon Dawn - The Fool(s)

Okay, so there are 5 Fools in this deck and I include them all in my deck of 97 cards. (I don't include the pink and white publisher information card or the black and white 'title' card - but everything else is in there.)

The 'intended' Fools are incarnations of Maiden, Mother and Crone, the alternatives are a 'superhero(ine)' and Aleph4. Only Aleph4 has actualised wings - all the others have UV effect wings, which we can assume will break their impending fall.

Are those ball-shapes which appear in the sky on each of these cards (except Aleph4) closed circuit camera devices capturing the initial images of the cosmic drama which is about to unfold? After all Egypt Urnash tells us in the accompanying book that 'the crone' is certainly playing for the camera.

I have no clue what to make of the 'sigil'/'crest' design which features on the Aleph4 card - I can't make it out clearly enough to see what it is meant to represent or to make out the words (if any) that seem to surround it as a sort of motto.

I like the idea of an actualised Fool. It is subversive… I like the fact that Aleph4 is at the centre of either creation or destruction. Is she descending or ascending I wonder?

Am I bothered that the Fools are all female - no. I have accepted that many of the traditional assumptions in Tarot have been overturned in this deck and switching the genders of many (the majority ?) of the figures is just one of them.

Thoughts?

Do you include all 5 Fools? Just three? Just one? Which one(s)?

I consider the small butterfly on the black background as a Fool, too . . .

I really like the idea of showing a fully-realized Fool as someone different than the usual about to fall over a cliff guy.

Why do the little dogs look like flames?

(I'll be back with more later!)

rachelcat said:

I consider the small butterfly on the black background as a Fool, too . . .

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I wondered whether or not to include this...BUT the accompanying book identifies this particular card as the 0 of Void.

I like to leave it open to the reader's interpretation just which zeros are Fools. n.n


Unpacking Aleph-4 a bit:

Aleph-4 is not a zero; it's a Cantorian transfinite. Aleph-0 is basically the size of the simplest infinity - the infinity of counting numbers. Aleph-4 is... um... a heck of a lot more infinite than that, in strange ways that take a good while to pack into your head. It's been a long time since I had a fumbling grasp on what that means, so I can't give you a better explanation.

You can see the sigil that is this card's title on the front page of my website if you spend a little time looking. Use your computer's browser, not your smartphone - that bit really kinda falls apart on my Android. The text beneath the sigil on my site is NOT a translation of it.

The actual translation of the sigil is something I'm not comfortable revealing. In some ways it is one of the anchor points of the spell that my inner Magician was/is trying to cast by making this deck. The inner Skeptic, of course, rolls her eyes at this, but has nothing more to add but a shrug and "it's pretty". You won't find it in any existing grimoires, either; it's a personal symbol.

It is also a happy coincidence for my personal magjickxgggal* purposes that Aleph looks kind of like an "N".

The art is something I started on about six months before I began the deck. It lay half-finished until I was nearly done, when I put two and together and got aleph-4. I believe it is in fact the last card I finished, though I'm not entirely sure - it's either that or Maya, 8 1/2. (Oh, and have you looked at the varnish layer for that one closely?)

It is in the same visually thematic sequence as History and Fate. It's both an end of the story History is telling and a new beginning to that sequence; in some ways it's a riff on the Universe, and if you left the Universe in the box you could definitely read some of that into Aleph-4. It's also part of a sequence with these two older images: firstly, secondly.

And yeah, that checkerboard outfit sure makes her look like a Fool, doesn't it? But then again you could say the same of Fate and History. What am I trying to say about these things with that?

In general it is a card about transcendescence. Things that are unknowable because they are "beyond the fields we know" as Dunsanay put it. Mysteries both within you and without you.

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Thanks for being interested enough in my deck to discuss it like this! Please let me know if I'm revealing too much here and I'll try to be more gnomic in future replies. n.n

* the more absurd your spelling of "magical" is, the more HARDC0RE you are. Right?

Egypt Urnash said:

Thanks for being interested enough in my deck to discuss it like this! Please let me know if I'm revealing too much here and I'll try to be more gnomic in future replies. n.n

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Thanks for dropping in. It is really useful to get your views and thoughts on the cards as we explore them.

When I use this deck I like to use all the Fools!

There are a few things which are consistent throughout the 4 cards which actually bear the title The Fool (so this doesn't include aleph-4). These are the;

Flame dogs (eta the book describes them as foxes, which are kind of a more wild version of a dog, which I like better than a dog to desribe our instincts and animal nature than we are learning to master)
UV effect wings
Falling off a cliff some way or another
Video cameras filming the action! Why are they filming the fools?

The Maiden fool (00)
This fool is all in black and white and looks almost like she is unfinished, the barest outline, the beginning of a fool. So this really is a good card to describe the start or beginning of something (like a project), the inception or creation of something. It is still in the process of becoming.
Are the butterfly wings in the UV spot effect so that the fool can't see she has wings? She doesn't realise it but she will survive the fall, that she isn't in danger after all. But sometimes fear gives us an edge and can be a good motivator!

The Mother Fool (01)
This seems like a more traditional version of a fool card, she is stepping off a cliff oblivious to the fact that she is doing so, whilst the little flame fox barks a warning at her. It is set at sunrise or sunset... A time of transition which fits with the Fool for me. She is engrossed in a book...what is the symbol on the cover, is it the same as the one done in uv on the aleph-4 fool? Is it a magical text? She is dressed a jester which hearks back to the traditional Marseilles Fool, however this fool is pregant! She is full of creative potential waiting to be birthed into reality! She also has a traditional pack, containing the tools she requires? Though as the book points out whats the point of having if them if you aren't going to use them! And the telescope she carries but isn't using...the fool is for living in the here and now, not looking to the future and planning ahead.

The Crone Fool (02)
This is set in winter (there are uv effect snowflakes falling around the fool)...apparently this one is playing up for the camera, she's been here before..this is a fool who has travelled through the major arcana at least once on the Fools Journey and is back to the beginning again. Perhaps she will keep repeating this cycle until she learns how to use her wings and fly? Or realises they are even there? The dog is still barking, still being ignored! He looks fed up with it all now, lol

The super Fool (0-1)
The fool to the nth degree, this is a mythical superfool created from all the stories and myths about all the other fools! Boldly leaping from a building, or is she terrified? Being chased by an invisible, tentacled monster. If you can't see it does that mean it isn't real? The way she is leaping makes me think this one can actually fly and has mastered how to use those wings. Or she has no fear regarding diving head first like that, and doesn't realise hw much its gonna hurt when she plummets to the ground! This is the first fool for me who believes she might be able to fly, that she might have wings...This is about making bold decisions, that are maybe a bit out there. Her flaming hair matches that of her fox...does that mean she is more in touch with her animal instinct, soes she actually listen to it, are they in synch? Defintely happy to leap into the unknown...
Can anyone else see what might be a cloaked spaceship in the middle of the sky in this card? Where there are no stars...or have I just been watching too much sci-fi????

Aleph-4
Kaboom, this fool has blown the mould, she looks like the was a caterpillar who has burst from her chrysallis (sp?) fully transformed into a butterfly with wings and who knows how to fly. This is the fool who has fully realised all of her potential and is now ready to becomes the magician. She knows she got skills and she knows how to use them. She is staring up at the symbol, like it is something she striving to reach, to acheive and to attain. A higher level of consciousness? Spiritual enlightenment?

Eyebright said:

The Maiden fool (00)
This fool is all in black and white and looks almost like she is unfinished, the barest outline, the beginning of a fool.

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Each time I look at this particular Fool I see Sue Storm (The Invisible Woman) from The Fantastic Four (Marvel Comics). She is in a state of 'becoming' (she seems to become more substantial as her middle and upper body and head leave the cliff-edge) as well as on the verge of materialisation into the 'real world' (Her backdrop is a cityscape which expands below and around her) - something which captures perfectly the idea of emerging potential...

And...has anyone noticed how the flame-dog/fox becomes less substantial over the 'progression' of the four named Fool cards? What does this tell us about how we are shaped by experience? As we make progress in this journey of life and over its many archetypal cycles do we learn to trust ourselves more and to listen to that inner voice of conscience (or whatever) less? Here is a Fool who becomes more daring as she transforms...so much so that she ends up as an 'invincible' superhero to whom monsters are mere illusion (those UV tentacles) and to whom a fall is without danger - she hopes...

I've just been ironing and mulling over the fools (!) as I did so, and whilst thinking of the Mother Fool I remembered something my dad always used to say to me! He used to say, "Tanya you can tell me how to calculate the circumference of a tin a of beans, but you can't tell me how to open one"...it just made me think of this fool who is trying to learn everything from her book, but sometimes having knowledge isn't enough, you need to experience and learn by doing something. You can read how it feels to fall off a cliff but I think we can all agree it's a pale imitation of actually falling off a cliff and feeling that terror and the adrenaline pumping through your system as you wonder whether you are going to survive, how much it might hurt, what death might feel like...well you get the point!!

And...has anyone noticed how the flame-dog/fox becomes less substantial over the 'progression' of the four named Fool cards? What does this tell us about how we are shaped by experience? As we make progress in this journey of life and over its many archetypal cycles do we learn to trust ourselves more and to listen to that inner voice of conscience (or whatever) less? Here is a Fool who becomes more daring as she transforms...so much so that she ends up as an 'invincible' superhero to whom monsters are mere illusion (those UV tentacles) and to whom a fall is without danger - she hopes...

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Can you define 'less substantial' for me? Do you mean they seem to shrink and look less solid and a bit more 'flamey' (if that is even a word!)...if so I hadn't really noticed that but now I look I think you might be right. I did comment on the superfool (as I call it lol) about the fool integrating the inner voice into her being, in that their hair matched.
Infact the aleph-4 fool features no fox, so perhaps by the time we get to this point the fox and all what it represents has been fully integrated and incorporated, absorbed into the Fool. They are one.

Eyebright said:

Video cameras filming the action! Why are they filming the fools?

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Those video cameras…

A visual reflexivity? We are conscious of the very construction of the 'image' of the Fool as a 'construct' (and by extension as a 'staged metaphor') because of our own 'awareness' of the cameras.

Is there also a certain social reflexivity? Does the 'crone' Fool alter/adapt her behaviour because she is conscious of the camera. Is she making an autonomous statement about her existence and role? She goes through with the repeated cyclical display…BUT knowingly. Could she/Would she have been able to act otherwise?

Am I just rambling?

Eyebright said:

Can you define 'less substantial' for me? Do you mean they seem to shrink and look less solid and a bit more 'flamey' (if that is even a word!)...if so I hadn't really noticed that but now I look I think you might be right.

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Exactly that... and by the 'super' Fool it is hard to make out the shape of a dog/fox at all...