Major Arcana titles: La Maison-Diev

[Rosanne]

Thank you Kwaw for your answer. It makes the most sense to me. I have been trying to find out exactly that type of information. I realise that your post comes from a great accumulation of Tarot knowledge- do you have any links I could look at? or Books I could read? I keep going down paths that just make my head spin. Any help would be apppreciated.~Rosanne

[Fulgour]

Er um... Sagittarius is "boxlike" letter 15 Samekh
while Capricorn (letter 16) looks exactly like the
guy falling headirst down from the tower: Ayin

[prudence]

~the pollen imagery really hits home for me, as I have been quietly (secretly?) thinking of the Maison Dieu as ....well, as an image of ejacualtion. (not always, but sometimes this really fits, depending on the reading) and I don't mean only in the most literal sense but in a symbolic sense too. (artists may know what I am trying to express here)

[venicebard]

(O Astrid, I might expect an interpretation like that from a Thoth fan, though it figures in my interpretation as well, and I’m not a Book of Thoth fan, though Hermes Trismegistus ALIAS Thoth has my rapt attention.)

Fulgour, if I might suggest a solution to your bepuzzlement (or lack thereof): in bardic numeration O-ayin is four, so there are TWO of them that have been multiplied to produce XVI and two, of course, falling from the tower itself (two little ‘emperor-ayins’).

M. le kwaw, intriguing stuff. Bardic XVI is S-shin, the letter assigned to fire in Sefer Yetzirah. It is the ‘mother letter’ replacing the U or O of the Logos (AUM) and thus for the Gnostic is the thinker or Holy Spirit, whose seat (in the archetypal world or Monad) is sagittary. This is the sign preceding, and thus leading to, the sign straight back (from cancer-the-breasts or straight out), the direction of self (the tenth, the Shekhinah): XVI is the thinking (Sophia or Holy Spirit) that leads to self-knowledge (God the Father, or knower).

As the central fire of the Throne world, shin crowns the middle pillar (the year, one aspect of sol or gold) of the seven pillars-of-wisdom in the alchemical vessel (rounds 9-8-7-6-5-4-3, or silver, mercury, copper, axis mundi, iron, tin, lead), which, as copper’s (Venus’s) proper ‘mate’ corresponds to Hephaestus or Vulcan, who rules no sign because his column has no width, being the vertical diameter. I have of late taken this to indicate an ancient understanding that the year was earth’s central fire journeying about the sun or outer ‘fire’ (actually air’s receptivity to fire), the sun's or outer fire’s own journey being the great year (‘precession’), which entails the entire physical heavens’ revolution about the signs of the zodiac (meaning man). The planets ‘cluster about’ Vulcan in the sense that he is the middle pillar, the central fire, but only earth’s crust’s rotation, luna’s orbit, and the heavens themselves (roughly every 25,000 years) revolve about earth (meaning us), since the planets without revolve about the sun without (yet there is an inner sun, hidden to us... but I'll shut up now)

[Sophie]

Originally Posted by Astrid O

~the pollen imagery really hits home for me, as I have been quietly (secretly?) thinking of the Maison Dieu as ....well, as an image of ejaculation. (not always, but sometimes this really fits, depending on the reading) and I don't mean only in the most literal sense but in a symbolic sense too. (artists may know what I am trying to express here)

I have seen ejaculation in La Maison-Dieu - and not so secretly . It is very apt, I think - as ejaculation is also an image of release that follows a build-up. It also goes very well with the preceding card of the Devil, one of whose functions is sex (and no, not necessarily obsessional, unhealthy sex!) and definitely the breaking past barriers in both sex and art. To me the 4-card sequence of Temperance (the meeting of two elements to make a third), Le Diable, La Maison-Dieu, LeToille is good symbolism for the build-up, breaking through taboos, release and calm we find in the acts of love and of creation.

[ArcanoMáximo]

Hello Helvética, it's me again! I already know, you are hating me, aren't you? LOL!
O.k., i must say that i agree with that of ejaculations but for me may be the card is showing the "bad penis" and not the good one. I mean, may be this is the punishment deserved for The Devil, isn't what the destruction of Sodoma and Gomorra means? The punishment that continues to the nonfulfillment of the law of G@d? Or the Talion Law? For me this penis or even uterus (the round bubbles and the crown could even be related with the feminine organ) had caused damage to other or to itself for abuse, conciouss infection of illnesses to others, or even the same celibacy imposed, and any more...Also the search of the meat for the meat, the pure materialism. People that fall or leave could be the liberated victims of that oppression seeing it in a positive sense. For that reason the ray could be the intervention of the authorities or a reasoning blast. I would even say that those balls falling could be related with the salt that according to the myth fell on Sodoma and Gomorra, or the volcanic ashies over Pompeya. There are some experts that have observed that many of the cities or civilizations that also fell (the continent of the Mooh, Hyperborean, and the all ones previous signed) were characterized by an appearance of all type of depravities and sexual taunt before their destruction... It is not strange that Waite changed the original color for the gray one. The gray colour gives me the sensation of a sexual activity in decadence, in definitive I note that my position is completely opposed to the most here. But it's only a very personal opinion, obviously...

[prudence]

Originally Posted by venicebard

(O Astrid, I might expect an interpretation like that from a Thoth fan, though it figures in my interpretation as well, and I’m not a Book of Thoth fan, though Hermes Trismegistus ALIAS Thoth has my rapt attention.)

Thanks,venicebard...but honestly, I only got around to thinking this way about the Tower/Maison Dieu after hanging around in this TdM forum!!(these TdM folks are a bad influence I tell you) I never noticed anything sexual about the Thoth tower, but this lovely TdM Maison Dieu, it just LOOKS like an ejaculating penis....It was actually this very card that called to me, that pulled me into the TdM fray so to speak...and that calling was really due to the fact that it was not a threatening looking image to me. I love those colored balls happily falling down around the dumbstruck guys.

[Odette]

Originally Posted by Diana

As to the spelling of “Dieu” as “Diev” – I suppose that is another cup of tea entirely.

I think the reason why it is written both ways is that in latin they used to mix the letters "u" and "v". This became very common in Europe in the medieval times. An example of this is that the letter "w" is in English pronounced "double-u".

This mixture was used up to the 19. century.

[Sophie]

Originally Posted by Astrid O

Thanks,venicebard...but honestly, I only got around to thinking this way about the Tower/Maison Dieu after hanging around in this TdM forum!!(these TdM folks are a bad influence I tell you)

Astrid, you remind me of Kenneth Williams and Carry On films,

Ooooooooh, you aaare aaawful!

Aren't we just

I stick to the ejaculating penis - a good penis ejaculating quite healthily, thank you, Máximo! And if Waite chose to switch the colour to grey...well that's his English Victorian hang-up, not the TdM's problem!!

[kwaw]

Originally Posted by ArcanoMáximo

To gray colour gives me the sensation of a sexual activity in decadence, in definitive I note that my position is completely opposed to the most here. But it's only a very personal opinion, obviously...

Obviously.... to cum, ectasy. Personally I think it a common experience to all. If there is decadence or perversion then it is in a failure to experience such. Or a perversion of ego perhaps, in believing it is the right of oneself and not of others, or of slave consiousness, in which one denies the self to the right. A very personal opinion, obviously...

Kwaw