Strength and Justice Comparisons

[Sophie]

(hey Tabi - I'm in the same case as you now - not even had my coffee! - just wanted to make a little factual correction, which is a great deal easier than having to think)- Crowley didn't switch Strength and Lust, he left them in their place: it was Waite that switched them. But Crowley renamed and redefined Strength/Lust, and also switched the Hebrew letter attributions between Emperor and Star, but not their paths).

In my case, as I have often repeated, I work with several sequences: mainly the classic one and the Waite-revised one, and experiment with others. The Mythic one never made sense to me from a numerolgical perspective, though I worked with that deck more or less exclusively for 5 years, but from a mythological progression (e.g. Demeter before Persephone), it does. Can't have it all ways, I suppose!

[Skysteel]

Originally Posted by Fudugazi

For instance: trying to reach justice without moral strength or mercy will lead to unbearable severity, the very opposite of a human justice...

You've never found (a) human justice to be (unbearably) severe?

[tabi]

Originally Posted by Fudugazi

(hey Tabi - I'm in the same case as you now - not even had my coffee! - just wanted to make a little factual correction is)- Crowley didn't switch Strength and Lust, he left them in their place: it was Waite that switched them. But Crowley renamed and redefined Strength/Lust, and also switched the Hebrew letter attributions between Emperor and Star, but not their paths).

ROFL It all depends on where you would traditionally place them to begin with I guess. And I did note that I was still half asleep but again I would actually love to try my experiment with some non-tarot people...just to see what would happen.

[Sophie]

Originally Posted by Skysteel

You've never found (a) human justice to be (unbearably) severe?

Precisely, I have - when it lacks mercy. This makes it inhuman, in the sense of human meaning kind and merciful. That's the whole point of this discussion, isn't it?

[Sophie]

Originally Posted by tabi

ROFL It all depends on where you would traditionally place them to begin with I guess. And I did note that I was still half asleep but again I would actually love to try my experiment with some non-tarot people...just to see what would happen.

Well, if we are talking tradition (as opposed to personal preference), then objectively Waite did switch round what had been up to his time, and from the 17th Century, a fixed sequence. Crowley kept the same one that existed. Tradition isn't a personal thing, by definition, it's collective (that distinguishes it from personal habit or ritual).

[Skysteel]

Originally Posted by Fudugazi

Precisely, I have - when it lacks mercy. This makes it inhuman, in the sense of human meaning kind and merciful.

I see - I was using 'human' to mean 'mundane' (as opposed to 'cosmic', I suppose).

[Sophie]

Originally Posted by Skysteel

I see - I was using 'human' to mean 'mundane' (as opposed to 'cosmic', I suppose).

hehe - that's the problem with that word "human", it means so many different things, from the worst to the best, from the most mundane to the most sublime! Let's say I am talking about the relationship between justice and mercy, which is a form of moral strength, in the sense explored in The Merchant of Venice. Given how much that play grew out of the philosophical discussions of its time, I can't help thinking that tarot, and its 16th century sequences, must have grown out of those too - and so this relationship really do go to the heart of tarot as well as life and our experience of it.