Getting back to Tarot
Hi, Rosanne,
I'm not sure what you're asking here, but it looks like you are seeking something that can probably never be known and which has no implications in any case.
Rosanne said:
I wonder if you can extricate a reason from your historical killing methods as 'symbolic' not 'occult' reason for hanging people by one foot?
Are you asking why people used this, (one of a thousand methods), to torture and kill people?
Are you asking why, in a couple rather localized times and places, this punishment became common for certain classes of criminals?
Are you asking why, in those areas where it became common, the depiction of such a punishment came to symbolize that type of criminal? (That question has a pretty obvious answer in the case of traitors and Jews, but only speculative ones in other cases. We may presume, for example, that both traitors and Jews were symbolic of financial fraud, but it is only speculation.)
Are you asking whether this particular method of torture and execution was devised not because it was a horrible and drawn-out means of killing someone but for the symbolic potential?
I'm not sure what your question is, and I'm not sure that there will be an answer. History is a deeply contingent stream of events, and it is routinely impossible to identify one or a few dominant controlling events. Shit happens, and we're usually lucky just to have some good evidence about what shit happened. Moreover, regardless of how the practice, (either practice, the torture and execution or the shame painting), originated, what is important for Tarot is how it was
used in the 15th century, and how that might relate to the subject in the Tarot hierarchy.
We have various historically germane cognates to choose from in attempting to make sense of the Tarot card. We don't need more -- we need to use what we've got. Fishing expeditions and brainstorming have been going on for decades. Rather than better Googling or more creative speculation, what is needed, from the POV of Tarot history, is some critical thinking. Given what we've learned about the subject matter of the image
out of context, what meaning(s) can make sense of it
in context, i.e., in the overall trump hierarchy? Specifically, why does it follow the lower-ranked cards (most significantly Time/Hermit and Fortune) and come directly before Death?
"What does this mean in Tarot" is a question which we should be able to answer.
Best regards,
Michael