Beyond the World - Extra Majors

[thorhammer]

Tarot of the Restored Order

I bought the book that discusses this deck, entitled The Complete New Tarot, some time ago. I must say that I have found the part of it discussing the "restored" tarot as the authors see it to be

a) confusing
b) badly expressed
c) employing a great deal of redundancy and repetition
d) superfluous

to name a few things. I will not finish this book. The two "restored" cards are merely facets of other cards drawn out and removed from the accepted 22 Major arcana. Juno (Intuition) usurps a great deal of the meaning of the High Priestess, the Star and the Moon, while Jupiter (Truth) seems to have been added as nothing more than a balancing act for Juno, being an unnecessary club with which to beat into a Tarot student's head, "You find truth in your journey!".

The meanings given in the main (?) section (?)of the book are . . . broadening, for which reason I will probably keep the book, rather than giving it away.

From a purely editorial POV, I could go on and on, but that would be outside the scope of this thread, so I may take it up elsewhere. Suffice to say that this take on "extra" Majors places the issue squarely in the "it was too hard to understand the others so I made my own up" basket.

Kicking myself for buying this book. Could have paid my electricity bill.

\m/ Kat

 

[MeeWah]

I have a few decks with "extra Majors"--Templar Tarot, Shapeshifter & de Tarot in de Herstelde Orde. I prefer to use those decks as they are, though it depends on the moment.

With de Tarot in de Herstelde Orde, I like the deck's artwork, but unable to adjust to the numbering so ignore that. A generally RWS-based deck with some interesting artistic interpretations, its companion book an intriguing compendium of material & offers food for thought & use of the deck. Solandia has written a comprehensive review:

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/herstelde-orde/review.shtml

 

[Debra]

The gold version of the Victorian Romantic includes two versions of the Lovers card, very different. When I read with this deck (often), I always include both versions, on the theory that one can never have too much love.

 

[Sophie]

The gold version of the Victorian Romantic includes two versions of the Lovers card, very different. When I read with this deck (often), I always include both versions, on the theory that one can never have too much love.

Haha - I do the same! I'd be happy with 5 or 6 Lovers cards . But they are still The Lovers - multi-faceted: the two cards showing different sides of the same Arcanum. In reality, we should be able to draw from any one Lovers card the whole range of its meanings and spiritual attributes.

 

[Silverlotus]

Steele Wizard Extra Majors

I have to admit that I am, generally, from the school of thought that believes a Tarot deck should only have 78 cards. In cases where there are extra Major Arcana cards, like the Daughters of the Moon (extra Lovers and Pan) or the Osho Zen (the Master), I remove them from the deck. I think, though, that the extra Major Arcana cards in the Steele Wizard Tarot are exceptionally well thought out and add a great deal to the standard Tarot archetypes.

I laid out all the Major Arcana and arranged them in four rows of seven cards, placing the Fool at the very end. I then looked at each row using Mary K. Greer's suggestion of reading the rows as Body, Mind and Spirit. That left me with the row of new Majors plus the Fool to deal with. Here's what I came up with:

• The Weaver - recognition of destiny/required life lessons
• The Universe - communication with and acceptance of the great Divine Beings/Forces
• Truth - realization of Truths governing life
• Soul Twins - acknowledgment of all parts of self, including the divine
• Evolution - experience of change and growth in all things
• I AM - understanding we are all ONE
• The Fool - innocence and openness

I decided to title this series Divinity, as I feel it is one step beyond Spirit.

I also thought about what astrologically associations these new cards should have. My ideas:

• The Weaver - Chiron (healing through karma)
• The Universe - Earth element (solidness and connection)
• Truth - Neptune (cloudiness cleared, or preserved if reversed)
• Soul Twins - Pluto (eruptive change as a result of this acknowledgment of self)
• Evolution - Uranus (shock as the result of this experience)
• I AM - Spirit (total integration)

As for the extra Minor Arcana cards, the Maidens, I haven't tackled them yet.

 

[VGimlet]

Then there are Minchite decks - although some don't count them as strictly Tarot.

I kind of waffle, but group them with tarot rather than oracle decks myself - when I have to pin them down. They have LOTS of extra cards.

 

[rwcarter]

I bought the book that discusses this deck, entitled The Complete New Tarot, some time ago. I must say that I have found the part of it discussing the "restored" tarot as the authors see it to be

a) confusing
b) badly expressed
c) employing a great deal of redundancy and repetition
d) superfluous

to name a few things.

\m/ Kat

Accept, even for a moment, their argument that they're RESTORING those two cards to the deck (and not adding additional cards to the "standard" deck). The cards of Truth and Intuition put too much power into the hands of everyday people at a time when the Church was determined to make itself the middle man between everyday people and the Divine. So those two cards were removed from the deck and their meanings subsumed within other cards. The book argues that Truth was "hidden" within the High Priest and Intuition was "hidden" within the High Priestess, both of whom are representatives of the Church. By so doing, Truth and Intuition became the purview of the Church and were removed from the experience of everyday people.

I don't know that I 100% agree with or believe their argument, but I'm definitely closer to believing their argument than believing that the Church would never do any such thing. What if the Tarot actually IS supposed to have 80 cards and for hundreds of years Tarot readers have been playing with less than a full deck? (Sorry, I couldn't resist that particular pun.)

What if the Church today decided the Magician was too much of a threat, removed it from the deck and gave the attributions of the Magician to the Hierophant? 500 years from now people would believe that the Tarot only has 77 cards and should only have 77 cards. In a way, they would be right - the tarot they know has 77 cards. 77 may or may not be the number of cards that the tarot should have, but it's the number it does have in my scenario.

78 is the number of cards that readers today know and are familiar with. Is 78 the number of cards that tarot originally had? Is it the number that tarot was meant to have? Is it the number that tarot should have? We'll probably never know the answer to the first question. And the answers to the other two questions are highly subjective.

Rodney

 

[Splungeman]

I'm still learing about Tarot history, but from what I understand, one of the earliest known Tarot decks, the Visconti-Sforza deck only had 20 trump cards--lacking the Devil and the Tower. Eventually those were added. I see no reason why the trumps can't have additions today, especially since times have changed since the Waite-Smith deck.

HOWEVER...I think that if you're going to add new cards, they would have to represent an essential theme that the current cards lack. One of the things I love about Tarot is how it has withstood the test of time to this point. In our iPod toting, automobile driving, Starbucks coffee drinkin' world, the ancient symbolism and themes expressed in the Tarot cards still resonates.

I don't feel that any additional cards in the Trumps are needed, but I won't begrudge someone for trying. At the very least, we should check 'em out if we come across them, try a few spreads with them and see if they add anything to our experience.

As far as certain theories regarding the CORRECT number of cards based on numerology, and other strange "laws". It's extremely easy to come up with some metaphysical numerological theorum to prove anything to yourself.

For example: If I spend enough time messing around with a pad of paper and a calculator, I can figure out a way sum up all the letters in my name in such a way to come up with the number '42', which any Douglas Adams fan should know is the answer to the Great Question of Life the Universe and Everything. After I accomplish that, I will move on to "proving" in the same numerological way that Douglas Adams was a prophet of God. Finally, I give the whole project a name like "Quantum Adams Flux Mathematics from the Seventh Zaphod Capsomere" and publish it on my website, claiming for all who visit that I am the answer to the Great Question and that I can prove this by proving numerologically that Douglas Adams was a prophet. While the whole affair may 'prove' to myself that all of it is true, it proves nothing to anyone else excpet that I am a crackpot.

My point--I'm not sure the number of Trumps is really all that important, just what's on them, and to me, the current 22 cards have got it covered.

 

[jmd]

It's possible that the Visconti-Sforza deck only had 14 original cards, or 16, or 20, or 22 and two were lost. At least one other deck from the period has a Tower card.

In any case, it likely having less than 22 is why I personally consider the Visconti as either a precursor or variant to tarot, rather than tarot itself. Similarly, other decks such as the Minchiate have far more than 22, and hence not tarot.

It is fine to add any number of cards one wants... but I do not agree that the deck should still be called 'tarot' (though 'tarot-derived' or 'based on tarot' would be a correct description).

As to van Leeuwen's argument that Juno and Jupiter were intrinsic to the deck, he has not shown that at all. His book has much that is interesting, and if he had presented it as his own peculiar insights for which he has decided to alter tarot in order to reflect these insights in a better fashion, I would have no problems. Thing is, he presents it as though these cards, which do of course occur in the Besançon in place of the Papess and Pope, were there in addition. And that simply ain't so. To use a deck designed in the 20th century to add weight to that vacuous historical argument seems to me misguided at best.

I have high respect for Van Leeuwen's insights and views, but not his historical claims.

 

[Debra]

As far as certain theories regarding the CORRECT number of cards based on numerology, and other strange "laws". It's extremely easy to come up with some metaphysical numerological theorum to prove anything to yourself.

Splungeman. Thanks for this. If I wasn't already happily married, and if your name wasn't "Splungeman," I'd marry you.

(JOKE. This is a JOKE. *smile*)