Minors, pips, elements, social order

[The crowned one]

"Fake" was probably the wrong word to use. They might be genuine for what they are, but I think what they are is some sort of artistic recreation that only loosely based their ultimate model. I don't mean they were re-created recently. I think maybe they are genuine cards of the period, but the period had already lost it's connection with the real thing.

Still, they are much closer to the true lost arcane than the Tantric Celtic Witches Gummi Bear Deck in my humble opinion.

Ah, now I understand. A shadow of a shadow of their former self. Intresting. Where/when did the real thing come from in your mind? You have my full attention as this is very interesting to me...so much so I just poured another two fingers of rum, rather then getting my needed sleep

Edit: So you know my position at this time...I believe that the Mamluk cards were invented as a game "Maluk wanuwwab" and tarot came much later and is only related to the Mamluk cards through a progression of European developments in card games.

 

[Kircher Tree]

I had forgotten about Maluk wanuwwab. So you might strike "artistic re-creation" in my last post, and substitute "recreational". The point I wanted to get across was that I thought those cards did reflect something of the true arcane in some derivative way, but they were not it. So I once used the word "fake" which was a bit strong and misleading.

When/where did the real thing come from.

Heh. Heh.

Well, the theories fall in 2 general camps.
A. They came from somewhere else.
B. They came from here.

Frankly, I have held either one of those two theories at one time or another, and I might not be too old to change sides again.

Understand, I do not believe the Ur-arcane to be an ancient deck of cards, or metal plates, or even pictures on a temple wall. I believe it to be a mental construct, and any attempt to put it in a picture dillutes and weakens it. But the mental construct, the Ur-Arcane has been with us a long time.

Under A: Some say outer space. Some say Gods. Some say the Cobbler Enoch figured it out when he was stitching shoes together and they made him an angel when he figured it out.

Under B: Some say it evolved with us. That it is a thing that developed by natural causes as our minds came into being.

Me? I'm not sure. But it is interesting.

 

[The crowned one]

I will go with "B" but modified.

For now I need sleep. Thanks for answering at the tail end of my last finger

 

[berrieh]

Anybody see the minors as less important than the majors? I have seena lot of people when they see the ten or nine of swords freak out and think someone is going to die. I just don't see it that way i guess. I think that the card for that would be "Death", as I view the majors as having more "oomph" to them than the pip cards. It's almost like I see the pips as a kind of punctuation in the statement or an indicator of things in the mix.

In some ways, I see them as more important than the Majors. More important to me and the average reading, at least.

Less important in the grand scheme of things perhaps, but the Minors are more likely to show me day-to-day events, thoughts, and feelings in the real world...especially events. They are more concrete, more tangible, more to-the-point. Their accessibility and their 'commonness' is what makes them more useful and meaningful to me because they get into the nitty gritty.

It would take a lot of cards for me to see a physical death, but it would definitely take several Minors. Majors wouldn't do it for me. But the 9 of Swords tells me more about the here and now than the Death card ever would, in a reading.

To me, the Majors have a bigger, broader energy, sure, but (in my readings at least) they tend to be more about fate, the choices fate presents, and the reasons behind things in our lives than in what's really happening when we get down to it. They're a little too fancy for me.

I prefer the Minors, personally; Minors speak clearly, concisely, and to the point. Majors like to babble on; I find them a bit too 'self important,' frankly (gosh, I personify the cards a lot; it's mostly just how I speak, not any particular belief ). Most of my predictions are based on the Minors in a spread. But perhaps this is because I started reading playing cards when I was a little girl. I prefer Tarot, but I'm sure that has an influence.

 

[Splungeman]

>>So...does anyone here have their own way of making sense of all this?<<

Well, since you asked...

I look at this from a Post Modern Islamic point of view. Many years ago I regarded the cards with pictures as as abomination, and I threw them away, leaving nothing but pip cards. I don't really feel that way anymore, but I still think that the pip cards are the "True Tarot" as much as it is possible for it to exist. The picture cards were added later by the Europeans.

So, I believe that what the Europeans call "Mamluk" would be the closest thing to the actual tarot, except that they have been mostly lost, and the ones that remain are probably fakes. The closest thing to real tarot that remains now, is probably the minors of the earlier TdM decks.

I'm not sure I believe in the "social" interpretation. I think the "true tarot" now lost did not contain any images at all, but powerful abstract mental symbols. I believe it existed (not as cards but in a mental form) for thousands of years and inspired Indian Tattwas and Chinese IChing and Greek geometry and numerology, and also gave rise to Alchemy and Kaballa when it reached Europe.

So to come back around to the original question, I think my interpretation might be (in European Language) Elemental-Geometrical-Numerological Alchemy.

By "True Tarot" do you mean the truest way to read cards? The Tarot itself was the result of a european modification. By adding the trumps to the standard deck, you have a Tarot deck. Without the trumps you have something else. As far as this tarot existing only in the mind. I don't think it's "Tarot" that way either. It's simply philosophy or visualization. The history of cards themselves are well-documented and started out humbly as a game. The divination was added later...and the mysticism...the next thing you know, misguided pseudo-scholars like Court de Gebelin were claiming the cards were hidden knowledge from ancient Egypt.

I find it fascinating that cards with pictures would be an abomination. I thought that in Islam you just couldn't have pictorial depictions of the Prophet and Allah. Or is this less about Islam and more about your own thoughts about pictures in the cards? I prefer the pips without scenes, I think, but I do like my Court cards and trumps to be pictures.

 

[Kircher Tree]

Splungeman:

Your question:
>>By "True Tarot" do you mean ...?<<

Actually, I was referring to the Rota-Tora-Taro-Ator thing that existed long before playing cards were ever invented. So it is a matter of the meaning of words. Sorry I was not clear on that.

As for images, I believe they are also forbidden in the "10 Commandments" of the Jews and Christians. But that seems to be one of those commandments that everyone has decided to "let slide".

My problem with images is that when anyone tries to put an entirely abstract concept into an image, the concept get blurred. The more clear and precise the image becomes, the more the concept gets muddied and desecrated. An artist no matter how skillful, who is trying to draw a picture of God or Allah or "The Great Spirit" or anything whatsoever that is far beyond his ability to visualize, will only end up showing what a bad artist he is. Which may or may not be the original reason for the prohibition against images.

But it is the reason that I prefer pip cards to picture cards.

 

[The crowned one]

In some ways, I see them as more important than the Majors. More important to me and the average reading, at least.

Less important in the grand scheme of things perhaps, but the Minors are more likely to show me day-to-day events, thoughts, and feelings in the real world...especially events. They are more concrete, more tangible, more to-the-point. Their accessibility and their 'commonness' is what makes them more useful and meaningful to me because they get into the nitty gritty.

It would take a lot of cards for me to see a physical death, but it would definitely take several Minors. Majors wouldn't do it for me. But the 9 of Swords tells me more about the here and now than the Death card ever would, in a reading.

To me, the Majors have a bigger, broader energy, sure, but (in my readings at least) they tend to be more about fate, the choices fate presents, and the reasons behind things in our lives than in what's really happening when we get down to it. They're a little too fancy for me.

I prefer the Minors, personally; Minors speak clearly, concisely, and to the point. Majors like to babble on; I find them a bit too 'self important,' frankly (gosh, I personify the cards a lot; it's mostly just how I speak, not any particular belief ). Most of my predictions are based on the Minors in a spread. But perhaps this is because I started reading playing cards when I was a little girl. I prefer Tarot, but I'm sure that has an influence.

This brings up a interesting point. Deck restriction to help focus a reading. I think Papus brought this up originally but I have started playing with this. Any inquiry that is mundane (day to day concerns) I leave out the majors to really focus the reading. For example a money related inquiry I just use coins. For business: Coins and swords...you get the idea. I am hopeful that this will pin point either a concern or solution without a lot of extra baggage from irrelevant suites. The jury is out still for me, but I am enjoying the bull-eye ability it is giving me within a direct question.

 

[The crowned one]

My problem with images is that when anyone tries to put an entirely abstract concept into an image, the concept get blurred. The more clear and precise the image becomes, the more the concept gets muddied and desecrated. An artist no matter how skillful, who is trying to draw a picture of God or Allah or "The Great Spirit" or anything whatsoever that is far beyond his ability to visualize, will only end up showing what a bad artist he is. Which may or may not be the original reason for the prohibition against images.

But it is the reason that I prefer pip cards to picture cards.

The problem with a picture is it paints a thousand words that is about 999 more then we need. It is often much too general and too much information and all over the map to be useful sometimes . A symbol within a picture tends to speak precise thoughts or concepts as long as they are graphical representations of a material object. But when they represent concepts or actions we need to have a strong understanding of the culture for the symbol to have even the slightest chance of interpretation. This is why visual art is not so great for divination and at the same time wonderful for intuition. Pictographs and ideograms tho sloppy are really a step up in their ability to be understood over a picture when it comes to a single interpretation. Your pips work as symbols rather then images.