Tree of Life or Heroic Journey

[Rede Seeker]

I searched the Aeclectic Tarot archives for this question and didn't find a good match.

Waite changed the sequence of cards in the Major Arcana (switched Justice and Strength) without saying much about why he thought it was necessary. Two Tarot authors that I respect, Rachel Pollack and Hajo Banzhaf argue convincingly for Tarot paralleling the Qabala and Tarot as the Heroic Journey with Justice as card VIII and Strength as card XI (the pre-Rider-Waite-Smith sequence), respectively.

I have two questions:

1. What are the experiences of the people who read Tarot parallelling the Qabala and the people who read Tarot as the Heroic Journey? A related question is how many there are in each 'camp'.

2. Which decks keep the pre-Rider-Waite-Smith sequence? I know Vargo's Gothic Tarot and Royo's Black Tarot do.

 

[aranarose]

I searched the Aeclectic Tarot archives for this question and didn't find a good match.

Waite changed the sequence of cards in the Major Arcana (switched Justice and Strength) without saying much about why he thought it was necessary. Two Tarot authors that I respect, Rachel Pollack and Hajo Banzhaf argue convincingly for Tarot paralleling the Qabala and Tarot as the Heroic Journey with Justice as card VIII and Strength as card XI (the pre-Rider-Waite-Smith sequence), respectively.

I have two questions:

1. What are the experiences of the people who read Tarot parallelling the Qabala and the people who read Tarot as the Heroic Journey? A related question is how many there are in each 'camp'.

2. Which decks keep the pre-Rider-Waite-Smith sequence? I know Vargo's Gothic Tarot and Royo's Black Tarot do.

Many, though not all, of the Llewellyn decks keep the VIII Justice, XI Strength associations. I learned on the RWS, so my first Llewellyn deck threw me off just a bit, however I've learned to adjust and cope.

I view Tarot as the Heroic Journey, mainly because I am not all that familiar with Qabala. Have studied it some, but not a lot. I find that in life, we must have Strength before we can understand Justice, but that's my personal experience and how I see it.

 

[willowfox]

I am not sure how the tarot and qabala are meant to parallel each other, as the qabala is so different, to my eyes anyway.

I think the journey is the best path to follow. Why try to complicate the cards unnecessarily.

I like the idea of bringing one's passions under control before one is mature enough to decide the fate of others justly, and calmly.

 

[Knight of Wands]

I personally prefer the idea of the heroic journey.

However I do feel that the Kabbalistic elements are too strong to ignore, and so do believe that Kabbalah can aid a reading a lot, although I don't practice this myself

 

[Itika]

I learned on the Thot (Crowley's) and on the Ibis ("Egyptian's"): VIII Justice, XI Strength. It si, how to construct a circle of zodiac, with loops - The Lion (XI) comes after the Cancer (VII), next the Virgin (IX), Libra (VIII), the Scorpion (XIII) - or without this "problem".

Qabala and Taro - which one is older? I read sometimes Tarot parallelling the Qabala in Minor Arcana and Tarot as a number of the Heroic Journeys in Majors.

 

[tantricknite]

What the kabbalah does for the tarot is add another layer of interpetation onto the cards.Likewise tarot cards were also added onto the paths on the tree of life to help give the kabbalah a more magical representation of the universe.So they play off each other.As far as how the Kabbalah,Hebrew letters and tarot combine and interact is a subject of much debate.There are a number of threads here at AT that discuss this........

 

[tantricknite]

I believe the Kabbalah is older then the tarot.There is a study (Mark Filipas,Alphabetic Masquerade)that suggest that some of the older tarot decks in regards to the construction of the majors actually were based on the Hebrew alphabet.(For Example like in English, A is for apple ect.)If this is indeed the case (And I think his theory needs more historical validation) then you could say that the heroic journey was influenced by the placement of the Hebrew alphabet.The Hebrew alphabet is not the Kabbalah in and of itself and adding the Kabbalah to the tarot came later.Tarot cards were not added onto the paths of the tree of life until the beginning of what has become known as the Western mystery tradition.One observation I have made in my study of the tarot is how much influence the tree of life and Kabbalistic principles have in understanding the dynamics of the tarot.For example if you study the court cards and break them down to their essential roots you find that they are elemental in nature and how they interact and play out amongst each and other cards reflects how they interact upon the tree of life.So for me I don't see how you can seperate the two (tarot and Kabbalah) I think their symbioticly linked.

 

[Teheuti]

You can link the Tarot to anything you want - just check out all the deck-creation games on the forum where you describe a deck that corresponds with the latest movie or book. Plus there are lots of decks that are based on perceived correspondences between tarot and the great myths.

Saying that Tarot is preferable as either the Tree of Life (and then which Tree?) or the Heroic Journey (I assume you mean Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey?) is meaningless. Rather, it's what makes sense to you - and, in order for there to be sense, there needs to be a clear understanding of each of these traditions independently of the others.

In my book _21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card_ I summarize in Step 19 Campbell's Hero's Journey (also called the "archetypal quest scenario"), drawing one possible set of parallels to the Tarot. Most people find striking resemblances among the "Fool's Journey" (term first used by Eden Gray in 1970), the Hero's Journey, folklore and myth, which demonstrates why Tarot is felt to be "archetypal." [BTW, Waite frequently referred to what he called "the soul's progress."]

I tried to make these correspondences clear in an "Archetypal Motifs Chart" - Appendix F - with the chart having as its columns:
•Major Arcana
•Fool's Journey
•Archetypes
•Hero's Journey
•Mythic Figures.

I could have added
•Astrological Signs&Planets
•Paths on the Tree
but I didn't want to get too confusing (plus these open the door to just too many conflicting systems).

As Christopher Vogler demonstrates so brilliantly in his book _The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structures for Storytellers and Screenwriters_, the order of the stages in the hero's journey is not absolute. The order may change and sequences can repeat. This is part of what we are observing through a Tarot reading - we are discovering what mix of stages (and archetypes) are at play in any one situation. The Tree of Life-Tarot analogies can serve a similar function.

All of the above describe both maps of the psyche and of the journey of getting from here-to-there. Certain points on the map are highlighted/activated and we have to figure out how to link (or travel between) relevant points. The maps show us where we are probably headed if we don't do anything to change the dynamic. And they help us discern other options.

The thing to do is to find the kinds of maps that you can best learn to read, that make sense to you, and that take you the places you want to go.

Mary