EPIPHANY! A New Take on the Major Arcana

Teheuti

xx - xx - 03 - 06 - 09 - 12 - 15 - 18 - 21 (The Hidden Path)
00 - xx - 02 - 05 - 08 - 11 - 14 - 17 - 20 (The Inner Path)
xx - xx - 01 - 04 - 07 - 10 - 13 - 16 - 19 (The Outer Path)

See Tarot Mirrors p. 94 and Vicki Noble's Motherpeace Tarot Playbook where this pattern is also discussed.

Put the final card in the center (19, 20, 21) and the other six cards of the corresponding Path around it to form a circle. You'll find that Lifetime cards sets (18-9, 15-6) lie across the circle from each other and the sets with three cards (19-10-1) are in a line across the diameter (1-19-10). It looks really cool with round cards since they fit perfectly (given circles of the same size, six fit exactly around the circumference of a central-7th one).
 

Egypt Urnash

Hmm. I just tried laying out my own Silicon Dawn deck (which is definitely GD-inspired) along these lines and it is definitely a much more compelling interpretation of the Majors than the Fool's Journey. The way the three Virtues are framed by the rest of the Majors is intriguing.

The way the Priestess and Priest end up aligned is very pleasing, but the splitting up of the Empress and Emperor bugs me. There's also something interesting happening with the way the two-color floors are spread out - there are only three in the whole of the Majors, and they each end up in a different path.

How extra Majors will fit depends on where they fall in the sequence. In the SD, the extra Major is clearly marked as not part of the same sequence; it's X as opposed to the 1-21 of the rest. Placing it to the right seemed to balance the Fool in a pleasing way.

I am also looking forwards to see how the final three-Fool version of the SD will work with this - there will be a Maiden, Mother, and Crone fool, with the Crone the one I've already done. I am figuring that a column of Fools laid out in the same order as the rest of the Majors would correspond pretty well.

I know I'll be doing a revision/tightening pass on the deck before publication; I may well decide to weave something in to strengthen this view of the Majors.

I am undecided about its application to the Minors and Courts. I dealt the Courts out in an order based the order I arrange a newly-made deck (QKCP, for
C A 3 5 7 9 Q
P 2 4 6 8 0 K) and it almost made sense; the unique gender dynamics of the SD's courts make it more complicated. I only dealt out Wands and Pents, not having room for all four suits unless I used the floor.

Attached: photo of the SD majors in this organization.
 

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rwcarter

Egypt,

I could just frame that picture and put it on my wall! Would that property taxes weren't due in a couple of months, I'd buy one of your special editions of that deck. (sigh....)

I'm making (some slow) progress with my exploration of how the Seven Stations applies to the Ancient Egyptian Tarot. The Outer Path is solid. I've rewritten all or part of the Inner Path many times. But I keep hitting the wall with the Hidden Path when I try to apply it to the cards. I understand what the Hidden Path is about when I read it, but when I try to apply it I draw a blank. So I guess I don't really understand what it's about then, huh?

Tehuti, I have Tarot Mirrors and actually have already pulled that layout for studying the Majors. I don't believe I even considered it against the Seven Stations at the time, but will give it a look-see sometime this week and report back. (My memory of the layout in Tarot Mirrors is that the 6 cards that circled the center card were related to it, unlike the Seven Stations which has relations across the paths and down the stations. But I will look again.)

Rodney
 

Teheuti

rwcarter said:
My memory of the layout in Tarot Mirrors is that the 6 cards that circled the center card were related to it, unlike the Seven Stations which has relations across the paths and down the stations. But I will look again.
When laid out in "circles" you can think of them three-dimensionally, laid out that the circles are above each other. That way the seven "stations" align with each other vertically in space. Each method of laying these sets out gives a slightly different perspective on their interrelationships.
 

rwcarter

It's taken me awhile to get back to this, but I have. While I see that there are similarities between the Seven Stations and the 3x7 Structure of the Major Arcana as laid out in Tarot Mirrors (I don't have the Motherpeace Playbook), I believe the Seven Stations is different enough from what's in Tarot Mirrors to warrant its own study/discussion.

For those who don't have Tarot Mirrors, the paths that are laid out horizontally in the Seven Stations are arranged in circles around the cards that occupy the first station of the Seven Stations (Magician, Priestess and Empress). Those three circles are then arranged around the Fool as kind of a central hub.

The paths of the Seven Stations are Outer/Inner/Hidden or Material/Psychological/Eternal. The corresponding circles in Tarot Mirrors represent the Conscious, Intuitive and Imaginative Minds. I don't see a lot of correlation between the paths and the circles. But I do see both of them as valid methods of gaining a deeper understanding of the cards.

Tarot Mirrors goes on to talk about the Seven Rays, which would correspond to the stations of the Seven Stations. I don't see any correlation between the two systems, but I'll lay them out side by side so that other people can judge for themselves:

Seven Stations..................Seven Rays...........................
Origin...............................Will and Power
Inspiration.........................Love of Wisdom
Power..............................Active Intelligence
Turning Point.....................Harmony Through Conflict
Transformation...................Concrete Knowledge and Science
Epiphany...........................Devotion to the Ideal
Destiny.............................Organization and Ceremonial Magic

As with the circles, I believe the Seven Rays are another valid way of developing a deeper understanding of the cards.

I'm still trying to work through my block in trying to apply the third path to the Ancient Egyptian Tarot.

I'm also going to ping dangerdork this weekend and see if I can entice him back to this thread he started....

Rodney
 

dangerdork

Redux time

OK, I see it's been over a year since I posted on this thread.

I guess it's time to start moving forward again. This thing really took on a life of its own, didn't it? Thanks to everyone, especially rcarter for all the contributions you've made here.

To get this thing going again, I'm wondering how to proceed. I obviously researched and wrote a lot of stuff that's no longer fresh in memory. So do I go re-read the whole thread and take off on new tangents as I go? Do I re-read the whole thread and reorganize the whole thing into a PDF doc or website that's easier to browse and understand? Do I lay out different decks in the Seven Stations / Three Paths arrangement WITHOUT rereading the thread, so I'm approaching the topic with fresh eyes? Do I do ALL of these (Do I have time to do all of these)?

Not sure which way to go yet, but I'm thinking I will start by laying out some cards and looking at the stories the imagery tells.

It does seem to me that the most important aspect of this perspective is to provide an alternative to the Fool's Journey in examining the entire Major Arcana as an interrelated whole - speculating on the totality of its meaning as a story, or actually as three stories.

All the numerological, astrological, alchemical, kabbalistic, hermetic correspondences we may find, and all the spreads we may devise, should remain as factors and derivations of the overall archetypal patterns we recognize in the sequences themselves.

If anyone is still listening, I'd love to get the conversation going again.

BTW, Egypt Urnash, not only is that a gorgeous deck but I'm immensely flattered to see it laid out in this pattern and shared with the world this way.
 

rwcarter

dangerdork said:
OK, I see it's been over a year since I posted on this thread.

I guess it's time to start moving forward again.
:party::party::party:[size=+2]YIPPEE!!!!! Welcome back dangerdork!!!!![/size]:party::party::party:

dangerdork said:
So do I go re-read the whole thread and take off on new tangents as I go? Do I re-read the whole thread and reorganize the whole thing into a PDF doc or website that's easier to browse and understand? Do I lay out different decks in the Seven Stations / Three Paths arrangement WITHOUT rereading the thread, so I'm approaching the topic with fresh eyes? Do I do ALL of these (Do I have time to do all of these)?
I vote for all of the above! :D Having written much of it yourself, I think you can skim over what you wrote (that should refresh the memory) and then read over what others have contributed to see where things stand now.

dangerdork said:
If anyone is still listening, I'd love to get the conversation going again.
Dude, we're listening. Let the volcanic eruptions begin anew. But hopefully you can keep Temperance in mind this time and give us mere mortals a chance to keep up with you.... :laugh:

dangerdork said:
BTW, Egypt Urnash, not only is that a gorgeous deck but I'm immensely flattered to see it laid out in this pattern and shared with the world this way.
I have to find a way to get the special edition of this deck before December....

Rodney
 

dangerdork

rwcarter said:
I have to find a way to get the special edition of this deck before December....
Awwww.... you remembered my birthday is in December!
 

rwcarter

dangerdork said:
Awwww.... you remembered my birthday is in December!
Fine! I gotta find a way to get two special edition decks before December.... :laugh:

Rodney
 

rwcarter

K. I've finally gotten past my block on applying the third path to the Ancient Egyptian Tarot. What finally helped for me was to look at the paths as Physical/Mental/Spiritual or Body/Mind/Spirit instead of Outer/Inner/Hidden. The associations of priest, moral and Church with the Inner path and spirit with the Hidden path kept me going down the road of having two religious/spiritual paths. In retrospect, that's interesting because I'm not religious and while I think that in an ideal world religion and spirituality would go hand in hand, I don't believe that's the case with most organized religions today.

Later on today I'll post my analysis of how the Seven Stations applies to the AET in the AET study thread and link to it here.

So I've seen how the cards align along the paths. But what I can't decide is how or if the cards along the stations should be studied. Yes, Death, Temperance and the Devil are all epiphanies. And I now know how those cards fit into each of their paths. But do those cards need study between them as epiphanies? If so, what kind? I think I covered them as different types or levels of epiphanies in looking at the paths. Should they be looked at as a progression of epiphanies? Something else I can't think of right now?

Or should I just move on to looking at the Minors?

Rodney