Disappointed in Dr. James Wanless.

Wanless comes to my home town a few times a year to give a mini-workshop and do readings. A few years ago he gave his version of tarot history that had me writhing in agony. I emailed him later and asked if he really believed what he was saying. He told me to lighten up, that he was just telling a metaphorical story, and truth has many layers, or some such thing. I was still upset because I'm sure there were people in the audience who thought he was speaking the literal truth. He may have a phD but he's very creative and Mercurial, and not about to be bound by literal truth.

I pronounce "tarot" the same way. I hope I haven't been annoying people all this time.

Sherryl

Sherryl said:

Wanless comes to my home town a few times a year to give a mini-workshop and do readings. A few years ago he gave his version of tarot history that had me writhing in agony. I emailed him later and asked if he really believed what he was saying. He told me to lighten up, that he was just telling a metaphorical story, and truth has many layers, or some such thing. I was still upset because I'm sure there were people in the audience who thought he was speaking the literal truth. He may have a phD but he's very creative and Mercurial, and not about to be bound by literal truth.

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Thanks for enlightening us! Unfortunately this mentality does little to restore the respectability of the Tarot community, i.e. we are not in a strong enough position to be careless about the truth.

Sherryl said:

Wanless comes to my home town a few times a year to give a mini-workshop and do readings. A few years ago he gave his version of tarot history that had me writhing in agony. I emailed him later and asked if he really believed what he was saying. He told me to lighten up, that he was just telling a metaphorical story, and truth has many layers, or some such thing. I was still upset because I'm sure there were people in the audience who thought he was speaking the literal truth. He may have a phD but he's very creative and Mercurial, and not about to be bound by literal truth.

I pronounce "tarot" the same way. I hope I haven't been annoying people all this time.

Sherryl

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What a very condescending way of reacting to someone's complaint. If he'd responded to an email that I'd sent him by telling me to 'lighten up' and that he was being metaphorical it would have really annoyed me. He certainly wasn't being metaphorical in the video - he definitely says that tarot was used as 'divination games; a way of looking into the future and predicting the future' - no metaphors there or maybe we're just all to uptight to recognise a metaphor!!!!!
Good grief, what a superior attitude to have .

I have his deck and love it!! trimmed of course..
the video i wasnt over keen on..
i wasnt keen on his pronunciation of the Tarot..
I say it with the silent T too, but i guess my aussie twang doesnt make it sound like a vegetable. We have Taro over here as a vege,, and definately wouldnt know what someone was talking about if they pronounced it like a carrot LOL!!

The History of Tarot i dont know much of it at all.. But i do know it was a card game not a divination card game.
where it originated from, has always been in debate.. i am neither here nor there with it.. so his history lesson , i didnt really absorb.
his saying that we couldnt use Tarot for predictions and yet way back then , they could?? why!! we all know they are not set in stone and i bet so did they way back then.

I agree with Sulis about the Email..


definatley a plug for his deck!!

graspee said:

I kept being distracted by the way he was pronouncing "Tarot".

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I was distracted by the super-cheesy Powerpoint sound effects. A whiplash? Really James?

Was it the silent T or the emphasis on the second syllable that distracted you? I say it with a silent T, but the emphasis on the first syllable: TAR-o. He was saying it more like ta-ROW. Also kind of cheesy.

Dancing Bear said:

The History of Tarot i dont know much of it at all.. But i do know it was a card game not a divination card game.
where it originated from, has always been in debate..

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That's precisely the problem. There really isn't much debate any more about the origins of tarot. Many of specifics are still missing, but more is getting filled in all the time, especially within the past 30 years. To ignore all the research, as if it didn't exist, doesn't benefit anybody.

I've known Jim since the '70s when we both taught at the same college and took a tarot class with Angie Arrien. Regarding Sherryl's email response, I'd say that Jim has assumed the public persona of the wise but playful Fool, wanting people to learn through their experiences rather than data.

Sure, it annoys me that out-and-out fallacies/fantasies get presented as if they were fact, but that doesn't mean that one can't get a lot of value out of focusing on what a teacher does best, rather than on what they do worst.

It is worth speaking up about the history. Personally, I keep doing so.

laura_borealis said:

Was it the silent T or the emphasis on the second syllable that distracted you? I say it with a silent T, but the emphasis on the first syllable: TAR-o. He was saying it more like ta-ROW. Also kind of cheesy.

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Not cheesy - Frenchy.

Tarot is a French word (the Italians call the deck Tarocchi). If you speak French, it seems natural to put the accent on the second syllable.

I'm curious, does it sound weird or affected to put the accent on the second syllable? Should the accent on the first syllable be considered the official English pronunciation?

Sherryl

Actually, French doesn't accent syllables. Except for the "swallowed" or silent E syllables, they're all supposed to be equal. Trouble is, in English we expect to have an accented syllable, and if the first one isn't obviously accented, we automatically assume the second one is. Take the name Marie for instance: in French it's MAH-REE, but since we don't hear it as MAH-ree (or MAY-ree, our Mary), we hear it as mah-REE. Languages are funny.

There's a thread around here somewhere that talks about everyone's different pronunciations of Tarot.

Sherryl said:

Not cheesy - Frenchy.

Tarot is a French word (the Italians call the deck Tarocchi). If you speak French, it seems natural to put the accent on the second syllable.

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Heh. I still think he sounded cheesy. The sound effects were worse though.

laura_borealis said:

Heh. I still think he sounded cheesy. The sound effects were worse though.

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I used to date a New Ager who insisted on pronouncing it tar-OH. Drove me up the wall, it did. I didn't have the heart to correct her.