piscesdreamer
i'm with you in this and if i must go to battle with you my lord i shall willingly*kneels down for a tap of the sword on my shoulder*Helvetica said:
a question regarding pamela colman smith's interpetation of the tarot.
Fulgour
Virginijus Poshkus 2003
the Radiant Rider-Waite, you have a new perspective on tradition.
hello piscesdreamer: now that you've bought your first Tarot deck,piscesdreamer said:
the Radiant Rider-Waite, you have a new perspective on tradition.
piscesdreamer
no actually, i'm trying to form an informed perspective on the tarot.rather i will echo pontious pilot...what is truth???Fulgour said:
TemperanceAngel
With the Tarot? It is in the eye of the beholder and what sits right and truthfully with you is most certainly going to be the correct truth for you concerning the Tarot.piscesdreamer said:
Everyone has their own path, their own journey with the Tarot and beautiful that journey is
Rusty Neon
TemperanceAngel said:With the Tarot? It is in the eye of the beholder and what sits right and truthfully with you is most certainly going to be the correct truth for you concerning the Tarot.
Everyone has their own path, their own journey with the Tarot and beautiful that journey is
Agreed.
Fulgour
Multiplicity in Sameness, Sameness in Multiplicity.Rusty Neon said:
piscesdreamer
well is there not objective truth and subjective truth?coming from the gurdjieffian school of thought i must ask of you tarot adherents. Is there not a uniform meaning for each of the pictoral interpatations of the tarot symbols?does the fool or the devil mean one thing in one deck and mean something different in another?TemperanceAngel said:With the Tarot? It is in the eye of the beholder and what sits right and truthfully with you is most certainly going to be the correct truth for you concerning the Tarot.
Everyone has their own path, their own journey with the Tarot and beautiful that journey is
TemperanceAngel
No card means one thing, it has many layers....each deck brings its own twist to a cardpiscesdreamer said:
Sophie
Rusty Neon said:
Fulgour said:
OK guys, these are admirable sentiments, but what do they actually mean?????
Sophie
Meaning in Tarot cards
Variations on the Majors, in my view, exist because people philosophies and views of life will vary - so that one person's Devil is another's liberating Pan, one person's foolish beggar is another's bold adventurer.
On the Minors it is more because original tarot had no figures on the pips and no guidebook (all the Marseille and inspired decks fall in that category); some newer tarot don't have figures (Thoth) but the author/inspirer of the deck (Aleister Crowley) was so directive as to meaning, besides placing keywords on the pips, that you really don't have choice. It's rather difficult, when a card is labelled "failure" to interpret it any other way. That's one reason I am uncomfortable with that very beautiful and powerful deck. I feel Aleister's hot breath down my neck telling me - not, not patience, failure! I know some people who cut off the keywords.
Pixie Colman put figures on the pips, as you know, and that directs the sense of the cards. Again, it is difficult to see the 2 of cups as a problem cards with two people gazing lovingly in each other's eyes, whereas I feel that with the Marseille, on top of that meaning, I also have the whole range of meaning that come from duality and gestation of emotion - so I find it more flexible. Still, the RWS minors have ranges of meanings and are less directive than the Thoth.
The best description I have ever read of reading symbols, and the flexibility demanded of the mind, was not in a tarot book but in a (delicious) fiction book called "His Dark Materials", by Philip Pullman. In it, a young girl called Lyra is given a compass on which are painted many pictures, called an alethiometer (a truth-measure, literally); she's told: "they're symbols, and each one stands for a whole series of things. Take the anchor there. The first meaning of that is hope, because hope holds you fast like an anchor so you don't give way. The second meaning is steadfastness, the third meaning is snag, or prevention. The fourth is the sea. And so on, down to ten, twelve, maybe never-ending series of meanings". The alethiometer works when someone asks a question by means of two dials: a third dial swings round moving from symbol to symbol to give the answer. Because she relaxed into the question, didn't worry at the alethiometer, but "gazed at it in a particular lazy way", Lyra gradually learnt to understand the meanings - and more importantly, the flow of meaning from one symbol to another (for like in tarot, the layer of meaning of any one symbol in any one reading will depend on the other symbols in that same reading, so that the fool will mean one thing in one reading, with the other symbols or cards, and another thing in another reading, with a new set of symbols or cards).
The important thing, then, is to train your mind to be flexible, like a limbered up ballet-dancer, relax, and don't seek to go too fast. Tarot flows, it tells a story. Remember there are many meanings to any one card, and with study and practice of your intution (both helping each other) you can reach that flow and those meanings during a live reading.
This is a separate question as to the quality of the Hello Kitty vs the RWS! I don't know the former (except in a catalogue), but I suspect it is not as subtle as described above, or, indeed, as the RWS that you own.
edited to add: Having had a quick look at the Housewives Tarot - it's a very tongue-in-cheek, amusing deck. One for entertainment at dinner parties
piscesdreamer said:
Variations on the Majors, in my view, exist because people philosophies and views of life will vary - so that one person's Devil is another's liberating Pan, one person's foolish beggar is another's bold adventurer.
On the Minors it is more because original tarot had no figures on the pips and no guidebook (all the Marseille and inspired decks fall in that category); some newer tarot don't have figures (Thoth) but the author/inspirer of the deck (Aleister Crowley) was so directive as to meaning, besides placing keywords on the pips, that you really don't have choice. It's rather difficult, when a card is labelled "failure" to interpret it any other way. That's one reason I am uncomfortable with that very beautiful and powerful deck. I feel Aleister's hot breath down my neck telling me - not, not patience, failure! I know some people who cut off the keywords.
Pixie Colman put figures on the pips, as you know, and that directs the sense of the cards. Again, it is difficult to see the 2 of cups as a problem cards with two people gazing lovingly in each other's eyes, whereas I feel that with the Marseille, on top of that meaning, I also have the whole range of meaning that come from duality and gestation of emotion - so I find it more flexible. Still, the RWS minors have ranges of meanings and are less directive than the Thoth.
The best description I have ever read of reading symbols, and the flexibility demanded of the mind, was not in a tarot book but in a (delicious) fiction book called "His Dark Materials", by Philip Pullman. In it, a young girl called Lyra is given a compass on which are painted many pictures, called an alethiometer (a truth-measure, literally); she's told: "they're symbols, and each one stands for a whole series of things. Take the anchor there. The first meaning of that is hope, because hope holds you fast like an anchor so you don't give way. The second meaning is steadfastness, the third meaning is snag, or prevention. The fourth is the sea. And so on, down to ten, twelve, maybe never-ending series of meanings". The alethiometer works when someone asks a question by means of two dials: a third dial swings round moving from symbol to symbol to give the answer. Because she relaxed into the question, didn't worry at the alethiometer, but "gazed at it in a particular lazy way", Lyra gradually learnt to understand the meanings - and more importantly, the flow of meaning from one symbol to another (for like in tarot, the layer of meaning of any one symbol in any one reading will depend on the other symbols in that same reading, so that the fool will mean one thing in one reading, with the other symbols or cards, and another thing in another reading, with a new set of symbols or cards).
The important thing, then, is to train your mind to be flexible, like a limbered up ballet-dancer, relax, and don't seek to go too fast. Tarot flows, it tells a story. Remember there are many meanings to any one card, and with study and practice of your intution (both helping each other) you can reach that flow and those meanings during a live reading.
This is a separate question as to the quality of the Hello Kitty vs the RWS! I don't know the former (except in a catalogue), but I suspect it is not as subtle as described above, or, indeed, as the RWS that you own.
edited to add: Having had a quick look at the Housewives Tarot - it's a very tongue-in-cheek, amusing deck. One for entertainment at dinner parties
