Tarot of the New Vision - Banshee on the 7 of Pentacles

[Sushi]

Tarot of the New Vision

Just got this deck as a Xmas present to myself this year. So far I think I like it but there are few things differrent in it that have me stumped. For those of you not familiar with it it is based of the RWS deck, but gives the view of the card from the opposite direction. For example on the magician card, you see him from behind and there's a monkey hiding behind his robe and he has an audience in front of his table. On many cards this gives a little more insight into the meanings, but one of the ones I am having trouble with is the 7 of pentacles. We see the man with his pentacle bush, but there what appears to be a banshee hovering above him. I don't know how this ties into the tradional meaning of the card. From my understanding, banshess presaged death in the family, and I am not familiar with any meaning of that sort associated with this card. Does anyone else have any insights?

 

[firecatpickles]

I think the meaning is that the man in the VII Pentacles is so preoccupied with his own success or problems, that very little else matters. No matter what is right in front of his face, he stares pensively at the ground, engrossed in thought.

 

[Wildfyre]

I agree.

I would personally interpret it as a being unaware of the obvious, or side-tracked by his own life.

 

[Sushi]

Ok, I can understand that, but I was more focusing on how a Banshee ties into that? If its just showing that he's not focusing on what there, why a banshee? Why not a flying pig for that matter?

But why a Banshee? ( I feel like Jack Sparrow here, But why is the rum gone?)

 

[Wildfyre]

Traditionally, the bansee is a messenger of bad omens, the bearer of bad news so to speak. So I would interpret it as being so caught up in other things that he doesn't even realize the danger or ill-will right in front of him.

 

[Sushi]

Aha ! That's what I would have thought too, but ! I have never associated any sort of ill will or danger with this card before. I thought perhaps I missed one of the traditional meanings of the card, but I can't find anything along these lines anywhere. Would you agree that this is a departure from the traditional meaning?

 

[Debra]

Aha ! That's what I would have thought too, but ! I have never associated any sort of ill will or danger with this card before. I thought perhaps I missed one of the traditional meanings of the card, but I can't find anything along these lines anywhere. Would you agree that this is a departure from the traditional meaning?

The LWB lists the meanings of this card as "business, trade, worries." I never thought of it as "worries" so much as "waiting for something to manifest itself once you've done everything you can to make it happen."

I do suppose the banshee would be something to worry about! A snake under the bush would more effectively convey that meaning, but the artists already put lots of snakes on the ground in other cards, so maybe they felt they needed something new, something to take up that big empty space in the sky.

I think the artists simply may not have put much thought into the banshee image--or the meaning of the cards. (Is the banshee something that would be familiar to people in Italy, I wonder?)

I like this deck for many reasons. It did make me think "out of the box" on my RWS deck, that's for sure! However, there are a number of cards where the "new vision" is pretty strained. It's like they felt they had to put something new on every single card, even though "seeing it from the other side" doesn't really make sense for many of the cards.

There are a number of cards where the new element or new vision consists of an added bird in the sky or feature on the distant landscape.

My guess is that the artists read the key words for the card, saw a big empty space in the sky and thought "hey, let's put a scary ghost thing there! and let's make it a girl ghost!"

 

[Val]

This is one of my favorite decks and when I discovered there was a book available for it, I immediately ordered a copy.

From the book:
"...An ethereal creature gracefully moves in the sky above him; this could be a symbol of inspiration, an unhappy prediction, or a memory of a distant or deceased person. It is impossible to give a precise meaning to this "ghostly projection", although it is clear that it expresses a thought that comes from deep inside: a worry, maybe, or something else so strong that it stops his work."

Seems like I read somewhere that the man was so caught up in his material life that he had forgotten or was ignoring his spiritual self and the ghost has appeared to remind him of this. I thought I had read that in this book for the 7 of Pentacles, but maybe I'm confusing it with another card. Still, it does seem to fit the 7 of Pentacles.

~Val

 

[Debra]

What Val adds from the book is very interesting. It does seem to indicate that the artists didn't have banshees specifically in mind when they made the card.

I'd bet that the cards were made based on the Rider Waite Smith deck plus the lo Scarabeo little white book--and that the companion book was written last. Thus the author of the companion book has to figure out what to say about the image on the card.

I wonder if the LS guy who writes on this list sometimes would know the answer--is his name Riccardo? Does anyone know him well enough to ask?

 

[Val]

I'd bet that the cards were made based on the Rider Waite Smith deck plus the lo Scarabeo little white book--and that the companion book was written last. Thus the author of the companion book has to figure out what to say about the image on the card.

Companion book - yes! Thanks, Debra, I had completely spaced out on that term.

The companion book was written by the creators of the deck and has a first printing date of 2005. The deck itself, I believe, was published in 2003. According to the "Introduction" in the deck's lwb:

"The figures of this deck were inspired by the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot..."

And further states in the third paragraph:

"For the first time, the images created by Smith for the New Vision Tarot were designed by rotating the perspective 180 degrees (the figure is no longer seen from the front, but rather from the back). What the depicted figures have in front of them or behind them can therefore be discovered (depending on the angle)."

I absolutely love this "behind the scenes" perspective on my favorite reading deck and use the New Vision along with the RWS. Instead of pulling a clarifier from the RWS for a card that has me stumped, I'll pull that same card from the New Vision to get a look at what the card may be hiding "behind its back", so to speak. Works like a charm.

~Val