Why is The Moon card usually seen as negative?

[chaosbloom]

( ... )

 

[junemarie]

That's not an accurate generalisation because it ignores the majority of ancient oracular temples that were dedicated to Apollo, Zeus and cthonic deities. Apollo is a Sun God, Zeus is celestial but not lunar and cthonic deities are rarely associated with the Moon, with Persephone being something of an exception.

A strong relationship of the Moon with magic doesn't automatically imply the same kind of relationship with divination.

I am one of those who subscribe to the view that Apollonian temples were originally dedicated to the Moon, and that incoming warrior tribes converted them to their own uses.
(see, eg Gimbutas etc)

Besides which, I was referring to something much more widespread than later Greek practice.. There is evidence of lunar reckoning among the Iron age, Bronze Age, and Stone Age peoples in northern as well as southern Europe, (eg the Coligney calender), as also in early Japanese shamanic practice (see Carmen Blacker) and in many other traditions

The connection between the moon, magic, and divination, is simply this. Without divination, there can be no magic (we cannot proceed magically until we understand the will of the gods, the purpose of fate etc etc) At the very least, we need to establish if the time and place are propitious for our magical undertaking. And the moon, as regulator and timepiece of the organic world, is a powerful and necessary tool in any process of divination. (For what else is divination if not a form of remembering? And how can remembering happen if not in time?)

 

[rwcarter]

Moderator Note

Posts discussing alternate associations of the Majors have been split off into a new thread Alternate Astrological Associations of the Majors. Please continue discussion of that topic there and not in this thread.

 

[chaosbloom]

I am one of those who subscribe to the view that Apollonian temples were originally dedicated to the Moon, and that incoming warrior tribes converted them to their own uses.
(see, eg Gimbutas etc)

There is no evidence for that though. And Gimbutas' late work isn't exactly well received or widely accepted. I don't want to get into a discussion about ancient matriarchy but I don't even remember Gimbutas claiming that all religion was matriarchal - lunar. That sounds more like politically charged versions of Gimbutas' theory.

Besides which meant something much earlier. There is evidence of lunar reckoning among the Iron age, Bronze Age, and Stone Age peoples in Europe, (eg the Coligney calender).

That's not surprising. Lunar calendars are common. But the eras you are putting together are not concurrent. For example, the Greek Iron Age precedes the Scottish Iron Age by about 1500 years. And the Iron Age is already too late, even in Greece and the Aegean for that influx that supposedly took over lunar temples.

The connection between the moon, magic, and divination, is simply this. Without divination, there can be no magic (we cannot proceed magically until we understand the will of the gods, the purpose of fate etc etc) At the very least, we need to establish if the time and place are propitious for our magical undertaking. And the moon, as regulator and timepiece of the organic world, is a powerful and necessary tool in any divination.

The Moon certainly is related to divination but I find that attributing all the occult to the Moon is extreme and a little politically charged on top of that. It's as extreme as attributing all magic and divination to the Sun, and the Sun definitely has been connected to both. Why make it black and white?

Besides, I can think of plenty of folk magic that doesn't consider divination necessary for magic. Divining right before magic isn't always seen as necessary.

 

[junemarie]

There is no evidence for that though. And Gimbutas' late work isn't exactly well received or widely accepted. I don't want to get into a discussion about ancient matriarchy but I don't even remember Gimbutas claiming that all religion was matriarchal - lunar. That sounds more like politically charged versions of Gimbutas' theory.



That's not surprising. Lunar calendars are common. But the eras you are putting together are not concurrent. For example, the Greek Iron Age precedes the Scottish Iron Age by about 1500 years. And the Iron Age is already too late, even in Greece and the Aegean for that influx that supposedly took over lunar temples.



The Moon certainly is related to divination but I find that attributing all the occult to the Moon is extreme and a little politically charged on top of that. It's as extreme as attributing all magic and divination to the Sun, and the Sun definitely has been connected to both. Why make it black and white?

Besides, I can think of plenty of folk magic that doesn't consider divination necessary for magic. Divining right before magic isn't always seen as necessary.

1) History is myth. Gumbatus' work is one if the mythologies to which I subscribe.

2) I don't very much care about her academic reception.

3)of course its political.

4) I thought I'd made it clear in previous posts that I wasn't talking about all magic, but the kind practiced by witches and charmers. I'm certainly not in the least interested in the kind of boys' club stuff indulged by upper class Edwardians.

5) Scotland ?

6) Everyone knows that the stone/bronze/iron age division is sequential not concurrent, and happened at different times in different places, where have I said otherwise ?

Hey Ho. 'Spect this is all veering a bit OT.

 

[Barleywine]

Agreed, it looks like there should be another spin-off thread titled "The Mythological Origins of Lunar Symbolism." The subject is certainly relevant to the "negative Moon" question, but is getting pretty academic.

 

[chaosbloom]

1) History is myth. Gumbatus' work is one if the mythologies to which I subscribe.

2) I don't very much care about her academic reception.

3)of course its political.

Gimbutas didn't offer her theories as mythology, she offered them as scientific theories. If you're going to use them as elements of your personal mythology, especially with a political charge and with no interest in what other academics have to say then just call it pseudohistorical neomythology.

I'm not going to come back to this subject. It's bad enough that two millenia of Christian "historiography" has bogged down the Graeco-Roman pantheon with all sorts of manipulations, lies, distortions and destruction of primary sources. The last thing I need to deal with is modern attempts to do the same but from a different perspective, trying to cast ancient traditions in their own image and according to whatever is the ideological flavor of the century.

4) I thought I'd made it clear in previous posts that I wasn't talking about all magic, but the kind practiced by witches and charmers. I'm certainly not in the least interested in the kind of boys' club stuff indulged by upper class Edwardians.

What does Balkan folk magic have to do with upper class Edwardians? That was practised by witches and well, "wise women" since pre-Edwardian times. The paradigm of divination before performing magic is far more related to Edwardian notons of how to go about the process than folk magic of the particular branch I'm talking about.

5) Scotland ?

6) Everyone knows that the stone/bronze/iron age division is sequential not concurrent, and happened at different times in different places, where have I said otherwise ?

Hey Ho. 'Spect this is all veering a bit OT.

Scotland as one of the later examples of Iron Age chronologies and the Aegean as the earliest within the European continent. If a "patriarchal invasion" that usurped a Pan-European mother goddess culture happened before the Aegean Iron Age, and if you identify it with the known migrations of the time, then patriarchal culture spread to the rest of the European continent in the neolithic.

Anyway, this isn't the time or place that I want to deal with the theory of global ancient matriarchy. Please, can we at least avoid explicitly reforming foreign ancient cultures? In many ways, it's just not nice.

 

[SkylerK]

I'm one who happens to believe that Ultimate Truth is out there somewhere but all our methods of divination are imperfect lenses through which to view it - "through a glass darkly." The human mind is probably an inadequate vessel to contain it anyway (the "10-pounds-in-a-5-pound-bag" syndrome). It's why we have religion - to transfer our individual responsibility for thinking about it to a "higher authority." All we can do as readers is the best we can do, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't entertain - and hopefully educate - ourselves by trying.

The only problem, in my humble opinion, is that too many people mistake a healthy divergence of opinion for personal attack, or even worse, rudeness. Each one of us can only go by what experience has taght her/him, in my opinion, or if they prefer, by what the masses of paper they've read and accumulated knowledge has taught them. Again, we have different ideas not only about tarot, but also about what manners or rudeness is. If people are too sensitive or delicate to face the realization that not only does the whole world not agree with their interpretation of tarot, but that they are not going to pretend they do to spare their fragile egoes, as I see it, that is not my problem.

 

[SkylerK]

I am confused by your post, you put all tradition aside and then ... you seem to be equating the feminine with the dark side and mental illness ? ? ?

I guess what I was trying to say was that, if you really look hard enough around you, you will find traditions supporting any theory about every subject on earth. So ultimately, what really matters in tarot readings, as in everything else, is empirical evidence, ie, what experience has shown us about a specific card.

 

[ravenest]

... and empirical evidence led you to equate the feminine to mental illness ?

I'm still confused.