New TdM member

fyreflye

Hi, Paul,
I was interested in your use of images and concepts from India in working with the Marseille. I've only recently come across the book by Sergius Golowin, The World of the Tarot, which bases itself on the Gypsy Tarot of Walter Wegmüller and which posits an Indian origin for the cards used in the Gypsy packs. He links the Devil trump to Shiva, for instance, which would affect dramatically the standard interpretation of that card. Like Golowin and Wegmüller I'm an old '70's India hand who's internalized many of these images and concepts. I don't expect you to write an essay on the subject but I hope you keep your thoughts about the Indian aspects of the cards in mind when you post here in the future.
Golowin's book is long out of print but if you're not familiar with it and interested you can pick it up fairly cheaply from a search at http://www.abe.com
 

tmgrl2

Hi, Paul! Jump into Let's Marseille, Part 4 under Reading Exchange. I think there's room. Charming Pixie does a great job of moderating. Many of us are new to Tarot de Marseille, but we do one two card reading for another person in the chain.

Look forward to seeing you in the posts.

terri
 

Paul

Fyreflye –

Spooky! (My current Hallowe’en term for Wow!). I have had Golowin’s book for ages; in fact, it has informed the brunt of my Minor Arcana system. Golowin uses Papus’ Minor Arcana system, with one important modification (that I like)—it all centers around whether one interprets Swords as a malefic suit or value-neutral. In fact, Papus interpreted Swords as referring to “hatred and misfortune", which I ultimately rejected in my system. For what it's worth, I give each suit a "trinity of titles" to summarize the suit's significations. My Swords get my 3 P's: Politics, Power, and Pain (Pain here is like the kind of pain, or burn, one gets when lifting weights for example). Another "P" sometimes arises in the realm governed by this suit: Paperwork. Perhaps sometime in the future I can provide examples of specific meanings that derive from this.

Of course, I did not take everything Papus or Golowin had to say as ex cathedra, but I was looking for a system-of-meanings for the Minor Arcana in the 1980’s and disliked the incongruent meanings of Etteilla and Waite. Currently, I think that Paul Hughes-Barlow’s site provides a nice overview of this method at http://www.supertarot.co.uk/meaning/papus.htm, and Tarot of the Bohemians is online: http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/tob/ . Remember, I only borrowed the system of Thesis/Anithesis/Synthesis. Notice that Papus signifies Swords as malefic, and then notice what this does to the systematic Swords’ meanings (hint: it reverses the pattern that is present in other suits). Well, that didn’t suit me at all (pun: hee hee). I’m a symmetry-junkie. Later, I read Golowin’s work and through careful analysis realized he had parted with Papus as well on this point and taken the Swords as a value-neutral suit, just like all the other suits. Essentially, this repaired the assymetry of Papus' suit/number system. In my opinion, this resulted in a beautiful symmetry in the Minor Arcana numbering system. Even though I can be an iconoclast, I was insecure and liked that it seemed that Golowin had legitimized my modified system because he was an author(ity).

Now, I did find Golowin’s expressed meanings in his book to be indistinct and impractical. Years ago, I did readings at Hallowe’en parties and Renaissance Faires; the public demanded detail and concreteness. So, I modified both gentlemen’s ideas a bit. Should I enter into more about my numbering system and the consequential meanings of the Minors, or perhaps another thread? That’s where more on the Hindu trinity comes in.

Hi tmgrl2 – sounds intriguing! (The Let’s Marseille) area. Thanks for the invite, which would be a Knight of Cups kinda moment.

Say, to all with more experience at this Forum, I don't want to get too tangential in my efforts to answer specific inquiries on a thread. Ummmm, do these heterogenous discussions ultimately give birth to specific threads?
 

Paul

Hi Lee, you asked a specific question about decks:
Well, I must admit to having "ADHD of TdMs -- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder of TdM decks," if there is such a diagnosis.
Currently, I use the Fournier, the Dusserre (photoreproduction that looks like the Grimaud but with better blues), and the Hadar. Years ago, I started off with a Grimaud when I read at parties and managed to obtain an old Dodal (photo reproduction) when reading at Renaissance Faires. Currently, I have the Jodo-Camoin, but can’t connect with it…this is only my aesthetic opinion with no merit based on extensive analysis of the deck, but the Jodo-Camoin seems over-processed, computerized, kind of Las Vegas meets Marseille, and all of those freakin’ scoring lines! Anyway, the decks I like maintain a simpler relationship between the reds, blues, and yellows. Exactly what is red, blue, or yellow is a distinction that I am sure Messieurs Hadar, Camoin and Jodrowsky have much to say, and it of course has changed over the decades.
 

Lee

Thanks, Paul. Regarding whether to start new threads, yes, please feel free to go ahead and start new threads, for example if you'd like to provide more detail about your system for the minors (I say that selfishly, because that's what I'd like to see!), or any other topic. Don't be shy, everyone here just jumps right in.

-- Lee
 

Lee

I should add, the reason I'm particularly interested in your system is that I've become increasingly disenchanted with the Etteilla/Golden Dawn/Waite school of divinatory meanings. They strike me as very arbitrary, and as I've been reading "Mystical Origins of the Tarot" by Paul Huson, the evolution of this school of meanings seems rather ungainly and has an almost Keystone Kops quality to it.

On the other hand, I've found that number+suit derived meanings don't seem very satisfying, speaking as they do (at least as I've experienced them) of gradations of experience but lacking the specificity which you've discussed, Paul. So, that's why I'm intrigued by what you describe as a systematic, logical and symmetrical system which also provides more specificity.

-- Lee
 

tmgrl2

Lee said:
I should add, the reason I'm particularly interested in your system is that I've become increasingly disenchanted with the Etteilla/Golden Dawn/Waite school of divinatory meanings. They strike me as very arbitrary, and as I've been reading "Mystical Origins of the Tarot" by Paul Huson, the evolution of this school of meanings seems rather ungainly and has an almost Keystone Kops quality to it.

On the other hand, I've found that number+suit derived meanings don't seem very satisfying, speaking as they do (at least as I've experienced them) of gradations of experience but lacking the specificity which you've discussed, Paul. So, that's why I'm intrigued by what you describe as a systematic, logical and symmetrical system which also provides more specificity.

-- Lee

Lee....I was quite disenchanted with Huson's book myself.

I use some of what I got from that thread on the numbers where you and Umbrae and others posted their use of numbers for the cards.

Also, I am using Klea's Au Fil d'Arcane (alas, in French) and I have marked up Carol Sedillot's Ombres et Lumieres du Tarot. I was using Sedillot more than I realized before I got Klea's books...now I am revisiting it since Diana recently mentioned it again.

Found these threads I liked...

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1614

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24734

Thanks to Lee and Centaur...for these. I found them helpful, although, Paul, you seem to have a great deal of experience.

As Lee said...start new threads, but also search through the Marseille Forum...there are already a number of them you may find interesting ...you may wish to add some posts and bump these up for continued discussion.

terri
 

Lee

tmgrl2 said:
Lee....I was quite disenchanted with Huson's book myself.
Hi terri, I should make clear that while I'm disenchanted with the source material he's writing about, I actually like Huson's book itself. His listing of the Picatrix material in particular is invaluable in seeing where the GD was coming from in their determination of meanings for the pip cards.

-- Lee
 

tmgrl2

Lee said:
Hi terri, I should make clear that while I'm disenchanted with the source material he's writing about, I actually like Huson's book itself. His listing of the Picatrix material in particular is invaluable in seeing where the GD was coming from in their determination of meanings for the pip cards.

-- Lee

Sheepishly grinning....I need to read the WHOLE book, Lee.
I read sections as I tend to do since I have been building my library. I was not that enchanted with my"skimming" ...However, I do remember going to the dreaded "Three of Swords" and reading. Huson does, here, as he does more so in the minors from what I gleaned, refer to the Picatrix...for those, like me, who have never heard of it.

from Huson:

Picatrix, a book of astrological magic translated from Arabic into Latin dating from the fourteenth centry or earlier recommended using these images as talismans for a variety of purposes. Two centuries later Agrippa also advocated using them as talismans in his Three Books of Occult Philosophy.


Agrippa's Occult Philosophy may have sparked the Golden Dawn's idea to marry the thirty-six decns to the thirty-six tarot suit cards (minus the aces and court cards), or it may have been Paul Christian, a student of Levi's whose 1870 book Histoire de la magie presented a complex astrological interpretation of the suit cards (quite unlike the Golden Dawn's, however) alongside an Egyptian development of the trumps...

This is a section I had skimmed over, since I wasn't familiar enough with history of Golden Dawn to have it even "dawn" on me (LOL, no pun intended) that I could have an informed opinion about this possibility.)


However, when I look at Huson's discussion of the Three of Swords, Huson suggests the whoever translated the decans' meanings from Picatrix and used them to interpret the Golden dawn tarot suit cards
somehow contrived to transpose the images and meanings of the second and third decans of Libra. Both the edition of the Picatrix that I have consulted for this analysis and Agrippa's Occult Philosophy confirm this. So to find what the Golden Dawn thought the decan interpretations of this card should be, we must read the decan associated with the next card, the Four of Swords, and vice versa.

Thank you, Lee, for pointing this out. I will now put Huson back on the pile of books that I wish to read more thoroughly, since I have always felt when I see the RWS Three of Swords, I think of it more as the idea of "having gone through the sorrow that has pierced our heart...that the struggle is done and now one can recover in mind, body and spirit. The Swords of Air (understanding) have helped us resolved something painful."

terri

We have several discussions worthy of threads going here, so I hope it's ok I posted this in reply.
 

Lee

Hopefully Paul won't mind, terri, if we take a small detour in his thread! :)

I admit that while I *am* in the process of reading Huson's book, at present it happens to be bathroom reading. :D

Yes, I noticed that about the Three of Swords too, that's one of the things that led me to characterize the evolotion of GD meanings as Keystone Kops. The other one I saw in Huson's book was the Six of Pentacles, where apparently Mathers, when translating Etteilla's "present" (as in now, the present, today), mistranslated it as "present" (as in gift). And that's why we end up with the RWS card showing somebody giving people money. Arrggh!! :joke:

So (in a lame attempt to bring this post back on-topic), that's why I'm disenchanted with the whole GD/Waite thing, and why, after failing to find number+suit methods that satisfy me, I'm very curious about Paul's methods. I just now read Paul's post in the Bastons thread, which makes me even more intrigued. And I've just ordered the Golowin book based on fyreflye's and Paul's comments on it.

-- Lee