What Question would you ask Miss Pamela?

tarotbear said:

I didn't realize there were 'rules' that we are only allowed to ask the dead one question - is this some sort of séance or something? I thought this thread was an intellectual exercise ... mea culpa ...

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Actually tarotbear is right. Many of the questions here are based on inaccuracies while other can be answered because there are records. Just go with the questions, we can't be nitpicking (as much as I am resisting the urge to). You may as well ask how she felt when she met a unicorn. When the Harris thread inevitably surfaces I imagine many people will have questions about her that will be far more easily answered, because the written records on the Thoth are far more extensive in scope, including its creation process.

I would also be interested in her Christian upbringing and later life, and whether she could see connections between Wait's mystical brand, her own faith and the images on the cards.

closrapexa said:

Actually tarotbear is right. Many of the questions here are based on inaccuracies while other can be answered because there are records. Just go with the questions, we can't be nitpicking (as much as I am resisting the urge to). You may as well ask how she felt when she met a unicorn.

I would also be interested in her Christian upbringing and later life, and whether she could see connections between Wait's mystical brand, her own faith and the images on the cards.

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Fair enough

Closrapexa is right....this is a free for all...what would you ask?

It doesn't matter if the question has appeared in a book or online. This is about questions you would ask Miss Pamela if you could. IF you could sit across from her and have a conversation, what would you say or ask? So it's all good .

Calcifer said:

I'd ask about the details of the paintings themselves (original size/format), and if she knew where they went when she completed them...

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They were probably not paintings - just b&w drawings. As she was a trained illustrator she probably created overlays showing what colors went where. These were done as blocks of color using screens to create color mixes or lighter shades. I worked in a printshop in London in the 1970s and we were still using some of these techniques with offset lithography. The drawings may have been kept by the printshop. We know that at least one set of plates were destroyed during the war (but which war?).

ravenest said:

I would ask her if Waite gave her secret instructions to hide obscure Freemasonic symbolism in the minors - or if she 'channeled' that out of his head and did it herself ... of if she even knew if she did that.

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Good question. I'd ask that, too. It's interesting that both Debussy and Yeats went on record commenting that she seemed to create what they saw in their heads when 1) she painted what she saw via her synesthesia when listening to Debussy, and 2) Yeats said that only she got what he wanted with her set design sketch for Land of Heart's Desire.

tarotbear said:

I'd ask Pam if Crowley really was the weirdo, creepy guy everyone makes him out to be or if he was just a pompous ass ....

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There's no indication that she ever met Crowley. He was long out of the Golden Dawn by the time she arrived on the scene, traveling with and without his wife Rose through Egypt, Burma, Algiers, living at Boleskine and in London.

I'd ask if she read Tarot before, during or after creating the cards? And, What information did Waite give you? We have not a shred of evidence that she knew anything about Tarot other than the two cards whose symbolism was part of her initiation rituals. Until the Rider-Waite-Smith deck Tarot cards were extremely hard to find in England because of strict regulations protecting the playing card industry.

Teheuti said:

Good question. I'd ask that, too. It's interesting that both Debussy and Yeats went on record commenting that she seemed to create what they saw in their heads when 1) she painted what she saw via her synesthesia when listening to Debussy, and 2) Yeats said that only she got what he wanted with her set design sketch for Land of Heart's Desire.

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<thinks> ... ! Is there a link between the two? I mean, can we see a picture listed as inspired by a piece of music , or the music listed with the artwork associated with it - for comparison. I'd like to see that !

ravenest said:

<thinks> ... ! Is there a link between the two? I mean, can we see a picture listed as inspired by a piece of music , or the music listed with the artwork associated with it - for comparison. I'd like to see that !

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There are some examples here: http://www.elfindog.sakura.ne.jp/pcsworks2.htm

Scroll down to from "Pictures In Music in The Strand Magazine" and also the section right below that (those are in a looser, more sketchy style)

I also saw a Beethoven one on this page: http://www.elfindog.sakura.ne.jp/pcsworks.htm

No Debussy though, which would have been especially interesting given his remarks.

I've seen many claims that Pamela had synesthesia, but I think it's debatable that she was an actual synesthete, or whether she was just very imaginative, and good at expressing what she saw in her mind's eye when she listened to music. There was a kind of 19th-century fad for music-inspired painting. What she's describing here doesn't quite ring true for actual synesthesia, in my opinion.