Reading 'The Pictorial Key to the Tarot' by AE Waite - Confused?

MagsStardustBlack

Teheuti said:
BTW, I understand what you mean about Waite not making sense when I get tired. I can only read him in small batches before I start going bonkers. Then I come back to it and am surprise again about how clear he is, until I start going under again. The effect is maddening.
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Thank you for your kindness :.))) I intend to understand this book if i kills me - so i will be reading and re-reading untill i 'get' it. He makes me smile in parts, he can be quite funny, but also he sounds like 'i graduated from the University of Smartass' but the book is fascinating and interesting and quirky in it's elequent romantic manner - i like it very much.
 

Teheuti

MagsStardustBlack said:
Thank you for your kindness :.))) I intend to understand this book if i kills me - so i will be reading and re-reading untill i 'get' it. He makes me smile in parts, he can be quite funny, but also he sounds like 'i graduated from the University of Smartass' but the book is fascinating and interesting and quirky in it's elequent romantic manner - i like it very much.
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Glad to find someone else who can appreciate Waite (we're a very small club). One key is to summarize difficult sentences and passages in your own words. The challenge to do so helps both your focus and understanding. And look up words that seem confusing - in a 19th century British dictionary! Waite is always extremely precise.

BTW, he had a photographic memory for texts. Reading his biography and what others had to say about him, I think he had high-functioning Asperger's - many well-known people did and do.
 

swedishfish612

I have PKT but haven't really sat down with it yet. I've dipped into it here and there, enough to know that it's going to be a bear to actually digest!

It's so interesting to me to hear the speculation that Waite had Asperger's. Both my husband and my son have AS, so I'm used to being surrounded by walking encyclopedias! Maybe that will give me an advantage in reading PKT! ;)
 

Winterchild

Lwb

I dont have A Pictorial Key atm but just trying to read the LWB that came with my lovely old Rider deck..... nightmare stuff!

I read this paragraph about 50 times before sleep last night:

"It will be seen that, except where there is an irresistible suggestion conveyed by the surface meaning, that which is extracted from the Trumps Major by the divinatory art is at once artificial and arbitrary, as it seems to me, in the highest degree. But of one order are the mysteries of light and of another are those of fantasy."

In the past, have studied literature, read classics.... and old texts written long before Waite's days, but I cannot make head nor tail of this....
 

Richard

Winterchild said:
I dont have A Pictorial Key atm but just trying to read the LWB that came with my lovely old Rider deck..... nightmare stuff!

I read this paragraph about 50 times before sleep last night:

"It will be seen that, except where there is an irresistible suggestion conveyed by the surface meaning, that which is extracted from the Trumps Major by the divinatory art is at once artificial and arbitrary, as it seems to me, in the highest degree. But of one order are the mysteries of light and of another are those of fantasy."

In the past, have studied literature, read classics.... and old texts written long before Waite's days, but I cannot make head nor tail of this....
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I read it the same way I would read a technical article. In your quote I had to break it down to a single phrase at a time, from one comma to the next. When each phrase is understood, they can be reassembled into the complete sentence. I doubt that the nuances of Waite's thought could be expressed as accurately in the more direct, journalistic style of writing to which we are accustomed. Also, when he uses a big word, he is not trying to show off. He is merely using the word which most accurately expresses what he is thinking. In a sense, it is a technical vocabulary, and his writing often tends to be philosophical rather than strictly expository.
 

Winterchild

LRichard said:
I read it the same way I would read a technical article. In your quote I had to break it down to a single phrase at a time, from one comma to the next. When each phrase is understood, they can be reassembled into the complete sentence. I doubt that the nuances of Waite's thought could be expressed as accurately in the more direct, journalistic style of writing to which we are accustomed. Also, when he uses a big word, he is not trying to show off. He is merely using the word which most accurately expresses what he is thinking. In a sense, it is a technical vocabulary, and his writing often tends to be philosophical rather than strictly expository.
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I can see this and understand the words... I like the way he writes, I just have no idea what he is trying to say! I work it out as:

Unless the meaning of the Major Arcana cards is made obvious by the image, then any other meaning given is both false and just random according to the readers whim at the time. However this does not mean they are pure fantasy, as there are ways of enlightenment that we know little of.

Thoughts????

Very enjoyable exercise whatever!!
 

Richard

I think that "mysteries of light" refers to the esoteric significance of the Majors, whereas "fantasy" is the use of imagination/intuition in their divinatory interpretation. I don't think that "fantasy" is necessarily meant to be derogatory.
 

Teheuti

"It will be seen that, except where there is an irresistible suggestion conveyed by the surface meaning, that which is extracted from the Trumps Major by the divinatory art is at once artificial and arbitrary, as it seems to me, in the highest degree. But of one order are the mysteries of light and of another are those of fantasy."
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While Tarot divination can be artificial and arbitrary, there are cases in which what is conveyed [by the symbols] strikes a person truly. Some interpretations contain more profound Truth than others.

I do think that, in this case, he is saying that fantasy (and invented card meanings which, as in Etteilla, seem quite arbitary) is not as deeply meaningful (at a Spiritual level) as what can be gotten by those who can truly perceive the higher 'mysteries' in the symbols.

Winterchild - I like your rewording much better than mine!!!
 
Would anyone recommend "Tarot Prediction and Divination" by Susyn Blair-Hunt ? Place's Buddha Deck/Book