So you'd like to know the history of tarot

firemaiden

gregory said:
Do we know who sent that e-mail - was it Wagner or just a fan of hers (if such there be ?)
My theory: the person who sent the letter, if different in name, would have most likely been an alias of the crackpot who wrote the piece.
 

Teheuti

I've let go of the email. I guess I'm just shocked that, with all the information available on the internet, anyone would badly put together a fantasy about tarot and present it publicaly as the true history of tarot. Why do people think that their uninformed intuition is so much more correct than the years of hard work and discipline of the historian?

To me the vision, intuition or unanswered question is a seed or starting place for discovery. It revs up the emotions and thoughts to give energy to do the work involved in exploration.

When I wrote _Women of the Golden Dawn_ I was answering a couple of questions I had. One was "Why has the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn have more of a lasting and far-reaching impact than other magical orders?" A second thing was my "intuition" that the women involved had a lot to do with what made it different than so many other magical organizations.

It led me on a six-year journey - much of it involving all week ten hour days plus weeks in libraries in England and Ireland. That's what it takes to have any idea whether your intuition has any validity or not.

To be scornful of the place and results of such work seems like total nonsense to me, although maybe I simply want to see all my hard work as worthwhile.

OTOH, armchair intuitionists also want to see their musings as a worthwhile, but as an endpoint. I see them as merely a starting point on a great journey.

To me, history is a great journey that never ends, requiring sudden changes of plan, maps to be redrawn, deadends, and lots of hard work. And it really needs the input of others who have covered the same ground to verify that what you've perceived 'is,' and is perceptible to others. To have something else masquerading as history is not the real thing.

Myth is just as valuable in its own way—and essential to the human soul. I also love fiction. But, it's really important to understand the difference among them.

Sorry for the rant.
 

baba-prague

Teheuti said:
I received a private email from someone saying that I'm behaving badly by presenting this (on another list) and "making facts God." That I'm showing a repressed rage that makes people very uncomfortable and that I shouldn't make accusations.

Have I really been this out of line in bringing it to the attention of the tarot community?

Well, it's true Teheuti, you are obviously far too obsessed with fact. My intuition tells me that tarot originated with a small race of aliens who were visiting our planet in 2000 BC for reasons connected with the building of some pyramids. They gave the cards to gypsies, who a thousand or so years later were moving between Hawaii and the Canary Islands (the gypsies roamed a lot, hence their name of "Roma"). A certain Templar Knight happened to be in port one day - he was probably not so much a Knight of Malta as a Knight of the Canaries- and he saw the cards and realised...etc etc.

I mean, if we are going to ignore facts, it's as good as any other "history" isn't it?

:)

I like the way that Amazon does let people write these guides, but they really need some kind of "reader beware" notice sometimes. It would be far better if they moved to a Wiki type system where others could make edits.
 

kwaw

Teheuti said:
When I wrote _Women of the Golden Dawn_ I was answering a couple of questions I had. One was "Why has the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn have more of a lasting and far-reaching impact than other magical orders?" A second thing was my "intuition" that the women involved had a lot to do with what made it different than so many other magical organizations.

It led me on a six-year journey - much of it involving all week ten hour days plus weeks in libraries in England and Ireland. That's what it takes to have any idea whether your intuition has any validity or not.

To be scornful of the place and results of such work seems like total nonsense to me, although maybe I simply want to see all my hard work as worthwhile.

OTOH, armchair intuitionists also want to see their musings as a worthwhile, but as an endpoint. I see them as merely a starting point on a great journey.

To me, history is a great journey that never ends, requiring sudden changes of plan, maps to be redrawn, deadends, and lots of hard work. And it really needs the input of others who have covered the same ground to verify that what you've perceived 'is,' and is perceptible to others. To have something else masquerading as history is not the real thing.

I agree.. but looking back for example at TarotL, you too were that person once, as maybe we all have been,, but its been a great journey since, no?
 

Teheuti

kwaw said:
I agree.. but looking back for example at TarotL, you too were that person once, as maybe we all have been,, but its been a great journey since, no?
I was the one who, nine years ago, came up with the idea for the TarotL History Information Sheet. I learned a lot about historical methodology from being on the tarot lists, but I think you'll find that I've always expressed the belief that people can and should present their theories and that tarot myths are not lies but are subject to a different form of approach than are historical facts.

In addition, there is a history of ideas - in which one examines the myths, fantasies and fictions as historical artifacts that say something important and valuable about the human psyche and condition - rather than just dismissing them as lies.

My arguments were usually against calling myths lies—at least in a derogatory way. I happen to think they're very important as an expression of what tarot is and has been. Theories need evidence before they become history. Part of the history of tarot is that there are myths (they are historical artifacts in themselves) that have 'spoken' to many people, even after they have been shown to not be based on evidence. These myths have influenced the development of tarot - that's an historical fact.

I also used to encourage the historians to make up their own wild tarot origin stories about the tarot - and we got some absolutely great ones out of that process.

For instance, there's no evidence directly linking tarot with ancient Egypt. Some possibly related ideas, like Pythagorean number theory, seem to have come from the melting pot of Greco-Roman Alexandria, Egypt. Nevertheless, I continue to look through Egyptian art and ideas for anything that seems to relate to tarot. It's a fascination of mine that's taken me twice to Egypt and given me a lot of pleasure.
 

Teheuti

baba-prague said:
A certain Templar Knight happened to be in port one day - he was probably not so much a Knight of Malta as a Knight of the Canaries- and he saw the cards and realised...etc etc.

I mean, if we are going to ignore facts, it's as good as any other "history" isn't it?

As I said above, I love the origin-of-tarot stories. I think we'd find that if we took a hundred or so of them, written by people on aeclectic, that there would be certain consistent themes present and that these themes would be at the heart of what most of us take tarot to be at the soul-level. The meaning of myth and symbol is truly what tarot is all about to me. That's partly why I think it's important to be able to distinguish them from historical fact.
 

frelkins

well when it comes to tarot myths, i've always liked Revak's Divine Fifi & THE PICTORIAL KEY TO THE TAROT OF THE KING OF CUPS IN TATTERS (BEING FRAGMENTS OF A SECRET TRADITION UNDER THE VEIL OF PARODY).

Highly recommended for the few who haven't read it.
 

firemaiden

This I must have.
 

Rosanne

Teheuti said:
To me, history is a great journey that never ends, requiring sudden changes of plan, maps to be redrawn, deadends, and lots of hard work. And it really needs the input of others who have covered the same ground to verify that what you've perceived 'is,' and is perceptible to others. To have something else masquerading as history is not the real thing.

Myth is just as valuable in its own way—and essential to the human soul. I also love fiction. But, it's really important to understand the difference among them.
That was no rant really- or you and I rant differently :D
What I have snipped from your post, is really important.
I am always hitting dead-ends and having sudden changes of plans.
I look back at some of my early posts here and laugh and laugh...and that was only a few years ago. I guess I believe that History is finding out alternative attitudes as well, because sometimes conclusions previously reached are just plain wrong- like the taught migration of indigenous people to New Zealand 900 years ago. What a load of bollocks was taught as fact, when I was at school. Could be the same with Tarot when we look back in another hundred years.
~Rosanne
 

baba-prague

Teheuti said:
As I said above, I love the origin-of-tarot stories. I think we'd find that if we took a hundred or so of them, written by people on aeclectic, that there would be certain consistent themes present and that these themes would be at the heart of what most of us take tarot to be at the soul-level. The meaning of myth and symbol is truly what tarot is all about to me. That's partly why I think it's important to be able to distinguish them from historical fact.

Hi Mary. Sorry, I was teasing with my post. Just to be clear, I totally agree with you on this. The myths and intuition have their place, and can be enriching in their own way of course, but we need to respect historical facts. I got irritated with one woman here (an expat, not Czech) who "intuitively" reinvented the entire history of Prague - and the Templars - and taught it on a course that she set up. As far as I could work out, she simply couldn't be bothered to do any reading and research - it was easier to make it all up. This attitude sadly seems to be fairly common in "New Age" writing.

I found that Amazon guide quite unintentionally funny, but also a little worrying, as some people will read it and think it's history. Which is why I think Amazon should really rethink these - at the very least, disclaimers should be displayed in an obvious way.