Why Scenic Minors?

ravenest

Sometimes ... In retrospect ... it seems as if ALL the decanic images were laid out, all the decanic asterism and star meanings, then the qabbalistic associations and the most commonly appearing themes were selected and given to the cards. Of course, that is a view in retrospect so .....
 

Richard

I don't believe the minors have that much to do with the GD really. Yes, Waite was a member of the GD, but he identified himself as a Catholic Mystic and the bulk of his writings deal with mysticism. From his New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry:

"I am certain, as a Catholic Mystic, that in the first place we came forth out of the Great Mystery and that in the last we return...".......
There is nothing specifically Catholic about that statement, and Waite was never a member of the Roman Catholic Church as far as I know. Anyhow, Catholics (in the ordinary sense of the term) are certainly uncomfortable about Freemasonry, and Waite was not. If you are really interested in Waite's 'Catholicism' read The Unknown Philosopher and The Hidden Church of the Holy Grail. Waite's Christianity was about as orthodox as that of Thomas Jefferson and seems to be almost identical to that of Louis Claude de Saint-Martin. As there is no indication that Waite had any interest in the soteriological Christology of the Catholic Church, it is seriously doubtful that he even merited a place in Purgatory, much less Heaven.

ETA. A New Light of Mysticism: Azoth; Or, The Star in the East is an early work by Waite which is quite candid about his 'Catholicism'. It does mention the passion of Christ as an allegory of our rejection of what he stands for, but no mention of the saving grace provided by the passion, which is the central, essential doctrine of all the main versions of Christianity, including Roman Catholicism.

Somewhere, maybe in the Azoth book, Waite describes himself as 'an Uniate Catholic', which is too indefinite to mean much. At other times he uses the word 'Catholic' to mean 'universal', and he speaks of such things as the Catholic doctrine of Theosophy or the Catholic doctrine of Alchemy.

Sometimes I think I may be a Catholic, and maybe you are too, Abrac. Ravenest is a priest in the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica.
 

Zephyros

I agree with LRichard, although I am quite drunk. Waite's Christianity couldn't be described as the classic kind everyone knows. Add to that his involvement with the GD (which of course affected him profoundly) and you have a picture of a far more complex figure than a "simple" Church-going-Sunday-school kind of person. Crowley may have tried to portray him as a decrepit, dusty, old-fashioned kind of person, but he was anything but.

Still, it is a good question. Other GD-dropouts (or "alumni") generally chose to stay with the pips. Certainly the Sola Busca was a big influence on the RWS, but was general public reception the only motive Waite had for adopting a relatively revolutionary visual model?

ETA: if you're all Catholic, and ravenest is something unpronounceable from some weired sex cult that doesn't count anyway, what are other people like me???
 

Zephyros

Anyway, not to get too off-topic (although I would be wholly amenable to a GD size thread), what did make Waite take off in such a drastic stylistic direction? I think it goes beyond mere decans or attributions, as all GD decks used pips which could be just as involved as the images. I think PCS could have created some really fantastic "moody pips," were she so inclined.
 

ravenest

Anyway, not to get too off-topic (although I would be wholly amenable to a GD size thread), what did make Waite take off in such a drastic stylistic direction? I think it goes beyond mere decans or attributions, as all GD decks used pips which could be just as involved as the images. I think PCS could have created some really fantastic "moody pips," were she so inclined.

Hint ... check 'memory theatre' and some people's ability to remember better from a symbolic image (Pips and Thoth) as opposed to a complex scenario ... like a little scene on stage in a play ( Like RW ) .
 

Zephyros

Yes, you're right, and also I launched into a half-hour slurred explanation of Atu XIII to my roommate. "Strange drugs" do add a lot to these things. })

But let's not let the thread spiral out of control.
 

ravenest

Yes, you're right, and also I launched into a half-hour slurred explanation of Atu XIII to my roommate. "Strange drugs" do add a lot to these things. })

But let's not let the thread spiral out of control.

Okay (spirals back in ) ....

I maintain that 'Waite's little pics on the minors are a type of ' theatre scene' on a stage and shown that way as a tool to remember easier (for some) the meaning of the card -as outlined above.

And I don't want to track the history back as I have made numerous posts about it already ( with refs and links) and its detailed in other places including the refs at the end of Scions paper about the decans ... and other places.
 

Zephyros

Bottle, bong, it's all good.

Does anyone think PCS had anyone to do with it? I mean, she always seems to be the one left out. People even leave her out when fighting for her recognition, since she ceases to become a person and becomes a degenerate symbol of the oppression by the patriarchy. Still, could it be that it was her idea to create the images?
 

Richard

Bottle, bong, it's all good.

Does anyone think PCS had anyone to do with it? I mean, she always seems to be the one left out. People even leave her out when fighting for her recognition, since she ceases to become a person and becomes a degenerate symbol of the oppression by the patriarchy. Still, could it be that it was her idea to create the images?
They were her images. She may not have had access to the relevant GD documents, so Waite probably described them to her somehow. ETA. She also could have had access to the solo buscar and the picadilly.
PCS later left the occult world and became a Roman Catholic.
 

ravenest

The famous guru Alan Watts, as an ordained Anglican priest, actually did 'defile' the altar in a real church, using it as a platform for sexual intercourse. Somehow word of this got out and Watts was defrocked. (At least that's what I recall from one of his books.) :D

I thought he would have defrocked BEFORE the defilement ?