CHESS and Tarot?

three wheels spinning

To me, when i think of tarot, i see three wheels spinning in my mind, and those wheels could not be complete without the rest of the deck.

Click to expand...

pan,

I am interested in this three wheels image that you mentioned. What is this pattern and the number of cards?

edited for brevity

pan said:

I think that the tarot as it existed previous to
the roman influence was at least as complex and enumerated as the deck that we ended up with...plus at least two cards.
....

People reading tarot get books that talk about
meanings of specific cards. Taken at that bit level, its easy to get confused. But a circle is
perfected. If its out of balance, you feel the tilt. When you look at the larger pattern (which most people don't seem to be capable of doing) Theres no way for the circles to work much any other way. You could pull a few things...you could
say pull numeric cards and find a balance point,
but again, it would take an eye for the whole pattern to do that. When people make changes to the tarot without an eye for the whole pattern,
it looks...off kilt...out of whack.

....

In this case, my assertion is that
Tarot is at least 30 thousand years old. Thats
a wild assertion considering the party line that
its only 600. Thats two different versions of history. Which one is correct? Of course as a single lone voice speaking only from the truth
of what more or less amounts to personal insight,
the "proofs" are stacked against me...pre- feudal means the tribal cultures which
existed before the big adventures of wars became
a plague on the planet. There was a time, believe
it or not, when humans were scarce enough that
they just competed with nature and not so much with each other.

....

yes, the question of what is the true identity of tarot, and how far back can anything resembling that identity go? and the answer is...as far as
we can Proove, the roman era of book burnings. But
then again, so what? it was after all the roman era of book burnings.
--------
__________________

Click to expand...

Hi Pan,

let me summarize a little bit, what you said.

You say, there is something similar to Tarot, something even more complex as the medieval Tarot and that's the REAL TAROT, what is presented in RENAISSANCE Tarot. This real object is displeased with the version of RENAISSANCE Tarot, but was more satisfied, when the RENAISANCE TAROT not only had 5x14 cards, but 4x14+22. This REAL TAROT might have been even 30 000 years old, at least it have been around 400 AD, when CFhristian burnt books.

I do interprete your words this way, if I was wrong in my summarization, please tell me.

I agree with you. I wouldn't call the object "TAROT", as Tarot seems to be a name developed rather lately, but that's only word definition.
There was something, it was similar to that, what later was called Tarot and cause that similarity one might call it Tarot. It's okay to act so, but in communication it might drive people crazy, when a term - in this case "Tarot" - is not specified to that
use one is interested to talk about. Nobody is interested to become crazy, so let's define "Renn. Tarot" for Renaissance-Tarot and "Real Tarot" for that, what has been before and was similar to it., perhaps even more complex.

Renaissance generally meant "remember that, what was before the book burning", which - of course - was not only book-burning, but the wandering of the nations also, which caused, that the Western Roman Empire broke down in great dimensions, people starting to forget how to write and to read and also, how to build houses with stones and to organize greater cities.

Renaissance was the phase of recovery of this blow to culture and people like Petrarca and Bocacchio essentially "remembered", that there was a culture before and that it might have some value to know about the past. This started "Renaissance", book-gathering, libraries, finally progress in book-printing, new arts, remembering of the earlier gods and systems, a lot of things.
In this struggle of "remembering" the old mystical systems also reappeared and were reinterpreted in a new way. One of the "reinterpretations" was the Tarot.
Of course, naturally, the early Tarot (Renn-Tarot) missed the earlier elegance and complexity of the earlier Real Tarot (as defined above).
So one has to understand the development of Renn-Tarot in itself, its motifs, its system just by that, what it was, a playing card riddle and experiment, innocent and without too big intentions, a very special case of "remembering" just by playing in various steps.
A real phenomen and the dimensions of this phenomen are totally unexplored, cause researchers already have serious troubles to understand the first part of it, and that's how Renn.-Tarot really turned to new life and that was, as we can perceive it now, in stages of Imperatori-decks, Chess-Tarots, 5x14-decks, Boiardo-poems etc.. Research had been fixed at an easy modell of remembering ...like, there was a text or a tradition, which was complete and that gave base to the development of Tarot without great switches.
"The original had 22 trumps" was the exspectation of them and that idea was simply too stupid, the hope, that it happened "easy", they didn't like to expand their mind too much about this question.
Renn. Tarot in all his various forms couldn't and doesn't touch any integrity of earlier and more complex systems - how could it. These systems existed before and history can't be changed really, only the perception of it can be changed (and this is often done).

If your inner eye sees there wheels turning or whatever picture your mind prefers, that's "remembering". Remembering the real system.
The "Real System" had something to do with "Memory culture" and mankind had a long phase, when written culture wasn't implanted, and memory culture had it's high time. "Writing and reading" attacked memory culture, and that attack was already successful in a high degree in Roman time and started to win already in Greek times (Socrates already was a man between memory culture and writing culture), Hesiod was the (Greek) prototype of memory culture. Before Hesiod not much written reports exist (naturally).

We should realize, that we are the real biological descendants of these "memory culture persons", we really "remember" them, at least their DNS, but perhaps even their minds, not only by the technique of the writing culture. From me to Hesiod are estimated only around 80-90 generations. And memory culture was a factor perhaps more than 80-90 generations ...

Of course, remembering is not always "in" ... so most people don't. But some see wheels or other objects, in dreams, visions, etc...
Then they see Tarot and hear some theories ... then they think, they've found. But the theories are full of errors, of course, cause the authors of their books also didn't find the real base and blubber about various things but not reality. So a deep forest started to exist talking of "Tarot" without knowing, what they're really talking of. Phantasies, short-sighted ideals ... and a deep-rooted desire to understand the discrepance and confusion with a lot of half-way solutions.

Well, it's time to start to think a little more precise. Read trionfi.com, it's a fair try to look into the face of desillusion.

This medieval Tarot only hides the real object, which we perhaps better do not call "Real Tarot" just not to confuse anybody, cause the aim is just only "remember correctly", meeting perhaps a little bit of "Pan", old farmer's identity.

Still looking into games history.

Catlin mentioned one book The title might be

Game of the Gods: the origin of board games in magic and divination. In one appendix here are some old games:

Grid--Points----Game using the Grid
3x3--9---Nine holes, noughts and crosses
4x4--16--Five men's morris
5x5--25--Sadurangam, Thyyam
6x6--36--Nine Men's Morris
7x7--49--Brandubh, Ashta-Kashta
8x8--64--Ashtapada, Chaaturanga, Shatranj, Chess
9x9--81--Tablut, Sakurankam
10x10--100--Great Chess, Gala, Polish Draughts
11x11--121--Tawlbwrdd (16th century)
13x13--169--olafs, Kongs Tafl
16x16--256--Halma
19x19--361--Hnefatafl, Go
-------------------------------------

Two medieval/renaissance games I'm looking into that might help me understand medieval/renaissance minds include rithmatica (with links to astrology and chess) that might have been from 1100 to 1600 (8x12) and the later Mantegna of the 1400s (5x10). Both of these games had links to clergy, at least in popular mentions (Mantegna mention in the book Pagan Dream of the Renaissance; Rithmatica in the book called the Philosopher's Game).

So along with art history, mentions of games of old are a hopeful link to tracing some of the Renaissance tarot patterns.

Best wishes,

Mari Hoshizaki

wow huck.
wow wow wow.

right.

the thing that drives my interpretation more than
anything is a very clear sense that i am simply
remembering something which to my mind seems
clear and obvious, as if everybody should grasp it. But i know that this is not the case, and this is sometimes strange to me until i think back to
existing inside of the box and my own release from it.

i find that individuals very rarely were as sinister in obfuscating the truth as entire groups
of people were and that usually the group agendas
seem to have driven people to do thing they may have thought were for the best at the time.

So i don't blame any one person, but i have to try to sort out for myself this discrepancy between
things i clearly see and things i clearly see projected as a false image.

The "real tarot" is imprinted as racial or genetic memory because it is in some senses how the mammalian mind evolved. It was through the use
of pictographic/imagerial/movie-esque symbologies
that we first began to use symbols. Visual imagerial symbols must predate phonetic symbols;
its a longer vaster leap. The word "box" symbolizes a box. But the image created by a dozen lines symbolizes a box more graphically and more directly. Its a no brainer which form of language came first when you think about it.

So if this is true, and if the underlying principles hold, then tarot is a symbolic and non phonetic alphabet of dreamspeak images.
"real" tarot exists not on a bunch of cards, but
as a now hardwired genetically encoded aspect of
the mammalian brain.

Chess (to get back on topic) is the version of this which is grappled and contaminated by the reptillian instincts for competition and conflict.
Another way of putting it is that chess is the result of the interpretation of those (mammalian complex) symbols by
the reptillian complex.

mari, your post didn't go unoticed, i'll get to it.






Hi Pan,

let me summarize a little bit, what you said.

You say, there is something similar to Tarot, something even more complex as the
medieval Tarot and that's the REAL TAROT, what is presented in RENAISSANCE
Tarot. This real object is displeased with the version of RENAISSANCE Tarot, but
was more satisfied, when the RENAISANCE TAROT not only had 5x14 cards, but
4x14+22. This REAL TAROT might have been even 30 000 years old, at least it have
been around 400 AD, when CFhristian burnt books.
------------
yes, thats it. thanks for mirroring so well!
-------------


I agree with you. I wouldn't call the object "TAROT", as Tarot seems to be a name
developed rather lately,
------------
taro arot rota otar
"the wheel of tarot speaks the mysteries of hathor"

If so, the name is very old.
----------
so let's
define "Renn. Tarot" for Renaissance-Tarot and "Real Tarot" for that, what has been
----------
I would hate to commit the kind of lingual
bias so often commited in politics. "real" seems
too political to me. RennTarot is good,
I'd go maybe MamTarot GypTarot, GnosTarot, RennTarot, and ModTarot. (Mammalian Metacode Tarot, Egyptian and Gypsy Tarot, Gnostic/Masonic
Tarot, Rennaisaunce Tarot, and Modern Tarot.)

Chess they say started in A. China, or B India.
I favor the India idea personally.
------------


before and was similar to it., perhaps even more complex.

Renaissance generally meant "remember that, what was before the book burning",
which - of course - was not only book-burning, but the wandering of the nations
also, which caused, that the Western Roman Empire broke down in great dimensions,
people starting to forget how to write and to read and also, how to build houses
with stones and to organize greater cities.
----------
right, so we know that the effect of all that
warfare against information had very dire consequences, and that eventually for civilization
to survive they had to buck the nonsense and get
back into the "old ways."
---------
book-gathering, libraries, finally progress in book-printing, new arts,
remembering of the earlier gods and systems, a lot of things.
In this struggle of "remembering" the old mystical systems also reappeared and were
reinterpreted in a new way. One of the "reinterpretations" was the Tarot.
Of course, naturally, the early Tarot (Renn-Tarot) missed the earlier elegance and
complexity of the earlier Real Tarot (as defined above).
---------
Right, well imagine taking a textbook and removing
all of the words and then trying to make sense of
the book using only the diagrams.
----------


So one has to understand the development of Renn-Tarot in itself, its motifs, its
system just by that, what it was, a playing card riddle and experiment, innocent and
without too big intentions, a very special case of "remembering" just by playing in
various steps.
--------
right. the Renn tarot in some senses saved tarot
from extinction; we have to thank it and appreciate it but also know it for what it was, and look beyond it.
----------

so very quickly as i look at the trionfi deck i remember what i thought about it the las time i bothered. Whats going on here is actually greek
renassaunce; the author of the deck is bringing
the greek pantheon forward in time to present it
to the population...

a noble cause.

trying to go back to the more original deck would
only have been throwing out confusing and strange
images that the people of the time would have little ability to make cultural links to.

mari;

some of these games i am vaguely familiar with and others i have never heard of. Its a very good list, and well appreciated.

A history of these games, their points of origin,
and description of play seems in order.

at this very moment i don't have the time and energy, but if somebody else doesn't, i'll go do the research and try to make the presentation in the next couple of days.

Thanks for keeping this conversation on track.

thanks again.

for pan

Yes, I think, you get the track.

The great story of Renaissance was remembering better and remember other times, of course using new media or that media, what was appropriate for the new time: Playing cards (for instance), but also oil paintings and other material in art.

One point: The break down of Western Roman Empire was not caused by book-burning, but book burning was an effect of other deeper reasons.
The main reason was a change of the climate. This caused a population increase in middle Asia, probably caused it, that the city Rome already in 3rd and 4th century lost rapidely inhabitants, and comparatively smaller cities like Mediolanum (Milano), Lyon and Treveres became the capital cities of Western Roman Empire (all north of Rome, so climate became more hot). Treveres had 70 000 inhabitants, Rome at its best time around 700 000 - this tells a lot.
Then these irregularities in 3rd century: More then 30 Imperators in one century, that's a sign of political instability already then.

In Middle Asia too much people started to live and caused a snowball effect. They took other countries, and other peoples started to flee, searching for new places. Some of them reached Europe and caused war, crime, instability. This already started in 2nd century. Rome could withstand that a long time, it was a great Empire, it lasted in great dimensions 7,6,5 centuries and even after it lived still as the eastern Empire, Byzantium. The final break down was 1204 and 1453, it's just our West-European view, that we see it happen already in 410, 450 and around that time.
The book-burning was only a small step in the whole development. The social crisis in 4th century was the reason, and the win of Christianity was, that its religion offered a politic against poverty, it organised the poor, the victims of social change. In 312 Constantantin tolerated Christianity, in ound 380 Christianity was strong enough to take pressure at all other forms of religion with help of the Imperator.

So the win of Christianity took place in this century. Book-burning was a final clue of this win and a long development, not the cause. The Platonic academy still persisted till early 6th century, there were not only books and scriptures in Alexandria.

Real Tarot: We know old pictures (from Egyptia, from Greece, from Rome) and we know, that they look different to Tarotcards of the Renaissance. The Real Tarot doesn't depend on pictures.

So, what's the content, which could be remembered (in longer steps) by Renaissance people? Which was the context, which could raise out of hidden backgound to consciousness in 15th century?

It was the content of a whole world, which existed before their time, it was the remembering, that before there were other gods, there were more culture, a greater importance for the whole region of the Western world, there were scriptures, which were gathered in libraries, there was a reading movement in 15th century, people started to learn Latin and Greek to adapt just this common trivial knowledge of earlier time, which we do learn in our schools as "our history".
15th century saw a development, when "history" was generally born. Of course "history" can't be born, it exists, but the individual mind discovered: "There was something and I can learn about it". And this function was in greater parts dead in centuries before. Well, there were people, who knew about it, but ... these was only the small group of intellectuals which survived in cloisters under very special conditions, which we wouldn't call"free mind"... even kings and higher persons had difficulties to read. With the birth of new cities in 12th and 13th century reading ability increased ... and that's the revolution.

To the REAL Tarot ... not individual pictures were important, it was the way to sort things. This scheme - more or less mathematical, an intriguing abstract formula, which could the say, but live in thousands of forms (and Renn. Tarot is only one of them) - was the deep root in human mind, and it was laid in human mind by memory culture thousands of years before the new way to "write it down and forget it" was developed. Of course memory culture had found the most elegant and simpliest way to memorize ... and this was, what was reimplanted in Renn-Tarot, when "just by playing" people again "expressed and resorted" the world and the basic archetypes - curiously near to that, how it earlier was done.

Part of this jumped into Tarot, and the way it did is the riddle of Tarot.
And I guess, we can only clear it up with accurate history.

Chess as real influence is not that important. It incorpated in early forms of Tarot just by accident or by "normal logic", as Chess was a common game to people of Renaissance and when constructing early card decks, they used chess. A very normal development, not very surprizing, but naturally it was not a "deep mystery", it was just playing a bit with symbols .

So what was the content of Real Tarot?

... autorbis calls it the 1x2x3x4-system, the easiest way to organize memory in a good functioning mental system, a "natural" system, which is born by sorting units in groups of 2,3 and 4 and by combinations of the basic elements to greater units, so that "great systems" could be constructed. .... there are no smaller numbers than 2,3,4, so this system naturally is the basic system, there is actual no wonder about it or mystery .... the mystery is only: "How could you forget it?" One of the more complex systems generated this way was the Sepher Yetzirah, which took a strong influence much later upon Kabbala.

If anybody reaches "inner journey" to the basics of his/her mind, he/she naturally explores the sorting and he meets the great mandala ... but the received content is not mysterious, but logical .

and so there we are at the great mandala,
of which tarot is one expression, and the i ching
another.

What is constant is the mandala; and to understand
the mandala once exposed to its simple keys is
very basic.

As you said the numbers are very simple, the organizing structures are based on 2, 3, and 4.
(2x3=6, 2x4=8, 3x4=12 12x2=24) The 2x4 connection
being what dominated the math of the face cards,
and the actual total of 24 trumps. The four suits,
and so forth...

the biggest question is whats up with 10?
but even the ten is really 1-4 and 1-4 plus2.
why the plus 2? i can only guess it was fingers.

The mythical arena seems like it couldn't shrink
too much smaller.

Thats an interesting idea for the chess tie in,
certainly not the way my mind would put it together. I do know that "kings and queens" are
not original to tarot and the same with knights so
suddenly it might make some sense as to why and
how we ended up with feudalism imprinted on tarot.

i still think going into a depth study of all
regional board games might be interesting.

pan said:

and so there we are at the great mandala,
of which tarot is one expression, and the i ching
another.

What is constant is the mandala; and to understand
the mandala once exposed to its simple keys is
very basic.

As you said the numbers are very simple, the organizing structures are based on 2, 3, and 4.

Click to expand...

A mandala is always a divided whole. There are no simpler numbers than 2-3-4 to divide.

(2x3=6, 2x4=8, 3x4=12 12x2=24) The 2x4 connection
being what dominated the math of the face cards,
and the actual total of 24 trumps. The four suits,
and so forth...

Click to expand...

We've historical relicts of such number-experiments. There were creative in their way.
The Chinese with their solution (I-Ching) got 4096 possibilities for an oracle, their math is a little bit more complex as just multiplating 2x3x4, but there are only these 3 numbers involved.

the biggest question is whats up with 10?
but even the ten is really 1-4 and 1-4 plus2.
why the plus 2? i can only guess it was fingers.

Click to expand...

The fascination of the ten of course was related to the 10 fingers, naturally they needed a 4+1-scheme (thumb + 4 fingers) for that (5 chinese elements). The 2x5 is used in China and is also mentioned in the SY.
But the actual most used idea was not the decadic system, but the binary system. They tried to mix both orders, often enough a little contradicting in itself, as it just were different systems.

The mythical arena seems like it couldn't shrink
too much smaller.

Thats an interesting idea for the chess tie in,
certainly not the way my mind would put it together. I do know that "kings and queens" are
not original to tarot and the same with knights so
suddenly it might make some sense as to why and
how we ended up with feudalism imprinted on tarot.

Click to expand...

The card play development obviously took feudalistic influences. The Tarot development took it from the card play development.

The 2x3x4-order is the real interesting object, Tarot is just a playing for it. The 2x3x4-system contains the answer, that, whatever the objects looks like, it is the mind, who organises them. And mind loves to turn things into simple patterns, easy to memorize them. So mind generally works to form simple groups of them. Groups of 2 or 3 or 4 elements. Above 4 things world becomes "too complicated", so mind tends to give them an easier structure. So 12 astrological signs are 3x4, and 12 monthes have 4 seasons. And the day has 24 hours. And the year has 360 days (Egyptians), organised in monthes with 30 days, and the 30 days are splitted in decanates.
The logic of the mind forms the archetypes, what it defines at "deep level" appears at normal level as mystery :--). His logic naturally models in groups of 2 and 3 and 4.

The contents of the system are variables, but tend to follow some intern logic, so appear as similar. Chinese thought defined the 2 as Yin and Yang, the 3 as heaven-earth-man, the 4 as seasons.
Philosophical ideas consider analyses (2), dialectic (3) and 4 as a model of time.