Symbolism in the RWS 6 of Cups

ravenest

This is a great way to describe this card and the feelings of something (possibly) sinister lurking beneath the surface that everyone in this thread has seemed to want to touch on /express since this thread was created. I like how you've framed it.

Yes ,,, and how it exposes my weakness .... I dont do that ... and I see guys doing it and I think "are they serious" ? ? ? Then a friend goes all girly-goo-goo because Mr handsome said he will be with her and no one else for ever and I go " What the hell are doing ... what are you thinking ? " ... and of course they get livid at me and I am the worst person in the world ... two years later I am helping them look after their kids, or tying to find a home and he is ... pppfffft !

I just cant comprehend how the men can say that and do it and the women believe it ! It dumbfounds me! Well ... we can say it and do it ... as long as both realise the dynamic being played out and what IS actually going on ...

... I suppose many dont <sigh> ... hence my weakness , an assumption that people are working on a clearer level than they are ... sometimes I am incredulous and not taking them 'seriously' I suppose.

Still ... < jumps up on soap box, hold his deck aloft and pounds it> I believe in the 'existential reality' of every card in my Thoth deck !

:)
 

Teheuti

Could it be that people only give a card a 'meaning' based only on their own associations to it ... and see things only in terms of themselves, reactions and responses and DO NOT give the cards any 'existential reality' of their own ... maybe that is something I haven't been getting.?
Bingo! And there is nothing wrong with doing that. It is one approach to the cards. There are also other approaches. The cards exist, all the different images of every card in all the different decks exist, and all the differing ideas about the cards and the images exist. There is no one existential reality.
 

Zephyros

There is another possibility, that the image itself sucks. There are several such cards in the RWS that I feel either don't do the attributions justice or are simply wrong. We shouldn't take Waite's authority as the final word, especially when producing images such as these opens you to the possibility of making mistakes.
 

Aoife

yes, more than sad - a tragedy. The 'sadness' suggested here though, may not be wholy due to that ... its sad that this would colour the reading. Its sad that this damage colours peoples lives and the interpretation people give on things.

10 years ago I could have given a little girl a bunch of flowers, or taken photos of the 3 little boys I had the pleasure of looking after , playing in the river.

I wouldnt do things like that now. I just hope that such negative things dont start attaching to meanings of tarot cards, all over the place.

If we gave a RW deck to kids in Manus Island detention ... I wonder what they would tell us about 'image association' ?

Aahhh... I've just realised...
Ravenest, there's another way of doing a tarot reading which, to put it simply, is more interactive. The 'reader' offers a framework within which the querent can explore their own interpretation. As such, when the reader indicates that the card concerns matters of memory, a querent who has experienced childhood abuse may react accordingly. I would say its important that the reader isn't shocked by this response... and hence, why its important to explore the range of possible 'meanings'.

Like you, I would be appalled if a reader was to pronounce upon laying down the 6 of Cups... "Aaah... I see you were abused as a child"... or similar.
 

Aoife

One thing I did find interesting ... on opening this thread on page 1 and it coincidentally jumped out at me.

In post # 2 mind you :



{good old 'Mindy' what's he doing in RW ? :) )

BUT note what he says ; Mary K Greer in Tarot Reversals

REVERSALS. It seems to fit as the opposite of what most see in this card (well, I hope it IS still most) - the reverse of the ' 6 of cups' energy, The Qlippoth or 'evil demon' of Tiphareth in the world of cups ... but I am not the type to look at a Sephiroth and immediately go ' Qlippoth ! ' Unless there is a really good indicating reason to see that.

If I understand this correctly , Mary was talking about reversals.

Do we normally assume a card meaning in a discussion is the reverse, if the card isnt shown that way ?

And I have to ask ... if a card is being looked at upright, or by itself and not in a reading (where it might be reversed or have horribly aspects ) .... why go against the general understanding and .....

oh .... :( ... okay, I get it .... its not part of the Kabbalah, or the associations, or LIber -T ... its what one gets from the image .... <sigh>


No, no... the quote is in the book entitled "Tarot Reversals" but it is about the upright card.
Mary Greer _Tarot Reversals_ said:
"... An alternate reading of the RWS card notes that the guard, the enclosed courtyard, and disparity in size between the figures suggests either protection or intrigue, but it may have an even more disturbing significance, since, upon rare occasion, the card indicates childhood abuse that may be denied or forgotten".
 

GlitterNova

There is another possibility, that the image itself sucks. There are several such cards in the RWS that I feel either don't do the attributions justice or are simply wrong. We shouldn't take Waite's authority as the final word, especially when producing images such as these opens you to the possibility of making mistakes.

I once read this website about Stanley Kubrick and The Shining (it was essentially just many, many articles pasted together into a website). It analyzed nearly every scene in the movie and pretty much every thing in every scene to come to specific conclusions about Stanley Kubrick's intent when filming The Shining. It is all very convincing when taken together but it forgets the important fact that Kubrick is a human and not a god, and not every single decision he makes is working towards a specific goal. If you're trying to convince me of something you must first prove that the evidence you're gathering is falsifiable and therefore actually provable, and this didn't pass that basic test. Reading mounds and mounds of meaning into every single detail (no matter how odd) of every single RWS card reminds me of that website because it similarly seems to assume that the cards were created by gods and not men, and it also fails the 'falsifiablity test'.

Here's that website, if you're interested :)
http://www.collativelearning.com/the shining.html
 

Zephyros

Yes... but with a difference. I never said Waite was a god, quite the opposite.

While Waite himself says that he gave PCS a free hand with the minors, the cards themselves tells a different story. They include things that Smith couldn't possibly know, or even begin to guess, being a low level member of the GD. Just as Waite kept us in the dark, it is probable that he kept her in the dark as well, not explaining the significance of what she was drawing. That there is, in fact, a significance at all we can surmise based on Golden Dawn literature which shows the RWS to have too many parallels with it to be coincidental. The images aren't haphazardly drawn with no intent and they do, for the most part, follow the spirit, if not the specifics, of Book T. Kubrick didn't have a "Shining encyclopedia"... Waite did and followed it almost to the letter.

Where he didn't follow it stands out, and using the tools at hand we can attempt to reconstruct, with varying degrees of success, why he didn't and how good of a job he did. In this card, I don't think he did that well, to be blunt. The images themselves are interpretations of more abstract concepts as understood by Waite, explained (probably quite obscurely) to PCS and and then interpreted a second time by her, so there's a game of broken telephone going on. I don't know if every decision he made was toward a goal, I'm not that omniscient, but it is possible to make an educated guess.
 

GlitterNova

Sorry if I wasn't clear about it but I was agreeing with your post! Far from looking at the card as an infallible document, you might be the first one in this thread to have the clarity to say 'well maybe the card just doesn't represent the meaning very well', which is similar to how I feel as well. Gotta be objective, you know?
 

Zephyros

Sorry if I wasn't clear about it but I was agreeing with your post! Far from looking at the card as an infallible document, you might be the first one in this thread to have the clarity to say 'well maybe the card just doesn't represent the meaning very well', which is similar to how I feel as well. Gotta be objective, you know?

Wow, I really put my foot it my mouth that time. I really really misunderstood your post! I guess I thought you were saying something else entirely!
 

Teheuti

You might be the first one in this thread to have the clarity to say 'well maybe the card just doesn't represent the meaning very well', which is similar to how I feel as well.
What is the meaning which should have been illustrated? Are you merely suggesting that the disporting children shouldn't have looked so much like dwarfs? Personally, I like the elements in Pixie's cards that make us question our assumptions about it. And who knows what information Waite gave Pixie, since he was well read in all the earlier written Tarot works. It's obvious when reading his book that he's not giving all the meanings of the cards, but just a suggestion, a hint, for those who want or need it.

Elements from the following sources can be discerned in various places in Waite's book, PKT. Here's what they have to say about the Six of Cups:

Etteilla 1783-7 & in Papus 1909:
"The past. Previously, formerly, anteriorly. Withered. Old age, decrepitude, antiquity. Rx: Future, after, then, subsequently, later. Regeneration, resurrection, renewal."

Mathers 1888:
"The past, passed by, faded, vanished, disappeared - [as] indicated by previous cards. Rx: The future, that which is to come, shortly, soon."

Golden Dawn 1890s:
"Pleasure. Happiness. Fulfillment of wishs. Emotional success. Bring to pass what is wished. Sensual pleasure. Enervating breeding corruption. Vanity."

Papus 1889:
"The obstacles triumph. Love destroyed in the midst of happiness. Widowhood."

Saint-Germain 1901:
"Indecision in love affairs. Poor choices through not listening to your heart or conscience. Divorce or intrigues outside of wedlock."

Eudes Picard 1909:
Indecision in love affair. Scruples, indecision of heart about a marriage."

Chambers 1864 (a playing card source for much of Waite's material on the Minors):
"Honorable courtship."

Waite as Grand Orient:
"A generous but credulous person."