Interpreting Minors in Marseilles Decks

I've saved this thread for reading later - I too intended to try to read the Conver and/or the Fournier with the basic numerology I try to interpret into my RWS readings. But after reading through all of this, I think its going to be a lot more involved and interesting than that.

I've tried to get the hang of the Marseille decks, even switching to the Soprafino decks but still struggle. But I feel I am missing out not being able to read the Minors of a Marseille - as much as I love the RWS I would like to read with another system.

Apologies for not having read the whole thread (just start and finish) – impulse-awareness-understanding is interesting. But my two sense is this.

I’ve found that the pattern of decoration in Marseilles fits pretty nicely the meanings if we take the suits not as all having Trees of the same structure, in triads, but subdivided according to the number of their order. What is fire-air-water-earth in nature is Staves-Swords-Cups-Coins in tarot (trust me). Hence Staves each stand on their own, Swords are in pairs, Cups in triads, and Coins in quadruplicities: increasing in complexity and concreteness. The 2nd and 3rd Trees are discussed, respectively, in the Sefer Yetzirah (a Merkabah text), and in Zohar and Kabbalah generally. The 1st is based on the round (first ten signs, leading from up or ‘God’ to straight back or self) and described in the book Bahir (first published in 12th-century Provence). The fourth and most complex, then, we must work out for ourselves: it is the physical cycles eternity-1, great-year-2, Saturn-3, Jupiter-4, Mars-5, year-6, Venus-7, Mercury-8, month-9, day-10, ‘day’ standing for fleeting present.

Just so, the Marseilles Swords alternate double-edged-in-the-middle/not, while Cups build the triad, then build another with 2 on top and bottom, then build another with 3 on top and bottom, then 10 with its cup-on-its-side on top (meaning “we’re done”). Staves or sticks are the ten radii of the primordial round that are the original Sefirot, which are (the first 10 of 13) middot or divine attributes (meaning we have yet to traverse the last two signs and return-to-the-beginning). And Coins are physical rounds, meaning cycles. Pretty simple, really, and it goes way beyond ‘mnemonics’ to actual understanding of what maketh the world tick, which is what the Marseilles is there to teach.

Perhaps I'm just a shameless syncretist, or perhaps I've imbibed too much G:.D:. during my bedtime reading. ;-)
But I don't really see much difference between Rachel Pollack's reverse-engineering of RWS, the Kabbalistic sephiroth, pythagorean numerology, and geometry (plane or solid). (on the other hand, I'm reading Papus, and think he's lost his mind.)
When you multiply a numeric meaning by an element, it gets a bit subjective anyway, but all of the above seem to yield "meanings" that are close enough.

I rarely read with my marseille deck (it being used around this house primarily for playing cards), but when I do, heresy though it be, G:.D:. is the system I use.

After reading the beginnning of this thread though, I'm interested to learn more about meanings in the foliage.
It also makes me wonder what the G:.D:. thought of that - their tarot descriptions are specific about "flames" issuing from intersections of wands, and flowers pouring water or not into specific cups ...

thothlike

Golden Dawn descriptions of those wands intersecting remind me very much of the Thoth, far more than the RWS. I would love to learn more about the specific imagery in the Marseilles minors, but there still is so little in English. I think it's a major drawback for use of the deck. But i'm still plugging away. Maybe I'll forget about the symbology and stick with the element-plus-number approach when using TdM. BB, Michael

It may be worth remembering that any specific description of the floral designs on the various Marseille decks remains either an interpretation made by the author, or an intended inclusion by the more recent artist (eg, the Camoin-Jodorowski, Hadar and Rodes-Sanchez decks).

Having scanned (and I must admit, only scanned or skimmed) numerous books in various shops in France recently, there appears to also be either paucity of material, or material that does little more than provide for personal insights (always, of course, very useful, but not to be taken as 'the' way of doing things).

In a reading situation, I would personally recommend more a sense for the card as it stands, paying attention to the manner in which the flower, bud, leaves, etc., appear to grow, decay, veer left or right, up or down, and the relationship this makes with other adjacent cards and the overall geometric pattern upon the card itself (of, especially, the implements depicted).

This does not mean that there is absolute randomness of signified meaning, but rather that the meaning in the moment will be partially determined by a combination of factors, such as background studies and insights on the implement (sword, cup, coin, baton), the geometric pattern of the implements and the number itself, and the relationship of the card to others in the spread.

Of course, many amongst us may also use an alternate system superimposed on the card, whether this be one such as that of the GD, or a Atouts/pip correlation, or an astrological one, etc. This only shows that a systemic way of approaching cards images which have a somewhat abstract depiction (as Marseille-style decks have) is often appealing. Appeal, however, does not indicate that the system provides deeper insights into the card as given, but rather as seen through the lense of the system itself.

In a thread some time back, I mentioned something about allowing the instrument to speak for itself, to teach its own tune. The more we seek to impose upon the depicted card image a system, the greater, it seems to me, the movement away from the card as it stands. This does not make, of course, the reading any the less accurate - a systemic way of doing a reading may be both quite accurate and assist in insights - but it does shape the manner in which the card is seen.

jmd said:

In a reading situation, I would personally recommend more a sense for the card as it stands, paying attention to the manner in which the flower, bud, leaves, etc., appear to grow, decay, veer left or right, up or down, and the relationship this makes with other adjacent cards and the overall geometric pattern upon the card itself (of, especially, the implements depicted).

.

Click to expand...

Having recently been challenged by Helvetica (bless her little cotton socks) to do a reading for her to break through my fear of reading with the Marseille, and having used the above approach (having no other that I know well enough to rely on), I found it ideal. I was amazed at what I could see and say about a minor, merely by focussing on the very things you mention jmd. And, the acid test, it was relevant to Helvetica's question.

The old saying 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing' can at times be reversed - I find that with the Waite-Smith - I have read so much about it, that I can no longer read with it comfortably. Too much information churning through my head ... to many 'musts', 'shoulds' & 'oughts' . The approach of looking at a card and telling what you see and making sense of that in light of the question and the surrounding cards was refreshing ... and inspiring.

mythos

this was maybe discussed before...

Numerology à la Jodo

interestingly enough imo, Jodo links the minors to the majors in a very different way from the usual and later RWS way.
Jodo doesn't add digits, and bases his observations only on the last digit.
Thus:

the Aces are related to (= carry the same kind of energy as) Le Bateleur and La Force
the Twos -> La Papesse, Le Pendu
the Threes -> L'Impératrice, L'Arcane sans Nom
the Fours -> L'Empereur, Tempérance
the Fives -> Le Pape, Le Diable
the Sixes -> L'Amoureux, La Maison-Dieu
the Sevens -> Le Chariot, L'Etoile
the Eights -> La Justice, La Lune
the Nines -> L'Hermite, Le Soleil

haven't arrived to the Tens yet so cannot confirm whether or not Jodo links them to La Roue de Fortune and Jugement but it wouldn't sound bad to me...

kissa

I do not have Jodorowsky's book, Kissa, but would be surprised if the correlation is with the 'last digit'.

In the Marseille-style decks, the Atouts are numbered using additive Roman numerals, so the eight of Batons, for example, relates to VIII (eight) and XVIII (eight-teen), the latter being, in some manner, a higher 'reflection' of the former (VIII to which X is added).

I suppose that given your and others' recommendation, I should at some near future time obtain a copy of this book...

yes jmd, that is what i was trying to explain i just translated in arab numerals, and probably wrote wrongly in english.

from your example with the minors VIII, it sounds exactly like what i understood from Jodo's book.

wow i do enjoy digging up an old thread! amazing detail n thoughts there
Its made me want to look over the TdM. i guess as I learnt from RWS and then went into kabbalah and astrology etc I got rather snobbish about TdM, that because it wasnt awash with deep symbols and arcane waffle I sort of pushed it to one side.
And I guess part of that was not wanting to understand, to be informed and taken away from the value I saw in that depth at the time.
However my tarot journey has changed and moved since then, that the arcane esoteric stuff got in the way of me actually reading tarot. Maybe a new language is something to inspire me.

I wanted to thank everyone in this thread for the wealth of knowledge, passion and inspiration for the Tarot de Marsailles