PKT:Secret Trad#2 - Study Group

Teheuti

I'm starting a new thread with page 64 of The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, so that we don't get overly long threads on the subject.

I'm requesting that people keep the discussion to the text itself and to other works and information that can directly help elucidate the text.

Some of the following text has already been discussed in PKT:Secret Trad#1 - Study Group: http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=4419483&postcount=111

PART II - "The Doctrine Behind the Veil - 1: The Tarot and Secret Tradition" continued

28. "The Trumps Major have also been treated in the alternative method which I have mentioned, and Grand Orient, in his Manual of Cartomancy, under the guise of a mode of transcendental divination, has really offered the result of certain illustrative readings of the cards when arranged as the result of a fortuitous combination by means of shuffling and dealing.

29. "The use of divinatory methods, with whatsoever intention and for whatever purpose, carries with it two suggestions.

30. "It may be thought that the deeper meanings are imputed rather than real, but this is disposed of by the fact of certain cards like the Magician, the High Priestess, the Wheel of Fortune, the Hanged Man, the Tower or Maison Dieu, and several others, which do not correspond to Conditions of Life, Arts, Sciences, Virtues, or the other subjects contained in the denaries of the Baldini* emblematic figures.

31. "They are proof positive that obvious and natural moralities cannot explain the sequence.

32. "Such cards testify concerning themselves after another manner; and although the state in which I have left the Tarot in respect of its historical side is so much the more difficult as it is so much the more open, they indicate the real subject matter with which we are concerned."
*Baldini. Waite mis-attributes the "Mantegna Tarot" to Baccio Baldini, as others did before him. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantegna_Tarocchi.

Basically Waite is saying that among the 22 Trumps there are two sets: 1) common conditions and virtues as found in the Mantegna Tarot and 2) those pertaining more particularly to the Secret Tradition.

Here's the info I earlier posted on The Manual of Cartomancy material: http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=4419535&postcount=113
 

Abrac

Waite talks about the denaries of the Baldini emblematic figures in section four of part 1 in case anyone isn't familiar with that part. "Conditions of Life, Arts, Sciences, Virtues" are categories under which the Baldini figures fall.

32. "Such cards testify concerning themselves after another manner; and although the state in which I have left the Tarot in respect of its historical side is so much the more difficult as it is so much the more open, they indicate the real subject matter with which we are concerned."

Can't figure out what this part has to do with the point he's making in this sentence, ". . . and although the state in which I have left the Tarot in respect of its historical side is so much the more difficult as it is so much the more open . . ."
 

Abrac

Okay, I'll take a shot at answering my own question.

He seems to be saying that although the full history of the tarot is still an open question (especially whether or not the majors and minors were originally one unit), and difficult to be certain about, certain cards like those mentioned in line 30, speak for themselves and demonstrate a higher purpose than that of fortune-telling.

Am I even in the ballpark? :)
 

Yelell

Okay, I'll take a shot at answering my own question.

He seems to be saying that although the full history of the tarot is still an open question (especially whether or not the majors and minors were originally one unit), and difficult to be certain about, certain cards like those mentioned in line 30, speak for themselves and demonstrate a higher purpose than that of fortune-telling.

Am I even in the ballpark? :)

I have caused a disruption, and for that I apologise. There is a prior, similar thread discussing this portion of text that you may or may not be aware of: http://www.tarotforum.net/printthread.php?t=48440&pp=10&page=17
 

Richard

Okay, I'll take a shot at answering my own question.

He seems to be saying that although the full history of the tarot is still an open question (especially whether or not the majors and minors were originally one unit), and difficult to be certain about, certain cards like those mentioned in line 30, speak for themselves and demonstrate a higher purpose than that of fortune-telling.

Am I even in the ballpark? :)

Relevant to that observation may be the following quote from PKT Part III § 3:

Waite said:
It will be seen that, except where there is an irresistible suggestion conveyed by the surface meaning, that which is extracted from the Trumps Major by the divinatory art is at once artificial and arbitrary, as it seems to me, in the highest degree. But of one order are the mysteries of light and of another are those of fantasy. The allocation of a fortune-telling aspect to these cards is the story of a prolonged impertinence.
 

Abrac

Thanks for that link Yelell. I wasn't aware of it and it makes things a bit more clear. :)
 

Abrac

As almost everyone knows by now, Grand Orient is Waite himself. Awhile back I created a PDF from his original Manual of Cartomancy and it can be download here if anyone wants it. The part where he describes “transcendental divination” is in the section “The Book of the Secret Word and the Higher Way to Fortune.” He says:

“This is no question of ordinary Divination, but of a prayerful search after light on the things that concern the soul, and it is to the higher soul within us that we must look for the answer.”​

But the questions in his examples are quite mundane.

The Three Worlds are elaborated on in the PKT in the section “Conclusion as to the Greater Keys.” When all is said and done Waite has this to say:

“I have no such process to offer, as I think that more may be gained by individual reflection on each of the Trumps Major. :laugh:
 

Richard

.....
“I have no such process to offer, as I think that more may be gained by individual reflection on each of the Trumps Major. :laugh:

What do you think he meant, and why is that funny?
 

Zephyros

What do you think he meant, and why is that funny?

I think he was referring to the grade system, gradual attainment. The best way to reflect on the Trumps is, of course, to actually travel the paths, isn't it?