Jodorowsky Camoin: Roman Numeral Associations

Jodo-Camoin TdM: Roman Numeral Associations

Obvious, depending on the tarotist, major arcana cards can be associated differently. For example, under one approach, XII can be associated with II (looking at the Roman numerals visually). Under another approach, XII can be associated with III (if we convert XII to base 10 notation (i.e., 12), reduce it to 3, then convert it to back to a Roman numeral, i.e., III).

To me, the first way has always seemed more 'natural', but that's just me.

In La voie du tarot, Jodorowsky takes the first view, e.g., XII would be associated with II. He goes on to see the trumps as consisting of two series of ten (I to X, XI to XX, with XXI in a class of its own). There is even a section on his book about the eleven possible different 2-trump pairs that give XXI, giving the different metaphysical significances of each such pair.

Rusty, a few weeks ago, I opened a thread on "After X, then what?"...just adding the link here, since there were so many posts re topic....

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=26876&highlight=Ten

I prefer the XI ...I, XII, II....

but I can see other correspondences as possible depending upon the reading and spread...

terro

Full Circle

I made a poster of the Majors to be able to look at how the numbers feel when
considering an implied association. I used print-outs of the cards for paste-ups.

The bottom row, from left to right goes II thru X.
Aligned above that are cards XI thru XVIIII.
Top left, XX is over XI, and XXI is over XII.
Top right, Le Mat is over XVIII, and I is over XVIIII.

For an artistic touch, I put the 4 Aces in the top middle area.
It's kind of cool to see Le Mat "catching up" with Le Bateleur.