My RWS hate/hate relationship

Ok, I have an hate/hate relationship with the RWS.
Why I say it on the deck creation subforum? There is a reason.

I recently completed a new script for a deck... (well, not that recently actually, anyway...). On the Majors I was inspired (there was a leading idea that mark the main focus of the deck).
On the minors... I fell back on the RWS and hated myself for that.
(to me: Conformist! Coward! Collaborator!)
Why?

The RWS is recognizable.
There is no other alternative tradition to portray pictorial minors that gives the same effect: recognizability. Familiarity.
That sense that allow a reader to work with a deck and slowly uncover the subleties of it.

And again, I can see - clearly - all the structural defects of the RWS.
A deck that belongs (imho) to an outdated, obsolete, way of using Tarot.
And yet, every time I try to pry myself out of the RWS (see the Vampire deck) I have the feeling I'm walking into an elitist modd, where only me, those willing to make a big study effort, can se the structural side of a deck.
Of course, one can always read intuitively. But intuition alone... I'm not sure it is always enough.

ric

I understand exactly where you are coming from regarding the RWS - but there is also an element that even the Majors are becoming the same song over and over again.
Tarot feels like a scratched record, the RW especially, the needle is stuck playing the same batch of songs over and over again. It like an endless pile of cover versions of Beatles music ...

where will the next inspiration and revelation come from for Tarot when the RW has become so ingrained in its message and lessons. How is it possible to change this 'main-stream' deck and get another to take its place without the deck or 'tool of Tarot' then not being seen as Tarot ...
New versions Ideas are often seen as ...

a) It becoming too far removed from what people are familiar with.
b) Being able to recognize it as Tarot, and not something else, such as an Oracle.
c) To convince people that it is as reflective and effective (as the RW).
d) For peole to find 'value' (not monetary) within the cards messages.
e) To have a shelf life which expands and not contracts.
f) For people to find it worthy enough to copy, like they have the RWS.

I ask these questions alot - and I try to see and recognize what it was that changed in the minds and developments of human nature and sprituality that caused the development of the RW, as from say the Marsellies type decks, or any deck type for that matter.

I think we tend to see decks having to conform and take their place in the structure of whats already available to us - so that fit a presculptured mould - like including and boxing to fit the corelations to symbology, astrology, numerolgy, religion, achetypes, even the amount of cards ... theres a feeling of holding onto the traditional instead of breaking that traditional hold and moving confidently beyond those boundaries that have been in place for so long.

Riccardo, I have been monitoring a few new thinking movements over the years, and see that there is a breakaway en mass, in the way that people are percieving the world, and in a sense themselves. A deeper truth, or a more enlightened and illuminated version of what the world is and their place within it.

Although the RW and clones can reflect this change in consciousness, it skirts around the outside of many of the issues in these new fields of philosphy and psychology. The world has grown, and I think this nagging issue with the RWS is a real dillema, and a valid one - it is not encompassing the breadth availble to the Tarot, moreso, it stifles it some degree. It could be more and improved, but then again, the Tarot itself may need a recreative approach.

I see intellegence, and intuition knocking on Tarot door. I see Tarot taking on itself and challenging itself to grow. But as for it to be an accepted Universal and commercial undertaking, I think there needs to be a sense of confidence and endurance to accompany it. Its about not one deck taking this new stance or approach, but a series of decks - like a battering ram that doesnt give up to show its strength is such a strangled and concrete market.

Personally, I think the feeling you have regarding the way your felt about the minors as almost like a repulsion. And I think thats a good thing - its a signal - a hint, that there is another way to go and approach this.

I dont feel its in another RW clone, nor more theme based decks. Although these serve a market, the point of saturation is near, and if I know my economics well, someone else out there is feeling the same as you do ... it will depend on who runs with the idea and doesnt give up to finding the way through, and creating what is needed - making the change and taking the gamble with enough strength to overide the old and herald in the new.

As I reader, I see people wanting more from the Tarot nowdays than I did before - is it a current trend? or are people more demanding, more astute, more knowledgable - and what does that mean in relation to Tarot cards and the relationship to the Tarot reader? Sometimes I dont rightly know myself - a miracle maybe

I can only describe it in this way presently ... that what I have studied and learnt in life, observed and now know (as I percieve it) is not always available to be reflected in the cards - weather it be their colour, their design, the back story, the book interpretation, the artists interpretation ... the variables are endless here ...

I gues all Im saying is that I feel that there is a time coming where I wont be a minority in my thinking this, and my thinking this comes from that same feeling you describe as well.

Maybe Im tired, and uninspired ... but I hear it out there ... and the answer is usually a resounding - 'you'll find it if you look' ... but I feel that what Im looking for is yet to be created, to satify what Im trying to explain ... and its not another deck of the same, its a new type of Tarot - one for the future, which will probably be trashed to a pulp when it first comes out, only to be accepted and used as widely once we're both in the ground pushing up daisies

Just some thoughts

Elven x

After these two brilliant posts, I am almost afraid to post.

But, as an alternative to using the RWS imagery, maybe go back a step to the Golden Dawn theories on which the images were based? Using Coleman Smith's imagery is just going back, one step removed from the theoretical basis of the deck. I was wondering if you used the original base, you would still be true to the ideas, which would shine through but it would give you more latitude.

Marion

RiccardoLS said:

I recently completed a new script for a deck... (well, not that recently actually, anyway...). On the Majors I was inspired (there was a leading idea that mark the main focus of the deck).
On the minors... I fell back on the RWS and hated myself for that.
(to me: Conformist! Coward! Collaborator!)
Why?

Click to expand...

What an odd position . You hate what you seek to emulate . You wish to create Tarot and somehow also destroy and make irrelevant what has been known as Tarot .

Maybe tarot readers and tarot creators are separate species . The modern tarot creator sometimes has an ego interest , to bend and reshape tarot into their own image . If that were not the case , it probably wouldn't bother you to echo the RWS imagery . How far to bend and reshape without creating something other than Tarot is always the question .

Then we have the matter of reshaping the reading of tarot and declaring the usual way outmoded . That again , is a matter of personal choice and perception . While you may congratulate yourself for reworking the tarot into something unrecognizable and functionally unreadable because it feeds your artistic sense , the average reader may find it simply confusing . This does not mean that either of you are correct or incorrect , but perhaps simply seeking different ends .

Rather than attempting to redo the entire Tarot to suit yourself on occasion , why not experiment with adding what you think might be missing without losing what is already there ?

Why does the RWS define "what tarot is?". Where is it written that RWS is tarot with a capital T, and if you deviate from RWS you lose that capital T? What if tarot is just a game, (still played very enthusiastically in France) with a specific sequences of majors, and then a bunch of image-less pips? Doesn't that give the creator freedom to invent anything he wishes at all, as long as there is a sequence of 22 majors?

What makes the RWS a bigger deal than the Thoth or the Eteilla? Why is the English World the frame of reference for tarot? I discovered tarot while living in Germany. The common denominator frame of reference there was clearly the Thoth. And obviously for the next door neighbor France the common denominator frame-of-reference is the Marseille, and/or the Eteilla, (although for the French, the word tarot refers most commonly to a game and the game is now mostly played with decks whose majors having zilch to do with the original trumps.)

Why does the RWS think it has prime real estate in the market? I mainly buy Lo Scarabeo decks, and not much else, because American decks all look icky-sweet to me, and lack a sense of humour. My first deck after the Thoth was the fairy deck, whose minors are modeled on the Thoth. I think Lo Scarabeo can shape the market any way they want.

I don't like RWS derivative decks. I already have an RWS. What I love are decks full of allegorical situations --- which can be read in a hundred different ways, -- just like the decks that you do.

I will try to keep my replic in-topic, so related to deck creation, specifically what I call the *structural* resonance of a deck.

First I address Marion suggestion.
I don't think it will work. The GD minors would have the same defects as the RWS without the "recognizability" (except as RWS "clones" themselves, in a way).

Please note that I consider "recognizability" as a virtue for a deck (not a necessary virtue, but a virtue nevertheless). The reader may work with the deck within a familiar reference set. It does not need to struggle to find new landmarks. Of course, such a struggle may be a powerful force by itself, to give the reader that ineffable "connection" we know it's there and we cannot define.

A while ago I was mail-discussing with Mark McElroy (I don't recall on what subject). We discovered we shared the same opinion on the cultural context in which a deck was born.

In Italy my perception is that Tarot is still mostly seen as over a century ago. Reading Tarot for yourself: unthinkable. Six of Wands is a tall dark stranger: of course! How different from what I see in other places.

In the XIX century Tarot had two directions. One was "fortune telling", supported by palmistry, oracles deck, etc... The second was "philosophical", following people like Wirth, Papus, etc... But the cultural background was Romanticism.

When the GD and the RWS structure were born, we were fully within Positivism. Everything could and should be explained by reason: the human mind, economics, science and yes... even "magic".
The great structure of the GD was basically a child of the overall cultural landscape of England at the beginning of the century. It was the exceptional outcome of a long process of rationalization and objectification of Tarot.

But we got past that... we took the good and discarded the bad. Comportamentism is not anymore considered in Psychology, even if you could use Skinner's theories to train a dog.

In Tarot we did the same. Today, for instance, I took out Mary K. Greer's Tarot for Yourself and Tarot Mirrors, a personal... Even the titles suggest what we may consider the breakthrough of Tarot today:
intuition, subjectivity.
We read Tarot not (not just, at least) to control, codify, learn the future, but rather to gather insights on the meaning of things.
And we accept that my interpretation is different from your interpretation.

It may possibly be that the subjective element made it impossible to create a new, more dynamic, more flexible, more up to date, frame of reference. Or... one could say, to have it recognized, discussed and accepted.
But I find myself getting back to RWS when working on Minors.
And still, as I know, what I'm trying to "build" into the deck, the RWS meanings work against me.

The structure of decks, imho, is something really important. (And... I'm afraid many times need to stay flowing and plastic.).
I mean... how many readers are confortable with Astrology and use Astrological associations in their attributions? Quite a few, but I would say less than 30%. How about alchemy? I would say under 3%.
So, why we use that in decks that should need that not? ^_^
It should be the other way round: *structure* should serve the way we read Tarot and not the other way round.

Yes, I think it's repulsion with the RWS.
And, yet, resignation to the fact, that I don't have anything better.
Like that ... I watch Lost, because Firefly was shut down. ^_^
But I'm not really happy.

It's a dilemma.

ric

D
Hi Dark Inquisitor
Im not sure how to take your post here so forgive me, Riccardo is possibly better at answering what you are saying, Im just not seeing that that is the point he is making ... then again, I could have got it wrong ... (a possible).

Dark Inquisitor said:

What an odd position . You hate what you seek to emulate . You wish to create Tarot and somehow also destroy and make irrelevant what has been known as Tarot .

Click to expand...

I dont see the post in this light - but I must agree - "You hate what you seek to emulate" ... I can cope with that - Its that point of coming to the wall - getting beyond it is that recognition, the feeling of the conformist - because you have this nagging other conflicting feeling that there's something else beyond ... and I dont think its about destroying and making something irrelevant - that would take some doing - it would be harder to destroy and make irrelevant the Tarot, than to do something with it - present it in a new way. RWS did that, and we cling and buy its clones all the time.

Dark Inquisitor said:

Maybe tarot readers and tarot creators are separate species . The modern tarot creator sometimes has an ego interest , to bend and reshape tarot into their own image.

Click to expand...

Maybe Waite copped the same type of flak in his time for his deck too

Dark Inquisitor said:

If that were not the case , it probably wouldn't bother you to echo the RWS imagery . How far to bend and reshape without creating something other than Tarot is always the question .

Click to expand...

I still think its plausable, feasable, and courageous thing to consider or attempt, or even recognize that there is this 'feeling' from those who create. Im sure Riccardo is not the first to feel this way.
Though there are risks and considerations to take on board, but thats what I think is necessary to at least prepare for. How far to bend and stretch.

Tarot said:

Then we have the matter of reshaping the reading of tarot and declaring the usual way outmoded. That again , is a matter of personal choice and perception.

Click to expand...

I dont think the usual way can be 'outmoded' - complimented in some way, yes, but I cant see it being outmoded.

Dark Inquisitor said:

While you may congratulate yourself for reworking the tarot into something unrecognizable and functionally unreadable because it feeds your artistic sense , the average reader may find it simply confusing . This does not mean that either of you are correct or incorrect , but perhaps simply seeking different ends.

Click to expand...

But who are the readers of tomorrow, and what do they desire and feel necessary to help them read, or what tools do they want to bring to the table. Im sure there is more room on the reading cloth for what we traditionally know as Tarot and Tarot reading methods.

Dark Inquisitor said:

Rather than attempting to redo the entire Tarot to suit yourself on occasion , why not experiment with adding what you think might be missing without losing what is already there ?

Click to expand...

.. and that is a valid point as well - I think alot of Tarot creators (and readers) try to take that angle on occassion and do succeed. But sometimes (like in any field) there comes a time where great leaps and bounds are made - they are revolutionary and inspirational, and often very simplistic but have great impact and benefit to the whole, and yet can be so confronting to the conformed ideas that they are almost seemed as being threatening in some way.

and as for "redoing the tarot to suit ones self", I think that is part of the creative process of the art of Tarot - maybe within the creation there is a voice that is crying to take the deck in another direction, yet the voice of reason, commercial interest, ecconomics and what ever else - constrict it back to conformity.
How many deck creators wished theyd had the guts or the ingenuity to just go outside their boundaries regardless of the mass opinion and declare that although they have something different, its Tarot and it works?

Just some thoughts

Blessings Elven x

Well, why not do oracle decks instead? They can be anything you want.

Debra said:

Well, why not do oracle decks instead? They can be anything you want.

Click to expand...

Perplexed.

Meaning that:
1. Tarot must be RWS, and if I resent doing RWS-like decks I should not do Tarot?
2. Oracle decks would provide the "istantly recognizable" yet "modern" frame of reference I'm missing?
3. I don't understand.

Option 1 and 2, I definitely disagree. Option 3, I don't know.

ric

If you build it, they will come to shuffle.

-tb