Huck
Yatima said:
...2x3x4 is the structure of the I-Ching
2 = Yin+Yang
3 = 3 positions: earth - man - heaven
4 = 4 states of change ("6", "7", "8", "9")
Although people have a specific view of the I-Ching, that it is "chinese" and "somehow strange" and "somehow difficult", it's just simply a mathematical scheme with universal character. The specific very simple character of this scheme was not used in China alone, but more or less everywhere. The purpose of using it was - depending on the historic situation - different, the authors of the past, from which we can draw nearer informations about the specific use, had in each case their personal interests, nonetheless we can see the similarities in the different approaches. This were -
practical approaches for instance:
- a system to determine the weight of things (ca. 1500 BC, India)
- a system to deal with the volume, the Egyptian hekat, which dealt with the Horus-eye
religious interests:
- calendars, astrology, which often takes elements of it
- gods genealogies
- oracle systems
mental interests
- poetical systems
- philosophical systems
.... the Steel order is completely uninteresting in this matter, I talk about the memory system, not about specific and humble Tarot interpretations of simple card designers of 15th century.
The universal 3x7+1 - structure appears on the trigram-level of
I-Ching:
There is one BASIC-trigram, which defines 3 positions and the 3 positions are earth - man - heaven. The yin+yang influence results in defining 3x7 lines, which are sorted by 7 other alternative trigrams.
1 - 0 0 1 1 1 0 0
1 - 0 1 0 1 0 1 0
1 - 1 0 0 0 1 1 0
Of course one could see this scheme as a 3x8-structure and indeed in "Chinese style" it's mostly interpreted this way (as the Chinese see Yin and Yang as balancing forces), but even them knows a proverb "3 times 7 gives 21" which is interpreted as "the true story of a matter or happening", probably indicating, that they see in this formula a deep understanding of nature and action.
In "Western Style" you've the feature, that it is monotheistic interpreted, there is one god and this god is counted as "one", so the one in 21+1 is the "defining god" and the "21 other elements" are the world, which is manifested by the defining god.
A similar feature is builded by the structure "49 + 1", which actually presents 64 possibilities (hexagrams of I-Ching), not 50, as might be understood.
The 49+1-structure is very common in Greek mythology, also it is the true content of the "50 doors of understanding" in kabbala, later forged in a 5x10-structure, which is medieval nonsense and misunderstanding.
In the older Jewish mythology 7 heavens and 7 earths build the world (that's 7x7=49) and there is one god, which manifests it (mathematically he drags with that 15 possibilities on himself ( - 15 = 1 (god) + 7 (heavens) + 7 (earths))
Chinese thinkers didn't play this Western mystery game, they've simply unhidden 64 hexagrams. But the true content - the memory-system - was used by both sources.
What did you say?
"Show me that the 16 figures of Chess relate to the 22 of the Tarot? Don’t, please, come with Cary-Yale, I know these arguments, and they seem to me like fascinating imagination…nothing more, though; a 5x16 Structure will not do here."
Hm ...
... that's your problem - perhaps you can perceive, that there are people, who know the thinking problem a little longer than you.Nobody claimed, that the late 22-version completely merges in the chess game.
All articles at trionfi.com aim at showing, that this type of deck ("standard version of Tarot") developed in various steps with different intentions of different people to the form, that it found finally. If you misunderstood that .... you should restart reading.
The article to the Cary-Yale, still in its old form
http://geoicities.com/autorbis/VMnew.html
displays were open, that this is a very complex problem and that analyses might know and find other solutions.
The document from Johannes of Rheinfelden is clear ... chess took an influence on early playing cards .... and, just quite humble, the chances, that chess took an influence on the early Tarot against the alternative, that Nothelfers took an influence are 1000:1 .....
I would guess.http://trionfi.com/0/c/01/
"Show me that the 22 letters related to the YS and to the time can be accounted for the sub-structures of the 22 or even really for the 22+1 in any order."
You're not clear in this sentence.
"You may leave out the 22 of the Apocalypse, you interpret as irrelevant to “your” theory. I do not do so: Indeed, when the Bembo-14 and other early Tarots were related to Black Death and the Apocalypse (as, besides some of my allusions in the thread Star, Moon, Sun, was elaborated by Betts, Hurst and O’Neill), to introduce the 22 chapters or the 3x7 stages of Joachim of Fiore seems to me to have some merits (so, I am not disposing such thoughts generally)."
Black death and Apocalypse are common backgrounds of the Bembo-14, but a use of a death-card doesn't make the Bembo-14 to a "Black Death Tarot" and the use of a "Judgment"-card doesn't make it an Apocalypse-deck. If you've studied one of the Apocalypse-versions rich book paintings, you should know, that it doesn't contain enough Tarot-material.
Star, Moon and Sun are not object to the Bembo-14.
Betts (already dead ?), Hurst and Bob O'Neill can get their answers, when they're personally at the board.
"But my statement was and is that it is not the “general” memory structure gained by cultural repetition through time but the singularity of the Tarot-structure that will lead us to its living well…"
... what is a "living well"? A "living well" is man, who sorts his ideas, gives his conceptions, makes his words etc. ... You for instance, Yatima, are a living well, occasionally foolish, occasionally clever, occasionally boring ideas, occasionally interesting. These artists of 15th centuries had been living wells, now they are dead.What's always there? The general sorting problem. The general wish to make of world a mandala, a "sorted, round world", the wish to show a great mental concept. Then man sets a system ... sometimes a cheap system, sometimes a very interesting system. Comparing all these "personal" systems one can find about the "general system" in all these differences in style, time and personal intention. This "general system" I call "memory system". Although it not really lives, it's somehow a living well, as it constantly reappears and is suddenly in the minds and used by somebody. This is interesting, cause it has logic, it follows the ways, how man sorts the world after "universal ideas".
The specific Tarot problems we discuss here are only "kindergarten".
