The Pictorial Key / LWB and Widely-Accepted Card Meanings

ravenest

More curious .... when I do my wacky ravenest thingo (my theory that decanic images are virtually useless, the real influences in the decans came from the age of astrology when stars, were used as individual components of a decan, as opposed to asterisms which can span 3 decans ... and the planetary associations are mere 'numeration' )

There seems to be two influences about this card in the 3rd decan of Taurus ... one of gain, and one of loss.

What's in the sky there ? .... the two horns , or, more correctly , two stars that represent the ends of the horn of the bull. THE two significant stars in that decan ; Al Hecka and El Nath.

Al Hecka seems to go with 'Failure' and the G.D / R.W. title :

According to Ptolemy it is of the nature of Mars, but Alvidas suggests that of Mercury and Saturn conjoined. It gives violence, male violence and danger of accidents.

With Sun: Suspicious, reserved, studious, unfavourable for health and especially for the lungs, aptitude for military enterprise and stratagems but danger of deceit and ambushes.

With Moon: Quarrels, evil habits and company, depravity.

With Mercury: Hasty temper, selfishness, greed, dissipation, legal and business troubles, poor health, domestic troubles and separation from wife or children, low companions, loss of wealth and poverty.

With Venus: Unfortunate, low companions, bad environment.

With Mars: Evil companions, bad habits, sex troubles, and afflictions of a Mars-Venus type.

With Jupiter: Hypocrisy, dissipation, business losses and disgrace.

With Saturn: Uncontrolled passions, drink, debauchery, perverted genius, clever writer of undesirable literature, luxurious surroundings but little wealth, isolated or confined at end of life, domestic unhappiness, accidents if Mars is also afflicting.

With Uranus: Legal difficulties, trouble through occultism, danger of imprisonment but help from friends, unfavourable for love and marriage, parental disharmony, little wealth, death from an accident.

With Neptune: Accidents, secret enemies, great psychic powers, wife may be sickly or die soon after marriage, favourable for gain but many losses in latter part of life, sudden troubles of a Mars nature.

[ Fixed Stars and Constellations in Astrology, Vivian E. Robson, 1923 p 125 - 126 .]

Whereas El Nath suggests gain success and money:

With Sun: Ecclesiastical preferment, honour through science, religion or philosophy.

With Moon: Quarrels with questionable associates, business success, environment detrimental owing to wife, partner or relative.

With Mercury: Favour of superiors, but enmity of colleagues, rises to high position or changes vocation, favourable for gain, but many small losses, domestic expenses, often obliged to support an invalid.

With Venus: Favourable for gain, enemies who are powerless to injure.

With Mars: Good lawyer, speaker, and debater, quick-witted.

With Jupiter: Success in legal or ecclesiastical affairs, favourable for gain and inheritance.

With Saturn: Cautious, thoughtful, bad-tempered, accumulates money, favourable for domestic affairs, gain through relatives, may receive start in life through a legacy.

With Uranus: Great mental energy and force of character, weak body, original and practical ideas, occult interests, but material aims, late success, favourable for domestic affairs, death in middle age.

With Neptune: Active in mind and body, vacillating, some physical defect, occult interests, may make discoveries in medicine, domestic disharmony owing to peculiar matrimonial ideas, may become famous, death in middle age.

[Fixed Stars and Constellations in Astrology, Vivian E. Robson, 1923, p. 164 - 165.]
 

Richard

......What image from this decan of Taurus coincides with the image on this card ?
Waite was not inclined to refer to the astrological decans, although the 2 and 6 of Swords hint at them. The image on the 7 of Pentacles may pertain to the title Success Unfulfilled, and the agricultural motif is compatible with Taurus and Saturn, but there is little or no overt reference to esoteric matters in the pips. (The 10 of Pentacles is a notable exception.)
 

ravenest

I still maintain (and the above posts do not help to change my mind) that Waite made a big mess of the Tarot ... whose influences seem to be;

a blend of early romanticism from 'penny dreadfuls' and 'historical' romance,

a hotchpotch of earlier deck meanings ...

an esotericism twisted by his own take on things he didnt understand, while writing about them in a way that tried to bluff people ( just look at his work on Rosicrucianism ... an academic attack written to impress the people whose inner order he wanted to get into ... who happened to be Rosicrucians ) ...

anything he did learn he hid, inverted or twisted.

and some he got wrong ... or deliberately made wrong

yet still, people ....

http://happyanniversaryltt.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/adoringfans.jpg

the deck .
 

Richard

I still maintain (and the above posts do not help to change my mind) that Waite made a big mess of the Tarot ... whose influences seem to be;

a blend of early romanticism from 'penny dreadfuls' and 'historical' romance,

a hotchpotch of earlier deck meanings ...

an esotericism twisted by his own take on things he didnt understand, while writing about them in a way that tried to bluff people ( just look at his work on Rosicrucianism ... an academic attack written to impress the people whose inner order he wanted to get into ... who happened to be Rosicrucians ) ...

anything he did learn he hid, inverted or twisted.

and some he got wrong ... or deliberately made wrong

......
You are in good (?) company. Your opinion of Waite is essentially the same as that of the brilliant (?) tarot historian Christine Payne-Towler. })
 

DavidMcCann

To accuse Waite of making a mess of things is to assume there was some pristine revelation that he could corrupt, but the tarot is a just pack of playing cards. The trumps suggest meanings by their designs, but the suits had to have meanings added.

Etteilla did it by transferring them from the ordinary cards, which seem to have been more or less traditional, adding a few ideas of his own. Mathers invented a system combining cabbalism and the Picatrix decan meanings, neither of which have any demonstrable connection to the tarot. When he couldn't reconcile them, he was quite prepared to assume the decan meanings had got transposed, as the case of
3 of Swords: "A decan of quietness…"
4 of Swords: "It is a decan of ill deeds…"
Waite took a lot of meanings from Mathers (e.e. 3 Swords), a few from Etteilla (6 Swords), and created a few for himself (8 coins).

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. People read successfully with all three sets of meanings, and no doubt with others besides.
 

Zephyros

Tarot may be just a (wicked) pack of cards, but the GD's esoteric Tarot is another animal entirely. I don't agree that he made a mess, since his inner meanings can, indeed be gleaned from both the cards and the text. The Minors aren't wholly the product of their respective decans, but neither are anybody else's. The easiest experiment to verify Waite's credentials is to reverse-engineer the card down to its astrological and Kabbalistic elements and then see if a coherent meaning can be built, and if it matches (at least in spirit), Waite's cards and text.

From what I have seen, it does work, and it isn't difficult. Waite is far more GD then he gets credit for.
 

ravenest

To accuse Waite of making a mess of things is to assume there was some pristine revelation that he could corrupt, but the tarot is a just pack of playing cards. The trumps suggest meanings by their designs, but the suits had to have meanings added.

Well ... I think there are a few assumptions in there .... ' the tarot is a just pack of playing cards ' ... really ??? (Perhaps its just a case of wrong tense being used ? ) .

'Meanings' are inherent in numbers and suits ( elements ... is it THAT hard to envision) and have been for a long time previous to the use of cards. Why four suits in the first place if we didnt have 4 fingers, 4 seasons, 4 elements , etc. I know the horse looks good before the cart but there were horses before we ever thought of carts.
Etteilla did it by transferring them from the ordinary cards, which seem to have been more or less traditional, adding a few ideas of his own. Mathers invented a system combining cabbalism and the Picatrix decan meanings, neither of which have any demonstrable connection to the tarot.

HUH? The 'connection' is demonstrated all the time. Thats what correspondences are all about, it basic hermetic theory to assume the connections are there in the first place and if we look we will find them. This goes for something which may even be invented tomorrow ... if it is a 'valid structure' ... that is how something is determined valid, if it fits into the 'fields of resonance' of hermetic correspondences.

Of course, if one sees the tarot as ' just a pack of playing cards' .... none of this is relavent anyway.
When he couldn't reconcile them, he was quite prepared to assume the decan meanings had got transposed, as the case of
3 of Swords: "A decan of quietness…"
4 of Swords: "It is a decan of ill deeds…"
Waite took a lot of meanings from Mathers (e.e. 3 Swords), a few from Etteilla (6 Swords), and created a few for himself (8 coins).

Ummm . yeah, that was my 'complaint' in post # 13. He hodge-podged it., and ended up with a system that seems all over the place. ... and unexplained 'unexpected chambers'.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. People read successfully with all three sets of meanings, and no doubt with others besides.

People read successfully with Hello Kitty. I read successfully with Waite for a few years ... it wasnt the lack of success in readings that caused me to dump it ... it was the deeper inner level, its function other than reading ... heck! I knew a guy that 'read successfully' at markets by breaking an egg into some type of curdling liquid.
 

Zephyros

The argument that Kabbalah and astrology aren't inherently connected to Tarot, and hence can (and should) be disregarded is getting old, especially since it promotes sloth and ignorance. It is true that these elements are not present in the original Marseilles, but we've come a long way since then, and the modern card interpretations people learn by heart are all based on these esoteric systems. Disregard them, and you're left with a bunch of pretty pictures randomly assembled, divorced of significance and devoid of meaning. Ignore these systems, and all you can do is learn by heart a mash of something tasteless and that gives little nourishment.

I still don't agree Waite was either a hodge-podge or all over the place, though. I have yet to see any real demonstration of this, except when it comes to the Courts.
 

ravenest

Each to their own, of course. Thats why I think he botched it ... it doesnt suit me or my purposes. If it suits yours ( except for the courts :) ... }) ) ...

Perhaps there is no confusion about the meaning of the card mentioned above and the image on the card. There are quiet a few unanswered questions above ... and a few observations, not made by me, that I thought if followed through .... and vast blocks of stuff which seem to indicate certain connections and not a peep out of anyone about them ... <shrug>

Obviously no point harping on it here.