What makes a "Tarot Historian"?

What a Historian really needs ...

What a Historian really needs ...

FREE SPEECH

I remember sad events in the recent past not far away ...

well, actually a historian doesn't need free speech, but the others need it, when they want to have good info from the historian ...

... and a good memory, really necessary, best that of an elephant ...

cause actually historians are in their ideal only the incorporated memory function of mankind ... well, specialists, somehow the bardic tradition going back to oral traditions ... those, who beware the story, how it really had happened.

Also important:

... the ability to recognize errors and also the system of errors ... in his own systems, but also in the system of others ... also just in informations ... best he smells errors, when they appear and when he meets them ... ... so best he has instincts like an animal ...

... cause once we had been animals and historians should try to look a long way in the past ...

... maybe, that serious study at one of the modern universities is really indeed a reason never to become a historian, cause the builded mind walls are then too thick .... just as with persons, who read too much about Tarot in the past and now have so much difficulties to see, that their object is just a card game .... never ready to meet the trivial explanation.

A sure way to recognize errors NOT.

... cause the historians function is also to correct errors in the written tradition, in the oral tradition and in the gossip, that is everwhere around here.

Huck said:

What a Historian really needs ...

FREE SPEECH

I remember sad events in the recent past not far away ...

well, actually a historian doesn't need free speech, but the others need it, when they want to have good info from the historian ...

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I agree. At least here in the history threads, it is important to point out facts that NEED TO BE CONSIDERED. Only people trying to theorize historically need to consider them, but presumably anyone coming here is coming to learn some history. Not the historical *interpretation* of me or you or anyone else, necessarily, but at least the facts that the interpretations are based on.

For myself, I always try to make this clear, what is fact (which I am forced to acknowledge, along with everyone else) and what is interpretation - what I or someone else think best explains the facts.

... and a good memory, really necessary, best that of an elephant ...

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I have yet to meet a perfect one. But constant meditation on the body of knowledge produces a sort of "memory theatre" or a map which becomes very, very familiar with time, and comes increasingly into focus.

cause actually historians are in their ideal only the incorporated memory function of mankind ... well, specialists, somehow the bardic tradition going back to oral traditions ... those, who beware the story, how it really had happened.

Also important:

... the ability to recognize errors and also the system of errors ... in his own systems, but also in the system of others ... also just in informations ... best he smells errors, when they appear and when he meets them ... ... so best he has instincts like an animal ...

... cause once we had been animals and historians should try to look a long way in the past ...

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This is what the questions and criticism by others are for. They are among the hardest things for learners (as we all are) to bear at first, but once acquainted with the style of discourse, you become HUNGRY for criticism. It speeds the learning process.

You also learn to overlook the personal style of the questioner/criticizer, and focus on the substance of the criticism.

... maybe, that serious study at one of the modern universities is really indeed a reason never to become a historian, cause the builded mind walls are then too thick .... just as with persons, who read too much about Tarot in the past and now have so much difficulties to see, that their object is just a card game .... never ready to meet the trivial explanation.

A sure way to recognize errors NOT.

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True. The advantage of an endowment for a department of Playing Card Studies at a university is that one place can assemble all the printed material concerning the subject, making study easier. It will also attract specialists who will bring hundreds of years of collective expertise on the subject.

The disadvantage, as always, will be a kind of imprimatur or orthodoxy. Those who emerge from this programme will have learned the perspective of their teachers, and then usually go down the same road - with modifications as new discoveries and methodologies are developed, and the occasional genius who revolutionizes the field - so that they will be guaranteed respectability and *jobs* when they are done.

There are pros and cons to an "official" academic programme. It may be best that it remains an interdisciplinary field, without any kind of superior center of study.

... cause the historians function is also to correct errors in the written tradition, in the oral tradition and in the gossip, that is everwhere around here.

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It is useful to define terms. Many people consider tarot not to be "merely" a deck of cards, but a philosophy which came to be illustrated in a deck of cards. Thus, they search for the ideas behind this philosophy - which of course can be traced very far back. Thus they consider that Tarot is far older than the first appearance of tarot cards.

I am always clear that when I speak as a historian, tarot means first "carte da trionfi", and later "tarot" - an object, a certain kind of pack of cards, and what is done with that pack of cards (also called "tarot" - playing the cards, reading the cards, or whatever).

Ross G Caldwell said:

Christina Olsen did her PhD on early tarot in 1993 - not trying to solve the historical questions of who, what, where, when and why, but examining their place in the society of the time.

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Yes, I heard that. But apart from "The Art of Tarot" I haven't heard of anything else she's done. Do you know if she's still publishing, writing at all (I know you said she doesn't seem to be teaching).

baba-prague said:

Yes, I heard that. But apart from "The Art of Tarot" I haven't heard of anything else she's done. Do you know if she's still publishing, writing at all (I know you said she doesn't seem to be teaching).

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No, I can't find her at all. I've searched on the internet a few times, although I haven't written to Abbeville Press (who publishes "The Art of Tarot").

If she changed her name, she will be hard to find.

Parapsychology class - not quite history, but...

Thought this might be interesting - I remembered this class from years ago so I looked through some old calendars and found the course description - not exactly Tarot or history, but if they had a class in this, then who knows? "Interdisciplinary Degrees" are big buzzwords here at the U, its entirely possible that if one found the right advisor an "Art History of Tarot" would be a definite possibility.

"Psychology 300
Parapsychology
Introductory survey of psychic phenomena (e.g. telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, psychokinesis and related phenomena), their conditions or occurrence, psychological and physiological correlates, methods of study and possible implications."

This class was wildly popular - very difficult to get into with long waiting lists. I never managed to snag one myself, and by the time I was doing my Masters the professor teaching it had retired. Its only offered sporadically now, if at all.

Ross G Caldwell said:

I wear a fez sometimes... it has a tassle. Does that count?

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Yes that counts!!
It's that tassle you know, it just lends an air of dignity to any shape of head gear.
Tassles, a very important consideration for any Historian I think.
(and tassles come in many pretty colors )

Tassles have a long and glorious history of their own....Winnie the Pooh wears a tassle...and I think any good historian needs to read Winnie the Pooh, (no matter what kind of history they are studying...especially tarot.)

lark said:

Yes that counts!!
It's that tassle you know, it just lends an air of dignity to any shape of head gear.
Tassles, a very important consideration for any Historian I think.
(and tassles come in many pretty colors )

Tassles have a long and glorious history of their own....Winnie the Pooh wears a tassle...and I think any good historian needs to read Winnie the Pooh, (no matter what kind of history they are studying...especially tarot.)

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Well, I like honey very much.

But it's awfully sticky in the summer, especially when it gets on your clothes.

I don't think it's right that they want to make Christopher Robin into a girl. He was nice just the way he is.

Ross G Caldwell said:

Well, I like honey very much.

But it's awfully sticky in the summer, especially when it gets on your clothes.

I don't think it's right that they want to make Christopher Robin into a girl. He was nice just the way he is.

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Well Ross you are not supposed to crawl IN the honey jar....silly bear!

Poor Christopher turned out alright in the end...
For a truly facinating look at the history of Christopher Robin and Pooh if you can get a copy of~
The Enchanted Places: A Memoir of the real Christopher Robin and Winnie-the Pooh.
by Christopher Milne
I promoise you, your history loving heart will be "Enchanted."

baba-prague said:

Yes, I heard that. But apart from "The Art of Tarot" I haven't heard of anything else she's done. Do you know if she's still publishing, writing at all (I know you said she doesn't seem to be teaching).

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I think she discovered the tarot's origin, and has been sequestered by the Priory of Sion as one who knows too much.

Curiosity, Imagination, Open-Mindedness, Flexability.

best,
robert