Historic Tarot : What We Do NOT Know.

Rosanne

Well there you go! Another thing I do not know is this computer. It is not mine so I do not save things on it, and I thought it was the World of Playing Cards I got that information from.
I was a bit taken aback by the statement "banished the Queens" in German playing cards; regardless of where it was written. That is why I asked.
Every deck I have at home has a Queen. (all copies boo hoo)
Thanks Huck. Another 'do not knows' bites the dust.

Everyone else must have a "I know everything" about Historical cards. Wish I was them.
~Rosanne
 

Debra

I'd like to suggest a different tack.

What's worth knowing about historical tarot?

Probably easiest to start with the negative.

I believe, as does Rosanne and some others, that story telling about why X trumps Y was likely part of the early play, and that the overall story is Prudence. I am not very interested in the detailed analysis of the ordering of the trumps. When they're numbered, there are variations. There's a moral allegory involved. I think also common sense. Heaven wins. I'm satisfied.

I'm also not particularly interested in an infinity of images that are similar to tarot images, or contain elements of tarot images (except insofar as they're cool to look at in and of themselves). The Children of the Planets is good; useful; some other decks (like the hunting decks and the Mamluk cards) are useful.

I think if we knew more (or paid more attention) to how artists work, a lot of "mysteries" would evaporate.

I appreciate the linguistic approach (glances meaningfully toward Kwaw) but I don't think it takes us to the "original" tarot. I think it's a continuation of the story-telling aspect of tarot as a game, as is fortune-telling.

I feel the same way about number analysis. I think the numbers mean something, but not hugely esoteric (sorry Yygdrasilian).

I'm interested in the astronomical aspects because the trumps are filled with astronomy. And because the genius astronomers of the age were in the Mamluk empire (including Cairo, which was and still is in Egypt), I think it's worth knowing more about the Mamluk roots. Here's something on the astronomy of the Mamluks http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.23...2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21102815670231
 

conversus

. . . There's a moral allegory involved. I think also common sense. Heaven wins. I'm satisfied. . . . .
I'm also not particularly interested in an infinity of images that are similar to tarot images, or contain elements of tarot images (except insofar as they're cool to look at in and of themselves).

These sentiments resonate with my own; however, not so completely that I never visit this part of the play yard.

I think that the infinity of Tarot-like images can get burdensome, but how else can one hope to understand if not to know just how a particular figure or emblem registered in the minds of 15th, 16th, or 17th century persons. If the impassioned claim that some little squiggle represents a knife, i sorta need someone to show me some better rendered examples of contemporary knives for me to accept the claim.

Part of why the Tarot images work at all--as a game or anything else--is because they somehow capture the stereotype or the cliche of times not our own and bring it forward to us. I'm sure that i could choose less offensive terms, but needs must. So while i don't feel equipt to weed through 15 screens of geometry (though i have to my benefit) i do seem better able to look at scores of pretty pictures that have been carefully dated and described for me by those more knowledgeable and skilled than myself. I cannot say how grateful i am to those who do all the heavy lifting --you being one of those persons.

I would like to know more about how the sequence was crafted. I would like to understand more about how it meant what it meant then. What it may mean now is a related project.

I seem to have drifted a bit off topic. Sorry.


CED

PS. perhaps i can be a bit cheeky to ask : Has the moral allegory lost it's power to speak to us today?
 

Debra

Has the moral allegory lost it's power to speak to us today?

That's a great question.
I wonder if it depends on religous background. Maybe those raised Catholic relate better? (Than I, I mean.)
 

Rosanne

That's a great question. (Has the moral allegory lost it's power to speak to us today?)
I wonder if it depends on religous background. Maybe those raised Catholic relate better? (Than I, I mean.)
A guy called Zuckermann said of Sweden and Denmark, who are the most non religious countries in the world have the lowest corruption rate and the lowest violence stats in the world.
If you mean do those raised Catholic relate better to Tarot?
Well Catholic countries top the list in many abuses against accepted moral codes.
Family violence-incest-murder, you name it, some Catholic somewhere has done it.
I guess we (a raised Catholic) understand Tarot, because it is familiar, in one sense.
Raised Catholics are sub-marine Catholics, they stick their periscope up when in trouble or sadness. We are also used to image sequences, icons and pray to dead people. Therefore we are bound to accept the para-normal.
Oh! a raised Catholic is not necessarily a 'practicing' one.
Have moral allegories lost their Power. Not on this forum lol!
Moral allegories have a teaching aspect, that never goes out of fashion.
They are best told with animals not humans- we seem to think we are above that. Justice with her scales is a moral allegory- still pertinent today. We are a community, who need each other - so we need ethics, to survive in a group.
But why the 22 Cards attached to a playing card deck? I do not know. I think maybe serendipity.
~Rosanne

~Rosanne
 

conversus

That's a great question.
I wonder if it depends on religous background. Maybe those raised Catholic relate better? (Than I, I mean.)

Andrew Greeley wrote a short book about this very topic, called the Catholic Imagination. He argues from sociological findings that Catholics tend to be more attuned to the anagogical interpretation of reality rather than Protestants. The gist of his thought being that if God created everything, then everything has the ability to reveal God and God's activities in the world and to invite us into an ever deeper relationship with him [sorry to the goddess devotees ... her would do too].

Catholics are taught from an early age to expect God to want to be found, if he is hiding, and to be present everywhere. Protestants, apparently, are taught to find God in the book, not the world the BOOK can be found in.

Catholics may be less afraid of the world, even a pagan world, because they expect the world to teach them something important, or to reveal God's nearness.

others will know more.

CED
 

Rosanne

Hi Conversus, I am interested in getting hold of that book.
For many years now I have argued that Christianity is bad for the World from a specific point of view. If your Home (Heaven) is somewhere else, and man is just in a transit camp proving his worth; Man will not look after the transit camp nor his fellow temporary camper, unless it is to further his plan to prove his worth. That breeds a sort materialistic selfishness.
You use people to further your own ends. You trash the planet because this is not the end objective.
Interesting subject, as many raised Catholics in my environs are interested in so called New Age ideas, Spirit guides, psychic things like summoning voices from people who have died etc..
The Feminine spirit or Gaia because of the Virgin Mary as well. My mother always prayed to Mary and seemed to consider her more important than Jesus, almost like an underground alternative to Patriarchal Church.
But enough of this digression........
One of things I do not know about Tarot is Card 2 The Papesse: She appears low on the scoring value, how come she became a High Priestess?
~Rosanne
 

Richard

......One of things I do not know about Tarot is Card 2 The Papesse: She appears low on the scoring value, how come she became a High Priestess?
~Rosanne
Jung says that a goddess is needed for balance within the godhead (the psyche). In effect (if not in fact), Catholicism promoted Mary to that rank. Waite, being a self-styled Catholic, did the same with the Popess, which became Isis (Mary the virgin). While he was at it, the Empress got promoted to Venus (Mary the mother of god).

Protestantism does a disservice to its adherents by providing an unbalanced pantheon: its supernals are all guys.
 

conversus

Rosanne:

The Orthodox have a very interesting saying that stands in rebuke of the nastier aspects of the attitude you describe above, Beauty will save the world.

This forms the sure foundation for a christian practical aesthetic that regards a genuine and generous stewardship of the earth and the whole of the natural environment as central to the human project.

There is a dichotomy between the mind of the industrialist and the humanist that has caused a great deal of havoc in our long history. There is a place for all of it <as i have said in another context> but we sometimes forget the roses for the bread.

CED

ps apologies to those who discern a Statement 3 quality in these remarks.