The Great Tarot Controversy

jmd

Baccus93 has perhaps correctly identified what Crowley and the GD (from which he takes his main body of work) do: "Correspondence the similarities between Hindu and Graeco pantheons - at least in the Golden Dawn and in Crowley's 777 " - and these lists of claimed correspondences is neither traditional Kabbalah, nor Western Kabalah.

What especially Crowley seems fond of is precisely these overlays of disparate systems of thought and tradition. But overlaying these and claiming some correlations both amongst them and also with aspects of the Tree of Life is not Kabalah - neither Western nor Jewish, and as far as I'm concerned does a great dis-service to both the Western esoteric tradition and to Kabalah to confuse the two, as certain GD proponents and Crowley have done.

The Western esoteric tradition and 'western' Kabalah predates also the GD, it should perhaps be remembered.

Decks who make use of the various GD-based (or other) claimed correlations do not, in my view, synthesise these into a new tarot, but rather draw on both tarot and on their preferred correlations (as I do too for my own personal work - but make no claims that Kabbalah, the I-Ching or the MBTI is 'now part of tarot'). Those decks, then, are drawn from various bases, some of which are not tarot, and thus are decks that are in part tarot and in part 'other'.

Some may see this as 'mere semantics', but am making in fact a substantive comment (with which others may of course disagree).

Lillie

Baccus93 said:
Are you saying that there is a 'kabbalistic correspondance' that doesn't attribute Cancer to the Chariot? That 8 of swords is not an 8, not swords, not Jupiter in Gemini?

Yes, I think I am saying that.

I suppose I would have to look up the exact kaballistic correspondances, cos kaballah is not really my thing.

But there is a school of thought that equates the magician with Aleph, rather than Beth, and all but one of the majors is moved up a letter.

I also know of systems that use water for swords, and other elemental but non GD correspondances.

There are other astrological correspondances that do not match the GD.

But these are all well known.
These things are discussed and argued over constantly.
Which is why I was asking what it was, exactly, that you were saying.
(and to be honest I am still not sure)

But the existance of these systems is in no doubt.
It is also true that a number of 'types' of decks have very different meanings ascribed to them in both proper books and in LWB's

The Marseilles system is very different and very much older than the GD.
And you should see the way they interprette 7's!
Me (being the good Thoth girl that I am) was shocked!
I really was. I said 'what do you mean? How can they be good cards!'

The GD system has caught on big time in the english speaking world (mostly because of the RWS and it's illustrated minors), but over in Europe the Marseilles tradition is still (I believe) the main one. And in Spain they have something else altogether.

All this is fact, I don't think anyone could contradict it.

I don't know if you are contradicting it.
This is what I meant when I tried to define what exactly you were saying.
And you didn't really answer that one clearly. I'm still not sure.

Cos if you already know all the stuff above (and surely you must have come across some of these systems) then what you are meaning is something else.
And in that case this has been an entirely pointless excersise in typing.

Scion

Hey Baccus,

You both did and didn't answer my post. You're right in that your sample is biased, but you still seem to think that no other set of attributions besides the Golden Dawn exists, even though you know your sample to be extremely limited and GD-centered. I think you might surprise yourself if you did a little digging on the COntinental side of things...

Baccus93 said:
Tarot of Ceremonial Magick...Thoth...Hanson-Roberts Tarot...Mythic Tarot...RWS...Tarot of the 78 Doors

It should come as no surprise that there is so much agreement between these; literally all of these are strictly Golden Dawn, Book T based. As you noted, 78 Doors is the most remote but still in the GD family, as are most of Scarabeo's decks, because of market demands. Ever time they attempt something to buck the trend, the consumers don't support it, a situation Riccardo has discussed at length in many threads here on AT...

Baccus93 said:
I guess I am rightly accused... these decks seem a biased sample if there are any that exist which don't seem to relate somewhat to Liber T. I'll have to look for those decks. I wonder if a book store would let me open the deck box and read a LWB to see that it is one which isn't like the others. Then I'd buy it for my study.

With that in mind, you might take a look at a few non Book-T decks: the Etteilla, Knapp-Hall Tarot, Kazanlar Tarot, Lasenic Tarot, Ibis Tarot, Tarot of the Master (aka the Vacchetta), LS Tarots of the Renaissance, Stairs of Gold Tarot, Gran Tarot Esoterico, Dreampower Tarot. What you'll notice is that many of these decks have nonscenic pips, which means they don't sell well in the States, and so they are not as easily encountered. But that doesn't mean they don't exist. Or that searching them with Golden Dawn expectations will yield much fruit. The trouble is that people have come to expect RWS minor meanings, so creators feel compelled to incorporate them. No monolithic mystery, only market forces.

On a broader scale, also, here's a couple Tarotpedia pages that distinguish between attribution models:
Tarot de Marseille
Etteilla Tarot (although as James Revak has pointed out the Etteilla is a definitive ancestor of the Golden Dawn Book T meanings)
Falconnier/Wegener Pattern
Papus/Wirth Pattern
and a very rudimentary intro to families of decks adhering to differing Qabalistic attributions

The main force of my argument about this alleged "controversy" (and remember, my original post still qualifies as meaning I don't see a need for this controversy) is that there doesn't appear to exist but one system of Tarot

And this is where you are factually wrong. Take a look around some of the aforementioned links and you'll see there are many other traditions. Truth be told, as a reader I've only cracked the surface on a few of them. I was raised in the US, so they are less familiar to me than the comforts of Book T. But they exist.

baccus93 said:
They seem to me to all be designed based on the same system. But maybe it's true... my sample is limited to what I have discovered so far and maybe they are all derived from Liber T.

They are because they were. It's just a little ostrichy-y to insist that with an admittedly limited perspective you're describing the totality of Tarot. Which is why emotions have run high.

baccus93 said:
Are you saying that there is a 'kabbalistic correspondance' that doesn't attribute Cancer to the Chariot? That 8 of swords is not an 8, not swords, not Jupiter in Gemini?

And the answer is of course: yes. Several. Check out those links. The cool thing about interfacing with new and unfamiliar systems is it really gives a sense of where the Golden Dawn structure is strained and arbitrary (as are all systems at their seams).

Anyways, hope that even some of the above is useful. And thank you for being open to what I was saying before.

93/93

Scion

rebecca-smiles

I have seen various systems mentioned on the forum. How they relate to GD I do not know but the gist seemed to be they were at odds with the GD. I shall have to leave the specifics about varieties of systems to those who know their names and workings, at least until I have looked them out in depth myself. There is one, that I have been looking at recently…

Have you come across William G Gray? (I have mentioned it variously here on AT but it doesn’t get much attention, although that is not to say scholars here aren’t aware of him!) several of the comments about his system are that it seems good and logical, but since people are well acquainted with the GD system they don’t want to invest in another one. I’m not knocking this, but I do have the privaledge of not knowing anything to make me available to begin any system without mental contortions from knowing another!

Gray states: This {assigning m. arcana to paths] has always been a controversial question among Western occultists, uneasily settled during the last century be attributing the cards to paths according to their sequential numbers regardless of their ideology […] Now take a good look at those associations [numerical, beginning with fool at kether-chokma] but ignore the card numbers. Does it begin to remind you of those old child-puzzlers entitled “what is wrong with this picture?” They were a kind of intelligence test to discover how quickly the child’s mind recognizes incongruities? […] It surely seems obvious that many of the associations on this list are so strained and unlikely that it would take a very convoluted mind to make any convincing relationships.”

It is this last statement that repelled me from the GD system, before I ever came across his work. I could (if I really tried) understand elemental and planetary and number associations for the position of the card. However, I couldn’t understand the meaning of the card (as you stated; those meanings that transfer from deck to deck) to the path selected.

It seems the GD system goes the long way around to prove where a card goes. Given that the overlay of tarot onto kabbalah could well be arbitrary, renaissance men drawing together traditions that even if, in some mystical way were intended for each other, have come a long way without each other to make at best a near fit; why would it go to such pains to make that fit? Surely the shortest and most efficient way is to combine the meaning of the card (the meanings that we use archetypally or for interpretations) with the character or nature of each path?

When we learn a foreign language we do not use numbers and symbols to translate the English into French; we say the French equivalent. Even though they share common routes in latin; that latin holds the meaning; it is not a symbol for something else removed that holds the meaning. Like wise with the tarot card-path-card meaning.

To explain this further may I direct you to a post on why I think a card-to-path rather than a card-to number/planet/whatever-to path works better, from an experiential and interpretive point of view?

https://www.tarotforum.net/threads/1129233/

The idea that the GD system was a ‘test run’ for initiates is also mentioned in the work of R J Stuart, a student of Gray, talking with Israel Regardie:

“What about the Paths of the Tree of Life in the Golden Dawn system, I asked, they seem to be confused. Yes, replied Regardie, and intentionally so. There is another layout that is only taught when you challenge the published one.”

http://www.dreampower.com/regardie.html

this system being the one either created by? Or passed on by Gray

I understand this has been mentioned elsewhere in relation to Crowley, but I only picked that up in passing, so the authenticity of such statements I cannot verify or even source.

I would be interested in anybodies opinion on this system, not just Baccus93’s as I’m new to this entirely.

Baccus93 said:
that I've come to learn the Five of Swords is "fatalistic point of view." Meaning... "I don't really have a choice." Kind of hard to read that into the RWS images I think (maybe I'm wrong though... maybe someone without tarot knowledge - a 'natural psychic' maybe - could have come up with it too). But to me, that's something that springs to mind when I contemplate the Geburah of Yetzirah.

I have come up with this, and I am far from psychic and far from learned on tarot or kabbalah or planets: I did a reading for someone where the only way forward for them was almost non-productive: they were asking about a college course and I told them they could do just as well without it, if only they knew how; but they didn’t know how and weren’t going to. They were stuck in a rut and unless they did the course they were likely to make no progress at all. If only there was another way; but even if there was they wouldn’t take it. my advice; do the course, you will meet people, and people will do for you what the course can’t. the course was the 5 swords. Yes it was the rider waite, but No Geburah of Yetzirah; I don’t have the knowledge you deem necessary to be a good reader, but I read well.
For the elemental corespondances that you have been directed to, a related thread exists on this, but I feel is better explained in terms of example; particularly a swords= fire/air discussion. And why it does/doesn’t matter.

https://www.tarotforum.net/threads/172554/

Rosanne

Lets see if I can get your thoughts correctly.
You are saying there should be no controversy about different systems applied to Tarot- as there is only one root system that is best explained by Golden Dawn?
I might agree, if that is your argument, if it was known for example if the Tarot of Marseilles family deckswere depictions of Sephiroh/elements/signs/planets. That is what students have laid upon them as there appears to be not a LWB book ever found with them. Not even numbers for the Trumps in the beginning. No absolute defining order either.
As to your assertion that the Tower is always depicted as having Mars correspondences- what about the cards that depict the Tower as Zeus the Lightening bolt- Zeus is Jupiter. I might agree that looking at the image one might see The Iron aspect of Mars in many decks- but I see the lightening as the main force in TdM Tower -the 'celestial semen' in association with rain. The Chariot might not be always Gemini- why not Alchemy? Sulphur and Mercury? We do not know if the Chariot always shows Gemini especially in the TdM. I think I might be able to draw a set of Cards -all 78 of them, that followed a Chinese system through mythology that would be vastly different to Golden Dawn. Would that make it controversial? Yes it would to some who think there is only one base to Tarot that is known for sure. We do not know the root system outside of conjecture and the way games were played with the cards.
~Rosanne

ZenMusic

Only have time for a brief post..

Tarot cards (can, did and do) have meaning without astrological or Cabalistic attributions, many decks have been and are today created so, and used so.. the Majors are much more profound and each is more complex than that of representing a Hebrew letter or astrological association

Historically, from what is definately know, ..With Early Tarot (ca. 1420 Italy ) there is no (or no significant) attribution of the Kabbalah/astrology to the cards (though it speculated by some, that Tarot was the Kabbalah system represented in cards, presented as a game to hide it, to save the knowledge and avoid the Christian suppression etc.)

France (1700's, possibly as early as 1672) - appears that the cards may have philosophical/metaphysical symbols, though meanings are lost and the modern printing method (1760 and definately by 1880) reduced/lost symbols and the original colors (which are very important symbolically) because of the 4 color limitations and mass production etc.

some will disagree with the next paragraph, but to me it's definately a correct distinction for 3 branches....
Kabbalah - Jewish mystical tradition, used for insight into scriptures, and a path/framework to mystical insight/experience, insight into Reality, guidance, validation etc.
Qabalah - generally used to indicate the use of Kabbalah as an occult and practical magical system;; used by Hermetics, Gnostics, Neoplatists, Rosicrucians, Tantra, Golden Dawn, Levi.
Cabala - Christian adaptation used mostly for insight into the scriptures (and some attempt to use it to "prove" Jesus was the Messiah)

Most astrological associations come from the Kabbala sources such as the Sepher Yetzirah - there are various versions and they have differing attributions for the astrological/luminary symbols ;; Kaplan documented variations between versions.. signs/planets are assigned to the Hebrew letters and Qabalist used that (by assigned letters to the cards) to arrive at the astrological attribution for each card, even the letter assigned to the each cards has varied widely with different authors, and no system works 100% convincing (i agree VIII and XI must be swapped, but this is because the INTENDED original order of the cards was not necessary what was printed, it was scrambled to hide the knowledge and I have verfied that Tsade is incorrectly attributed to the Star (afirming Crowley, though I didn't believe that he was correct about this until recently) ... therefore the attributions do vary (though Levi's certainly is "wrong" perhaps the offset was intentional) ... now we begin to see, how complex and difficult this is

More serious... even if you resolved the Sepher Yetzirah's "printed" versions and attributions.. the result still may be VERY wrong... I have been taught (as is know publically, no secret, but usually ignored).. that the Kabbalists would NEVER HAVE PRINTED or DOCUMENTED on PAPER the correct attributions, they were intentionally scrambled.. they were printed, but in the personal tutoring of the true secret knowledge, the student was given the key to unscrambling the attributions.. so the arguments about the printed version, attributions is very tenuous... and then the current assignment of the Hebrew letters to the cards is certainly not 100% correct... so the corresponding attributions are certainly wrong in some or many cases... (I PROPOSE THE FOLLOWING FOR ANOTHER THREAD, let me describe in detail the energies of the illuminary object.. without telling which one it is, and then have Taroist with much reading experience, tell me which MAJOR ARCANA goes with that description... would be interesting to see what the consensus would be for the attributions then) ... even so, each person arrives at their own insight into each card and the readings will vary from one person to another to reflect the meaning for that person.. so asking someone to interprete your spread is only helpful to a slight (commonality between the two of you) degree

this only scratches the surface, and I've probably errored in a detail or two, this is off the cuff, I have thousands of pages of notes on cards, meanings, history, attributions, symbols on the cards (several versions, Thoth is my main deck) and the meanings and attributions for those.. (tons of astrological, historical, mythological, religions (Egyptian, Greek etc.), and metaphysical.. it will be printed within the next year as 1 or 2 books.. (I'm author of many books)

(ALL THIS is ONLY my opinion of course, based on years of research, others have differing options of equal worth and every point can be disputed.. I studied Kabbalah for 7 years (Jewish Rabbi who "adopted" me), I spent over a year in Italy (on musical scholarship with my wife), visited France, Germany .. spent 90% of that time studying the history of Tarot, examined many original sources; was a Buddhist monk, studied Vedic and Tibetan astrology in India/Nepal for 2 years; during which I completed the Abramelin retreat (6months in Nepal monastery) and magickal study) ... I do believe there is some new breakthough information that will prove or at least suggest that Tarot is much more ancient that 1420, but currently I can only go with the solid research, showing it originated as a game, wise people immediately recognized the Architypes and the profound possibilites .. and adopted and evolved the Tarot over centuries to where we are now..
>>>also I believe that Vedic astrology is far superior and more accurate than Western astrology, I have revised my attributions to Vedic/Tibetan astrology attribtions

Rosanne

Great post ZenMusic!!
Here I am doing the two step fandango in the hope that....

I do believe there is some new breakthough information that will prove or at least suggest that Tarot is much more ancient that 1420, but currently I can only go with the solid research, showing it originated as a game, wise people immediately recognized the Architypes and the profound possibilites .. and adopted and evolved the Tarot over centuries to where we are now

that someone has found a Phoenician Almanac scratched on a wall somewhere - 78 directions on how to to get to the Baltic Sea and the lots drawn by the sailors and miners as to whether they would or not. Death will visit if you miss the turn off indicated by the Star Aldebaran and your mates will feel 10 cups of sorrow- because they will have to carry more Amber back to the boat and there has to be a gypsy wife in there somewhere..... maybe

Very lucid post despite your lack of time...and thank you ~Rosanne

gregory

Baccus93 said:
And I love you too. Thanks for calling my post a name. I think it really needed one. People don't seem to like its title.

Actually - I'm glad to have made you happy, but I referred to ridiculous posts in general, not your posts specifically. By my lights, there were a number.... by lots of people, probably including me

Baccus93 said:
I agree, I agree, I agree. I think you get it. And yes, I did do this once... I made my own deck on index cards... I simply drew the planets, signs, tatwas, and the numbers. And it worked!!! But I much like the cards that are visual so much. I agree, the images with forms and colors, be they pips or depictions, do add to the available insight.

Well - er - no, I would have said ONLY titles, no symbols or anything. The card names would have to stand alone - and I have since heard from someone else who has done so successfully - BUT - the way I read - it couldn't work for me. I think I get what you mean; I just couldn't do it - and I think Lillie and Rosanne make very good points here too. There ARE variations, even in decks of the same tradition, and certainly between traditions.

That's OK - I'll live.

I do also read books; I just find they don't help me to read in the same way they seem to help others....

The Great Tarot Controversy

jmd

Lillie

Scion

rebecca-smiles

Rosanne

ZenMusic

Rosanne

gregory