Waite's Christianization of Tarot

ravenest

That is true. I suspect that mystics are especially subject to extensive review and evaluation before canonization, probably more so than other candidates.

My god, a mystical grilled cheese sandwich! :rolleyes:

With a bite out of it ... puts a new light on 'Holy Communion'.

$20, 000 they say ???? <Looks at bread ... looks at oven griller .... looks at stencil of BVM .... }) >
 

ravenest

In The Pictorial Key to the Tarot Waite makes it quite clear that his work is occult.

It certainly was ! And now appears to be moving towards a 'social occultation'


He also says that 'occultism is not like mystic faculty'.

Not in his version of things, however religions such as Wicca and other 'pagan' religions extoll 'occultism' as an integral esoteric aspect of mystical religious experience.
 

Richard

Waite, at one time or another, was interested in spiritualism (mediums, channeling), alchemy, and divination. There is a significant amount of astrological symbolism in the RWS tarot, and half of PKT is concerned with tarot divination. Mysticism is a religious thing and is not usually associated with the occult (except by some neopagans, as Ravenest mentioned). Also, ignorance is not uncommon, and mysticism is often (wrongly) thought to connote something mysterious or spooky and is thereby linked to occultism.
 

ravenest

And there is a VERY significant amount of astrological symbolism in the G.D. ;)
 

Richard

And there is a VERY significant amount of astrological symbolism in the G.D. ;)
GD? Oh, yeah, Waite was a member of that, wasn't he? I don't suppose his tarot deck has anything to do with that, does it? That was an occult group, and Waite didn't like the occult because he was a Christian. ;)
 

Teheuti

Waite studied occultism deeply and wrote extensively on it, but he came to the realization that mysticism was more his own path. You could call it a mysticism informed by occultism and, in some cases, vice versa. He makes clear in his writings that Christianity was mostly a more symbolically effective version of a Secret Tradition found in every culture going back thousands of years - that they all were teaching the same thing - the marriage of the Hierophant and the Shekinah (Priestess) in one's heart that gives birth to God within.
 

ravenest

He must have meant 'a more symbolically effective version of a Secret Tradition' for HIM ?

Maybe I am being too kind to him?

One thing that turns me off about the 'mystics' and 'occultists' of his age is the overt 'Colonialism' and 'superiority of the Englishman' inherent in their system. It is evident in some of the G.D. documents quite obviously.
 

Rosanne

Waite studied occultism deeply and wrote extensively on it, but he came to the realization that mysticism was more his own path. You could call it a mysticism informed by occultism and, in some cases, vice versa. He makes clear in his writings that Christianity was mostly a more symbolically effective version of a Secret Tradition found in every culture going back thousands of years - that they all were teaching the same thing - the marriage of the Hierophant and the Shekinah (Priestess) in one's heart that gives birth to God within.

Whilst I agree with what you say.....I ask, if this tradition is found in every culture for thousands of years...."whom is the God within?

Mystical marriage for me is this....
The time will come when, with elation,
You will greet yourself arriving at your own door,
In your own mirror,
And each will smile at the other’s welcome,
And say, sit here, eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self[/b]

I am with Waite when he seems to indicate That Catholicism had the ritual not the reality.

~Rosanne
 

Richard

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

T. S. Eliot​
 

ravenest

Crowley explains initiation (as a graded series) in an analogy as a 'point event' or journey. The end is the beginning but the point has accrued experience.

Also the idea is expressed in another way in 'The Naples Arrangement' in the Book of Thoth.