Waite's Second Tarot Deck - Originals Discovered

kwaw

There are also images for the sephiroth...

Which I presume are the rest of the Order's* 'symbols of the paths'...

quote:
John Brahms Trinick (Frater Donee Attingam), a stained glass artist whose work was often exhibited at the Royal Academy, joined the Order as a young man when he arrived in England with the Australian Army during the First World War. He painted the 'Symbols of the Paths' (substitutes for traditional Tarot designs) used by the Order and drew the portrait of Waite, in his robes as Imperator of the order,* that appears as the frontispiece to Volume I of A New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry. Later in life he took up Jungian psychology and wrote on the psychological interpretation of alchemy, his book The Fire-Tried Stone being published in 1967.
end quote from
A. E. Waite - Magician of Many Parts by R. A. Gilbert p.146

So the whole set constitutes the symbols of the 32 paths of kabalistic theosophy (the ten sefirah and 22 connecting paths of the ToL). Making a set of 32 Trumps!?*

There is a short bio of Trinick here with photos of his portrait and some of his stained glass windows:
http://www.margatecivicsociety.org.uk/Margate Civic Society - Summer Newsletter (359).pdf

Kwaw

*Fellowship of the Rosy Cross - which I also presume will not be very happy at the publication of their 'symbols of the paths' (which I believe they still use) being published!?

Update - not only are they reported to be not very happy, it is claimed they still possess the original paintings...

http://order-of-the-golden-dawn.blogspot.com/2011/09/great-symbols-of-paths.html

* His drawing of Waite in ceremonial robes:
http://www.adepti.com/adepti.orig/ports4.html

* quote:
The allocation of the Tarot Trumps Major to the Paths of the Tree of Life is obviously the next step, and attempts have been made in this direction by blundering symbolists, but they have forgotten that in the Mystical Tree the Sephiroth are also Paths, making thirty-two Paths of Wisdom, from which it follows that in the logic of things there ought to be thirty-two Trumps.
end quote from
The Great Symbols of the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite
Published in The Occult Review January 1926
 

kwaw

Is anything known of 'Wilfred Pippet' who is also supposed to have had a role in illustrating some of the 'symbols of the paths' (c.1923)? I am presuming, but maybe wrong, that he is the painter (in oils and watercolours) and book illustrator?* Was he a member of the FRC or not (I have seen some reports that he was, others that he was not).

Kwaw

*For example his illustrations of the books of short stories by "A Sister of Notre Dame" :

First Communion Days
True Stories for First Communicants
Ten eager hearts and other short stories
All published between 1920/24 by Sands & Co.

And also:
Every Child's Picture Book of Saints A R Mowbray & Co Ltd, London, 1928.
Guide to the Cowper Museum Olney C J Farncombe, London, 1931
(A single full page drawing of 'Cowper and the Viper' in the appendix.)

Here are a couple of his illustrations and the book cover from First Communion Days published in 1923 (the year it is said he was drawing/painting some of the Symbols of the Paths for Waites FRC) -
 

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graspee

In reference to the FRC being unhappy with and in fact condemning the release of these paintings: It really astounds me how certain esoteric groups want to lock up their "super secret knowledge" and sit on it; Surely it benefits all mankind if the information is freely available so that those who wish to use it can do so. This creates more enlightened beings in the world which can only be a good thing.

I'm not sure about the FRC, but the ultimate hypocrisy is when a group only exists because of the freely available nature of works by Regardie and Crowley and yet they add some material of their own, then solicit expensive fees from people to join the organization and see it, advertising their material as secret and "not available anywhere else", and aggressively pursue anyone who breaks their oath and tries to publish the "secrets".
 

kwaw

I doubt that Waite is much plainer in his commentary. In the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, Waite took his mystical Christian ideas much further than he ever had before.

We'll see, but I believe that each deck can stand separate as they deal with different things. The RWS deck was always intended as a deck for the public and for divination - athough it alluded to higher things within a GD/Grail/Masonic/Western Occult and Mystery School framework.

The Waite-Trinick Deck supersedes all these to pertain almost entirely to the mystical (within a Christian Qabalistic and ceremonial framework). At least, that's the way I *think* it's going to prove to be.

Is there anything in the rituals of the FRC* from which any of Waite's revised attributions (if such were the case) may be reconstructed? Such as we can find for example in the Adeptus Major Ceremony of Waite’s earlier Independent and Rectified Rite (c.1910), wherein it is clearly stated for example that the hanged man is attributed to the 23rd key, the path of Maim and the element of water (in keeping with the usual GD attributions).

Kwaw
*Published by Ishtar Publishing in 2005:
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Rosicrucian-Initiations-Fellowship-Founder/dp/0973593172

Also Rites and Ceremonies in 2008:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rosicrucian-Ceremonies-Fellowship-Founder-Golden/dp/0978388348
 

kwaw

John Brahms Trinick (Frater Donee Attingam)...

I think the motto might have got corrupted somewhere along the line and should be Donec Attingam - not totally sure what it means in isolation ('until I shall arrive', or 'as long as I might/shall reach' or 'while I might touch'??) - anyways, it is the inscription of emblem 30 of 'signs of the divine child' from the rosicrucian work of Antonio Ginter, August Vindelicorum 1741 - the signs from which can be found in Rosicrucian Light By W. Wynn Westcott & Franz Hartmann; it is associated with the emblematic image of Amor shooting arrows at a heart; although not mentioned in the above text I believe I have also seen it somewhere in association with song of songs 2.4 He hath brought me to the banqueting-house, and his banner over me is love. . The inscription in connection with Amor's arrows might mean somthing like 'until I shall strike' or 'as long as / while I might strike'?
 

kwaw

In reference to the FRC being unhappy with and in fact condemning the release of these paintings: It really astounds me how certain esoteric groups want to lock up their "super secret knowledge" and sit on it; Surely it benefits all mankind if the information is freely available so that those who wish to use it can do so.

... as much as I would like to see them, I think the claim that the religious icons used as objects of contemplation and in the rituals of a small group of Christian mytics will 'benefit all mankind' is a tad on the side of hyperbole :D Also I think there might be something dodgy about demanding the icons of a private religious group, which they hold in sanctity, should as a general principle be made available to all and sundry.

What I wonder is if these images of the 32 paths were made for the FRC, and the FRC still exists and does possess originals - whether they might in fact have some claim to the copyright...

Also I wonder if one can take 22 images from a set of 32 and call the selected 'tarot' and the rest... what? Not tarot? Or is it rather a 'tarot' of 32 trumps?

Of course, Wilfred Pippet is said to have illustrated some of the symbols of the (32) paths; so it maybe that they do not have the complete set of 32 images - and those created by Pippet (if they can be found) would involve pursuing different copyright agreements / licensing permissions anyway.

But all this is just idle speculation - let us wait and see how the story unfolds...
 

graspee

Well when I said "benefit all mankind" I just meant that releasing information of this sort can only ever be a good thing and "everyone" (if you prefer that to "all mankind") has the chance to benefit from the information. Also notice I was more generally talking about "esoteric groups" who want to lock up knowledge; I was speaking of things like David Griffin's Golden Dawn group who get their pants in a massive twist when people release things like Mathers' Alpha et Omega rituals, as they consider themselves to be the real A et O, whereas in reality they have practically no connection at all to them, despite their grandiose claims of lineage. (It basically consists of them saying they contacted the same group of "continental" secret masters that Mathers did and being given permission).

If you thought I was overreacting by saying that the information can benefit all mankind (don't forget it's not just images that we're talking about that they wouldn't want out in the open, it's the super secret correspondences too), then surely it stands to reason that the FRC are overreacting to their release?

I can't find out if the FRC have truly existed all this time, or if they are another one of these groups were a random person decided to revive it, but I would suspect the latter, and if this is the case then they have no right at all to "condemn" the release of the information and images.

as much as I would like to see them, I think the claim that the religious icons used as objects of contemplation and in the rituals of a small group of Christian mytics will 'benefit all mankind' is a tad on the side of hyperbole Also I think there might be something dodgy about demanding the icons of a private religious group, which they hold in sanctity, should as a general principle be made available to all and sundry.

By wording it the way you did- "the religious icons used as objects of contemplation..." you downplay the interest they hold. Don't forget this is the largest and most vibrant English tarot forum and we are talking about a deck of tarot cards which many will see as a follow up to the most popular tarot deck in the whole world.

Also the way you worded the second part, about "demanding" the "icons" be made available makes it sound as though people plan to assemble a torch-bearing mob outside their headquarters and chant "send out the pictures!"; We already have the pictures, or rather, people outside the FRC do. Of course it's a bit silly to demand people release information if they have the only copy of it, but what we're talking about is releasing to the public information that "we" (outside the group) already have.

As for copyright and the people who have the images making money off them I totally disagree with that, just the same as it disgusts me how U.S. Games assimilated the RWS. In my view the only people allowed to make money off a tarot deck (or indeed anything) should be the person(s) responsible for making it, which is limited to the original author/artist/musician and the company they produced it for.
 

kwaw

In case anyone missed it in the link I gave above: photographs (B&W and Colour) of the FRC's 'Symbols of the Paths' will be included in a slide presentation in a lecture (("Images of Initiation: The Hermetic Tarot") Tabatha Cicero is planning to repeat at Pantheacon 2012.*

kwaw

*The 18th Annual PantheaCon will be held Feb. 17 – 20, 2012 (President’s Day Weekend) at the Doubletree Hotel in San Jose, CA
 

kwaw

The allocation of the Tarot Trumps Major to the Paths of the Tree of Life is obviously the next step, and attempts have been made in this direction by blundering symbolists, but they have forgotten that in the Mystical Tree the Sephiroth are also Paths, making thirty-two Paths of Wisdom, from which it follows that in the logic of things there ought to be thirty-two Trumps.
The Great Symbols of the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite
Published in The Occult Review January 1926

Waite wrote in the same article:

quote:
Now, there are twenty-two Trumps Major arranged more or
less in a sequence but subject to certain variations as the
packs differ respecting time and place of origin. There are
also twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet, and it
occurred to Eliphas Lיvi that it was desirable to effect a
marriage between the letters and the cards. It seems
impossible to make a combination of this kind, however
arbitrary, and not find some accidents in its favour, and there
is better authority in Kabalism than Eliphas Lיvi ever
produced in writing to connect the Hebrew letter Beth with
the so-called Pope Joan or Sovereign Priestess of the Tarot.
But he was concerned very little with any root in analogy, or
he might have redistributed the Trumps Major, seeing that
their sequence is - as I have said - subject to variation in
different sets and that there seems no particular reason to
suppose that any arrangement of the past had a conscious
purpose in view. In this manner he might have found some
curious points by taking the old Yetziratic classification of the
Hebrew letters and placing those cards against them which
corresponded to their conventional allocations.
end quote

This suggests to me that Waite considers any correspondence between Hebrew letters (and hence to the paths of the ToL) should be based upon analogy between the symbolism of the cards and the letters divorced from considerations of their purely numerical sequence (which varies among historical tarot decks anyway).

Thus it would not surprise me if any revised attributions Waite made did not follow in a one-to-one correspondence based upon sequence - or which otherwise varied (or redistributed as he put it) the sequence of the tarot cards. It might be relevant therefore that in his The Greater Trumps author Charles Williams, who was a member of the FRC, gave a variant ordering to the trumps:

"Number three hundred and forty-one," Sybil said.

"'Most rare'," Mr. Coningsby read. "'Very early pack of Tarot cards. I
have not been able to trace the origin of these; they have some
resemblances to a fifteenth-century pack now in the Louvre, but would
seem to be even earlier. The material of which they are made is
unusual-? papyrus. The four suits are, as usual, sceptres, swords, cups,
and coins; the Greater Trumps are in the following order (numbered at
the foot in Roman): (i) The juggler, (ii) The Empress, (iii) The High
Priestess, or Woman Pope-'"

"The what?" Nancy exclaimed. "What! Pope Joan? Sorry, father, I didn't
mean to interrupt."

"'(iv) The Pope--or Hierophant, (v) The Emperor--or Ruler, (vi) The
Chariot, (vii) The Lovers, (viii) The Hermit, (ix) Temperance, (x)
Fortitude, (xi) Justice, (xii) The Wheel of Fortune, (xiii) The Hanged
Man."'

"Jolly game of bridge we could have with these," Ralph remarked. "I lead
the Hanged Man."

There was a tremendous pause. "Ralph, if you can only make fun-" Mr.
Coningsby began, and stopped.

"Do go on," Sybil Coningsby's voice implored. "I should have had to say
something silly if Ralph hadn't. It's so exciting."

Mr. Coningsby gave a suppressed grunt, fortunately missed Nancy's
low-breathed comment on it "The Hanged Man!"--and proceeded.

"'(xiv) Death, (xv) The Devil, (xvi) The Falling Tower, (xvii) The Star,
(xviii) The Moon, (xix) The Sun, (xx) The Last judgement-'"

Mr. Coningsby paused to shift his eyeglasses; in a perfect silence the
others waited.

"'(xxi) The Universe, (o) The Fool.'"

"Nought usually comes at the beginning," Ralph said.

"Not necessarily," said Sybil. "It might come anywhere. Nought isn't a
number at all. It's the opposite of number.

(i) The Juggler.
(ii) The Empress.
(iii) The High Priestess.
(iv) The Hierophant.
(v) The Emperor.
(vi) The Chariot.
(vii) The Lovers.
(viii) The Hermit.
(ix) Temperance.
(x) Fortitude.
(xi) Justice.
(xii) The Wheel of Fortune.
(xiii) The Hanged Man.
(xiv) Death.
(xv) The Devil.
(xvi) The Falling Tower.
(xvii) The Star.
(xviii) The Moon.
(xix) The Sun.
(xx) The Last Judgment.
(xxi) The Universe.
(o) The Fool.

I am not saying this is the order that the FRC under Waite used, as Charles may have felt under some obligation not to reveal such; merely that I would not be surprised if Waite's revised attributions very well may include some such variation in the distribution of the trumps.

I can't find out if the FRC have truly existed all this time, or if they are another one of these groups were a random person decided to revive it, but I would suspect the latter, and if this is the case then they have no right at all to "condemn" the release of the information and images.

It may well have been in abeyance at some point, I don't know: whatever the means of succession may be, reports do claim that they (or their 'mason's only' inner order Ordo Sanctissimus Rosæ et Aureæ Crucis)possess originals of the Symbols of the Paths. In his biography of Waite, Gilbert notes:

quote
1. In deference to the wishes of the surviving relatives of members of the F:.R:.C:.
I have refrained from identifying more than a small proportion of the membership.
In like manner I have given only a cursory indication of the nature and content
of the rituals themselves; the Fellowship still survives, albeit in a somewhat reduced
and altered form, and I do not intend to cause distress to its members by publishing
the texts of rituals* which they perceive as sacred.

Gilbert himself was in possession of plates of the Symbols of the Paths (presumably from the FRC), and gave a slide presentation on them at the 1998 International Golden Dawn Conference in Bayonne, NJ.

Kwaw
*note: as referenced in a previous post - the texts have now been published:

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Rosicrucian-Initiations-Fellowship-Founder/dp/0973593172

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rosicrucian-Ceremonies-Fellowship-Founder-Golden/dp/0978388348
 

kwaw

quote:
The allocation of the Tarot Trumps Major to the Paths of the Tree of Life is obviously the next step, and attempts have been made in this direction by blundering symbolists, but they have forgotten that in the Mystical Tree the Sephiroth are also Paths, making thirty-two Paths of Wisdom, from which it follows that in the logic of things there ought to be thirty-two Trumps.
end quote from
The Great Symbols of the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite
Published in The Occult Review January 1926

Which can be found in full here:

http://www.adepti.com/adepti.orig/docs/greatsym.txt
"The Occult Review" Vol. XLIII, No. 1; Jan. 1926

The article is also the basis of chapter XX The Great Symbols of the Tarot in his memoirs Shadows of Life and Thought:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=asKVBdREC7wC&pg=PA181#v=onepage&q&f=false

The latest report from Tali is that a phrase from this article, as it is re-worded in his memoirs, is going to be used in the title of their planned book: “Abiding in the Sanctuary: The Waite-Trinick Tarot”.

Original article, 1926:
There is an explanation of the Trumps Major which obtains throughout the whole series and belongs to the highest order of spiritual truth: it is not occult but mystical; it is not of public communication and belongs to its own Sanctuary. I can say only concerning it that some of the symbols have suffered a pregnant change. Here is the only answer to the question whether there is a deeper meaning in the Trumps Major than is found on their surface.

From his memoirs:
There is an explanation of the Trumps Major which obtains throughout the whole series and belongs to the highest order of spiritual truth: it is not occult but mystical; it is not of public communication and abides in its own Sanctuary. I can say only concerning it that some of the symbols have suffered a pregnant change. Here is the only answer to the question whether there is a deeper meaning in the Trumps Major than is found on their surface.