Tarot Deck Creation Group - Themes

Ok, I'm sort of an outsider in this study group...

But I have always wanted to create this themed deck, especially when I was at High School (topics freshly studied!) - and, Kiama, you might like this too... and help me out!

In fact, since my first class of Philosophy, I have been thinking of realizing a deck based on Western Philosophy, from classic Greece to Popper to nowadays... This now sounds idiotic, I know, but I was struck at the time how much material, associations and ideas I got while I went through my classes...
For example, I thought of Shopenhauer's and mentally designed a card for the Popess (in brief, he gave big importance to Maia's Veil, and built with and around it his peculiar view). I thought of Eraclitus's panta rei as the Wheel. Plato's Cave Myth for the Moon and Sun... Nietsche's Uberman as the Magician... Democritus's Eros and Caos (the atomic forces) for Lovers and Devil. Spinoza's idea of Nature provided a good link for the Empress.
Freak!

But I'm sure if I studied it all back again, I would retrieve all my ideas. I used to jot down ideas also on the pages! I might find them in my old books. And, considering Kiama's Help...
My idea of it is similar to the Shakespeare Tarot: a picture, a scene, a representation (as stylized as possible) with a quotation (from a book, a work, whatever...) explaining the association, the meaning...

pollux, i think your idea sounds incredible! not idiotic at all! i would love to own a deck like that. trust your instincts. i think that you could pull it off. do it!!!!!! please!

Re: Re: Tarot Deck Creation Group - Themes

Truthsayer - Universal archtypes is what it's all about - I think Tarotbear's suggestion make sense - why not give it a go?

It really is great to see so much interest! [/B][/QUOTE]

thanks for the encouragement, major tom. i really think that i am going to be starting as soon as i finish my last card for aeclectic. i'm going to be having more time soon and am looking for to having those ideas and images perking. very exciting!

As for rubber stamps, .dc, it doesn't have to be expensive. You can make really excellent designs using normal erasers and by cutting into them with lino-cutting tools. I made a fish stamp once that turned up on nearly everything I did for a while!

Click to expand...

kayne,
i would love to do that. really i would. but alas, i'm a better writer than i am widdler or drawing designer. and with the way i am, i'll prolly do a mix collage-stamping thing. chaotic creativity is my speciality.

Major Tom,

Why not combine your suit ideas with the rubber stamp as the medium? A Powerpuff Girls deck could be a cut & paste collage... I also like the business card idea - you could doodle additional images straight on the cards....

Click to expand...

ya know... i never considered the whole idea of drawing or doodling on the business cards. it makes more sense and WOULD help to draw the deck together again.

YES!!! awesome ideas... a triangle decK? would that be easier or harder to shuffle?

=)
bloessed be,
.dc

Liliana's Triangle Deck

It's been a while since I've read it, but in the book The Tarot of the Bohemians, the author (Papus, I think?) gave one of three attributes to each card: Positive, Negative or Neutral. I think this meshes very well with you're idea, Liliana! I remember thinking that the cards fit very well with his groupings...it was kind of a new way of looking at the deck.

So...I bet using a triangle shaped card would bring out many new aspects of each card. I like the idea because, like some round decks, there's no one "right way" to read them, because any direction that a card turns up in can be "right."

Great idea, Liliana!

My own deck ideas tend to be more literary. In the deck I'm currently working on, I'm using quotes from various authors, philosophers, poets, etc. I'm keeping them small and subtle, though, because I know too much text in cards can get distracting. (The artwork is computer-collage of art from mostly European paintings.)

Peace,

Melvis

Re: Ok, I'm sort of an outsider in this study group...

Pollux said:

But I have always wanted to create this themed deck, especially when I was at High School (topics freshly studied!) - and, Kiama, you might like this too... and help me out!

In fact, since my first class of Philosophy, I have been thinking of realizing a deck based on Western Philosophy, from classic Greece to Popper to nowadays... This now sounds idiotic, I know, but I was struck at the time how much material, associations and ideas I got while I went through my classes...
For example, I thought of Shopenhauer's and mentally designed a card for the Popess (in brief, he gave big importance to Maia's Veil, and built with and around it his peculiar view). I thought of Eraclitus's panta rei as the Wheel. Plato's Cave Myth for the Moon and Sun... Nietsche's Uberman as the Magician... Democritus's Eros and Caos (the atomic forces) for Lovers and Devil. Spinoza's idea of Nature provided a good link for the Empress.
Freak!

But I'm sure if I studied it all back again, I would retrieve all my ideas. I used to jot down ideas also on the pages! I might find them in my old books. And, considering Kiama's Help...
My idea of it is similar to the Shakespeare Tarot: a picture, a scene, a representation (as stylized as possible) with a quotation (from a book, a work, whatever...) explaining the association, the meaning...

Click to expand...

WHY DID I NOT THINK OF THAT??!!!!!!!!!!????????!!!!!!!

Hmm.... Let me think.... Neitzsche's Superman is more of a Chariot I think. His 'Will To Power' is probably more of the Magician. Plato's Cave Analogy is more of the Moon, and the begining of Thus Spake Zarathustra, where Zarathustra comes out of the cave after a long time in there could be the Star: he comes to bring a new message, he is very aware, and he brings with him the hope that the people he speaks to need...

Socrates' saying: "All I know is that I know nothing" may be very good for the Death? Tower? although I'm not quite sure what you would picture this as. Could the Hanged Man be his execution in the court room?

What could the World be? 'Cogito ergo sum': I think, therefore I am. Definitely. I am thinking, therefore I exist. Descarte's eventual, but nearly not actual, triumph over his purposeful doubt over existence and near-madness due to this also comprises a meaning of the World card: Triumph. Victory. When he had realised this 'cogito ergo sum' philosophy, he coud start anew.

The Emperor cold be Kant's theory of Universalisation, or Mill's utilitarianism.... (Kant... Bleugh!) Or should that one be Machiavelli's 'Prince' instructions...

Our beloved father of Philosophy, Socrates should be the Hanged Man, and Plato the High Priest. (Yay for Plato and the first University!)

Something about Existentialist theory could be for the Fool.... The idea that only the here and now should be focussed upon...

Bertrand Russel should be in the deck somewhere: I think he deserves a place.... Hmmm...

Judgement and Death pose a problem, as do Strength, Justice, and Temperence... I'll think about all that later.

Kiama

Oh Pollux and Kiama - I feel so uneducated!
Learning about your tarot deck, Pollux, would be a really interesting way for me to learn more about this~!

A triangular deck definately would be harder to shuffle, thats why size will be an important issue, maybe about the size of the smaller motherpeace deck hehe, you know on ebay the other week they had a tarot deck made of aluminum, thats a hard shuffle lol

aluminium?!?!?

no kidding... wow... i had no idea a deck was made with that. and for it to appear on eBay, a rare find indeed.

makes me wonder how much it went for...

*races off to ebay to see what she can find*

blessed be,
.dc

ooh I forgot... The Fool for a Philosophical Tarot deck could be the student.... And Temperence could be Aristotle's Virtue Ethics: He believed that the truly moral being is perfectly balanced... Maybe David Hume could be Justice, cuz he always nees more proof.... Nah, only kiddin! I'm stuck on Justice. Finally worked out the Socrates bit: He is the Hanged Man, his excecution the Tower, and his philosophy: All know Is That I Know Nothing is the Death card.

The World could be the philosophical ideal, if only I knew what that ideal was!

Oh, so many ideas... Next up, the Minor Arcana!

Kiama

PS- Where's JMD? know he'd have some good thoughts on this.