Cosmic Tarot Deck

SPOILER WARNING

If you don't want associations of famous names with the deck, don't read this!!!


I see the Queen/Swords as Ingrid Bergmann, Rossellini's mother. She played Joan of Arc, her dream role, and Joan's emblem was the sword with a crown. For me, Joan of Arc, the Q/Swords and Ingrid Bergman work together wonderfully. It's for me one of the cards that show it's not a "celebrity" gimmick. Bergman is more than a celeb - she's an icon of the 20th century.

http://www.wildsound.ca/images/ingrid_bergman_in_joan_of_arc.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lIdFutwgf_k/UMoX0Xi8jLI/AAAAAAAAAcQ/tvWgudr9KqM/s1600/Joan+trio.jpg

Of course the tarot works without these echoes... but for me, my associations really amplify this deck for me.

There's a lovely Bougereau in it, too.

http://www.wmofa.com/gallery/Bouguereau,_William/Baigneuse_Accroupie_-_Seated_Bather_1884.jpg

For me, it echoes the whole "Bather" genre in Western art.

I don't think knowing who they were fashioned after really matters. For example, in the book The Cosmic Tarot: Signposts Along The Path, The King of Pentacles is supposed to possibly resemble Gregory Peck and the King of Cups, Clark Gable. I remember what both of them looked like in the films and frankly, the images in the deck resemble each other more than either of them, IMO. I also don't see a young Elizabeth Taylor in the Queen of Wands. None of that matters to me anyway, although if the Queen of Wands is Elizabeth Taylor, then the Taming of the Shrew comes to mind and that could certainly be a Queen of Wands role.

Yes, the beauty of the deck is that it allows you to have associations but it works beautifully without them, too.

Argh! People are associating cards with actors' names! I said I didn't want to know, so you all immediately start! Argh! <claws own eyes out with fingernails>

Damn, now it'll be another two years before I've forgotten and can use it again.

........

Sorry, I added a spoiler warning, maybe I'm wrong anyway, but for me, it doesn't spoil the deck. Just like a resemblance of a card to a certain friend doesn't spoil it for me.