The Tarot symbols origin

Years ago I bought an old medieval sky map and Lordy,Lordy I cut it up to make a Tarot.
IT DID NOT WORK! The obvious missed out and the obscure was included.
If you look at the remaining playing cards that show figures (including Tarot)- these figures were instantly recognizable. The Tavern Keeper, A Queen, etc. Some are Legends like Hector and Goddesses like Diana of the Hunt, some are Soldiers of Fame. None are obscure.
Pretty straight forward really. The constellations in many ways are obscure. The Planets are not. Why look for the obscure?
It pleases me that this discussion is even taking place here on this forum, where knows'es and suppose'es have been trotted out over the years.Me? I have had some outlandish ideas over the years, never been afraid to speak them out; whilst on the other other side of the coin, I have been prepared for laughter and sniggers . In there, somewhere and sometimes have been kernals of truth. I say take a risk, but try not to appear if it is set in concrete and is THE TRUTH.....lay it out there as if a possible truth.
It is also far easier to say what Tarot is not, rather than what it is.
Please keep this sub forum alive.
~Rosanne

Cartomancer said:

Notice that my mock-up constellation of the Scythe is located in the same position as the scythe of Saturn in the 1503 star map. Evidently the constellation Tarot trump system allows the prediction of the location, size, shape, and style of forgotten constellations, some that are hidden in plain sight such as Saturn's scythe in Corona Australis.

-Cartomancer (Lance Carter)

Click to expand...

What I notice about this 'mock up' (aside from the fact that the very nature of one's own 'mock ups' don't supply objective validity to one's own theories) is that the 'scythe' doesn't line up with the stars. The main and most obvious part of Corona Australis ... that makes it Corona Australis is that tightly curved line of stars is totally ignored in the mock up.

I still think you are distorting things to support your own viewpoint.

Your Corona Australis (sickle not following the line of the most distinctive stars)

http://piecework.deviantart.com/art/CORONA-AUSTRALIS-Scythe-C-394718293

THE Corona Australis

http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/images/CrA_map.jpg

ravenest said:

What I notice about this 'mock up' (aside from the fact that the very nature of one's own 'mock ups' don't supply objective validity to one's own theories) is that the 'scythe' doesn't line up with the stars. The main and most obvious part of Corona Australis ... that makes it Corona Australis is that tightly curved line of stars is totally ignored in the mock up.

I still think you are distorting things to support your own viewpoint.

Your Corona Australis (sickle not following the line of the most distinctive stars)

http://piecework.deviantart.com/art/CORONA-AUSTRALIS-Scythe-C-394718293

THE Corona Australis

http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/images/CrA_map.jpg

Click to expand...

Ravenest,
Please look closer at the two links to graphics of Corona Australis and you may notice that the star charts are the same except for color, but I had the scythe facing the wrong way. The Scythe drawing you link to was done before I saw Conrad Heinfogel's star map

What you may have noticed was that I was using a modern star map (epoch 2000 AD), instead of a epoch 1500 AD, which was when Conrad Heinfogel's star map and the constellation art was created. This is one reason for the misalignment. The linked graphic was created with the date set to 1500 AD to better reflect the constellations of that day.

Indeed, my rough mock-ups do need refinement. Thanks for your patience as I upgrade my skill level to better present convincing graphics that can support my Tarot thesis.
This time I have used a star chart calculating program called Cartes du Ciel that is available for free:
http://www.ap-i.net/skychart/

Notice that the figure, scythe, rocks, clothing, and other objects better fit the constellation of Saturnus. Did Conrad Heinfogel, the creator of the 1503 star chart, intentionally draw Saturnus over the stars of Corona Australis? Can you accept Saturnus as an antique constellation?

My animated gif of Saturnus over a 1500 AD star map.
http://piecework.deviantart.com/art/SATURN-Corona-Australis-1500starmap-396212352

- Cartomancer (Lance Carter

Cartomancer said:

Can you accept Saturnus as an antique constellation?

Click to expand...

I can accept Saturnus as one persons attempt to show a planetary 'figure' moving through the constellation of (or near to or 'in') Aquarius but not as a constellation itself.

If it was meant to be a constellation it should have had the stars that made up that constellation shown, and how they relate to the figure

Cartomancer said:

Did Conrad Heinfogel, the creator of the 1503 star chart, intentionally draw Saturnus over the stars of Corona Australis?

Click to expand...

No, not only was it not intentional, it appears it was not done as you yourself say in the linked info;
; " The representation of Saturnus by Conrad Heinfogel did not have stars in his star map ... "

A star map with no stars ??? The concept seems more like an astrological schema ... not a star map, a star map .... maps stars.

So how can he have drawn Saturnus over the stars of Cronona Aust. (intentionally or not) if the stars were not on the map ???

I admit at first glance one may agree with it ... it LOOKS good, but doesn't pass close examination when the information is put together. Join the dots.

Its an interesting idea but I don't feel the 'evidence' backs it up ... far too many holes and subjective 'evidence'.

And I don't seem to be the only one with problems about this idea.

The main problem I see , as with much research into hermetically related subjects is, it is trying to interpret something in a modern literalist mind set.

The constellations ( and stars and planets) exist in 'fields' of resonance and relationship to other 'fields', they are stars, Tarot cards, animals, personality types, seasonal manifestations, humours, moods, colours, etc. They are all interrelated ; at some stage when 'cards' became a part of the social dynamic, they were incorporated into the greater scheme, as other things were - like tools or symbolic articles or weapons ... there are natural additions (e.g. medicinal herbs) as we discover them and artificial (or artifactual) incorporations as we develop them.

Hermetically based Tarot realises the association of all the cards with variant aspects of astrology. However it doesn't try to claim that astrology was the main impetus behind the development of the cards. Just as depiction of various animals is not the main impetus of astrology .

To seek the one source of something 'in the field of resonances' in one thing may be valid in the post-modernist, literal, non-Platonic world but not in the hermetic 'mind set' - we know where such a literalist, rationalist materialist view ends up - just look at the results and concepts in modern physics ... each new theory takes them closer to a hermetic view of 'daemonic reality', they make up new terms for the old concepts.

So there is going to be an inherent difficulty with trying to find or prove such things by transferring this 'literalist' concept back to a time that had very different concepts.

Cartomancer said:

My animated gif of Saturnus over a 1500 AD star map.
http://piecework.deviantart.com/art/SATURN-Corona-Australis-1500starmap-396212352

Click to expand...

Sorry for butting in, being a layman, but the same "connect-the-dots" can be done with any picture superimposed on the night sky. Just left of where you drew the scythe, another curve can clearly be seen. Now, the constellations themselves are pretty arbitrary, as among the you can see other stars that weren't included in them, but I fail to see the clear correlation you do.

closrapexa said:

Sorry for butting in, being a layman, but the same "connect-the-dots" can be done with any picture superimposed on the night sky. Just left of where you drew the scythe, another curve can clearly be seen. Now, the constellations themselves are pretty arbitrary, as among the you can see other stars that weren't included in them, but I fail to see the clear correlation you do.

Click to expand...

Many star patterns are made of circle-like patterns of stars.
I cannot determine what constellation is "Just left of where you drew the scythe", but it may possibly be the handle of the teapot of Sagittarius.

closrapexa said:

"the same "connect-the-dots" can be done with any picture superimposed on the night sky,"

Click to expand...

Many amateur constellation creators (present company included) have spent countless hours trying to fit their personal pictures over constellations, but that task is harder than you might imagine. Try fitting "any" picture over "any" constellation and see what you get.

Fitting pictures over the bright stars of a constellation will leave a percentage of stars that are not included in constellation picture. That is to be expected. Look at ancient star maps. Many ancient star maps did not include stars in their pictures of constellations, or just presented the alpha star or a few of the brighter stars. The basis of my constellation thesis is that the pictures of the Tarot Major Arcana can be seen in constellations, but if people can't see the proposed pictures in the star patterns suggested, then this theory is in serious trouble.

Those of us in the Northern Hemisphere may not ever experience seeing the actual stars of Corona Australis and so will not be able to experience the "personality" of that constellation. Do you see a scythe or a hat?

Somebody in the Southern Hemisphere could go outside and look at the constellation Corona Australis and try to visualize Saturnus. Does the 1503 AD star map picture of Saturnus fit over the stars as I show in my animated GIF? We need an eyewitness account.

I am in the Southern Hemisphere ... I can see the SCP out my bedroom window at night ... I can see Corona Aust.

I have posted what I think ... not only that I have posted what the indigenous inhabitants (for at least the last 20,000 years) of this land thought the pattern represented ... they can see it too.

I am not ignorant of the southern skies nor what the local inhabitants think about them.

You however seemed to be asking if they copied their ideas from the Greeks, which to me shows complete lack of information about these people and the stella traditions down here and the local view of asterisms (which is actually what you are talking about - not constellations).

As closrapexa pointed out "connect-the-dots" can be done with any picture superimposed on the night sky.
http://simpsonswiki.com/w/images/th...omet.png/250px-Three_Stooges_Bart's_Comet.png

In view of this I find it even more remarkable that cultures with no contact come up with similar mythic themes for the same asterism and sometimes even the same mythic theme when they superimpose a different picture on the asterism - mystery of mysteries!

Cartomancer said:

Fitting pictures over the bright stars of a constellation will leave a percentage of stars that are not included in constellation picture. That is to be expected. Look at ancient star maps. Many ancient star maps did not include stars in their pictures of constellations, or just presented the alpha star or a few of the brighter stars. .

Click to expand...

I think that is C's point ...it can be done in the usual way it has been done for centuries , as you outlined above, there is great 'lee-way' to fit any picture on any segment (like cloud images).

Obviously (?) one's (individual or cultural) symbolic and familiar environment ... or even ones likes dislikes and fascinations will dictate what pattern one sees as familiar outlined by the asterisms, the locals here are not going to see a Crown, but a ritual headdress , they are not going to see a tiger but might see a black snake.

I suggest your vision ... like all of our visions , is influenced in a similar manner ... what we WANT to see, helps us see it.

Research is a different thing; examining the facts before the conclusion.

As I mentioned above somewhere, there is a more likely relationship with Astrological images and Tarot, than constellations
Shahnama and little Shahnama manuscripts.

These manuscripts are poetry, that further back- came from Zoroastrianism thought.
They are supposed to have 50 thousand verses and do not sound so well in English. These epic poems are three areas in the main, Mythical-Heroic-Historical.
These works inspired Mamluks to heroism and how to make a better world. The Mamluks were a military caste in Medieval Egypt, that rose from the ranks of Soldiers who were in the main Georgian.(Georgian shahnama)
Before these slave Mamluks became Muslim, they were Christian and there were two main ideas. Pre- Islamic the notion of Fate was connected to the malign power of time, but Christian and Islamic notion believed that fate lies in God's hands, and must always be considered when considering free will and predestination; but the astrological role in human life never died out.
One of the many 'little shahnama'(little Books of Kings) manuscripts is called Mu'nis al ahrar deals with poetic verses on Astrology. It is illustrated with things like this.
'His Minstrel and Cook, horseshoe and Scribe are Venus, the Sun, The Moon and Jupiter'
'In his Court, wind, Earth, water and fire are, Treasurer,Money Changer, Courier and Jeweler'
(lunar Elections)
'When the Moon in Libra making marriages is good,and Journeys, the seeing of Women and Noble Servants Venus comes to Libra.'

Now the Courier is depicted as a man with pointed hat running with a stick of some sort.
A treasurer holds a money bag, and a Money changer has has coins at a table. A Peri or Fairy with wings has two floating ribbons from her hands, and Mars in Scorpio has bricks becoming a man as in the same bricks behind Aquarius with a bucket. There is a demon- a man with two huge horns....there is a tower like Babel and a falling man that seems to be part historical and mythological at the same time.
Some of these images are on the web if you enter Mu'nis al ah rar by Jajarmi or Shahnama manuscripts.
These manuscripts were common in Mamluk hands from the 14th Century.
Maybe they had a card game along with them?
~Rosanne

I have been tracking some pre Zoroastrian (Proto-Indo European 'Aryan' ) astrology recently and started on the Shahnama (text but no manuscript ... hmmmm, I should be seeing the pics too) - this latter link with 'card imagery' is a gem!

Thanks.