mjhurst said:
If you are suggesting that I've done that, please give us a quote, in context.
Sorry, I misunderstood.
You wrote: "Tarot enthusiasts crave tenuous and far-fetched analogies for the Traitor like Odin, St. Peter, the Armenian patron saint Gregory or other tortured martyrs who were hung upside down, mandrake root, alchemical imaginings, numerological suppositions, and so on. These are fun excursions, and when someone finds similar images it is always a bit exciting."
"Tarot enthusiasts" seemed broader than historians - my mistake. Analogies seemed, to me, to speak of metaphoric language rather than history. I mistakenly thought you were referring to texts that were not just historical.
I find that references to Odin and mandrake root and alchemy are not meant to be historical, but suggestive (based on archetypes and the 'doctrine of correspondences') to help in assigning contemporary meanings to the card for readings and meditation.
I would be delighted to see a specifically historical discussion by someone who tried to make a clear historical case for the Hanged Man having emerged directly from the Odin myth or that it originally was meant as a picture of mandrake roots. Now that would be interesting to see and worth refuting. I just don't have any examples of this to present. Do you?
If there isn't an example, then doesn't the argument instead become a straw-horse (edited: or is the expression "straw-man"?)
Now, there might be an example of someone trying to make a case for Saint Gregory being deemed an historical source. I don't know of one. I probably wouldn't have reacted to your comment had it not included so many examples that are usually ONLY seen as metaphoric, archetypal/spiritual analogies.
Michael, I deeply admire your historical work. I simply find that such statements, calling something 'far-fetched' historically when it was never meant to be an historical source, IMHO, gets in the way of your otherwise rich, brilliant and insightful offerings.
Mary