I'm sorry, this is a bit off topic but I need to clarify things a bit and then go on with this topic.
OT: Hi Maagi, my apologies if my comment seemed to be an attack on you - it wasn't - merely a call on a statement of fact about the cards history (not an opinion) you made that is erroneous (albeit frequently made, and often by people who know better). It is the statement of fact you made I meant as 'baloney', not you or your opinions - my apologies if it came over as such.
I honestly didn't mean to make a statement of fact. I didn't know about all these different "schools" on Tarot. I'm new here and never really talked about Tarot with anyone. My point was indeed the point of a historian - you can't know anything for sure about history. It's all about interpretation and research on interpretation. So my point on "not knowing the initial meaning of the cards" wasn't any more than that; all the same I could say that we don't actually know who killed Caesar etc.
I'm also very interested in any kind of knowledge around the Tarot, feel free to inform me, anyone! That's one of the reasons why I am here. !
I appreciate your aspects, but life (and science!) has taught me to be alert whenever people come and insist they know the *only* truth.
I hope such an apparent piss-poor attitude to critical faculty isn't typical of the majority of our University Students (whether of history or anything else)!
What is and isn't baloney is a problem - it reflects on one's ability to make critical distinctions and to check sources or otherwise to appear as a gullible fool (and why shouldn't one - one of the possible meanings of the name tarocchi is after all the 'game of the blockhead/fool') - IMHO to stick one's head in the sand or attack the messenger in the face of facts is inherently problematic whether one cares to think of it as such or not.
Okay, so this is what I'd call "jumping to conclusions". We don't really know each other at all - the downside of internet activity. What I meant with "not my problem" was, it doesn't really bother me what a nickname *kwaw* means with "baloney" in my case. Of course it is a problem, if one chooses to be ignorant, or doesn't want to question things. Oh boy, if you only knew how much I do that!
Most of all myself.
What the history studies have taught me is indeed to question everything. There's no such thing as 100% accurate truth in the field of history. Neither is there anything completely solved in the field of science. It's all *theories*, that's what it is. Whenever a better theory comes up, the old one is gladly updated. The "truths" are usually just the most recent theories.
Which brings me back to the nature of the Death card and regeneration! Ha! Seriously, I don't claim to KNOW anything. It's all about learning.
I appreciate Grizabella's views, very human and wise.
People could debate about the "facts" forever - by all means do that - but I wish to be left out of it. Express your views; tell me about the things you've learned; that's all very interesting. But it won't change what's dear to me in these cards, and that's the concentrated wisdom that *I* see in them. Am I wrong? Who cares. Wait, I do, I still do, if I make my thesis about Tarot!
But this isn't it.