The Power of Myth

[Yygdrasilian]

"I Am Lying"

So, the tarot myths, created perhaps when the authors were in a magical-visionary state, provide an entrance into that dimension of the tarot experience. Those who see the tarot myths only as lies are forever barred from entering???? What do you think?

Betrothed by the Dragon Emperor...
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=147731

...a dowry of 3 interlinked Rings would seal an alchemical marriage enacted between the Viscounti & Sforza, weaving them into the fabric of ‘the greatest story ever told’

It’s a kind of tapestry knit across the Ages, bearing an ancient ‘formula’ for which Tarot is a cypher. Thus a “FooL” embarks upon the path to Wisdom by knowing “nothing”, and may thereby learn how the juggle of Letters & Numbers fall & rise upon our Tree of Life, and inform the multi-faceted enigma of its' silhouette. http://goldennumber.net/geometry.htm

ש
XX
△

א
Not Knot: http://www.liv.ac.uk/~spmr02/rings/maths.html
0

▽
XII
מ

Often, to approach an understanding of allegory in Myth requires an Eye for seeing the measure of Time not solely as a succession of ‘frames’ in linear sequence, but also as a whole ...like a mandala.

The particular formula underpinning the design of the Hebrew alphabet articulates a symbolic equation from which many of our most familiar allegories are spun. Their inherent “truth” value is a matter of perspective, but utilizing them to tell a tale convincing enough to be “believed” - now that’s magick.

 

[Huck]

Interesting that. To what extent does the oral tradition have an "author" ? Who was the author of nursery rhymes, for instance...

... ... I believe it has. Even cultures without writing had the necessity to have some form of historic knowledge.
... .. In my specific case the "known author" of nursery rhymes was my mother.

 

[Teheuti]

Their inherent “truth” value is a matter of perspective, but utilizing them to tell a tale convincing enough to be “believed” - now that’s magick.

So we have story-magic that is convincing enough (for tarot readers) to be believed or at least accepted without too much questioning.

We have mysterious origins that include a magician (Thoth), Egypt, and the gypsies, and the idea that tarot is an ancient divinatory device. Plus, we have the supposed connection with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, which are considered to be the letters with which G-d created the universe. So there is the idea that tarot not only predicts things but can make something come into being that didn't exist before we encountered it.

Via the connection with the four elements, we get such beautiful ideas as that of Charles Williams who, in The Greater Trumps, described a storm being generated by waving the suit of Swords, and clumps of earth coming into being when the suit of Pentacles are shuffled. So tarot is a way to actually get in touch with the four elements in their purest form.

So if we believe the myths, we can believe the mystery.

Added: to more accurately reflect previous discussion:
So if we believe the myths, we can enter the mystery.

 

[Huck]

My perspective derives from Jung, Campbell, Eliade, Levi-Strauss, Von Franz, etc. and a group I've belonged to for about 12 years that meets a couple of times a month to study myth and symbols.

I feel myself more like an autodidact. I read a little bit from Jung und von Franz, but I wasn't so impressed. I was interested in their I-Ching ideas. I felt, that I would do better just studying the I-Ching myself.
For Greek mythology I found Ranke-Graves rather enlightening. Also his cooperative work about Hebrew mythology. Nonetheless it was more fruitful just to gather the content myself from various sources. The dictionary of Pauly-Wissowa and Roscher's "Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie" ... surely not complete.

Marshall McLuhan was quite impressive. The unwritten book of the Go-Game.

But mostly I don't read books complete.

 

[Yygdrasilian]

The Never-Ending Story

So we have story-magic that is convincing enough (for tarot readers) to be believed or at least accepted without too much questioning.

We have mysterious origins that include a magician (Thoth), Egypt, and the gypsies, and the idea that tarot is an ancient divinatory device. Plus, we have the supposed connection with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, which are considered to be the letters with which G-d created the universe. So there is the idea that tarot not only predicts things but can make something come into being that didn't exist before we encountered it.

So if we believe the myths, we can believe the mystery.

Certainly, but perhaps just as important as entertaining the possibility of Tarot’s mythical origins, the FooL must abandon the presumption of certainty attending “belief” in general. Put another way, projecting unto the cards what one already believes tends to interfere with the process of recognizing the grand design of their shared architecture ...and where the element of Earth is hidden among the Letters.

It’s like an Eye which, until you see with it, you don’t. And, though it possesses a certain kind of logic (not unlike an Ouroboros), its’ cartography outlines an immortal recipe for Illumination. And thus has a way of confounding ‘rational thought’. In this sense, utilizing Tarot as a cypher to the Hebrew alphabet & the Tree of Life serves as a key to PaRaDiSe - but One must know “nothing” in order to solve its’ mystery.

 

[Titadrupah]

But mostly I don't read books complete.

Anyway very few people will notice.

 

[Titadrupah]

...projecting unto the cards what one already believes tends to interfere with the process of recognizing the grand design of their shared architecture ...and where the element of Earth is hidden among the Letters.

Our projections are part of the architecture, part of the thing itself that is "seen".

 

[Huck]

Anyway very few people will notice.

Yes ... that's the reason why I say this.

It's a method. Usually I read, cause I search something specific. Seldom people write complete books about that, what I search. The authors have their own themes and researches and I've mine.
When you read much to specific themes, a lot of things are turning redundant. It's not fun to read the same stuff by different authors again and again.

I do well with this ... I recommend the method.

 

[RexMalaki]

Rex, your pointing to the unconscious intrigues me. It touches on the Shadow - bright or dark - within us. Which, of course, is why people get so angry and unreasonable when it is questioned. Could it be that myth elevates the Shadow?

This reminds me of Jung's Red Book, a work that sounds crazy and, indeed, at times Jung thought he was going mad. But Jung realized that the only way to map the unconscious was to enter it fully and consciously - to bring back the treasures from that realm. It seems to me that the only way to understand what people are seeking in and through the tarot is to enter the myths.

Bringing those treasures from the unconscious to the conscious is, to me, the most valuable use of Tarot...it seems all other uses follow from this.

...does this imply that touching the unconscious is also touching the divine?
...especially the collective unconscious...

...the shadow self...The Devil card...it comes after dealing with animus/anima Empress/Emperor...while climbing Jacob's Ladder


yes, Tarot was developed long before Jung, but Jung was only giving us language for concepts humans have always been confronted with...The Power of Myth here has to be at least affected by the shadow self; or they affect each other...

I apologize if this has been talked about by other posts; I will try to read the rest of the thread this evening, thanks.

 

[DoctorArcanus]

Myth is like a universal mental matrix. According to the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, it can be a story pattern that will appear in different cultures, perhaps at different times, with no kind of connection between them, with strong similarity (Mircea Eliade and Joseph Campbell are among those researchers that explored the same line of thought, throughout the five continents). Of course myths are related to political, economical and social structures. These structures originate from the myths and the myths from them, myths consolidate cosmologies and customs. Naturally, the majority of myths is so ancient that authorship can turn irrelevant. Through repetition, even when there are variations and contributions, the story stabilizes.

The above seems to me a good definition of “myth”. In particular, I consider also historical scientism to be a myth... science seems to me to fit well the above definition. From my point of view, the difference between a myth and “truth” is that truth is the myth I happen to believe in.

My answer to the question “What is the power of myth?“ could be something as: “Isn't myth the only existing power? Which other power is there?” Most people believe in something, and believing always is irrational (etymologically, “to believe” might well be a close relative of “to love”). I see no reason to assume that the myth that I and most other Western people currently prefer (scientism) is any “better” than any other myth.

Another observation that comes to my mind is that Tarot is the illustration of a myth that is very far from scientism, a myth in which most interesting things happen after death and the dead rise from the grave at the sound of a trumpet blown by an angel. It doesn't seem surprising that many people attracted by images related to such a myth are not so fond of science.