There's been a recent controversy about a video by James Wanless in which he claims that Tarot came out in the 16th & 17th century and was first used as "divination games" - horrors! See minute 1:05 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqpDAkFx_lw
Yeah, I hate to hear this kind of thing, too, and James really should know better. But then we get Oudler's typical video response that is nothing more than publicity for his favorite game.
http://youtu.be/6UgyGC6ADak
He insists he knows the original purpose that the deck was created - for games - (could be true), and overlooks the fact that most people use a deck for the game of tarot that has little in common with the original tarot except for its structure and number of cards. The original pictorial motifs have nothing to do with his concept of what tarot is.
It is historical *fact* that even people who once knew better, are willing to ignore history in the face of tarot's myths. After the TarotL History Information Sheet first came out, I noticed that most books and many websites were paying attention, but there seems to be a lot of back-sliding.
So, my question for everyone is: What is the power of myth that people keep returning to it? It's not just to 'sell' more - I'm asking about what's behind all that. The tarot myths fulfill a certain need in the human psyche. What specifically do you think the tarot myths in particular are addressing at the deepest level?
I see this as a historical question, because if historians don't have some understanding of the urge that keeps these myths historically reappearing, then we won't ever understand how to address the issue clearly, and we'll never learn from history - the history of tarot myths and their continual re-emergence!
Coming to this thread rather late, I find that there have already been some very insightful posts in reply to the question.
However, before I address that in a later post, I would like to make some defence for Oudler, who by my reading has received, apparently with no sense of irony, a rather disingenuous dismissal in your original post.
Firstly, right off the bat, you describe his video as “nothing more than publicity for his favourite game”. I’m sorry, but while he is certainly passionate about the games, as am I, he is doing more than just saying “look, these were made for games, they are really great games, do play them!” He is drawing attention to falsehoods in a commercial video by someone who presents himself as being an authority. A passion for card games and a passion for a little truth and honesty are not mutually exclusive and I see no evidence to suggest that he is cynically using the guise of the later only to promote the former.
Your other comments however, seem altogether strange to me. The first says that he insists he knows that tarot cards were invented for games, with a bracketed comment that it “could be true”. Not probably, but only “could”, which implies to me that there is good reason to think that it isn’t. Intentional or not, it reads as a not too subtle dismissal. The second concerns his concept of what tarot is and the intention behind that comment is unclear – it may be offered as a criticism, suggesting that his concept of tarot is too limited or misplaced, or perhaps it is meant simply as a statement of his position with no apparent point. I don’t think it unfair to assume that many people will read it as a criticism. In either case, it is not quite correct and if a criticism was intended, then it is flawed.
Is it really unfair or unjustified for Oudler to claim knowledge that tarot was invented for card games? Empirical knowledge is not absolute, which is not to say that the facts of the world to which such a claim refers are not absolute – I think that they are – but that the knowledge of them can never be certain. Any claim to empirical knowledge is, in principle, subject to possible revision. The upshot of this is that when we claim to know something empirically, be that that Henry the VIII had six wives, where we live, or even what we look like, we are claiming that we have good grounds for certainty and little reasonable doubt to question it. There is a very strong case that tarot cards were invented for card games – and I don’t think that whatever has been offered as room for doubt amounts to enough to really doubt it. You may think otherwise – and perhaps he should say “almost certainly”, if only to avoid unwanted controversy - but even then, given the strength of the case, I think that your words suggest an unfair dismissal of his position, almost out of hand. Again, this may not have been intentional – but that is how they read to me and possibly to others also.
The earliest European playing cards we have feature what we call the Latin suits, being Cups, Coins, Batons, and Swords. Each suit has a sequence of pip cards and three courts: a King, a Rider, and a Footman. Many countries still use these today. The French suits feature Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, and Spades. They too have a sequence of pips and three courts: a King, a Queen, and a Knave. South Germany still uses its suits of Hearts, Bells, Acorns, and Leaves. These also have a sequence of pips and three Courts: a King, an Over, and an Under. And finally, let’s not forget the Swiss Jass pack with its Acorns, Shields, Bells, and Roses. These cards have different motifs, both in the suits and in the courts. These cards can be used, and often are used to play games that might ordinarily be played in other countries (or even other regions of the same country) using cards of different motifs. They can do this because they all share the same structure and that is what is important and is what keeps them in the same family of playing cards, as opposed to packs such as Happy Families. In their function as playing cards, the motifs are incidental.
Now, if tarot cards were created for playing card games, then it would follow that what mattered in this context, what distinguished them as a family of cards and to a measure what governed the games that could be played with them, was their structure. This isn’t to say that the motifs were completely irrelevant to card play, we can easily imagine how they might have been: The trumps were unnumbered for a long time, even after becoming popular beyond the wealthiest classes. It would be important that the players could readily recognise a hierarchy and by using familiar Christian figures, that could be achieved. Of course, there might be some ambiguity in some cases and sure enough, there has been some regional variation in the accepted order of the cards. But then they start to be numbered and the images become less important to their function. We can start changing the pictures and enjoy playing the games with new variation. German card makers began this in earnest during the early 18th century (there had already been some flexibility shown in tarot makers by then) and the new packs continued to be called Tarock because they were used to play the same games. When the French began to adopt the new suits and trumps, they continued to call them tarot for exactly the same reason. The card player’s concept of tarot is broader than just the motifs, though it does not, by any means, exclude them – either in terms of their role in game play or their adopted use by occultists and readers - but it is not bound by them and there is no good reason why it should be. And it is not only card players who have a broad concept of what constitutes tarot, a brief look at the array divination packs that are known by the name should attest to that. The notion that the original motifs are somehow essential to what it is to be tarot assumes another role essential to tarot cards, other than games, which requires those motifs - and while such a notion is not explicitly stated, it is implied.
Perhaps it seems that I have gone to uncalled for lengths to answer a few largely unnoticed comments. As it stands, the comments seem to imply that Oudler is making unjustified claims that there is good reason to doubt, that he does so simply to further a different interest, and that he has a naive conception of what constitutes tarot, which perhaps has an essential nature grounded in its motifs that is apart from card games. This may not have been your intention but however casual or inconsequential they might appear, and whatever the spirit in which they were made, however accidental their arrangement, these dismissals are of just the kind that are employed by the smarter peddlers of myth against their detractors to softly undermine them. It is an unfortunate irony from the person who started this thread with them and who has long been an advocate for good history, not to mention how they jar with the rest of that same post.
I hope that this does not read as a personal attack, it really isn’t meant as one. I have tried not to assume any ill intention behind your words. I hope also that it doesn’t read as pedantry – in any other context, I might not have addressed the comments at such length. I have fought hard with the text to try and get the right tone and message: at the end of the day, our choice of words matters, they can trip us up as easily as they can be used to trip others – and if we are very unlucky, once they are public, they may be used by cynical opponents against a position we might support. This is a hazard that we all fall foul of sometimes, no exceptions.
=30º
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