Mary:
Teheuti said:
I'm not sure if I understand precisely what you're getting at here. For me, the RWS Minor Arcana allow for storytelling in a way that the decks with just pips do not. But that shows my preference for pictorial storytelling over things like suit & number keywords or memorization.
Could you give an example with a specific card?
These sound like some of the things I'm interested in, but I'm not quite sure without seeing an example.
Mary
Mary, Thank you for your response. Let me give an example of what I'm thinking of:
http://www.freewebs.com/altenwald/3swords/3ofswords5.html
I'm not sure of the rules, I may not be able to maintain this link.
However, moving on:
I should begin my query with the following assumptions (which may only damn me in my ignorance) : The Visconti-Sforza represents an antique and antecedent norm for the Three-Swords image. The remaining images suggest several developments in the depiction of the Three-Swords, each with an attendant set of interpretive possibilities.
It is my understanding that Mathers and his crowd in the Golden Dawn sought to rectify the Tarot pack presumably from "errors of translation or transmission" from antiquity to their day. And being consummate scholars of great humility achieved great things, even if their mighty oaths constrained them to keep their achievement to themselves.
It is my further understanding that Arthur and Pamela sought to rectify again the efforts of the Golden Dawn, while yet maintaining a sort of veil over the process in order to avoid the breaking of the same or similar mighty oaths.
The truth claim of the Golden Dawn would be that their image and interpretation would somehow connect more closely to the original intent of the cards of the Visconti era (and to the Egyptians that preceded them) than those images of the Marseille or later iconic interventions.
If this string of images is anything even approaching a valid progressive-spectrum of representation Then we see a progression of ideas and possible interpretations.
In the first image there are three swords, surrounded by quite commonplace foliation. Three is more than Two and less than Four. Three has Mathematical, Numerological, Sociological, and Theological implications. Oh, and of course we are talking about swords--whatever that might mean.
In the Noblet image there are still three swords so all that was implied in the Visconti still probably applies. But you encounter this pesky vesica pisces which totally dominated the sword series from two to ten. It seems to me a very naked card. The foliation is minimal and quite abstract. I imagine that JMD has a great deal to say about it. The possibilities for interpretation are definately impacted by the addition of the vesica pisces.
Later renditions of the card in the Marseille tradition will include more floriation, which in my view, has to sharpen the focus [perhaps lessen the number] of possible interpretations.
As one moves from the Marseille to the Golden Dawn (remembering their claim to Rectification) there is definitely a shift in point-of-view and a concomitant shift in the possibilities of interpretation. If nothing else it represents a very definite change of representation.
Moving further along to Pamela's image there is another change (albeit related to the Sola Busca). Pamela or Arthur had a particular point of view here, a particular set of intuitive possibilities they wanted to put forward.
I am not speaking here to the relative merits of scenic as opposed to non-scenic pip illustrations. But the scene Pamela created has a point of view, a focus among the myriad interpretive possibilities available to the intuit. This has enormous impact.
I think that a conference in celebration of Pamela's Genius, ought to provide some sustained and relatively scholarly discussion of the contribution her images have had and may yet have to the interpretive or divinatory event made possible by the whole pack. And perhaps a good discussion of how her images represent one of the many historical high-points in the long struggle of the human heart to depict, and so give voice to, and grapple with, the meaning and value lurking behind the image of three-swords, etc.
I am deeply grateful for the discussions that happen here, but a public conversation in an international celebration would have a different impact on the unfolding history of the conversation, no?