From petrie@lcalor.enet.dec.com Sun Nov 14 20:35:35 1993 Date: Sun, 14 Nov 93 21:29:36 EST From: manos a la obra! 14-Nov-1993 2125 Subject: Rambling about Tarot content & where to find stuff The suits & getting at their meanings ------------------------------------- >We talked a bit about creating our own suits for this project, but it >was hastily decided to stick with the "traditional" cups, swords, wands >and pentacles...didn't know enough about the Tarot to arbitrarily choose new >symbols. No disagreements here. The Collective Unconscious school of thought would suggest that these symbols - or closely related ones - might arise spontaneously if you were to play around with new suit names. FWIW (and it might be worthwhile for someone trying to get a handle on the suits' essences), Gail Fairfield has an exercise in her cassette course "Choice Centered Tarot" that actually has you do this. You relax & get mentally centered; then she starts describing some of the general characteristics of the suit. You allow a mental image to arise based on your associations to what she's saying. You pause after each suit to sketch out your symbol. My personal symbols weren't far off from the broad mainstream. This would be an interesting exercise to do 1)with people who have no prior knowledge of the Tarot and 2)with enough people who would share their symbols to see if there really is a general association of certain symbols with aspects of the personality. Getting a handle on the pip cards --------------------------------- >I read in that Butler book that the arrangements were based on >geometrial "power". I've flipped through Butler's book several times in the bookstore but haven't bought it yet - it looks well done. The number progressions have been linked to both astrology and numerology (no doubt, to alchemy too). When I started learning the Tarot, I found the sheer number of numbers to be a little overwhelming. What I finally found the most useful was working through a suit & explaining to myself what was happening. Each suit starts with the ace - the thing in its purest potential essence - and progresses to complete realization in the 10. I used a very simple model of Papus's "Path of Hermes" spread, where things go in 3's: 1) conception 2)opposition 3) resolution 4) resulting_new_conception and so on in 3 triangles until you have 10 as the final outcome. (btw, the "Path of Hermes" is described in Greer's book) If you look at that layout, put the associated planets next to each number to give you something of a guide, and make up a story for yourself about how something the suit represents (say, a new idea for Swords) can progress from potential to realization, you start to get a handle on how the numbers work. >A few people are panning me because they think I'm just lightly treading on >something they believe heavily in. I feel more like I'm exploring than >anything else. Others are prodding me from the other side of the spectrum, >discarding the project as "new age junk-mysticism". You probably know the >type. >It's the same old story, if you do anything beyond the everyday chat and >grind...someone'll find fault with it. I feel comfortable with your philosophy on this project. As you say, a lot of folks will probably find themselves prodded to go beyond the surface; sometimes the Tarot leaps up & smacks you in the nose when you least expect it, too :^) >... It IS what you read into it, of course...and the only objective fact is >that it consists of images on paper. I'm fairly empirical myself, but I think >that Tarot can work as a means of sorting and hoping...perceiving and >redirecting. I've tried explaining the usefulness of the Tarot for self -insight as if it were a 3-sided mirror. When you're trying to limit yourself to rational analysis of a situation, it can be like looking in your flat bathroom mirror - you only see things straight on. Using the Tarot (or free association, or day dreams, or other methods of tapping into the unconscious) is like having that dressing_room mirror set. You get views of the matter that you couldn't with just the shaving mirror. The Tarot symbols snag your mind onto things you'd like to tell yourself. At bare, empirical minimum, that's my explanation for how it works. Frankly, I'm beginning to think there's something more to it, especially after doing some long-distance readings for other people. Like Holmes, I don't discount anything :^) especially since the cards _don't_ appear to randomize. Decks & images: -------------- >looking for "imagery" as well to give some people a starting block, or >to give the people who were in it more for the "design" aspects of it a >basis for expansion. You know, I can't think of a source that *talks* about the cards from the standpoint of the images (except maybe for Butler) - certainly, of common images across decks. If it's available in their libraries, people looking for lots of images to draw their own conclusions from might check out Stuart Kaplan's "Encyclopedia of the Tarot". This is a 3-volume set by the man who heads US Games Systems, the main US source of Tarot cards. I've seen volumes 2 and 3 in the local bookstore: if memory serves, volume 1 covers most of the common Tarot decks (with commentary and photos of the cards); volume 2 is into historical decks (including female Knights); volume 3 has photos of more recent decks, including a lot which have never been commercially published. Mary Greer has a black&white page of the major arcana of some popular decks opening each chapter of "Tarot for Your Self". According to Cynthia Giles (in her book "The Tarot: History, Mystery and Lore"), Rachel Pollack has a book out called "The New Tarot: Modern Variations on Ancient Images" which discusses 70 new decks, including pictures. I haven't seen this book. Particular Tarot decks I think are good for contrasting imagery if you need to see just a few: 1. Rider-Waite-Smith: Arthur Waite & Pamela Coleman Smith supposedly crammed as much symbolism as possible into every card, so nothing's there on a whim. It has a Victorian -engraving dreamlike quality to me. All cards have scenes. 2. Thoth (the Crowley-Harris deck): to my mind, the most modern deck in psychological terms. The pip cards' representation is a mid-point between the simple numerological arrangement and a full scene - use of color & change in the appearance of the item are interesting. The artist, Lady Frieda Harris, has some notes about her use of images in the small booklet that comes with the deck. 3. Aquarian: something of an art-deco approach. This deck interchanges the Wands (Rods) and Swords in meaning, which I think is arbitrary & dislike. Some of the cards appear to turn the usual imagery inside-out. Although my personal reaction is to turn off to it (speaking of individual decks & individual tastes), the imagery *does* reflect the essential card meanings. 4. Brotherhood of Light: b&w, very detailed line drawings, Egyptian images. Pip cards are geometric patterns of the suit item. 5. Voyager: color photo collages. This isn't a traditional Tarot deck (some of the Ace-10 meanings meander off the path) but the images are very striking, nevertheless, & will offer lots of fodder for inspiration. 6. Motherpeace: also, not completely traditional in some meanings but closer than Voyager IMO. Very consciously mythological in reference, with a lot of female images and limited male images. 7. Tarot of Marseilles: medieval style, very traditional images. Pip cards, like the Brotherhood of Light deck, are just geometric arrangements of the suit's item. Exercises with the cards: ------------------------ BTW, my suggestions on getting meanings for each card will hopefully be seen as ideas for artists wading into the project. Even if your final medium is going to be computer graphics, an exercise such as hand-coloring a b&w line drawing card is useful to focus the mind and get it thinking about _why_ that color was used by Tradition. (Painting in watercolors is a lot tougher for me than hitting the "paintcan flood" button, anyway) Maybe using a stylus to trace a card onto the screen would be a good exercise, too. Whatever it is, the purpose is to do something that makes you focus on the detail of a card. Mechanically, it can be boring, which frees the mind to consider how you'd feel if you held the body position pictured & to free-associate around with color, individual items, half-remembered fairy tales & memories...all while staying within the lines. I've done the active visualization exercise on several of the Major Arcana cards, always with results that were unexpected and very meaningful. It's in Chapter 1 (around p23) of Greer's book. This note's run a little _long_, but that's what you get when you're writing from home on a lazy Sunday afternoon :^) best, Kathy