The Story of the Tarot

This thread discusses the Tarot as a text and not as an icon of Universal Truth.

When I was taught to read the cards, (about 37 years ago) I was taught that they tell a story about how we (meaning those who come from the same cultural background as my aunties) grow as human beings. I don't want to discuss the Truth Value of the story. I want to discuss the story itself, as a text made of pictures (with symbols and a few words), what it says about a way to be human and how the story shifts depending on how you lay out the cards.

The main “chapters,” as it were, are 5. The first is the major arcana; the last four are the mundane suits. Probably makes sense to start with the major arcana, unless anyone would prefer otherwise.

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Originally Posted by MaryLupin

This thread discusses the Tarot as a text and not as an icon of Universal Truth.

When I was taught to read the cards, (about 37 years ago) I was taught that they tell a story about how we (meaning those who come from the same cultural background as my aunties) grow as human beings. I don't want to discuss the Truth Value of the story. I want to discuss the story itself, as a text made of pictures (with symbols and a few words), what it says about a way to be human and how the story shifts depending on how you lay out the cards.

The main “chapters,” as it were, are 5. The first is the major arcana; the last four are the mundane suits. Probably makes sense to start with the major arcana, unless anyone would prefer otherwise.

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Do please start then...

I will be using the The Thoth Tarot as my text. This site provides pictures of the major arcana for those of you who don’t own one.

This is the deck I use when reading for others. I find it useful because its symbology is a syncretic amalgamation of all of the predominant belief systems in use in the West with regard to the concept of what it means to be human.

The Tarot is a pictorial text. Because it is a text, it allows for a variety of reader responses making its meaning dependent on the relationship between the reader and the patterns developed in the text. What this means is that what you get out of the text is dependent on how much you know—on what your experience has been.

One really wonderful thing about a moveable text (where “chapter” elements can be rearranged) is that it allows for both linear and circular readings. So with the Major the story can be read as a journey from 0 to 21 (there are 22 Major cards), or it can be read as a series of layers. For example, card VI (the lovers) is a synthesis card bring together learning and experience from the cards before it before preparing for another bout of “education.” Card XIV (art) is another such card and so is the final card XXI (the world/universe). So if you placed the series of cards from 0-22 on an ascending spiral with the World above Art which was above Lovers you get another reading layer which says something like “Love is an aspect of art just as art is an aspect of the world.” So the story, depending on what way you read it tells the story of an individual an his/her self-development or it can tell a story about belief structures – cultural stories – and how they will proceed. What this implies is that the Hierophant, Death and Aeon also speak to each other as do the Empress, Fortune and Lust, and The Moon and finally, the Fool the Chariot and the Devil. Reading for others is the art of finding out what story the querent inhabits and then figuring out what part of the story they are currently transversing.

Reading the tarot is a lesson in understanding the importance of story in human lives. The best writer I know that deals with this is Frank Kermode. This is the subject of my next post.

in his book The Sense of an Ending, suggests that we live in perpetual crisis because of the way we, in our various non-indigenous Western cultures, structure the story of what it means to be human. Simply, because of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic apocalyptic story, we think we know what our lives mean.

But it has turned on us. The apocalypse of the western and middle-eastern religious worlds has become, instead, the tragedy of the personal—a sense of failure, of powerlessness in the face of the inexorable. Tragedy is a personal apocalypse.

We think we can figure it all out. We think we have the mind of a god (our vaunted rationality which we think separates us from the other animals) and thus cherish our capacity to think our way through that which to us appears as Mystery. And we all know that there have been many predictions of end times, the year 1000 for example, and yet despite overwhelming evidence that the end does not in fact arrive, “we continue to assume…that there is a tolerable degree of conformity between the disconfirmed apocalypse and a respectfully modern view of reality and the powers of the mind. In short, we retain our fictions of epoch, of decadence and renovation, and satisfy in various ways our clerkly skepticism about these and similar fictions.”

It is the fact that we have told many stories about how things were originally perfect for us, how they changed for the worse turning us into aliens in our own garden, and finally how it all gets resolved returning us forever to a state of communion, that gives us rules by which we can guide our behavior as well as the behavior of others. The story gives us the courage to face all that we don’t know, don’t understand and don’t control and because of that we refuse to remember that it is, in fact, a story.

What resists—to the death sometimes—any reasonable light is the idea of a knowable ending. If one precognition of “the end” does not come true, if instead the next day there is just the grocer and the dirty laundry and the rent due, instead of questioning whether there will in fact be a clean-cut end to all the chaos and the merely contingent, we assume we just got the date wrong.

We want to know how life turns out. If we don’t know, if we can never know, then maybe all the choices we have made make no sense, have no meaning, have no purpose. And that, for many, is terrifying. “Men in the middest make considerable imaginative investments in coherent patterns which, by the provision of an end, make possible a satisfying consonance with the origins and with the middle. That is why the image of the end can never be permanently falsified.” We story away the unknown and adjust the details as things change, make “adjustments in the interest of reality as well as of control.”

The not knowing, the places that story cannot penetrate, the intellectual dark, all that we can never know, is an immane universe—and that void, those places that we can never understand, never encompass, never realize, make of both the metaphorical and physical dark a scary place.

And, how does this qualify as philosophical literature...? This is astrology at best...

In the American Heritage Dictionary one definition of philosophy is “The critical analysis of fundamental assumptions or beliefs.” The tarot is a symbol system of some antiquity and one that encodes Western “fundamental assumptions” and “beliefs” about the nature of reality. Thus it is a valid subject of philosophical enquiry. With regard to the tarot and its truth value…all I am willing to say about this topic is that it represents what hundreds of years of religious and spiritual seekers/thinkers feel is true about the human world. Using Jung’s terminology, it is a representation of the collective unconscious of the western mind.

The tarot is a book of psychology—of ethical philosophy. As such it is a guide to behavior. Figuring out what part of the story you inhabit can tell you what is the most appropriate set of behaviors for the circumstances in which you find yourself.

Fundamentally the tarot accepts that life is generally unknowable. That is why the tarot exists, to shed a small amount of light on the particular ground upon which you stand, because you cannot know what will happen too far ahead. Too much depends on other humans. Much too much depends on the non-human world. At best, you can try to understand what drives you and what the world is like in which you live. This acceptance of fundamental human vulnerability and limitation, the acceptance that we are operating in a vastly powerful world most of which simply is beyond us, and certainly not built for us, is the core of the difference between a world view oriented to the tarot stories and a world view oriented toward the “apocalyptic.”

Finally, the tarot takes no position about the universe as a whole. It is the story of the human universe. It focuses on what we do, what we need, and the places where we impinge upon the rest of the universe.

By the way, although the Thoth deck does use the symbol system inherent in astrology as part of the overall symbolic language of the cards, astrology is the study of planetary patterns and how they can be used to explain human predilections and behaviors. This is not the same thing as tarot—just as ontology and epistemology, although allied, are not the same study.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Dr. Ralph

This is astrology at best...

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An addendum: You might want to read Dr. Richard Tarnas' most recent book called Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View to understand the endemic nature of such thought systems in the human mind (even in well read, well schooled and deeply knowledgeable western Doctors, Dr. Ralph).

for those of you who don’t have the foggiest what the tarot cards mean, go to the website linked at the top of post #3 and look at the pictures. Look at them carefully. Try to find the symbols in the pictures. While you are doing this think about how your life is then pick the card that – to you – is the most compelling, the least compelling – basically, the card to which you have the strongest emotional reaction (even if at this point it is a rather weak reaction). Then post it here.

For those of you who are already readers, separate out your major, shuffle, think about how your life is then pick a card. Post it here.

No, they are silly pieces of plastic, and they have as much insight into "our" lives as anything else, which happens to be zero.

I am somewhat familiar with Cosmos and Psyche and I am not very impressed...it's a stretch to believe that planets are responsible for modeling human behavior with a shred of certainty, or even doing anything besides moving in predictable patterns, for that matter. The lower down the science hierarchy you go, the easier it is to get away with questionable data...that is, everyone will clearly tell when someone's math is wrong, but falsifying a psychological study is much harder due to its inherent qualitative nature.

Unless tarot is founded on reason (or at least an attempt at it), it surely disqualifies itself as philosophical literature.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Dr. Ralph

No, they are silly pieces of plastic, and they have as much insight into "our" lives as anything else, which happens to be zero.

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Human beings have two basic ways of making sense of the world. One is logic (or linear reason), another is pattern recognition (reason by virtue of perceived commonality - one common term for this is art). Both processes are necessary for contemporary human beings (hominids) to deal with the world they live in. Using one system without the other (or attempting to) leads to social disaster. Since philosophy is “the critical analysis of fundamental assumptions or beliefs,” then to examine the processes of pattern recognition by examining them in action - learning to use both forms of human reason – is deeply philosophical - and the source of much potential insight.

A further note on pattern recognition -- Unless you are trying to say that the processes involved in the creation of and capacity to appreciate art provide “zero” insight into what it means to be human?

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Originally Posted by Mr. Dr. Ralph

I am somewhat familiar with Cosmos and Psyche and I am not very impressed...it's a stretch to believe that planets are responsible for modeling human behavior with a shred of certainty, or even doing anything besides moving in predictable patterns, for that matter.

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As I said in an earlier post, I am not interested in its inherent truth value but in what it represents…that is, the endemic nature of such “stories” (perceived patterns, observed synchronicities) about the nature of human reality. This way of understanding the nature of reality is one root (as it were) of our humanity. Reason is the other. It cannot be pulled like a weed. It can be understood. The attempt to uproot our “superstitious” nature only attests to the lack of understanding of our evolutionary psychology. The resurgence of Romanticism as the Enlightenment grew attests to the inability of human kind to live on reason alone. We have not evolved to do so.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Dr. Ralph

The lower down the science hierarchy you go, the easier it is to get away with questionable data...that is, everyone will clearly tell when someone's math is wrong, but falsifying a psychological study is much harder due to its inherent qualitative nature.

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On questionable data…yes there is much questionable data in the world, as well as questionable reasoning, although whether Tarnas is the kind of scientist to do that, I do not know. Do you know something about Dr. Tarnas that would indicate that he is likely to do such a thing, or are you just sure he must be because you don’t like his book?

On psychology…I take it you tend toward the behaviorist approach? The reason I ask is because art (i.e. astrology, tarot, myth, novels, poems and other such coded perceptions) are a staple of many psychologists (not to mention literary critics). Insight through pattern recognition of the sort I am proposing here, and its analysis with respect to basic assumptions and beliefs (one staple of philosophy), is a basic function of psychology today.

To return to my first post:

This thread discusses the Tarot as a text and not as an icon of Universal Truth.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Dr. Ralph

No, they are silly pieces of plastic, and they have as much insight into "our" lives as anything else, which happens to be zero.

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I wonder what you would say then of the wafers and the communion wine by which communicants take into themselves the body and blood of Christ?

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The lower down the science hierarchy you go, the easier it is to get away with questionable data...that is, everyone will clearly tell when someone's math is wrong, but falsifying a psychological study is much harder due to its inherent qualitative nature.

Unless tarot is founded on reason (or at least an attempt at it), it surely disqualifies itself as philosophical literature.

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See: the Holy Bible, OT & NT, and explain if you can how mathematically provable is anything in them. And how 'reason' can explain a spontaneously burning bush, the parting of the Red Sea, a virgin birth, the resurrection and bodily assumption into heaven of a crucified man.

Very briefly, the story of the first 6 card of the Major Arcana read as a “soul road” says that a person is born pretty much unformed by life and society and that s/he will go through a fairly predictable series of learnings, achieve new levels of organization and ultimately come out a fully formed human individual. The series of learnings—the steps between soul-infancy and soul-power—are the individual major arcana cards.

(A note on these meanings: the internet is full of sites that list what the tarot cards mean. Go ahead and read the ones you are interested in. Create a story for yourself. Look at the cards and see if you can come up with a story that fits the images and the development between the images. Post it here if you want to.)

0 – The Fool – There is a completely unformed person (the holy fool archetype and androgyne) who is all potential; s/he has not realized him/herself. This can lead to a rather aimless life, yet because s/he is all potential s/he tends toward creativity and experimentation about life. Because s/he has yet to solidify (i.e. enculturate) s/he can stumble on the most amazing things, wisdoms, unusual perceptions etc., but it isn’t that long before logos begins to solidify the “liquid” world of the Fool. This is

I – The Magician – The Magician is about the formation of the rules by which the “universe” (remember this is the human universe we are talking about) will run. The magician is seen as an intermediary between the “original” holy fool nature of human kind and what will become our mortal nature. It is the magician that is responsible for creating the basic “elements” of nature, symbolized in the tarot as earth, air, fire and water. At this point in our development we have imbibed some rules about how things work, but we have yet to experience much. This is the role of

II – The Priestess – The Priestess creates the first “things” of the universe. She is the embodiment of the injunction “to be fruitful.” Whereas the Magus organizes the universe, the Priestess begins the process of creating the Firsts. Think of it this way, the first time you kissed someone in passion you already knew that there was such a thing (Magus) but that knowledge wasn’t at all the same thing as the knowledge you gained in the experience of passion. Following these Firsts come consequences. This is

III – The Empress – The Empress is also about creation, but her role is more about proliferation. (After that first kiss the mind/body naturally starts thinking about all the other possible sensations that might come after.) I think of her as the impulse to adapt to the environment as it changes. So while The Priestess creates the “firsts,” the Empress plays with the forms she was given and makes of the world the wondrously diverse place it is. (An example: In human terms this is the ability to take the words we have been given – our natal language – and try to make of it something new and distinctly us – poetry, for example) But of course all this stuff needs to go to its proper place and that is the role of the Empress’ consort

IV – The Emperor – He is the archetypal ruler. His job is to make sure what is created by his consort gets to where it needs to go. He is the local rule maker: He is local order. Just as the Empress is a worldly echo of the Priestess, the Emperor is an echo of the Magician. And now there is some distance between the original state of the world when there was just the Fool (i.e. when you really didn’t get it that there were other people out there) and the state of the world now that there are all these rules and material presences: there is a kind of distance developing between that which is possible and that which is true. This is uncomfortable. We are beginning to realize we are vulnerable and that there is a gap in the world between what we feel we need to know and what we actually know. The distance is negotiated by

V – The Hierophant – A hierophant is an interpreter of the mysteries. It is the Hierophant’s job to help people connect with the original Fool (the place where there were no questions and therefore no need for answers). He is also the one who bridges the gap between the creators of the world we know (the cultural rules and objects which originally define for us what we must strive to become) and the individual we must try to be. He is, in a sense, personified story. We are immersed in a very big and very confusing universe. He is the impulse we have, to create a meaning-bridge. It is that bridge that allows us to discount some experience and focus on others. It is the way we take a big universe (that was built without our limitations and needs in mind) and re-size it…so we think we understand what is happening to us. But to make this understanding real, to actually believe in it (what ever “it” is for you), we must share the experience. This is

VI – The Lovers – The lovers is both the world of others and the world of self. That is, the Lovers is the acceptance that the world is not a reflection of you and the simultaneous acceptance that the not-you is necessary to happiness. It is the first time a person looks at someone really OTHER and sees a human being. It is also the first time you look in a mirror and have no idea who that person is. The Lovers is also the fact that we are social creatures. We are designed by our biology to need others, to desire connection, to strive to see and be seen. Finally, the Lovers is the consequence of the road splitting after the androgyne (The Fool) into “logos” and “eros:” “ontology” and “epistemology” must recombine to allow for a new level of understanding. This is the child the lovers will ultimately create.

Since I pulled The Lovers, what I would do with that is look at my life right now and ask questions like, “What Other, in myself and in someone else, is trying to create new fertility in my life?” “Is there a need to relate more deeply or intimately with another person?” I mean, I know why I pulled that card. There is this person who has (completely unexpectedly) shown up in my life and my first impulse is to run. The card makes me think about it…because without this step card VII (The Chariot) is not possible and as much as I like my Hermit status, I am even more in love with learning.

If I had pulled the Hierophant, I would have asked questions like “Am I acting as an understanding-bridge for someone else? Is someone doing that for me?” “Is there an understanding gap in my life that I need to address right now?”

A note about bad stuff: It is possible to be a good Emperor. It is also possible to be a bad Emperor. A bad Emperor, for example, is one who orders out of a desire to control rather than a desire to meet his “people’s” needs. S/he tends to be rigid about rules, a control-freak and not much capable of empathy. A bad Empress is one who creates indiscriminately. S/he is the kind of person that forces “help” on people who don’t want it and probably don’t need it. So pulling the Lovers could mean I am in a “fertility” mode with someone else or the traits could be sour, a kind of refusing to fertilize, to join. Traditionally, if you pull the card “reversed” (i.e. upside down) it indicates that the shadow-side of the trait inherent in the card is present in your thinking and acting. If that is true (and you have to think about your life to see whether it fits) then the implication is that you change your behavior.

To my knowledge there was a great fantasy series written by Marget Wies and Tracy Hickman involving Tarot.

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Originally Posted by JJLuke

To my knowledge there was a great fantasy series written by Marget Wies and Tracy Hickman involving Tarot.

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That would be the Darksword Trilogy I think.

There is an entry in Wikipedia that says "he Tarot has inspired writers as well as visual artists. Italo Calvino described the Tarot as a "machine for telling stories", writing the novel The Castle of Crossed Destinies with plots and characters constructed through the Tarot. T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land uses only superficial descriptions of Tarot cards, a few of which are genuine. Random selections of Tarot cards have also been used to construct stories for writing exercises and writing games."

I have read the Calvio piece and, of course, Eliot, but not Darksword. Have you read it? Have you ever played a writing game using the Tarot as inspiration?

Roger Zelazny has some books where the main character, a wizard, travels through tarot-like cards to sort of teleport, because each card is like a portal. Not tarot, but similar. Oh, and the wizards make the cards themselves.

I chose The Star, but haven't had a chance to look it up on other sites. It seems interesting though, thanks for posting this.

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Originally Posted by NikolaiI

Roger Zelazny has some books where the main character, a wizard, travels through tarot-like cards to sort of teleport, because each card is like a portal. Not tarot, but similar. Oh, and the wizards make the cards themselves.

I chose The Star, but haven't had a chance to look it up on other sites. It seems interesting though, thanks for posting this.

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Actually, that you chose the star doesn't surprise me. The Star is about being in a place of destiny - at least using traditional terminology. Using more modern parlance the presence of the star indicates that your "guiding star" (your Self, in Jungian terms) is overtly present in your life. Do you know Jung's concept of synchronicity? He felt that the world is patterned in exactly the same way as we are patterned and so when patterns come together in the physical world and match the ongoing pattern developing in the psyche of the person, Jung felt this was meaningful and should be attended by the person. So getting the Star indicates that this matching of patterns is available to you and that you have a choice, to look and see or not as you choose. It indicates someone ready to take a major step forward in his/her learning, and probably a major step away from what s/he was. With the Star the new direction always comes with some insight, some new knowledge about the nature of reality. But new ways of seeing always also mean losing something, even if it is just a comfortable ignorance. An important question you have to ask is "are you the kind of person that looks and refuses to "see" or are you not?" Partly you answer might depend on whether the card came out right side up or reversed. (Don't tell me...that's your business.)

I got home really late tonight (went to see Harry Potter with friends) but tomorrow I will write out the next part of the Major story and get to the Star.

Thanks for telling us what you pulled.

I will keep that in mind. :) Thanks for telling me.

I just chose it from the site, so it didn't have a chance to come up reversed or anything.

I am actually about to take a trip, go see a monastery and some other places. I'm not taking very much with me, it should be very enlightening, and I do consider it a major step forward in my learning. I'm not familiar with that concept of Jung's, but I am familiar with the idea in psychology that newness can be wonderful for growth; like moving to a different city, getting a new job, things like that. But then, I think picking up a book should have a similar effect.

I don't know about destiny, but I did recently have a realization about karma. I sort of got an idea about the different forces in the world, and realized that a lot of what happens to you may depend on your karma, and also that you alone entirely decide your own karma. I actually realized this sort of similar to what you described your experience about understanding the world.

Anyway, thanks and I look forward to your reply.

Good thread. Tarot is philosophy for sure. Just most people do not understand and have been poorly educated about the archetypes represented. Some are frightened by it. It is a study that takes a lifetime or two I think.
Been working with tarot for over 30 years too. Good insights you brought forward.

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Originally Posted by ravin

Good thread. Tarot is philosophy for sure. Just most people do not understand and have been poorly educated about the archetypes represented. Some are frightened by it. It is a study that takes a lifetime or two I think.
Been working with tarot for over 30 years too. Good insights you brought forward.

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This woman is your sister, though neither of you know it yet so please your mother and get in touch with her. You can tell her I said so.

I have spoken!

So we left the soul on its journey as it had split from it initial Holy Fool state, found rules and the wonderful abundance of things, began to negotiate the world and its need for growth and order and then found that in all that it had gained it had also lost something…some capacity to be whole and so developed intermediaries (Hierophant) between the developing self and the original soul, and in this need to look forward and back, to further individuate and seek to rejoin the wholeness, the two halves of the person are symbolically rejoined in the Lovers. Now the splitting starts again, but at a new level. The first card is

VII The Chariot - This is both Arjuna as he prepares for battle and Krishna who acted as Arjuna’s charioteer. A person, just past the rejoining of the developed aspects of self that occurs in the Lovers if suddenly faced with a world that seems far more complex and difficult. Really though, the world is the same, what has changed is the level of reflexive capacity. The soul/self/person is beginning to realize that much of what s/he has always taken for granted is now not so simple. This is a time, not so much of decisions, but of coming to terms with what the self actually is, in Arjuna’s terms, our dharma.

VIII Justice (Adjustment) – Having accepted that there are things that simply “are,” that are beyond our control we must make adjustments to the necessities of sharing life with many others, all equally “divine.” This stage of the journey is learning to decide on how to spend what gifts/energy/power you have. Having accepted emotionally that there are things beyond your control in the Chariot, Justice is about applying reason to the decisions this implies about how to live your life. This leads to the next lesson which is to…

IX The Hermit – tell the difference between what you want and what you need. Having had two hard lessons in the chariot and justice it is time to take that learning and weld it deep into your soul. This always done best alone and now far from the companionship of the Lovers, this is a time of celibacy. But the world often takes a dim view of what it must perceive as anti-social behavior. It throws a curve ball in the shape of…

X Fortune – the wheel of fortune. This card of ruled by Jupiter who I always imagine as the ghost of Christmas present. Introspection (Hermit) must be balanced ultimately with social welding. We are social creatures and everything we do is somehow related to the group from which we take our meaning and lives. I sometimes think of the transition from the Hermit to Fortune as a black hole endlessly, endlessly spiraling into itself only to ultimately pop itself out suddenly and often with brutal force into a whole different vibrantly glowing universe. In more mundane terms, you go along nicely, get into a work/school/home routine, wonder about stuff, listen to a little music, write a little poetry, and then BLAM you get DISCOVERED and your whole world changes.

XI Lust – Where all this leads is the discovery of the fire within…chi, wyrd, eros, libido…it doesn’t matter what you call it. It is desire in its unformed state. This is not lust for sex, or anything in particular it is the force that drives us to connect with each other, with ourselves, with the world, with ideas of god, with ideas of non-god…It is also (as I was taught) the basic force that allows for magic, art, creation of all sorts. The BIG issue in this card (its primary lesson) is discipline. Power is always greater when forced through a small aperture. Take water for example, run a glass full of water through a wide hose. You get a trickle. Not much power. Take the same amount of water through a tube the size of your capillaries and you get a stroke.

XII The Hanged Man – The key phrase for this card is “redemption through sacrifice.” This is learning discipline. The image of a man hung from a tree is common one in world mythologies. It is how Odin received the power of writing. Odin (like Jesus) was hung from a tree wounded by a spear. He had to give up his kingly power, his life even to learn what he needed. This is a card about giving up what you think it all means. With the recognition of the power that comes from the Lust card, comes the need to integrate it into a broader, more ethical world view than was necessary before. In other words, with power comes responsibility, and the first responsibility is to discipline the power and to know what the power serves. With this card you start the process of recognizing that your life is not your own, and yet you are completely responsible for what steps you take. It is a card of paradox.

XIII Death – This paradox leads to the death of the self you thought you were. Death is the end of things but it is also linked to sex through the sign of Scorpio. The energy that has been mobilized in Lust and disciplined by the sacrifice of the Hanged Man must transmute itself so that it can become more, grow into another level. Often things fall away with this part of the soul/self journey. What was once so vital to us no longer has a place in our lives, and those who we though would be with us always will not or cannot handle the transformation we are going through. But in this fire comes the first glimmer of what will be. This is…

XIV Art – Art is the next level up from The Lovers. It is the rejoining of self but with a stronger emphasis on internal rebirth. The card is the alchemical joining of white and red. It is the mixing of not male and female (as it was in the Lovers) but silver and gold, or dark and light. It is the creation of soul from what was really just a shadow of its possibility. This is the soul of the spirit-speaker…poet…artist. But we all know how crazy poets can be. This is symbolized in the next card…The Devil.

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Originally Posted by ravin

Good thread. Tarot is philosophy for sure. Just most people do not understand and have been poorly educated about the archetypes represented. Some are frightened by it. It is a study that takes a lifetime or two I think.
Been working with tarot for over 30 years too. Good insights you brought forward.

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Great to meet you Ravin. You know I have been reading cards for so long, and I rarely get to talk to someone who really knows the cards. Really, great to meet you.

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Originally Posted by PrinceMyshkin

This woman is your sister, though neither of you know it yet so please your mother and get in touch with her. You can tell her I said so.

I have spoken!

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Mother? Oh no dear boy.

So now we have a soul that has taken the first lessons of earth (rules, things, other people) and broadened them into lessons of self, power and responsibility in a world of rules, things and others. Now the final phase begins.

XV The Devil – I think of the devil as a goat with blinkers. I have known goats. We share some important traits with them. They can be quite devoted to their own wants. They eat without caring what roots they pull from the earth. They can eat nearly anything and are amazing good at falling right side up. That is they create havoc where ever they go and hardly ever bear the brunt of their own behavior…until its time for goat kebabs. A person who is an artist (whether with words, paint or just life) can get obsessed about what s/he wants to understand, leaving behind all other obligations. Often someone in the grip of obsession will walk right over the very people who have made it possible for them to get where they are. The Devil’s lesson is that we are humans…we are hominids…and we need others. Even in the throws of “I MUST KNOW” we are asked to keep in mind that others are still there. Remember with the transition between Chariot and Justice we had to come to terms with the coexistence of feeling and though, want and need, this is the same lesson but on a broader scale. Now we must learn to hold still for someone else’s need even when our own need is driving us to ignore others. (Also look at the fact that the religious mediator card (Hierophant) number 5 is a card that requires mediation of new self and old self and the devil (card number 15) requires the same mediation but between self and others. The cards are moving us deeper into the world.)

XVI The Tower – The lessons of the Devil appear particularly difficult for us to learn. The tower is a card that shows the difficulty we experience in the previous lesson. Here we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t. This is about the violent falling apart of everything we have, everything we think we understood and knew about the world. What the tarot says is that whatever you think you know, the next time you go through this cycle, you will have to let go of everything you think you know, because, for sure, you are wrong. The sensation of wrongness is horrible. It hurts. It is scary and it is necessary. We so want to be right, to understand, because biologically and socially we are so vulnerable. Knowledge of “how the world is” acts as our hedge against that vulnerability. So it is really hard to let it go. But to grow out even further we must.

XVII The Star – The star is the guiding light in the darkness that has resulted from the destruction of what you were. It is the final pouring out of the old to make room for what is coming. It is (for Jung) the mandala of the Self glowing, calling you to individuation.

XVIII The Moon – And yet, following the Star requires further journey. It requires facing the final demons. It reminds me of Siddhartha’s final temptations by the Demon King before Sid became the Buddha. The moon card requires you to walk past the dogs that guard the gates of hell. But this is not the kind of hell that was envisioned in Dante’s Inferno. It is more like the realm of Erishkegal. Erishkegal’s sister Inanna (The Queen of Heaven and Earth) had to descend to her sister’s realm. She was forced to take of every article (things like her crown and lapis beads) that represented her earthly life and power. She was ultimately required to die. But as she was needed to make the earth grow, her consort (the god Dummuzi) went down to Erishkegal’s realm in her place. (Note: here is the first dying god myth that we know about…a male god who dies to redeem his loved one/the world). So often the Moon is interpreted as lunacy, as madness, as illusion. But really it is the required recognition that all that you think you possess (even your life) is only temporarily yours and will one day be forfeit. And the be even more severe, the Moon requires the recognition that part of you must die to release the rest…and that Erishkegal is really you.

XIX The Sun – If this path can be walked without falling from the “razors edge” then when the gates of Hel or Ereshkigal are finally passed, the light of the world is for the first time truly visible to you. This is the burning birth of the Self as it roars up past the darkness and what you thought was true. In a person’s life this feels like the roar of an epiphany as it comes to life in your head and heart.

XX The Divine Child (Aeon) – This card is what is born of the marriage of Sun and Moon. This is the hieros gamos or sacred marriage and its result. Once the humility of the Moon is in a full balance with the power of the Sun then (and only then) can time be born in consciousness. This is the birth of god…or the birth of wisdom, something we humans seek but as of yet have not (as a species) reached.

XXI The Universe – Once the birth of true consciousness is manifested the final welding of time and matter occurs and here is the Holy Fool, no longer a lone wanderer but manifest in every thing, in all that is. Here the Universe is now the Holy WiseOne (not us, but the world in which we are embedded).

reading tarot's stories is similar to analyzing your dreams.
you are presented with images of strong symbolism and shown this your mind is given insight into whatever it was concerned with.

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Originally Posted by libernaut

reading tarot's stories is similar to analyzing your dreams.
you are presented with images of strong symbolism and shown this your mind is given insight into whatever it was concerned with.

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This is exactly right. I teach a class at a local community college on the interpretation of dreams. Tarot is a distilled dream using the symbols common to western thought and practice. Really good observation.

This is, by the way, the reason tarot can be really useful in clarifying a problem we might have. The symbol systems are so much a part of our history and general cultural training they can act as memory stimulators...that is they can help the brain synthesize multiple experiences in our lives and come up with a possible connection between what had been scattered events. This last is, if not the function, at least a major function of art.

to respond to an email I received on the subject of the tarot as a "poetry machine"

Wallace Stevens has much to say about the connection between poetry and reality. He couches it within the term "resemblance" and says “the study of the activity of resemblance is an approach to the understanding of poetry….in the act of satisfying the desire for resemblance it touches the sense of reality, it enhances the sense of reality, heightens it, intensifies it. If resemblance is described as a partial similarity between two dissimilar things, it complements and reinforces that which the two dissimilar things have in common. It makes it brilliant.”

Brilliant...shining out, startling the eye of those who live within its environment, drawing attention to it by means of moving light around a corner from the sun to an eye. This is poetry. An act of attention: attend the earth and you will see.

In the same essay, the first of "Three Academic Pieces" in The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and The Imagination, Stevens says “the proliferation of resemblances extends an object. The point at which this process begins, or rather at which this growth begins, is the point at which ambiguity has been reached. The ambiguity which is so favorable to the poetic mind is precisely the ambiguity favorable to resemblance.”

This is the poetry-machine in tarot. Its ambiguity, that much despised by many, is the source of its reality.

Finally, Stevens says: “A sense of reality keen enough to be in excess of the normal sense of reality creates a reality of its own…the intensification of the sense of reality creates a resemblance: that reality of its own is a reality.”

Now that is interesting.

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Originally Posted by MaryLupin

This thread discusses the Tarot as a text and not as an icon of Universal Truth.

When I was taught to read the cards, (about 37 years ago) I was taught that they tell a story about how we (meaning those who come from the same cultural background as my aunties) grow as human beings. I don't want to discuss the Truth Value of the story. I want to discuss the story itself, as a text made of pictures (with symbols and a few words), what it says about a way to be human and how the story shifts depending on how you lay out the cards.

The main “chapters,” as it were, are 5. The first is the major arcana; the last four are the mundane suits. Probably makes sense to start with the major arcana, unless anyone would prefer otherwise.

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This may be askew from your topic, but I am also interested in tarot as symbolic representations of psychological or developmental stages (closer to your topic). I also use the tarot to effect change (magic, perhaps less relevant to your topic).

I photograph and write for a small newspaper. I just noticed that my latest photo, a candid shot that appeared on the front page, bears an amazing resemblance to the Ryder-Waite "Magician" card. The person in the photo is holding one hand upward, blowing a bubble with a bubble wand, while the left arm is pointed downward. I won't get too specific about the photo, out of respect for the subject's privacy. Now that I look back through many photographs, I see resemblances to other tarot cards, as well. In the same issue, another photo uncannily resembles the scene in the 10 of Cups, with two children off to the right dancing, while the adults in the left half of the frame gaze on with a look of satisfaction. This gives me some ideas in how to look at seemingly random photographs.

Open to any thoughts.

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Originally Posted by earthboar

This may be askew from your topic, but I am also interested in tarot as symbolic representations of psychological or developmental stages (closer to your topic). I also use the tarot to effect change (magic, perhaps less relevant to your topic).

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I think that the Tarot does exactly what you point out above. It is a representation of how European minds have seen the "path" along which humans appear to go as they move through life. In a sense it is an early psychology in the same way alchemy is an early chemistry. Yet, just as alchemy is more than proto-chemistry, tarot is also more than an early psychology. This is brought out in your second point, that you use tarot to cause change.

I read in another of your posts that you see spiritual and religious life/reality as an interior process. I suspect that extended this means that miracles happen but they tend to be interior miracles, i.e. miracles of change are more about change in perception than they are about change in the objective reality. So a person prays for "more" and when the miracle happens it is that they realize they have already more than they will ever need. (Please correct me if I have read this incorrectly.)

I do think that Tarot is a road map of the western mind. I think this because it is the western mind that created them, honed them, played with them, dreamed of them, drew them and otherwise put our "soul" into them. So they are external bits of us that we can play with, move around and "converse" with until we start to understand ourselves a little better. This process of externalizing ourselves, reflecting on what we see and then internalizing the new knowledge is foundational to a good magical practice. That much of it happens below the level of consciousness (or above if you want to think of it as Art) is what makes it seem "magical" in the sense of some external being influencing what we do, know and say.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by earthboar

I photograph and write for a small newspaper. I just noticed that my latest photo, a candid shot that appeared on the front page, bears an amazing resemblance to the Ryder-Waite "Magician" card. The person in the photo is holding one hand upward, blowing a bubble with a bubble wand, while the left arm is pointed downward. I won't get too specific about the photo, out of respect for the subject's privacy. Now that I look back through many photographs, I see resemblances to other tarot cards, as well. In the same issue, another photo uncannily resembles the scene in the 10 of Cups, with two children off to the right dancing, while the adults in the left half of the frame gaze on with a look of satisfaction. This gives me some ideas in how to look at seemingly random photographs.

Open to any thoughts.

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This is great! I am going to remember this. It is a bit like cultural deja vu. We "know" these symbols because they resonate throughout the culture. They are often "invisible" in the sense that they are all around us but we are not taught to look for them. Like some plants. People can see them (literally) but never notice them until they have to find them (say for a class) and then once they spot one, it is as if they are surrounded by them. They are always so surprised that they were there all along but they were never visible. Some people take that literally and think that because they never noticed the plant before that somehow the plant was never really there and only recently started growing there.

This weekend I am going to start posting the minor suits with respect to the story they tell about development. In some ways the minor suits are more useful in understanding a human life because they deal with specific mundane situations...like love, money, learning and ambition.

Each of the four minor suits talks about a specific area of life. Pentacles or Disks are about earth. It covers the practical aspects of life like money, home, security and fecundity. It is associated with the north. Animals that are often associated with it are wolves and sometimes snakes. Its colors are usually white, black or green.

Swords are about air: knowledge and intellect. It talks about new realizations, broadening (or shrinking understanding) and intellectual discipline. The animals I’ve seen connected to the east (its direction) are usually hawks, eagles and other animals that rule the air. The color most connected with the east seems to be yellow.

Rods (or staffs) are associated with fire, with the Chi, energy, will, spiritual force, etc. It is associated with the south. Snakes are sometimes associated here (they seem to move along the line between north and south). Also, at least in my experience, plants (especially sacred ones) are often evoked here. Also, there is the badger. One would think that they might go to the north because the dig, but for some reason (perhaps their fierceness?) they seem to get mentioned mostly when evoking the Fire. Red is its color.

The last suit is Cups and they are associated with water, the west, with emotions of all sorts, the great mother bear, whales, death and rebirth and blue.

note: the directions are reversed if you live in the southern hemisphere

All suits start with the Ace. The Ace is the undifferentiated source of power. As the numbers move, the power comes into focus, is changed, solidified so-to-speak, and honed. This is like the major: moving from Fool to Universe, what was potential becomes manifest. Then of course that which is manifest fails/dissolves/implodes/dies and that which is potential resurfaces from under the manifestation and the cycle begins again. The numbers of the cards represent the stage of this movement within the element of the suit.

So numbers are important to the tarot.

1. 1 Ace or one implies an undifferentiated power. It is all power but no sense of application and so often it can be a bit of a bully and rather aggressive. Understandably I suppose, the Ace is thought of as masculine or yang. Ego.
   
2. 2 is about balancing (or rebalancing) after the force of the Ace. It can be seen as submissive (or at least receptive) if one’s point of view is entrenched in yang. The number 2 is often seen as feminine or yin. It codes the capacity for empathy or recognition of the existence of Other. This is an “evolution” from the Ace, which being undifferentiated doesn’t recognize an Other.
   
3. 3 is about adding a third to this balanced state. That can be easy or hard depending. It is about communication (now that there is a group).
   
4. 4 is about solidity, stability and power. Imagine a castle with a King and Queen doing their bit for social stability and earthly fecundity.
   
5. 5 is the hardest number in the tarot. It is that crux point of change when you are neither climbing or falling but doing a little of both. There was a lesson taught me about the number 5. I was told this is the current number of human learning as far as our species goes. If you take the pentacle and put the point down (the satanic star) then the whole person (the soul or spirit if you like) is being guided by the wants and desires of the four elements. That is, you want that cake, you eat that cake regardless of whether you are a diabetic or not, regardless of whether it is yours or not. Another example: you want it to be true that all is planned in the world and that the bad will be punished, you fiercely deny and ignore any evidence to the contrary regardless of how much intellectual manipulation you have to do for the “data” to make sense. Turn the pentacle the other way (the witches star) then you get all kinds of impulses from the senses but they are filtered through the 5th element (reason? Probably not. Maybe empathy? Yeah, I like word better. If feels a better fit.)
   
6. 6 is double three, and so the social world has taken on a real importance here. 6 people are often social caretakers, full of responsibility but also of the sense of human companionship and delight in others.
   
7. 7 is the reflective stage that comes after the social whirl. It is the capacity to watch and learn.
   
8. 8 Is 4 doubled. Here is power that applies power for its own sake. That can be good, I hasten to add. But like all the other numbers its basic force can be harmful to one’s health. Here it would be the conscious ability to lead, the study of power and management but it could also be suppression and totalitarianism when it runs into someone who disagrees or has another point of view.
   
9. 9 completes the first sequence. It is 3 X 3 and also 3 + (3 X 2). So it is the number associated with artists, writers, humanitarians, etc. As far as the particular suit goes it is the fulfillment of the potential of that realm of life – the potential being defined by the person’s position on the learning curve. So if you still need to beat peace into people then 9 will fulfill that potential – probably not fun.
   
10. 10 starts the cycle again and so is the rebirth of the potential but following the consequences earned in the previous card (9).
    
    Of course the minor cards don’t stop there. What follows are known as the court cards. These are (variously) 3 or 4 cards and called things like knight, page, queen and king. Depending on how many court cards there are in you deck you have the numbers 11, 12, 13 and 14.
    
    The number 11 is considered to be a special number (because of its repetitiveness). It represents idealism with a kicker of fanaticism. So of course 22 represents hyper empathy, or a practical idealism with a kicker of manipulation.
    
11. 11 - it represents idealism with a kicker of fanaticism...allegiance
12. 12 - artistic talent, vitality, but tends towards triviality if not corralled...cyclic
13. 13 - respect for (and sometimes love of) tradition and all that goes with that, like responsibility with a tendency toward rigidity...devotion
14. 14 - respect for (and often a tendency to overindulge in) change and excitement...freedom

The court cards in the Thoth are positioned as follows:
Following the 10 there are

1. Princess (number 11)
2. Prince (number 12)
3. Queen (number 13)
4. Knight (number 14)

When I read I change this order. I put the Prince first, followed by the Princess, the Knight and the Queen last. So in my ordering 11 is associated with the Prince, 12 with the Princess, 13 with the Knight and 14 with the Queen.

I am going to post two suits today and two tomorrow.

MaryLupin,

You're spot-on with regard to the directions and attributes of each suit, thank you, but I would change one thing: The Eagle is actually associated with water, the suit of cups, and the west.

The reasoning is that the four characters of Ezekiel's vision (Angel=east, air, swords; lion=south, fire, wands; eagle=west, water, cups; bull=north, earth, pentacles or coins) included the eagle. It seems odd and out of character, but Israel Regardie says, in his Golden Dawn, that the eagle is a creature that emerges from the clouds like rain, and dives into the water for fish...well, I took some liberal paraphrase, but his explanation went something like that.

Also, Mary, note the four sigils: The east is the sigil or diagram of two horizontal wavy lines: Aquarius. Again, this is not intuitively correct, but the rationale (if we have to have one) is that water comes from rain and clouds. The sigil for the south is, of course, the astrological sign for Leo, the lion. And what is the sigil for the west, cups, water? It is an outline of an eagle's head.

The sigil for the north, the "earthly" direction, is the astrological sign for Taurus, the bull.

So, I would make that one change about the eagle, specifically. Also, I think the bull is the extraordinarily quintessential earth symbol (possibly the "boar" too, wink wink, but that's another story...)

Why the bull should be at the top of the list of earth animals is because it is just everywhere in ancient European and near-east myth and civilization. Bulls were once worshipped, because they represented the power and fecundity, as you so accurately stated, of the earth. Baal, Mithras, anything or any god having to do with wealth, health, and earthly happiness, the bull was there. Also, look carefully at the throne of the King of Pentacles in the Ryder-Waite deck, which is the deck I personally prefer, and you will see bull symbols, along with grapes, another symbol of earth.

When performing rituals of magic, I lay the cards down in a circle in their respective positions. If I were to give a clue to using the tarot cards magically, and this applies to those who might be familiar with the banishing or invoking rituals of the pentagram, place the cards around you in their respective arrangement (king of swords east, king of wands south, king of cups west, king of pentacles north...the possibilities of these arrangements can become quite complex, I might post a photo sometime.)

Now, your post is so delightful, but I am going to quibble over the colors, as well. Only because, again, I am referring to the Ryder Waite tarot deck, and you might be using something else, like Crowley's Thoth deck. The art work of the Ryder-Waite deck has been described as childish, but its symbolism is profound. The backgrounds often give clues as to colors of the attributes of the suits. The sky in the swords cards are sky-colored, cerulean or azure (light blue). The sky color in the Pentacle cards is often yellow. I find that confusing, because I think of fire-lions-sun-south-wands as yellow. Darker blue is the color of cups. Russet, green and brown are the colors of the pentacles.

Now that I've thoroughly confused you, I'm going to give you the earthboar perspective of colors and suits: Swords=light blue or white. Cups= Sea Green or black. Wands = yellow and/or orange. Pentacles/coins=red and/or dark green.

From South to North, imagine a gradient of colors starting from bright yellow (like the sun) to dark red.

From East to West, imagine a gradient of colors starting from white, then light blue, then darker blue, then greenish blue (like the ocean).

This is a personal choice based on my own understanding of Golden Dawn symbology, in combination with the Ryder-Waite tarot deck. It is not fixed in stone, but what is important is that the schema makes sense to the individual.

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Originally Posted by MaryLupin

Each of the four minor suits talks about a specific area of life. Pentacles or Disks are about earth. It covers the practical aspects of life like money, home, security and fecundity. It is associated with the north. Animals that are often associated with it are wolves and sometimes snakes. Its colors are usually white, black or green.

Swords are about air: knowledge and intellect. It talks about new realizations, broadening (or shrinking understanding) and intellectual discipline. The animals I’ve seen connected to the east (its direction) are usually hawks, eagles and other animals that rule the air. The color most connected with the east seems to be yellow.

Rods (or staffs) are associated with fire, with the Chi, energy, will, spiritual force, etc. It is associated with the south. Snakes are sometimes associated here (they seem to move along the line between north and south). Also, at least in my experience, plants (especially sacred ones) are often evoked here. Also, there is the badger. One would think that they might go to the north because the dig, but for some reason (perhaps their fierceness?) they seem to get mentioned mostly when evoking the Fire. Red is its color.

The last suit is Cups and they are associated with water, the west, with emotions of all sorts, the great mother bear, whales, death and rebirth and blue.

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Cornerstone Constellations

Bull (Taurus), the WaterBearer (Aquarius), Eagle (Scorpio), Lion (Leo). This (in part) has to do with the 4 faces of the cherubim in Ezekiel (Ezek. 1:10, 10:14, 20-22). See what I mean about how deep these myths go? In Ezekiel the bull is an ox; the eagle is the highest of 3 manifestations, the lowest being the scorpion.

One of the reasons they differ for me is that I live in Native North America and the animals that correspond to the energy sought after by the relationship between human society and the animals are represented here by different creatures. I have to say though that many of the Indian people I know put the buffalo in the north as well as the wolf. The sense of the bull is of power, tenacity, endurance and the potential of seed, rebirth, sexuality. This is carried in the wolf here with emphasis on power and carried in the buffalo with emphasis on the seed. The ox or bull carries quite a different set of connotations here and ones that aren’t what Crowley (or Ezekiel) imagined.

So here, even though eagles (well some of them) fish, a whistle made from its leg bone (a rather important spiritual tool here) is something that, through the agency of air, calls to the spirits of the place. There is also the sense that knowledge comes like a sun rise, like a yellow tide of warmth (or heat if it is unwelcome knowledge) that changes darkness into light and lifts you up through the clouds into the sun. Have you ever seen an eagle or crow flash white?

I am not arguing about what is right, by the way. Both symbol systems work for the respective people. What is wonderful is how similar they are as well as how intriguing are the apparent differences.

The Earth Suit – Pentacles

1. To Mehta Ohpion – The Roots of the Powers of Earth shedding old life for new. The Ace of Disks; this is the world of the tree of life, the essence of material beginnings. It calls for method and attention to detail, for new projects, good sex, productivity of all sort.
2. 2 of Disks – Change; Jupiter in Capricorn; yin to yang, yang to yin; the ouroboros; Things are going to change. Be prepared and be in acceptance. Maintaining an open armed stance with regard to life, one must also pay attention to details in order to handle the shifting deck of your material life.
3. 3 of Disks – Works; Mars in Capricorn; assert yourself but through the details of life. This is dedication to work, (not necessarily your job) but to your life discipline.
4. 4 of Disks – Power; Sun in Capricorn; this is the castle built from the 4 elements, it represents a life of discipline, an accumulation that results from attention to details. However, having achieved this stability it is sometimes hard to let go and move on to new things. Power is always harder going out than coming in.
5. 5 of Disks – Worry; Mercury in Taurus; This is one of those “lessons of the 5” cards, so how this works out depends on how you balance wants and needs. Coming out of the stability of the 4 mercury is about mind, the person thinking about change. Taurus wants a steady state kind of reality but knows that it cannot always be so.
6. 6 of Disks – Success; Moon in Taurus; earthy and strong willed, there is a sensuality here that works well in the earthly realm. There is romance (and Romance) buried deep in the being of this person. It needs its expression. This card calls for the expression of the inner desires, to manifest the “soul” nature in the physical world.
7. 7 of Disks – Failure; Saturn in Taurus; Once the soul sees daylight, much begins to drop away. It is like a person who feels true desire for the first time; suddenly its pale shadows can no longer be tolerated and so old patterns and behaviors begin to fail. Saturn in Taurus is hard. It is fixed rigidity and a desire for stability. Change here is hard but of vast importance. It is facing, and needing to move through, the greatest personal difficulty and weakness. At its worst, this is the people who fear the body declaiming the evils of the physical world, or those who having a shallow intellect rabidly accusing scholars of “traitorous” leanings. The question to ask here is where do you do that in your own life, and in the lives of others. Also, the symbols on the Thoth card are organized to represent a part of the tree of life (Kabbala). The disks represent 2 (Wisdom) through to 8 (Splendor) but they are upside down.
8. 8 of Disks – Prudence; Sun in Virgo; This is for those whose lives are dedicated to the service of others. This is also the 8-fold path of the Buddhists. Prudence calls for prudence. Be careful and thoughtful (think of others as well as of self) and things should grow and stabilize at a new more beneficent level.
9. 9 of Disks – Gain; Venus in Virgo; this is love and perfection twining. Marriage here is a well thought out (planned) enterprise, one that attends to all the details that make things work. This attitude works well in the world but especially if love (Venus) remains as strong a focus as the need for perfection that comes with Virgo. When this is done gain is the result. With this attitude and kind of attention if you accidentally drop a cucumber from your grocery bag it will hit the dirt and grow a cucumber plant that will give you 10 more cucumbers.
10. 10 of Disks – Wealth; Mercury in Virgo; This is the kind of person who can make money just by talking. Analytical and communicative, the wealth card translates those gifts into earthly reality. This is often money but it can be in physical vitality (a wealth of health) or any other disks related area of life. So for example, old networks that you have established in your Virgo-like zeal can suddenly pay off. Inheritance. You now reap what you have sown.
11. Prince of Disks – Allegiance to the things of the earth; Remember this is numerically 11; pulled by the bull, the Prince has mastered the powers of earth. His weakness is his slowness and tendency to obstinate behavior and an unwillingness to learn new things. He is deeply sensual but can be a bit laissez faire about other people’s needs.
12. Princess of Disks – Cyclic awareness; Remember this is numerically 12; Her focus is on the dark creative power of rich earth. She carries the power of the animal as her crown. This is the capacity to manifest; to use move energy into matter.
13. Knight of Disks – Devotion; Remember this is numerically 13; The Knight’s helmet is the stag. He carries a sun shield and is stopped amid the fruited grasses. He is gazing of to the hills and further into the distance. He is astride his horse but at rest. This is the reward of devotion. The downside is that instead of being able to take pleasure in the fruited grasses (that comes from the peace made possible by his devotion to the Queen and the Land) he spends what down time he has gazing off into a space he does not inhabit.
14. Queen of Disks – Freedom; Remember this is numerically 14; The Queen is seated on a hill gazing over the fertile lands of her domain. The grasses arc over her to create a bower for her. She wears the horns of earthly power. This is a powerful woman. Stable because she knows when to move. Good with money, hard when she needs to be, fruitful when she can.

The Air Suit – Swords

1. The Ace of Swords – The Roots of the Power of Air; inspiration, insight, new knowledge and understanding; the sword is 2-edged. New understanding cuts away old ways as much as it adds new knowledge. One must get rid of old understanding for new understanding to take root.
2. 2 of Swords – Peace; Moon in Libra; desire for harmony in one’s dealing with people. A sharp intellect but the desire for peace may see the intellect hide itself for sake of calm. The swords cross through the heart of the lotus but without destroying the flower.
3. 3 of Swords – Sorrow; Saturn in Libra; The swords meet in the heart of the flower but this time the petals are separated. Saturn is about responsibility, structure, the limitations of law. Libra is about balance, justice, relationship. The two together can work extremely well but only if those closest to you are into fair play as much as you are. This card can mean the need to assess and separate from those who simply cannot get the notion of justice and equality.
4. 4 of Swords – Truce; Jupiter in Libra; Not as balanced as the Moon in Libra from the 2 of swords but this card allows for more play and more movement. The flower is almost as large as the swords here and there is no disruption of the flowers body. In any social grouping there are things we must accept we cannot do to maintain a social corpus. This card represents that knowledge and that acceptance – and implies what will happen if that law is broken.
5. 5 of Swords – Defeat; Venus in Aquarius; Another of the “lessons of the 5” Venus and Aquarius together make for a sparkling jewel of a person. This kind of alliance creates a demand for scintillation and fun but is essentially emotional detached. This kind of love is hard on someone who falls deeper than his or her Venus in Aquarius lover. The demand for brilliance and brightness will often make these relationships of short duration. Hence defeat. For all the common sense of Aquarius, the untouchedness makes lasting relationships nearly impossible. A choice is asked for here: needs or wants?
6. 6 of Swords – Science; Mercury in Aquarius; The communicator together with common sense: the swords meet in the center of the flower which is at the heart center of the cross. This is the body/mind thinking as one.
7. 7 of Swords – Futility; Moon in Aquarius; Emotions mixed with common sense breeds a sense of surety about the silliest things. The main sword is cracked: common sense works at the behest of what we want to be true and not for what is actually true.
8. 8 of Swords – Interference; Jupiter in Gemini; Expansive exploration in a quick witted mobile sign. This can bring trouble like air piled on air can bring a storm depending on the temperature variation between the two masses. You think too much is often what the interference is about. There is nothing to ground the thought to the practical.
9. 9 of Swords – Cruelty; Mars in Gemini; Mars is the war god, of course. Gemini is the intelligent, quick witted changeable mind. Put together this can be a hard person to cross. If it is you then you should probably reassess your judgments of others. Despite the old saw, words can hurt quite as much as the sword. But this is also the war in the mind of the owner. This is the sense of despair that comes when one realizes that thought alone can never make its promise true: mind alone cannot answer questions.
10. 10 of Swords – Ruin; Sun in Gemini; The swords break upon each other; the lower three meet over the exposed heart. Gemini is a mental sign and mutable. The sun places the power of will in that element. It strengthens an already strong trait in Gemini, so much so that the absolutely necessary heart is lost in the glare. This is the culmination of swords, swords everywhere but nowhere water to cool the metal. A good sword must be balanced.
11. Prince of Swords – Intellectual Idealism; The Prince is flying pulled by his thoughts. In a human being ruled by this kind of passion, the feelings are usually hidden, the mind is alive and always thinking, but it is rare that this will be shared. You cannot get in unless invited. However, if this is not grounded by some empathetic ideal, if for example the ideal that is being sought is human perfection (patently impossible) then the Prince can become sadistic. Think Machiavelli at his worst.
12. Princess of Swords – Cyclic Ideas Erupt; This card earths air. This is a warrior against false ideals. She watches for the mood swings of the people, the endemic ideas that come up over and over in human society, the big one being “surely someone is to blame for how bad things are.” The Princess battles those eruptions as they threaten the balance of her Land.
13. Knight of Swords – Devotion; The Knight is devoted to his Queen’s Idea for her Land. He is flying fast-forward, his 2 swords ready to pierce any enemies. He is attended by the 3 birds of spiritual insight. They fly on his left and so he is largely unconscious of them. His devotion and warrior nature take up his whole mind. He has no room for pity and gives no quarter for those who he believes do not fit in with the “plan.”
14. Queen of Swords – Freedom of Mind; Get in her way she will cut off your head. In other words, she has the power to think with all the minds active (i.e. the unconscious as well as conscious). She has the freedom to move between the minds to seek what is necessary for her rule. She can be dangerous because she has access to that which is most often hidden from others. She can see the lightning bolt coming long before her enemy so she can step out of the way and just let it take care of things for her. She is perhaps most dangerous because she accepts death as necessary and in that acceptance agrees to use her power to cause others’ ends. She is Nietzsche’s Master.

Note the four corners of the Wheel of Fortune card of the Rider-Waite Tarot. They are the angel, eagle, ox, lion. They are the four angelic beings in Ezekiel's vision. I enjoy the art work of other tarot decks, but it is for this reason I prefer the classical symbolism of the Rider-Waite deck.

Also, it was designed (not designed, but commissioned...you can read all about it in the link below) by Arthur Edward Waite, a very pedantic occultist who wrote about and connected the Medieval tarot, the Jewish Kabbalah, and the Golden Dawn system of magic. This deck is a sort of portal to Golden Dawn, which connects the writings of Israel Regardie, S.L. MacGregor Matthers, Dion Fortune, and even W.B. Yeats and yes, even Aleister Crowley. Beyond that, the Rider-Waite deck is consistent with Judeo-Christian mythology and theology. I'm stating this as a matter of history, not proselytizing, so that people who might be new to tarot can begin to see they are not just pretty pictures somebody dreamed up, but have some basis in older traditions.

By the way, the designs of this deck, strictly speaking, are in the public domain, the U.S. Games licensed edition notwithstanding.

note the letters in English read "T-A-R-O"
The Hebrew letters on the Wheel, beginning at the one o'clock position read: "Yod" "He" "Vau" He" (YHVH -> Yahweh)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...x-Major_10.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Major_10.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rider-Waite_tarot_deck

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Originally Posted by MaryLupin

Cornerstone Constellations

Bull (Taurus), the WaterBearer (Aquarius), Eagle (Scorpio), Lion (Leo). This (in part) has to do with the 4 faces of the cherubim in Ezekiel (Ezek. 1:10, 10:14, 20-22). See what I mean about how deep these myths go? In Ezekiel the bull is an ox; the eagle is the highest of 3 manifestations, the lowest being the scorpion.

One of the reasons they differ for me is that I live in Native North America and the animals that correspond to the energy sought after by the relationship between human society and the animals are represented here by different creatures. I have to say though that many of the Indian people I know put the buffalo in the north as well as the wolf. The sense of the bull is of power, tenacity, endurance and the potential of seed, rebirth, sexuality. This is carried in the wolf here with emphasis on power and carried in the buffalo with emphasis on the seed. The ox or bull carries quite a different set of connotations here and ones that aren’t what Crowley (or Ezekiel) imagined.

So here, even though eagles (well some of them) fish, a whistle made from its leg bone (a rather important spiritual tool here) is something that, through the agency of air, calls to the spirits of the place. There is also the sense that knowledge comes like a sun rise, like a yellow tide of warmth (or heat if it is unwelcome knowledge) that changes darkness into light and lifts you up through the clouds into the sun. Have you ever seen an eagle or crow flash white?

I am not arguing about what is right, by the way. Both symbol systems work for the respective people. What is wonderful is how similar they are as well as how intriguing are the apparent differences.

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The Fire Suit – Rods

1. The Ace of Wands – The Root of the Power of Fire; Will, eros, chi, power, spirit, kundalini, what ever you call it this is it, undefined and unfettered – and potentially dangerous as well as potentially wonderful. Sex is one of the most common expression of this “energy” but there are many others. Tantric training is about learning how to recognize this greater power as it is expressed in the body through the sexual nature of human beings. But it can be directed along other paths. A large part of various “magical” practices is taken up by learning how to channel this raw power. When it shows up in a reading it most often is talking about the potential for power that can be used in a different way. Not using power well causes horrible frustration and even illness or simple nausea. It’s like running too much electricity through a circuit: sooner or later its going to blow something up.
2. 2 of Wands – Dominion; Mars in Aries; A war god with the butt-headedness of a goat…Ok it can work but it soooooooo easily gets out of control. That is why the key word is dominion. When we have dominion over others that is often not so good for the other. Various words for that are slavery, totalitarianism, despotism, tyranny, etc. On the other hand dominion over self can work better. Self respect, self restraint, self acceptance, self control, not so bad. The problem comes when it is all about the fire and not about the other suits. 2 of wands people always need a balance in their life to keep them from tipping over into the tyrant strain that runs as a strong potential in this card.
3. 3 of Wands – Virtue; Sun in Aries; the staffs here have begun to blossom. This is the card of power in its natural vein. Living a life of virtue (as far as this philosophy goes) is not about living a life of abstinence, but rather living a life where ones’ life force is channeled through the life path best suited to its nature and circumstances. When that happens all kinds of other “blossomings” start to happen.
4. 4 of Wands – Completion; Venus in Aries; male and female aspects of self balance and here is where Aries can control himself and Venus can fully use her power without the fear of drowning the Other. They are matched power for power. The downside is that this couple can run right over their neighbors and not even notice the bump. The fear here is that the impulsive nature of this relationship combined with the resultant power surge will adversely effect others….and even the “gods” need others.
5. 5 of Wands – Strife; Saturn in Leo; Here you have 2 matched powers but their powers move in opposite directions. This is what causes the strife. Saturn is about rules and responsibility, slow hard decisions. Leo is about the golden ego, shining brightly, decisions made with self respect and role in mind. This card is the lesson of the 5 again. Again it is about learning to measure wants and needs and not always going with what feels good. Sometimes we have to go with what, to the slower, more calculating mind, is logically correct. The reason: sometimes feelings have us roar when we should remain silent and listen.
6. 6 of Wands – Victory; Jupiter in Leo; should the lesson of the 5 be learnt, the victory is the consequence. Suddenly what was a cold, hard decision feels like the Ghost of Christmas Present – the open armed Jupiter. And all it took was learning to think with a little more balance and to choose where that energy goes rather than let the feeling of desire (wants) make the decision for you.
7. 7 of Wands – Valour; Mars in Leo; Courage and the heart of the creative warrior. This is a lot of power. But this is also a lot of ego. I mean Mars the War God with Leo the King of the Universe! I mean melded together that’s one heck of a showman. Just be careful its not all an act.
8. 8 of Wands – Swiftness; Mercury in Sagittarius; Mercury is the communicator and Sagittarius is independent, free and the one who fires the first shot. This makes for a fast moving situation that is very likely to get at the heart of the matter but do it in a way that is probably not too conventional. The mind on fire; the will working through the mouth.
9. 9 of Wands – Strength; Sun and Moon in Sagittarius; When the sun and moon are together it means they are conjunct and that this is a dark moon time. The wise-woman rises from the deep: this is Hecate’s card. The moon is your emotions. The sun is your sense of purpose. They are together in this card, each power feeding the other. This situation is put in the house of Sagittarius which means that it is directed outward through exploration and enthusiasm but also inwards through understanding. This balance is the source of the strength.
10. 10 of Wands – Oppression; Saturn in Sagittarius; your energy is limited. You are restricted by things that are (at the moment anyway) beyond your control. Head in the direction you need to go but recognize that the progress will be slower than you like. You can lift a bit of the sense of oppression if you take time to see what is happening from Saturn’s point of view and not just champ at the bit to fly like Sagittarius’ arrow. This is the final completion of fire energy – the recognition that power no matter how great must be limited by the needs of the organism that carries it.
11. Prince of Wands – Allegiance to Power; This is the ability to be a leader, a showman, a shining extrovert and media hero. But it is also the ability to manipulate. Power is erotic but it must be channeled, used and not just for show. The Prince’s chariot is pulled by Leo and everyone knows who does most of the hunting in a lion pride – and it isn’t dad who brings home the bacon.
12. Princess of Wands – Cyclic; The Princess has the tiger by the tail (literally, that is what the picture shows.) This is an adventurous woman, one who will take you for a wild ride. But she also has an earthy streak which makes her fire-power (her intuition, will) of practical use. The earth element here also brings with it the knowledge that power, like anything in the earth, waxes and wanes. This is not avoidable and so it is silly to fight, rather one needs to learn to use the cyclic nature of fire to do what is needed.
13. Knight of Wands – Devotion; This is devotion to the will of his Queen and his essential nature. He carries a burning brand in his left hand and guides his mount (his will) in his right. This translates to the unconscious source of his power which makes his way and his conscious control of his decisions about where to point the power. This is a warrior’s warrior.
14. Queen of Wands – Freedom of Power; The Queen is regal with a sun-ray headdress, her right hand upon the sun-cat and in her left her Wand with its tree-seed tip. The icons point to the One who is the Source of power, or at least the one who is tapped in full-time to the source. The tree-seed (i.e. pine cone) is the heart of the tree of life. It is her symbol of power and her connection to the source. The fact that it is in her left hand means that her unconscious is the Source. Her right hand rests on the head of the sun-cat, a leopard. This indicates that her decisions are made with the world of fire under her conscious control. She is the master of Chi not because she can control it but because she knows how to surf it better than any other being in existence.

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Originally Posted by earthboar

Note the four corners of the Wheel of Fortune card of the Rider-Waite Tarot. They are the angel, eagle, ox, lion. They are the four angelic beings in Ezekiel's vision. I enjoy the art work of other tarot decks, but it is for this reason I prefer the classical symbolism of the Rider-Waite deck...Waite deck is consistent with Judeo-Christian mythology and theology. I'm stating this as a matter of history, not proselytizing, so that people who might be new to tarot can begin to see they are not just pretty pictures somebody dreamed up, but have some basis in older traditions.

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Absolutely. I know a lot of Christian people who use the Tarot to try and understand things that they perceive as signs from god. Funny thing is I have taught a lot of them how to do it and I am rather unChristian. This ability of symbols to hold more than one possible meaning is one reason why Tarot works as a western philosophical system...it was created by us and resonates with our symbols, regardless of what surface meaning we choose to give to them. It doesn't matter to their efficacy whether the user believes an angel of god is helping them understand or whether they believe it is a fairy, or for that matter whether they believe it is just "all in their head."

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Originally Posted by earthboar

note the letters in English read "T-A-R-O"
The Hebrew letters on the Wheel, beginning at the one o'clock position read: "Yod" "He" "Vau" He" (YHVH -> Yahweh)

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Cool observation. Basic things that we observe as humans in a cultural tradition tend to get repeated in new versions of that tradition. So Oestra's Moon is Easter and the Wheel of Jupiter is YHVH's divining system.

The Water Suit – Cups

1. The Ace of Cups – The Root of the Power of Water; This is the grail and the cauldron of Cerridwen. It is the source of life in both symbols. The stem of the cup rises through the heart of a lotus flower and from the heart of the cup rises a spout of water reaching up and outside the boundaries of the card. This is the power of feeling without goal, without an object for its affection. Just the source of feeling unconstrained.
2. 2 of Cups – Love; Venus in Cancer; The water is coming from the heart of the lotus and cascading over two golden fish and into 2 cups. In the mundane world of the human being this is love. Love directed by the desires of another. At a less corporeal lever this is agape or the love we have for the Beloved, whether the Beloved is a divine or a tree. The problem with this card is that when the other leaves it feels as if you are dying. This can make the 2 of cups a bit neurotic and not self-fulfilled but fulfilled by the other.
3. 3 of Cups – Abundance; Mercury in Cancer; This is the card of the empath. With Mercury in the house of the great mother, the nurturer and the sensitive soul, it is also strongly associated with the poet and other artist. As long as the cycle of self-sustaining flow is maintained, the source nourishes the roots and the roots grow more flowers, which produce the water which is the source. Break the cycle and one also breaks the abundance. Communication, writing time, etc are not a luxury here. It is essential. Without self-expression the whole system dries up and dies.
4. 4 of Cups – Luxury; Moon in Cancer; similar to 3 this (because it is the number 4) has more stability and is less likely to be jiggled out of tune. This card is one not of earthly luxury (that’s a disks concern) but of emotional luxury. It is a person with good friends who support and agree to be supported in return. It is the capacity to speak one’s heart and mind and have it received with both understanding and tolerance.
5. 5 of Cups – Dissapointment; Mars in Scorpio; The War Lord is back and now he is in the Scorpion King’s domain. When this combo comes into the emotions the battle is for a sense of personal security and fulfillment. Mars and Scorpio are both tenacious, but where one fights in obvious ways the scorpion tends to sting from behind. This is the source of the disappointment for the one involved with a person like this. The disappointment for the one carrying this load of fighting energy comes from the fact that others cannot provide the security sought.
6. 6 of Cups – Pleasure; Sun in Scorpio; This is one who needs to live as a hedonist. Feelings are the power house in this person or situation and the sense of self is tied up with how s/he feels, not with goals, thoughts, or desires but with the feelings rocketing through his/her body. Since this the 6, the pleasure is best shared with others (and usually more than one other).
7. 7 of Cups – Debauch; Venus in Scorpio; Both Venus and Scorpio are venerable powers but they need a little leavening. Together they get into the self-absorbed mode and cannot usually get out of it alone. This leads to emotional excess and sometimes physical debauchery.
8. 8 of Cups – Indolence; Saturn in Pisces; This is the addictive personality. The slow processes of Saturn have no purchase in Pisces and so they spin slowly down to the sea’s bottom. This is a card that calls for situations that force emotional learning, force the bearer to accept and cherish the real existence of the Other, in fact force the bearer to understand the fact that the Other is as real as the Self. This can be amazingly difficult for someone in the grips of emotional laziness.
9. 9 of Cups – Happiness; Jupiter in Pisces; One thing Jupiter can really do is party with the Other. In Pisces this becomes a love affair with the World (or with God if you prefer). The result is the perfect moment of happiness…not too much and not too little.
10. 10 of Cups – Satiety; Mars in Pisces; the image on this card is the full flowing tree of life, the kabbalistic tree, or the route map to the god within and the god without. This is the card of being completely surrounded by feeling – by love and acceptance. It is the card of the mystical moment of overwhelm, just past the ecstasy. This is the moment before all the lights get blown out in the mind. The danger with this is you now think there is nothing left to know or do. Remember this is a feeling card. It does not represent the whole universe, only one part of it. It is easy to forget that with emotions because they are so powerful in human beings, far more powerful than our minds or our will. In despair, for example, it is easy to believe that it will never go away; easy to get caught in the trap of believing it is the whole universe. It isn’t. This is the lesson of this card.
11. Prince of Cups – Emotional Idealism; This is the questor. This is the Prince who does all in search of the experience of eternity. This is the Grail Knight. This is the mystic in search of the Truth. Beware one who thinks he has found It.
12. Princess of Cups – Cyclic; This is the dreamer. She is the one who seeks understanding through the body of dreams. The animals and plants in the card represent aspects of what she has learnt and can learn about the nature and source of our capacity to feel. She is also the rider of tides, a wave swimmer, a killer whale in human dress. There is a swan over her head. This brings several images to mind. One is the lesson Leda learnt about taking the gods inside oneself and the other is the significance of AUM (meditation and chanting) with respect to eastern symbolism and its understanding of the swan. In other words, a little self discipline and practical application makes this seeker a useful companion.
13. Knight of Cups – Devotion; The Knight has the Great Mother alive and shining in the Grail/Cauldron. He holds it in his right hand and guides his mount with his left. He is winged and the peacock displays his tail. This is a warrior of the heart and one whose job it is, is to carry the Mother (source of life) with him on his journey.
14. Queen of Cups – Freedom of Feeling; The Queen has largely become water and so is barely visible to us. She holds a cup with a crawfish emerging from it in her left hand and a lotus blossom in her left. The crawfish represents fears and the unknown coming up from the depths and the lotus represents the peace and serenity that this can bring when balanced (the stork walking on the surface of the water.) It is always better to know your shadows no matter how difficult it may be.

Very interesting form of mysticism, it seems to me.
However, its all new to me.

I am reading up on the history links, from the Toth site link.
Thanks.

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Originally Posted by A MM

Very interesting form of mysticism, it seems to me.
However, its all new to me.

I am reading up on the history links, from the Toth site link.
Thanks.

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Hey no problem.

You are exactly the reason why I started this thread and why EarthBoar and I have kept it going. Have fun discovering cool new stuff and if you have any questions just ask.

NOTE TO READERS

After tonight I am gone for the better part of a week (at least). See you when I get back.