Pen wrote: ↑28 Mar 2020, 14:41
It it a feeling, Diana, or can you shed some light on your view of the mystery of the journey? As someone who has always accepted Thirteen's analysis (over at Aeclectic), I'm curious...
Thank you Pen for your input. I always had a great respect for Thirteen and her writings.
Now, you've opened a big big question here haven't you? First of all, one has to start out from the premise that there is a journey in the TdM. There are some who refuse completely the idea that there is a journey at all. That there's no particular sequence to the cards and that the numbers have nothing occult but were just plonked on it so as to be able to play the card game. These are people mostly who don't think there is anything esoteric or occult in the Tarot. Occult in the sense of the etymology, which comes from the Latin "conceal, hidden, secret". Not in the sense of the modern usage which is "mystical, supernatural, or magical powers, practices, or phenomen.".
But I am of the school which believes that the Major Arcana of the Tarot are a journey: an initiatory journey. And a journey to enlightenment, whatever meaning one wishes to give to that term. Particularly as the Major Arcana finish with Judgement (resurrection) and the World. And also because when analysing and studying the cards, it makes wonderful sense that it's Le Bateleur who takes it.
There are many things to speak of here, but to start with I'd like to get it sorted out what a Bateleur is. It's a French word with no equivalent in English and that's why it's so hard to translate and so even in English we just stick to Le Bateleur. Usually. But even if it is translated as The Magician for practical reasons, it's got a different slant to it than the RWS magician.
To start with, because I need to get my thoughts in order and I've just woken from an 5 hours siesta
so I'm feeling a big fuzzy to go into deeper stuff, one would need to know what a Bateleur is. Le Bateleur is NOT a Magician in the RWS sense. Perhaps also the Thoth but I know so little about the Thoth that I would not dare to speak of it.
If he were a Magician, he would have been called "Le Magicien" or "Le Sorcier". There are perfectly good words in French for a Magician.
So I'm just going here to explain what a Bateleur was in the Middle Ages in case some people have this information missing. Even the French don't really know what a Bateleur is, because the profession has completely disappeared. There were still some traces of it in the fifteenth and sixteen centuries but then they were no more. My research into the word Bateleur leads me to believe that this word was first used in about the thirteenth century.
Now, in the Middle Ages, the bateleur was a kind of entertainer/mountebank with no well-defined character. In the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, these entertainers were very popular, even honoured, either in the public square or in the castles. As a generic name, these public entertainers were called jugglers. They were
nomads, and sometimes accompanied the trouvères (a trouvère was a medieval epic poet) or the troubadours, sometimes they travelled alone.
Kris Hadar reminds us that "
the Bateleur was originally a Juggler and in the 12th century, to be a juggler was a respected profession : it had to do with speaking, voicing … nothing to do with the jugglers of the Roman times, or the jugglers found in 13th Century fairs. Read the book Nouvelles Occitanes du Moyen Age (Collection GF Flammarion), and you will understand that the juggler is the spokesman of the Troubador, but also the spokesman of Knowledge." (translation from an email Kris Hadar sent me once).
The Bateleur always travelled as in my explanation above. He was a nomad. A bit like a fairground traveller today.
That is my first observation. And I'll leave it here for the moment so as to not address too many different issues in one post.
I think it's very very important to realise that Le Bateleur is not a Magician.... although of course, he does perform magic in a way. We would need to define what magic is before we get into that !
Next we'll probably have to discuss what a Fool is. In French, the card is sometimes called Le Fou or Le Fol, but it is more common for it to be referred to as "Le Mat" the etymology of which is highly mysterious. Once we've figured out what Le Mat is, we could maybe then figure out who is doing the Journey. In my head, I always call it "Le Mat" but on English Tarot forums and discussions in English, I go along with The Fool as it's also called sometimes Le Fou in French so I can accept that. And it's easier for people to understand. Again, if you ask a French person today what a "Mat" is they'll tell you that the word doesn't exist and that you're making things up. It's a very very old word and no-one has ever come to a definitive conclusion as to its etymology or sense. But I have of course done my own research and have reached certain conclusions of my own.
so I'm feeling a big fuzzy to go into deeper stuff, one would need to know what a Bateleur is. Le Bateleur is NOT a Magician in the RWS sense. Perhaps also the Thoth but I know so little about the Thoth that I would not dare to speak of it. 