Throwing it all away

[Merrick]

In the last few months I have delved very deeply into the tarot waters. While my initial mission was to not have assigned meanings to each card, I ended up doing the opposite, accruing so many meanings to each card that I could pick and choose at will based on the question and the context of the other cards in the spread. I’ve now come to the point where I feel like I’m ready to dump all of that and get back to the idea of the cards having no fixed meanings whatsoever.

Part of what led me to this was thinking back on the origins of tarot. This all started as a game. By really focusing in on that, I’ve started to cleanse my mind of the idea that the tarot was created as this great esoteric work of occult knowledge. Yes, it’s certainly very attractive to read it that way (especially the majors), but if you remove the esoteric meanings from the cards, the seemingly natural narrative of the journey from Le Bataleur to Le Monde (or The Fool to the World if you’re RWS-inspired) becomes less natural and obvious. If La Papesse doesn’t automatically mean the hidden knowledge of the unconscious, then her placement as card II doesn’t necessarily have as much weight as it does when people think of The High Priestess as the feminine counterpart to The Magician.

Instead I’m trying to think about them from a game play perspective. Why would La Papesse trump or triumph over Le Bataleur? Well maybe because she’s a symbol of religious authority and Le Bataleur dealt with games of chance which were looked down on by the Church. But Le Papesse, being the representative of the local church, is subject to the edicts of the state, who are then subject to the authority of the Vatican, etc. This likely isn’t why the major arcana are in that order, but that’s my point—we don’t know for sure why the arcana appear in the order they do and to suggest it must be the journey of a soul through these particular stages and therefore a card must mean this or that is to artificially limit the cards.

I’m not saying the cards were created haphazardly or without thought or intention. They surely were. But the fact is that trying to overlay an esoteric set of meanings onto a game of chance and saying it was meant to be this way, centuries after the fact and without corroborating evidence, would be like people in 3000 AD declaring that Monopoly is the journey of the soul and the thimble must represent the state one finds oneself in at stage X in that journey and so on. We, living in the time Monopoly was created, know that’s not the case, but give it a few hundred years and for the tides of history to wipe away important evidence and we could easily see a similar situation.

I am sure I will have readings where the traditional/accepted meanings make the most sense for the question and the spread. But my goal is to not rely on those, not take them for granted, not make them the starting point of my process.

To that end, I’m realizing that aside from a few select post-Etteilla decks I personally resonate with, the majority of my interest in the tarot lies in historical decks. Once people began piling on layer after layer of esoteric association to each card, I begin to disengage. It feels ahistorical to me and while it has lead to many meaningful readings for many people, it feels inhibiting to me. I prefer the open ended imagery of historical decks, the variety of interpretations applied to the triumphs and the blank slate nature of the non-scenic pips.

To me this is different than purely intuitive or image based reading. To me that style divorces the tarot from the time and place it was created. What I want to do is try and infuse the tarot with that historical context while still viewing it as vital for the modern day. It’s a shame I don’t speak or read French or Italian outside of a few scattered words and phrases, I’m sure I’m missing out on a lot as a result.

Does anyone else feel similarly about the tarot and their process? Or am I out on a limb here?

[Nemia]

I think scepticism is always a good thing, and turning anything into a dogma makes me suspicious.

Looking at the trumps, historically, we see allegories and emblems. These images of virtues, authority figures etc were well-known to Renaissance Europeans, and they conveyed more than just a value in a game of cards. Otherwise, it would have been enough just to put numbers on the cards. There is an opening already in these images to assign meaning to them.

I remember playing as a child with my grandmother's old playing cards - she had wonderful old decks. I played that the kings were visiting each other, the queens were friends or frenemies, and they had countries. I was sad that there were jacks but no girls. We react to images of all kinds.

From what I see, it's easy to see archetypes also known from fairy tales and folk tales - some of them specific to Western societies, others universal, and it's also quite easy to connect them to life events, i.e., use them for divination.

Much more difficult is the question of the meanings for the minors. It's here where esoteric teachings have really played a role. Okay, you can assign meanings to the suits (elements, temperaments, seasons, you name it), and there is Numerology - even what I would call intuitive Numerology, without a framework. You see two, you see a couple. You see three, you see rivalry or a family. You see four, you see stability.

So four diamonds or four coins - intuitively you see something stable, immovable, the power of the Four with the power of Earth.

You can also look at the images themselves, the way Yoav did, and let them inspire you. Instead of a crystal ball, you scry with the cards.

But in order to find more meanings for the minors, esoteric visionaries (or busybodies....) started to associate them with astrology (not a perfect fit, had to leave away the Aces and find other places for them and the Pages) and kabbalah (easier fit for the minors, good fit for the majors, but strange interaction with the astrology system).

Then came the RWS with its esoteric-inspired but trivial-looking theatrical scenes. On the one hand a stroke of genius - give people something to work with but don't tell them that this is Chessed in Atziluth, Venus in Aries - meaning that Chessed's Jupiter, Venus and Aries' Mars have a strange meeting - just tell them that there's a party outside the city.

And then people came and codified these images that hid more than they revealed, and started interpreting every tiny detail (which is okay because that's the scrying idea again), and today, we have generations of tarotists who know only RWS. And they write books and teach and talk on Youtube, and they're great and charismatic, but their world begins and ends with RWS, and that's how they interpret everything.

I can't tell you how sick I am of reading again and again: start with RWS, all the books are about RWS, RWS is best etc. If you raise beginners on nothing but RWS, you get in the end dogmatics who don't understand that 1. RWS is just ONE tradition among many and 2. that RWS is a modern and in many ways anti-traditional tradition.

I think if I read more time that "this Visconti guy is really weird and tinkering with tradition! just look at Strength and Judgment!!", I'll cry bloody tears

No of course I don't, and there is no tarot police, and I have learned to value and even love RWS, too, after years of only-Thoth, and the RWS system is indeed helpful. But it's not the only way to read cards. And I'll always be a Thothie at heart

Maybe, dear Merrick, and apologies for taking so long to come to this point, you have reached the point where you can leave all other systems behind you and create your own. Others have done it, and why shouldn't you? Many creative tarotists have re-invented the court cards, the minors, the astrological associations... and you don't have to create a deck of your own in order to do so.

I tend to go with the deck I'm reading because I feel, if I fall in with the ideas of the creator, I have the best chance of understanding the deck. If you read pre-esoteric decks, you don't need esoteric systems.

If you want to understand the allegorical mindset, maybe you'd like to read a bit about Cesare Ripa and his iconography, about virtues and vices in Renaissance Italy and the Netherlands, about the Hypneratomachia Poliphilii etc? There are so many emblems in Renaissance, Mannerist and Baroque art. I remember that Edgar Wind's book about Botticelli's Primavera was great, didn't read it since the Nineties but it gave me a lot then, to see how the Renaissance brain worked. then you can also better grasp the sequence of triumphs under the Este at Ferrara. I like the historical side of things although in the end, I interpret the cards often in a mixed style.

Brian Williams and Robert Place both wrote interesting books about the Renaissance background.

Sorry for this longish post, much of what you wrote resonates with me.

Oh, and La Papesse - is a heretic idea. By putting a papesse next to the pope, you undermine the pope. You put him on one level with the emperor (who has a an empress at his side). Or with a pagan high priest and priestess. She can't ever be the representative of a local church. the fact that she's called papesse and not a nun or prioress or mother superior shows that we talk about cards which use Christian iconography but don't follow Catholic doctrine.

[BlueStar]

I think scepticism is always a good thing, and turning anything into a dogma makes me suspicious.

I can't tell you how sick I am of reading again and again: start with RWS, all the books are about RWS, RWS is best etc. If you raise beginners on nothing but RWS, you get in the end dogmatics who don't understand that 1. RWS is just ONE tradition among many and 2. that RWS is a modern and in many ways anti-traditional tradition.

... and there is no tarot police...

...you have reached the point where you can leave all other systems behind you and create your own. Others have done it, and why shouldn't you? Many creative tarotists have re-invented the court cards, the minors, the astrological associations... and you don't have to create a deck of your own in order to do so.

I agree with much of this.

I think there can be value in some of the traditions. Some of the archetypes may resonate with us, and provide ways of expressing energies in a way we can understand. But of course this may not be the case for everyone.

As Nemia points out there is no tarot police (nor ever should be!). I personally think it is perfectly okay for someone to deviate from any tradition. I feel that it is important to go with what one works best for them for readings. If that means throwing out the 'traditional' meanings, or doing something different then yes, if it works for you do it. You are working with your own mind, so if someone else's 'tradition' gives a feeling of inhibition then it's probably not the right thing for you.

I would add one caveat to that though - to be mindful of ensuring that any deck one creates for oneself, or where the 'traditional' meanings have been deviated from, still continues to include a range of 'light and dark' meanings, challenging cards as well as positive ones, as this reflects life. Life never consists of pure success, joy, hopefulness, easy times, so I think a deck shouldn't either, in order to be able to convey all types of situations, positive or negative. Of course not everyone would agree, some do not like to include 'negative' cards. But it's just my opinion.

Bottom line for me is, if it's not working adjust it so that it does, or find a new way/tradition/method etc. etc. Tarot should not, in my opinion, be rigid, so explore alternate ways of interpreting, reading etc. Over time I think it is natural for things to change in our process as we learn more and grow.

[Merrick]

Sorry for this longish post, much of what you wrote resonates with me.

I regret that I have but one thank you button to click for this post!

I think you’ve hit the idea I was trying to convey right on the head. I want to use the imagery as it would have appeared to people of the period, keeping in mind that these were devised as games first, not divination tools or fortune telling devices. And then I went to build on it from there.

I think you are right that I am on my way to building my own system. I’m getting a very strong “When you see the Buddha on the road, kill him” feeling from this process, and the historical decks allow me that leeway because so much less is known about them, but they’re not so wholly antiquated as to be outdated and useless.

And I do agree La Papesse is heretical, and I love her so much for it (more so than The High Priestess which I consider to be an entirely different card). I was just giving an example of the way in which I am playing with the cards and the conceptions of the cards, not that I was tied to that particular progression or meaning. It’s the freedom to explore that I’m enjoying.

And I do enjoy RWS. It’s not as fully expressive for me as TdM but I’m proficient with it and own a copy of it. Thoth I admire as an achievement of artistic and occult expression but despite owning a deck I never read with it.

[Merrick]

I think scepticism is always a good thing, and turning anything into a dogma makes me suspicious.

I can't tell you how sick I am of reading again and again: start with RWS, all the books are about RWS, RWS is best etc. If you raise beginners on nothing but RWS, you get in the end dogmatics who don't understand that 1. RWS is just ONE tradition among many and 2. that RWS is a modern and in many ways anti-traditional tradition.

... and there is no tarot police...

...you have reached the point where you can leave all other systems behind you and create your own. Others have done it, and why shouldn't you? Many creative tarotists have re-invented the court cards, the minors, the astrological associations... and you don't have to create a deck of your own in order to do so.

I agree with much of this.

I think there can be value in some of the traditions. Some of the archetypes may resonate with us, and provide ways of expressing energies in a way we can understand. But of course this may not be the case for everyone.

As Nemia points out there is no tarot police (nor ever should be!). I personally think it is perfectly okay for someone to deviate from any tradition. I feel that it is important to go with what one works best for them for readings. If that means throwing out the 'traditional' meanings, or doing something different then yes, if it works for you do it. You are working with your own mind, so if someone else's 'tradition' gives a feeling of inhibition then it's probably not the right thing for you.

I would add one caveat to that though - to be mindful of ensuring that any deck one creates for oneself, or where the 'traditional' meanings have been deviated from, still continues to include a range of 'light and dark' meanings, challenging cards as well as positive ones, as this reflects life. Life never consists of pure success, joy, hopefulness, easy times, so I think a deck shouldn't either, in order to be able to convey all types of situations, positive or negative. Of course not everyone would agree, some do not like to include 'negative' cards. But it's just my opinion.

Bottom line for me is, if it's not working adjust it so that it does, or find a new way/tradition/method etc. etc. Tarot should not, in my opinion, be rigid, so explore alternate ways of interpreting, reading etc. Over time I think it is natural for things to change in our process as we learn more and grow.

Thank you for the thoughts! I completely agree that the tarot must include the light and the dark and the spaces in between...sometimes all within a single card. I’m actually drawn more to the dark so I have to remind myself to balance with the appropriate amount of light.

[Pen]

Merrick, I read your post yesterday and it reminded me of some extensive notes I made in my early tarot research. So I found the files and - goodness - all that poring through books of early woodcuts, emblems, oneirocritica, calendar books etc.etc.... The historical timelines, my imaginary reconstruction of the concept and creation of the first trump deck... I enjoyed the hunt at the time and came to my own conclusions, which, needless to say, are not set in stone, as I love that elusive and ambiguous quality that always leaves room for 'perhaps'. And if a few much older cards than the oldest known came to light we'd be none the wiser as to whether they were the original set with added triumphs or not - what's needed is a document of instruction to an artist or artisan stating that the writer had just had this entirely new idea for adding 22 extra cards to a deck of playing cards naming the archetypes to be depicted in order to create a game called Trionfi or similar. I don't think this is going to happen, so the mystery remains.

I have Gertrude Moakley's book The Tarot Painted by Bembo, but have always felt that as the hand-painted cards are very personal commissions for rich patrons depicting events meaningful to the family concerned they are therefore somewhat separate from the printed decks.

Your Monopoly analogy made me laugh - so true - and who's to say it won't happen one day in the distant future when/if the Internet crashes and all that info. has disappeared?!

So many layers have been placed on/attributed to the tarot, which has accepted them all with little or no complaint, but IMO an it harm none... is a good enough answer to most questions.

[Merrick]

Merrick, I read your post yesterday and it reminded me of some extensive notes I made in my early tarot research. So I found the files and - goodness - all that poring through books of early woodcuts, emblems, oneirocritica, calendar books etc.etc.... The historical timelines, my imaginary reconstruction of the concept and creation of the first trump deck... I enjoyed the hunt at the time and came to my own conclusions, which, needless to say, are not set in stone, as I love that elusive and ambiguous quality that always leaves room for 'perhaps'. And if a few much older cards than the oldest known came to light we'd be none the wiser as to whether they were the original set with added triumphs or not - what's needed is a document of instruction to an artist or artisan stating that the writer had just had this entirely new idea for adding 22 extra cards to a deck of playing cards naming the archetypes to be depicted in order to create a game called Trionfi or similar. I don't think this is going to happen, so the mystery remains.

I have Gertrude Moakley's book The Tarot Painted by Bembo, but have always felt that as the hand-painted cards are very personal commissions for rich patrons depicting events meaningful to the family concerned they are therefore somewhat separate from the printed decks.

Your Monopoly analogy made me laugh - so true - and who's to say it won't happen one day in the distant future when/if the Internet crashes and all that info. has disappeared?!

So many layers have been placed on/attributed to the tarot, which has accepted them all with little or no complaint, but IMO an it harm none... is a good enough answer to most questions.

The history is so rich! The images themselves just conjure a bygone age where the very foundations of the world itself seem so different and yet strangely familiar. I was just looking at the Budapest Tarot and thinking on how those cards differ so greatly from the TdM template in the details, and yet there’s a commonality that runs through both. It’s really extraordinary.

I love your last comment, so many layers have been placed on the tarot and it has accepted them all with little or no complaint...it’s really a triumph (pun intended) that this set of playing cards should be able to hold so much weight without breaking a sweat, and still give good readings in so many different configurations. I’m hard pressed to think of an analog for it, something so endlessly and effortlessly adaptable that it can feel vital in 1420 and 2020, and that even the versions that came from centuries ago can still feel so alive today.