Esoteric or ordinary interpretations

[Diana]

Is this an esoteric tool or a simple in-plain-view tool? I have heard some say, especially in the tradition of the Marseilles, that the image is the secret. I agree with this statement. I have heard some say that the tarot is an ancient Egyptian book which I think is hogwash although I sure loved this romanticized version when I was younger.

To add to this important and worthwhile topic, I found a quote from the Meditations on the Tarot which is relevant to your mention of Egypt :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditations_on_the_Tarot

and more info on the supposed author :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentin_Tomberg

The authors who saw in the Tarot the "Sacred Book of Thoth" (Thoth = Hermes Trismegistus) were both right and wrong at the same time. They were right in so far as they traced back the history of the essence of the Tarot to antiquity, notably to ancient Egypt. And they were wrong in so far as they believed that the Tarot had been inherited from ancient Egypt, i.e. that it had been transmitted from generation to generation subject to minor iconographic changes.

The Tarot comes from a long long line of esoteric and mystery teachings, as well as influenced by different philosophies, mostly Greek I would assume. It is so rich. But indeed as you say, to call it an ancient Egyptian book is just plain silly. But I reckon less and less people are saying that these days as it's been clearly debunked at least a million times.

Ancient Egyptian schools taught their secret wisdom or "sacred science" as I heard it spoken of once by using symbolism and mythology. These Egyptian schools had a huge influence on Western civilization as far as I have gleaned from the wee bit I've studied about this.

I remember once with a friend we were doing research on some symbolism (I think it had to do with Le Diable XV) and we ended up somehow in Babylonia with almost an exact replica of what we had been looking for ! We were quite surprised to end up there actually, because it wasn't where we thought we would land up. We were chuffed !!

[katrinka]

I would enjoy some healthy discourse regarding our opinions of the nature of tarot. Is this an esoteric tool or a simple in-plain-view tool?

There are esoteric Tarots, non-esoteric Tarots, and a spectrum in between. A lot of the popular Tarots are RWS-based. RWS, in turn, is a Golden Dawn inspired Tarot with blinds built into it. So while, say, the Bohemian Gothic isn't esoteric, it has roots in an esoteric system.

I have heard some say, especially in the tradition of the Marseilles, that the image is the secret.

While the TdM images have a lot you can work with, I don't think they're the whole show. A lot of us use number and suit for the Minors. The little flowers, the configuration of the Coins, etc. are mnemonic devices for many, rather than inspiration in and of themselves.

I am new (though thoroughly obsessed) to the Marseilles and much of what I have read says that there is nothing esoteric in the Marseilles. I agree that it started as a game. I have also read that it goes against the tradition to read anything deeply spiritual into the cards...that they were designed for games and later used for simple cartomancy and fortune telling. I like open knowledge and I feel like most keepers of secret sacred knowledge use that so-called secret stuff to nurse egos.

Now that you mention that, I can't think of any humble occult Tarot guys. I'm sure people will jump in and correct me, but the big ones - Waite, Crowley, etc. - had huge egos.

"Grand Orient", anyone?

I feel like one of the most wonderful ways we can use the tarot is to locate ourselves in our inner landscape. Sure cartomancy and fortunetelling are great fun but getting an invite to enjoy the adventure of now is profound. I enjoy the tarot as a tool for psychological change and spiritual empowerment and I feel that the everyday stuff is (potentially) extremely spiritual; caring for kids, going to work...chopping wood and carrying water.

*waves at Dr. Alpert/Ram Dass*

I tend to keep it at "chopping wood and carrying water", i.e., cartomancy, rather than trying to spin it into anything deep or profound.

[Joan Marie]

I feel like one of the most wonderful ways we can use the tarot is to locate ourselves in our inner landscape. Sure cartomancy and fortunetelling are great fun but getting an invite to enjoy the adventure of now is profound. I enjoy the tarot as a tool for psychological change and spiritual empowerment and I feel that the everyday stuff is (potentially) extremely spiritual; caring for kids, going to work...chopping wood and carrying water.

I think it's no surprise that early scientific study of occult/esoteric practices led to the development of the field of psychology. Freud and Jung are well known to have studied occult practices in depth but there were many others,. They saw the way people used these practices mainly for self-development and this was profoundly interesting in the study of the mind.

So, I think it is quite natural to be drawn to the transcendent qualities of Tarot reading. In fact, to me, of all the occult practices it seems the most perfect for that. But then again, tarot incorporates so many correspondences with Kabbalah, Alchemy, allegory, numerology, etc. etc. that it all combines for pretty good ride!

[qndynes]

Out of all the speculation within the tarot world about wether it is esoteric or not, its true origins, etc., the most salient for me has been the tarot originating as a game. When I think of tarot, or rather a pack of cards originating as a game brings to mind all sorts of constellations of meaning regarding the human impulse for that which is ludic. The human tendency for games and play and how meaning is derived from that. I've never seen this topic fully explored and I've dreamt of going down this rabbit hole exploration myself but haven't gotten around to starting. I think games and cards are tied to the art of poetry and word games, and this puts me in mind of art, actual painting, and the impulse behind the caves of Lascaux for example. And our myths and stories of the starts, the cults and stories of our ancestors by the campfire. There is something transcendental about having the time to play and doing so. Moreover, this makes the banning of betting games and the cards by the rulers and the church more than clear. What occurs when we have free time, when we are not colonized (I know, problematic word, can't think of a better one) by this or that, by being one way doing this thing, occupied by things outside ourselves, but instead having time for the ludic activity, for engaging with our self and our experience of the world? All these thoughts I find really enticing.

Anyway, I really think tarot and fortune-telling go hand in hand, neither are extricable from the other.

[katrinka]

As far as I am concerned, the word "colonized" doesn't get said enough. There is food for thought there. I won't go any further into it because it gets very racial and I don't want to stress Joan Marie, but this world is badly in need of decolonizing. If anyone wants to agree, or alternately, have a knockdown-dragout, I'm here https://www.facebook.com/stella.waldvogel

And yes, it's a game. So was Lenormand, once, albeit the pictures line up with Alemannic playing card reading (hence, Clubs are the trouble suit, not spades). Numbers, in themselves, mean things - or rather, we humans have collectively ascribed things to numbers. Suits mean things, too. The German suit for Clubs is Acorns. Nobody bothers with acorns unless they're in grinding poverty. This is why it's important not to assign RWS suits to Lenormand!

I don't find it difficult to imagine people reading Tarot from the very beginning: wifey goes to clean up after hubby's game, or the barmaid goes to clean the tables, and cuts a card wondering about what's weighing on her. Occult Tarot traditions are a relatively recent development, IMHO, but those work, too. Because everything can be broken down to numbers, with different inflections and contexts...

[Diana]

. Cartomancy, spirituality, divination etc. is so very personal, as the reading or insight that you do comes through you, and will depend on your own symbolism, perspectives, understandings (which may be based on some tradition or not)

This reminds of an old gypsy woman I knew once. She did quite a few Tarot readings for me. She decided I was the person she wanted to pass on her skills and knowledge. But she had such a strange way of reading and interpreting the cards (TdM) that I found it really hard to follow her train of thought. She died before I could figure out what she was trying to teach me. But her readings were so spot on that it was spooky. She predicted things in the far future (I'm talking 20 years) that came true, such unusual things that there was no way she could just guess. I still wonder how she did it.

She told me once that anyone who's in a plane with me is lucky, as I cannot have a plane accident. (But I still don't like flying!!!).

[qndynes]

As far as I am concerned, the word "colonized" doesn't get said enough. There is food for thought there. I won't go any further into it because it gets very racial and I don't want to stress Joan Marie, but this world is badly in need of decolonizing. If anyone wants to agree, or alternately, have a knockdown-dragout, I'm here https://www.facebook.com/stella.waldvogel

Yes, as a colonized person in a colonized island, and a colonized culture, I wholly agree. But, I also don't want to ruffle too many feathers.. We need to start talking de-colonization and approaches to de-colonize.

[qndynes]

. Cartomancy, spirituality, divination etc. is so very personal, as the reading or insight that you do comes through you, and will depend on your own symbolism, perspectives, understandings (which may be based on some tradition or not)

This reminds of an old gypsy woman I knew once. She did quite a few Tarot readings for me. She decided I was the person she wanted to pass on her skills and knowledge. But she had such a strange way of reading and interpreting the cards (TdM) that I found it really hard to follow her train of thought. She died before I could figure out what she was trying to teach me. But her readings were so spot on that it was spooky. She predicted things in the far future (I'm talking 20 years) that came true, such unusual things that there was no way she could just guess. I still wonder how she did it.

She told me once that anyone who's in a plane with me is lucky, as I cannot have a plane accident. (But I still don't like flying!!!).

Oh that is very cool and interesting. I come from a spiritist background, specifically within Caribbean folk traditions and card reading is very very very different within this perspective. There's a bigger emphasis on spirits and the messages they bring. So there's the cards, but the spirits and their message comes first, the cards second. Card reading leans more on the cartomancy side but sometimes they do bring their own esoteric and magical interpretations.

[katrinka]

That's fascinating. It reminds me a little bit of Brazilian Lenomand (a long way from the Caribbean, but there's a diaspora at play here.) In Brazil (and scattered around the US and other places), the cards are used in Quimbanda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quimbanda and corresponded to Orishas and Exu spirits. Normally Lenormand doesn't have correspondences, and shouldn't be force-fitted to them, but it seems to work in this case.

There is even a spirit, Pomba Gira Cigana Cartomante ("Spinning Dove Gypsy Card Reader") who will whisper the meanings in peoples' ears. But only if it's confirmed that she's their spirit. She, and the others, shouldn't be used by outsiders. It's wrong to approach her in a new age kind of way: "Oh, that's so cool! I'm going to work with her!" PLEASE, no one do that! It's an initiatory thing, one should take the religion and be initiated into it, and it needs to be confirmed that she's your spirit.

[qndynes]

That's fascinating. It reminds me a little bit of Brazilian Lenomand (a long way from the Caribbean, but there's a diaspora at play here.) In Brazil (and scattered around the US and other places), the cards are used in Quimbanda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quimbanda and corresponded to Orishas and Exu spirits. Normally Lenormand doesn't have correspondences, and shouldn't be force-fitted to them, but it seems to work in this case.

There is even a spirit, Pomba Gira Cigana Cartomante ("Spinning Dove Gypsy Card Reader") who will whisper the meanings in peoples' ears. But only if it's confirmed that she's their spirit. She, and the others, shouldn't be used by outsiders. It's wrong to approach her in a new age kind of way: "Oh, that's so cool! I'm going to work with her!" PLEASE, no one do that! It's an initiatory thing, one should take the religion and be initiated into it, and it needs to be confirmed that she's your spirit.

Oh yes, I do know, Quimbanda and Sance and Caribbean spiritism and Maria Lionza from Venezuela have close ties. Lots going on there. Initiations, etc. I do know about Pomba Gira, all that and the revealing of one's spirits requieres a godmother/father in the religion to see them for the initiate and then from there one dives deeper working with one's cuadro, etc. And then more doors open, etc.

[_R_]

Out of all the speculation within the tarot world about wether it is esoteric or not, its true origins, etc., the most salient for me has been the tarot originating as a game. When I think of tarot, or rather a pack of cards originating as a game brings to mind all sorts of constellations of meaning regarding the human impulse for that which is ludic. The human tendency for games and play and how meaning is derived from that. I've never seen this topic fully explored and I've dreamt of going down this rabbit hole exploration myself but haven't gotten around to starting. I think games and cards are tied to the art of poetry and word games, and this puts me in mind of art, actual painting, and the impulse behind the caves of Lascaux for example. And our myths and stories of the starts, the cults and stories of our ancestors by the campfire. There is something transcendental about having the time to play and doing so. Moreover, this makes the banning of betting games and the cards by the rulers and the church more than clear. What occurs when we have free time, when we are not colonized (I know, problematic word, can't think of a better one) by this or that, by being one way doing this thing, occupied by things outside ourselves, but instead having time for the ludic activity, for engaging with our self and our experience of the world? All these thoughts I find really enticing.

Anyway, I really think tarot and fortune-telling go hand in hand, neither are extricable from the other.

It is rather unfortunate that the rich seam of French intellectual writings on Tarot has never been mined, neither in French, never mind in English, for we find rather surprising connections, such as Roger Caillois - a sociologist and specialist of games - being rather taken with the Tarot, for instance. His writings on the game itself have largely escaped the notice of those more interested in cartomancy or occult speculation. In English, one may read Man, Play and Games, but that's it, I'm afraid. His writings on Tarot are contained in his encyclopaedia of games, and he also wrote a preface to a reissue of Oswald Wirth's tome, which went untranslated in the recent English edition of that work.

I recall there was once a French document online which examined cartomancy (or taromancy if you prefer) filtered through the lens of the Game of Tarot itself - its rules and basic premises, etc, which was most interesting, I'll have to find it again soon.

As to poetry and its relation to divinatory arts, I am quite sure that there must be some academic treatment of the matter, at the very least with respect to the Chinese world.

[_R_]

I would enjoy some healthy discourse regarding our opinions of the nature of tarot. Is this an esoteric tool or a simple in-plain-view tool? I have heard some say, especially in the tradition of the Marseilles, that the image is the secret. I agree with this statement. I have heard some say that the tarot is an ancient Egyptian book which I think is hogwash although I sure loved this romanticized version when I was younger. I do feel like we can lay the tarot structure like a transparency, over any wisdom teaching in order to learn it. The tarot lends itself so well to all of these things.

I am new (though thoroughly obsessed) to the Marseilles and much of what I have read says that there is nothing esoteric in the Marseilles. I agree that it started as a game. I have also read that it goes against the tradition to read anything deeply spiritual into the cards...that they were designed for games and later used for simple cartomancy and fortune telling. I like open knowledge and I feel like most keepers of secret sacred knowledge use that so-called secret stuff to nurse egos. But I do still appreciate looking at the major arcana as the story of our unique personal growth.

I feel like one of the most wonderful ways we can use the tarot is to locate ourselves in our inner landscape. Sure cartomancy and fortunetelling are great fun but getting an invite to enjoy the adventure of now is profound. I enjoy the tarot as a tool for psychological change and spiritual empowerment and I feel that the everyday stuff is (potentially) extremely spiritual; caring for kids, going to work...chopping wood and carrying water.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

This would appear to be more a matter of definitions than anything else. French Tarot authors have long decried the RWS and other "occult" decks (those by Wirth, Papus et al.) as being vulgar and gaudy, deliberately adding "esoteric symbols" due to the lack of insight of their respective creators. The secret is in the TDM image - that would be the main difference, between the earlier decks and those "occult decks" created post-Etteilla. But the so-called deeper meaning has always co-existed alongside the cartomantic meanings, and this from the beginning - see Court de Gebelin and de Mellet's work, for instance. These are but 2 different applications on different planes.

But, on a different level, what most of the historically-minded cannot seem to appreciate is how a mere game (since we know that historically the Tarot was a game first) could be a vehicle for higher truths, and to give an example, one could do worse than read the following essay on the game of Chess, a game which has no divinatory usage that I know of, but which is highly instructive with regards the connection between the symbolic aspect and the ludic one. It goes without saying that, in this scheme of things, divination is but the practical application of metaphysical truth.
http://www.studiesincomparativereligion ... hardt.aspx

[qndynes]

Out of all the speculation within the tarot world about wether it is esoteric or not, its true origins, etc., the most salient for me has been the tarot originating as a game. When I think of tarot, or rather a pack of cards originating as a game brings to mind all sorts of constellations of meaning regarding the human impulse for that which is ludic. The human tendency for games and play and how meaning is derived from that. I've never seen this topic fully explored and I've dreamt of going down this rabbit hole exploration myself but haven't gotten around to starting. I think games and cards are tied to the art of poetry and word games, and this puts me in mind of art, actual painting, and the impulse behind the caves of Lascaux for example. And our myths and stories of the starts, the cults and stories of our ancestors by the campfire. There is something transcendental about having the time to play and doing so. Moreover, this makes the banning of betting games and the cards by the rulers and the church more than clear. What occurs when we have free time, when we are not colonized (I know, problematic word, can't think of a better one) by this or that, by being one way doing this thing, occupied by things outside ourselves, but instead having time for the ludic activity, for engaging with our self and our experience of the world? All these thoughts I find really enticing.

Anyway, I really think tarot and fortune-telling go hand in hand, neither are extricable from the other.

It is rather unfortunate that the rich seam of French intellectual writings on Tarot has never been mined, neither in French, never mind in English, for we find rather surprising connections, such as Roger Caillois - a sociologist and specialist of games - being rather taken with the Tarot, for instance. His writings on the game itself have largely escaped the notice of those more interested in cartomancy or occult speculation. In English, one may read Man, Play and Games, but that's it, I'm afraid. His writings on Tarot are contained in his encyclopaedia of games, and he also wrote a preface to a reissue of Oswald Wirth's tome, which went untranslated in the recent English edition of that work.

I recall there was once a French document online which examined cartomancy (or taromancy if you prefer) filtered through the lens of the Game of Tarot itself - its rules and basic premises, etc, which was most interesting, I'll have to find it again soon.

As to poetry and its relation to divinatory arts, I am quite sure that there must be some academic treatment of the matter, at the very least with respect to the Chinese world.

Oh, I might be able to read these works myself. Thank you for the suggestions. I took years of french in college, I think they could serve me well enough in decifering these works. I will see... Definitely my interest is re-piqued. Thank you.

[qndynes]

But, on a different level, what most of the historically-minded cannot seem to appreciate is how a mere game (since we know that historically the Tarot was a game first) could be a vehicle for higher truths, and to give an example, one could do worse than read the following essay on the game of Chess, a game which has no divinatory usage that I know of, but which is highly instructive with regards the connection between the symbolic aspect and the ludic one. It goes without saying that, in this scheme of things, divination is but the practical application of metaphysical truth.
http://www.studiesincomparativereligion ... hardt.aspx

Yes! Exactly this, I failed in wording my thoughts properly but yes, my thoughts exactly. Will give this article on chess a read.

[_R_]

The full reference is “Les Cartes” in Jeux et Sports, Encyclopédie de la Pléiade, if you are able to locate a copy (perhaps in a university).

[qndynes]

The full reference is “Les Cartes” in Jeux et Sports, Encyclopédie de la Pléiade, if you are able to locate a copy (perhaps in a university).

Thank you, will try.