talkmagic.co.uk

yes, i typed that just to annoy a couple of you...

anyway - http://tarology.wordpress.com/category/ ... the-tarot/

enjoy...

An interesting read, but he seems to be starting with a conclusion based on symmetry and trying to convince himself of it, even mistaking mirror neurons for motor neurons.

He also uses assertion without reference, which is sloppy: "The medieval notion of symmetry made use of images to facilitate analogical thinking." Actually, the Medieval mind was attuned from an early age to interpreting imagery in biblical terms, not symmetrical ones.

i think we're maybe programmed to look for symmetry regardless of era or religion...i think its in built somehow...we consider a symmetrical face more beautiful (for the norm)...

and i think it ties in with our pattern-seeking nature too...so i think we're attuned to symmetry without having to bring in anything biblical...

can't remember if its in the link above - or an interview within the site - but he tells of the true history of the tarot...

court jesters or poets used the tarot to tell stories to the ladies of the court, weaving a little tale between the person holding a card and linking it into the rest - all told as an uplifting/interesting story...

IAIN wrote:i think we're maybe programmed to look for symmetry regardless of era or religion...i think its in built somehow...we consider a symmetrical face more beautiful (for the norm)...

and i think it ties in with our pattern-seeking nature too...so i think we're attuned to symmetry without having to bring in anything biblical...

True, but from Augustinian times until the re-discovery and translation of Aristotle, the world was interpreted in terms of biblical significance. Everything was an expression of a holy concept. Your four fingers represent the four gospels, your two hands represent the father and son, etc. The amount of symbolism in a passiflora flower takes several pages to describe in those terms.

There's a beautifully researched and explained overview of the Medieval interpretation of the world in James Burke's 1986 series The Day The Universe Changed. I've never seen it for legitimate sale as a boxed set, but it's available as a torrent download and WELL worth settling down for an afternoon. There's also BBC4's superb series Inside The Medieval Mind, which should currently be on iPlayer.

ah - i'll take a look..

.there's a very good pagan series too (on the youtube tv channel thingy for ch4), again ties in with story-telling and before all those newer iGods relabelled everything and whitewashed everything that came before it...

IAIN wrote:ah - i'll take a look..

.there's a very good pagan series too (on the youtube tv channel thingy for ch4), again ties in with story-telling and before all those newer iGods relabelled everything and whitewashed everything that came before it...

That'll probably be Prof Allan Chapman with the superb Gods In The Sky.

As far as can be known (the early history of cards is very muddled), the Tarot began with sets of cards used in early Renaissance times across Europe -- especially in Italy -- for educational purposes. Most noble families had a set put together for their children. Every set was different, but they typically included the classes of society, the planets and Zodiac signs, important symbolic animals, the continents and seas, various saints and allegorical figures, etc. Although these cards weren't intended as playthings, tutors and children must have invented games with them.

At about the same time, playing cards were also developing. They started off as simple number cards used as a substitute for dice. The idea of adding suits may have been borrowed from eastern games like mah-jongg. Of course, the addition of suits allowed for more complex games. An early form of the playing-card deck (from before the Page and Knight were merged into the Jack) ended up being grafted onto the Tarot deck as what we now call the Minor Arcana.

This is covered in much more detail in the superb book Cartomancy by Alessandro Bellenghi. I recommend it highly to anyone with an interest in Tarot.

May I add that the earliest recognisable Tarot decks can be traced back to 15th century Italy, and a game that involved 21 trump cards, a Fool and cards of each of four suits. One early reference comes from 1442. In this year, a painter called Sagramoro is known to have received money to produce four such decks, called Carte de Trionfi, later shortened to “Tarocchi”, from which modern word “tarot” derives.

The use of normal playing cards in such a way is easily traced back to 14th century, but there are no records of tarot decks being used in divination until the 18th century. A manuscript, The Square of Sevens, published in 1735, and 1750’s Pratesi Cartomancer, both detail meanings of tarot cards for the purposes of divination, including simple methods of laying them out. And in 1781, Antione Court de Gebelin wrote a history of the tarot deck and described a method of using it to tell the future.

From about de Gebelin’s time onwards, various explanations have been given for the origins of the tarot cards, and some of them have more to do with wishful thinking than historical fact. One, for example, tells that the deck comes form ancient Egypt and gives the location of the lost city of Atlantis. This is clearly nonsense. The best historians can accurately say is that the modern tarot has its origins in renaissance Italy.

It's basic human nature to seek omens from any system that can deliver random results. As soon as you've got a set of cards painted with interesting pictures, you're going to start interpreting them.

I'm always amused by the "histories" of Tarot that trace them back to hieroglyphs and then back even further to lost superhuman civilisations. If the Atlanteans were so darn advanced, how come they all died out?

Robbie wrote:If the Atlanteans were so darn advanced, how come they all died out?

We didn't all die out. However our civilisation was destroyed in the war against sirius.
Back on topic though this might be interesting to some of you.

Terribly intellectual and I didn't have the patience to read it all. Never fear though. I shall be coming to London soon to educate those of you who need guidance on metaphysical matters. I intend to devote a whole session on the Tarot during one of my lectures.

You will be getting the REAL deal. From someone who actually does readings. I often think that 90 percent of the guff you read which has been put out for the magic community is of little value. And it is interesting that noted auther Richard Webster seems to agree with me in a newsletter he put out.

I've not had time to give it a deep read, but it looks like a great article, thanks!