"The Lost Tarot" currently being promulgated on the history forum by its author 'beano' over at AT.

I've asked James to move the discussion on Camoin's dating over to The Researcher's Study:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=217

I've also asked James to move the discussion on the 5X14 Theory over to the Researcher's Study. Since it has an entire website (basically) built around it, it may be worthy of a good discussion and weighing of historical evidence.
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=224&start=0

SteveM wrote:"The Lost Tarot" currently being promulgated on the history forum by its author 'beano' over at AT.

I don't understand why he chose to use Waite's numbering of the cards and Waite's take on them, to base his theory on. Like Waite's version of the Lovers card....or Justice is 11 and Strength is 8....if one is trying to link tarot to something quite old,, like this guy is, wouldn't you go with the oldest versions of the cards too? I just don't understand why he'd go with what is basically a modern version of the tarot deck when trying to delve so far back in history to show some link to....whatever he is trying to link it to.

I haven't checked it... but in terms of L'Amoureux, to simply have a couple below a canopy with a arrow-wielding being is consistent enough with the Visconti-type decks, and the very early cards remained un-numbered (despite ordering implied by various textual references) - so that in itself makes it open enough to possibilities... the problem is that it disregards other evidence that would speak against the proposed theory (which is what, after all, 'crackpot' theories often do: disregard evidence that does not support the promulgated view).

Hi, Prudence,

prudence wrote:

SteveM wrote:"The Lost Tarot" currently being promulgated on the history forum by its author 'beano' over at AT.

I don't understand why he chose to use Waite's numbering of the cards and Waite's take on them, to base his theory on.

Waite's interpretation/recreation of the trumps into his Major Arcana is reflected in his revised deck -- he created his own version of Tarot. It is not the Golden Dawn deck, and it is certainly not a 15th-century Tarot. So there is no justification for treating Waite's revised deck as indicative of early Tarot.

That kind of nonsense, treating Waite's deck as somehow representative of early Tarot, was perpetrated by many writers a decade or two ago, including some of the HBHG-genre writers. It instantly marks the author as an ignorant or disingenuous poseur. (Fool or Mountebank.) He either doesn't know anything, or he is perfectly happy to bullshit people.

However, Waite's Tarot is a very thoughtful and systematic revisioning. Waite reconceived the deck as a cyclic design, both in terms of mythic allusions and a Sephirotic scheme. This involutionary and evolutionary cycle was adapted from that of Francois-Charles Barlet (Albert Faucheux, 1838-1921), who wrote an essay that Papus published in The Tarot of the Bohemians. Waite also included some relatively ad hoc Kabbalistic, Masonic, and alchemical allusions, but the overall design of the trump cycle was mythic and Sephirotic.

Beanu's schematic representation of the Tree of Life with the trumps on the Sephiroth rather than the Paths is based on several (fairly obscure) passages in Waite. These passages were discussed in some old TarotL threads with Karen Witter, A. Grinder, and myself, at different times. Grinder argued compellingly that Waite was not a GD follower in terms of his Tarot, that he rejected the very basis of both the Levi-Papus school and the GD attributions, and that he did something unique in the Waite-Smith Tarot. Karen Witter likewise determined that Waite was not following the GD Path attributions, but instead a Sephirotic scheme. I came to virtually the same conclusion and scheme based on the iconography. These schema are completely different than Beanu's, and I see no justification for his placements in either Waite's writings or iconography.

In any case, these analyses are only about Waite's deck and writings. They tell us nothing about Tarot prior to the late 19th century when Barlet and Waite created this type of system.

I don't know which kind of crackpot theory is worse, the subtle and misleading ones, or the silly and obvious ones like this where Waite's deck and writings are taken as indicative of early Tarot... but this kind is certainly funnier.

Best regards,
Michael

P.S. Of course, the Sephirotic scheme Karen and I claim was part of the design of Waite's Major Arcana might itself qualify as a crackpot theory, if there is little to support it, if there are better explanations for the changes Waite made to the individual images and the series, if it is pursued as a kind of monomania, and so on. That being the case, a thread on crackpot theories in the Unicorn Terrace seems the right place to post a pictorial summary of it.

I see to recall some crackpot theory about restoring hidden eggs on the Camoin. Why in the world would someone want to hide eggs? Was it Easter ?

Nicole wrote:I see to recall some crackpot theory about restoring hidden eggs on the Camoin. Why in the world would someone want to hide eggs? Was it Easter ?

One of the most charming moments in Jodorowsky and Camoin’s crackpot theory is the story of how they managed to define the Tarot de Marseille’s true colors. (The story works better if you imagine Tom Hanks acting the part instead of Jodorowsky). At that moment they had successfully restored the Tarot de Marseille to its original form at least as it was in 1400 (“We couldn’t go further back” Jodorowsky would say in his lectures) when the problem of color aroused. Fortunately, Jodorowsky remembered that, in Mexico, a few doors from were he used to live, there was an antique dealer who has shown him a hand-painted tarot and wanted ten thousand dollars for it. They flew to Mexico City and found that the antique dealer had died. His son kept all of his father stuff in a room. Jodorowsky and Camoin found the hand-painted tarot deck among all of the dead man’s belongings, and given that the Antiques dealer son had no idea of how important it was, he was happy to sell it for only five hundred dollars.

So, there is was, an original Tarot de Marseille, with the original colors, including purple. A mystery revealed!



Best,


EE

Nicole wrote:I see to recall some crackpot theory about restoring hidden eggs on the Camoin. Why in the world would someone want to hide eggs? Was it Easter ?

Ah-HA! It's a rabbit chasing the fool on the Fool card!

EnriqueEnriquez wrote:
One of the most charming moments in Jodorowsky and Camoin’s crackpot theory is the story of how they managed to define the Tarot de Marseille’s true colors. (The story works better if you imagine Tom Hanks acting the part instead of Jodorowsky)....