Hi Michael,
I'm not sure who pissed in your cornflakes, but it wasn't me. So if we can set aside the completely unnecessary personal insults that you hurled at me, and the fact that you didn't address the point I made about not maligning you in the least bit, we can stick to talking about Tarot. I think that would be a good thing for a tarot forum, don't you?
I imagine that after a decade of rolling your tarot boulder up a hill, the sisyphean task has engendered a certain amount of raw nerves on your part. Forgive me for being the latest in a long line of people asking you the same questions that you've already answered. In the future, I will look back at your impressive list of discourses on this and other forums to get a better picture of your evolving understanding of the tarot, and in particular the trump sequence of the various decks.
It's unfortunate that you misunderstand my asking of challenging questions as some sort of game, rhetorical or otherwise. But my interest is not in deflating your balloon with the pinpricks of impertinence. On the contrary, I would prefer to inflate my own knowledge of tarot with what is, to me, the fresh air of your theories. That this air may be somewhat stale due to age is not something I would be aware of, since I am a relative newcomer.
I will not trouble you with a point-by-point response to all that you've said, since I think that would be tiresome for all involved. Suffice it to say that I am aware that you treat different decks with different approaches, that you are not speaking about the Ur-Tarot, and that there is no simple answer to the tarot trump sequence(s). On this last point there has been the most contention. Where you see me trying to 'catch you out' on some point or another, I see myself asking basic questions, such as: 'if the answer is not simple, then why presume it has to be complex - maybe there isn't an answer of the type you seek', or something of that nature. I realize that one could mistake that as some sort of 'affront' or challenge to you, when it is simply my way of asking a question. I suspect that you've been questioned quite a lot in the last decade, and that I am being lumped in with predecessors who probably were trying to outwit you or make you look bad. I assure you that is not the case with me. If a philosophical argument sounds illegitimate to me, then I will ask a challenging question. And if there is a sensible answer that I was not aware of, then no problem. It need not cause you to raise the drawbridge. I'm not trying to storm the castle. I'm asking you why you're in the castle in the first place.
From your reply, I can see that I misunderstood a couple of points you made, and I believe I have a better understanding now, so I thank you for taking the time and effort to enlighten me on them. And in fairness, I think you misunderstood some things that I said as well, such as the fact that you seem to think I don't believe there is a pattern in the Tarot de Marseille, which is simply not true. I think there are elements of a pattern; there is a skeleton there. But it's the explanation of that pattern by you that I do not completely agree with on all points, or should I say, there are obscure portions of the sequence which do not admit of being readily explained by the available historical and graphical evidence. And no, I don't think I have the answers to that, so there's no need to challenge me to 'put up or shut up' so to speak, when I never intimated that I had any such answer in the first place. As I said, I came here to learn from those with more knowledge of the subject than my own, and you are certainly one of those people. So hopefully the personal remarks can be left aside and we can continue to dialogue about the subject we're both interested in. I'm much more on your side than you make me out to be, so there no sense in rancor and alienation when there are more important things to discuss.
Sorry for the off-topic post. So to get back on-topic...
As far as the Star goes, the Sumerian goddess Inanna was connected to the planet Venus, and her iconography included an eight-pointed star, as well as her depiction riding the backs of two lionesses, (Aquarius is the sign opposite the Lion in the zodiac). I'm not suggesting that the tarot is Sumerian in origin, but it's interesting that three of Inanna's associations can be related to the Star card: Venus as morning (evening) star, the shape of the star itself, and the possible relation to Aquarius imagery. Inanna is also daughter of the Moon and sister of the Sun, the two cards which follow the Star in the trump sequence.
RLG
Re: Images from a Ferrarese prophetic manuscript (1450 ca)
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Last edited by RLG on 30 Jul 2009, 15:30, edited 1 time in total.