Yves Le Marseillais wrote:Question: Something that you have not yet discovered is it automaticly "secret" ?

I think it's secret when people say that it is there, and that they know what it is, but they don't share what it is with others.

Thanks Robert, for creating this thread.

I agree with all of the above, including #9, but I also find RAH’s comment:

R.A. Hendley wrote: I do see some hint in the Stars/Moon/Sun's placement that is perhaps implying that these bodies have an influence in the realm of human experience.

to be pertinent, although I often wonder to what extent that can be considered astrology or astronomy, or even theology as in the influence of Heaven -not the sky- in the realm of human experience.


Best,


EE

I too vote for leaving astrology out of the equation, at least for now.

robert wrote:

Yves Le Marseillais wrote:Question: Something that you have not yet discovered is it automaticly "secret" ?

I think it's secret when people say that it is there, and that they know what it is, but they don't share what it is with others.

Hello Robert,

Okay so I would say that your definition of what is secret stick to my opinion:
There is a Code inside Tarot.... That is knows by some people and that could be discovered by some seekers.

Best,

Yves

robert wrote:test test test test test

test 2 test2 test2

Try again.


re: #9 and ....no messages not understandable by anyone of 'average' education...

The earliest triumphal cards appear in the Northern Italian courts where we find some of the great humanist pedagogues of the period; and while we do not know who created the triumphs/tarot we know of others who created card games such as Boiardo or Fernando de la Torre who studied in Florence "...Y que es del saber de Salamon, que de Aristotiles, que de Platon, que de Terencio, que de Socratres, que de Boecio, que de Lucan, que de Titus Libio, e que de Valerio e otros singulars filosofos e ystoriadores." and is able to quote from Plato's republic. So why not 'messages' (references) that someone educated in the tradition of the poet philosophers would recognise? With the education of a de meun or a chaucer or a boccaccio or a dante or a torre or a boiardo or any of the poets "...Yo ley en el Caton, en Dante, el Ovidio en Virgilio, en Platon, en el Omero en el Novato, en Rogel en Policrato en Ricardo en Celon, en Socarates, en Terencio, Marco, Seneca, Lucano, Cicero, Valerio, Quintiliano, Juvenal, Oracio… » who would be able to recognise cross references between various literary souces and to make them. And would know for example that the ubiquitous phrase "God is a circle, whose centre is everywhere, and circumference nowhere" that runs like refrain through the centuries in the works of neo-platonic and hermetic authors, is ascribed to Plato by de Meun in Roman de Rose, but to Hermes Trimegistus by Alaine de Lille.

Hi Marco,

marco wrote:I would change #9 to:

There is no esoteric, alchemical, kabbalistic, numerological, geomantic, heretical, magical in the narrative of the trumps.

Instead of the current:

There is no esoteric, alchemical, kabbalistic, numerological, geomantic, astrological, heretical, magical, or any other message than what an averagely educated 15th century Italian would recognize, in the narrative of the trumps.

1. I believe there might be astrological elements in the original narrative. I think that a cosmology of the XV century had to be somehow astrological.

2. It is not clear to me what "averagely educated" means. I am not sure that the meaning of the sequence would have been clear to most people. I agree that many people would have understood it, at least in part.

If we keep esoteric in the list, than there was no "code" in the sequence. It was meant to be understood by people with a certain level of culture (which I think was not so basic). I agree that tarot was not meant to be esoteric, and I do not think it was meant to be a code.

Marco

By "astrology" I meant to exclude more or less what Mr. Hendley wrote, namely a throughgoing astrological doctrine that would somehow explain the sequence and choice of subjects.

The Star, Moon and Sun are obviously celestial objects, but it is a matter of interpretation whether they are there to express celestial influence on worldly events (astrology) or are cosmological (astronomy), for a symbolic reason (increasing brightness from Star to Sun, or the Star represents Jesus, or the Star of Bethlehem).

That's all I meant to say.

Ross

Thank you Ross,
I agree that the tarot sequence is not based on any astrological doctrine and I think that the meaning of the Star, Moon and Sun is not astrological. I think the astrological element here is that the personification of these three celestial bodies (e.g. in Visconti Sforza) seems to point to the corresponding planetary gods. On the other hand, the Charles VI deck represents the actual astral bodies and seems to me to avoid the astrological ambiguity.

Anyway, the astrological element, if any, is not central to the sequence. My intention was to underline that the relation between Tarot and Astrology is different from that between Tarot and Kabbala or Heresy. Astrology was widespread at the time and it was quite common as a way of understanding life, the universe and everything

Marco

So for number 9, is this acceptable:

There is no esoteric, alchemical, kabbalistic, numerological, geomantic, astrological, heretical or magical narrative of the trumps.

???

I also wonder if this couldn't be cleaned up a bit.. still seems confusing as is:

The trump series originally had a coherent meaning.
There are three families of orders for the trump series.
Every one of the original orders has a coherent symbolic meaning.
Not every tarot trump series has a coherent meaning.

robert wrote:So for number 9, is this acceptable:

There is no esoteric, alchemical, kabbalistic, numerological, geomantic, astrological, heretical or magical narrative of the trumps.

???

Hello Robert,
to me it's ok.
If possible, I would only make clear that we speak of the orginal, intended, narrative of the Trumps. Today, all the above narratives exist, and a few of them have been around for a couple of centuries