Crackpot theories
Posted: 20 May 2009, 09:13
I'd like to start a thread for compiling a list of titles and links to our favorite crackpot theories of Tarot.
I don't know the age or origin of the metaphor of a "cracked pot", but I like it - it resembles a pot, but when you put water into it, it spills out through the cracks. In other words, it doesn't hold water. Now every theory has cracks, but to truly be a crackpot theory there have to be major cracks, especially at the bottom - the pot holds NO water. Put in logical terms, this means there are fundamental errors of reason that invalidate the whole theory - even if there are solid parts (large chunks of pot), the logical mistakes (cracks) mean that even the large solid parts don't hold together as a pot. It is all just a jumbled mess held together in the mind of the crackpot presenting the theory, but cannot stand on its own against the force of gravity when someone else attempts to build it in the real world (i.e. understand it with common sense, knowledge, and logic).
Although this list - "The Crackpot Index" - was made to judge the level of crackpottery of theories in physics, a lot of them apply to crackpots in Tarot too -
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html
Most tarot crackpots will score in the several hundreds by this point-award scale. Maybe we can tailor the list to tarot crackpots.
The granddaddy of all crackpottery was of course Court de Gébelin, along with the Comte de Mellet, and then refined to the highest level by Etteilla. This led to all the occult theories, and the whole history has been recounted by Decker, Depaulis and Dummett in A Wicked Pack of Cards and (without Depaulis) in A History of the Occult Tarot. This lineage of crackpottery might be fun to discuss, but I'm more interested here in theories that while they indirectly owe their existence to ambient esotericism, are completely new.
I mean theories like Rom's, that the Abbot Suger invented Tarot in the 12th century, and that the titles and random squiggles in the woodcuts on some cards spell out a code (of which he's figured out about half) -
http://tarotchoco.quebecblogue.com/cate ... te-de-rom/
Rom also calls Michael Dummett "The Father of the Lombard Origin Theory", ignorant of the fact that for centuries the majority of playing card historians could see they were Italian, and some even pinpointed Lombardy as the place of origin. But mostly he just ignores 100% of the facts, which unanimously indicate northern Italy (if not technically just Lombardy), and suggest the 1430s as the time. The Lombard Theory of Origin, like the Theory of Evolution, is "just a theory" after all.
Or Christine Payne-Towler's oeuvre (start here, there is a lot of it)
http://noreah.typepad.com/about.html
"Tarot University"
http://www.tarotuniversity.com/
There are a lot of online tarotists with crackpot theories who don't have websites, but can only be appreciated by reading their posts on various lists and forums, like VeniceBard and Yggdrasilian on Aeclectic Tarot. VB (as VeniceBard is affectionately known) is particularly susceptible to the values of the Crackpot Index, as almost every post includes references to academic conspiracy, paradigm-shift, lone-voice in the wilderness, etc.
One thing a lot of crackpot theories have in common is that they claim compatiblity with all other crackpot theories (and even the most minimalist "consensus" theory - as long as it is understood that "the so-called historians" are just myopic), with a bit of tweaking sometimes. So for Christine Payne-Towler EVERYTHING that has ever been claimed about Tarot is true in one way or another.
The subtlest crackpot theory might be Autorbis' "5x14" theory, expounded in countless posts, and on Trionfi.com. I'm not sure I think it really qualifies as crackpot - I might better describe it as a bad theory. It is not explanatory enough, and it doesn't provide testability or prediction - which in history means that your theory will point you in a direction of research, and you will be rewarded with the predicted evidence, thus tending to confirm your theory.
Note - I'm not talking about single crackpot ideas or posts - everybody has those. I'm talking about whole theories, or critical chunks of theory, that are passionately defended.
Ross
I don't know the age or origin of the metaphor of a "cracked pot", but I like it - it resembles a pot, but when you put water into it, it spills out through the cracks. In other words, it doesn't hold water. Now every theory has cracks, but to truly be a crackpot theory there have to be major cracks, especially at the bottom - the pot holds NO water. Put in logical terms, this means there are fundamental errors of reason that invalidate the whole theory - even if there are solid parts (large chunks of pot), the logical mistakes (cracks) mean that even the large solid parts don't hold together as a pot. It is all just a jumbled mess held together in the mind of the crackpot presenting the theory, but cannot stand on its own against the force of gravity when someone else attempts to build it in the real world (i.e. understand it with common sense, knowledge, and logic).
Although this list - "The Crackpot Index" - was made to judge the level of crackpottery of theories in physics, a lot of them apply to crackpots in Tarot too -
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html
Most tarot crackpots will score in the several hundreds by this point-award scale. Maybe we can tailor the list to tarot crackpots.
The granddaddy of all crackpottery was of course Court de Gébelin, along with the Comte de Mellet, and then refined to the highest level by Etteilla. This led to all the occult theories, and the whole history has been recounted by Decker, Depaulis and Dummett in A Wicked Pack of Cards and (without Depaulis) in A History of the Occult Tarot. This lineage of crackpottery might be fun to discuss, but I'm more interested here in theories that while they indirectly owe their existence to ambient esotericism, are completely new.
I mean theories like Rom's, that the Abbot Suger invented Tarot in the 12th century, and that the titles and random squiggles in the woodcuts on some cards spell out a code (of which he's figured out about half) -
http://tarotchoco.quebecblogue.com/cate ... te-de-rom/
Rom also calls Michael Dummett "The Father of the Lombard Origin Theory", ignorant of the fact that for centuries the majority of playing card historians could see they were Italian, and some even pinpointed Lombardy as the place of origin. But mostly he just ignores 100% of the facts, which unanimously indicate northern Italy (if not technically just Lombardy), and suggest the 1430s as the time. The Lombard Theory of Origin, like the Theory of Evolution, is "just a theory" after all.
Or Christine Payne-Towler's oeuvre (start here, there is a lot of it)
http://noreah.typepad.com/about.html
"Tarot University"
http://www.tarotuniversity.com/
There are a lot of online tarotists with crackpot theories who don't have websites, but can only be appreciated by reading their posts on various lists and forums, like VeniceBard and Yggdrasilian on Aeclectic Tarot. VB (as VeniceBard is affectionately known) is particularly susceptible to the values of the Crackpot Index, as almost every post includes references to academic conspiracy, paradigm-shift, lone-voice in the wilderness, etc.
One thing a lot of crackpot theories have in common is that they claim compatiblity with all other crackpot theories (and even the most minimalist "consensus" theory - as long as it is understood that "the so-called historians" are just myopic), with a bit of tweaking sometimes. So for Christine Payne-Towler EVERYTHING that has ever been claimed about Tarot is true in one way or another.
The subtlest crackpot theory might be Autorbis' "5x14" theory, expounded in countless posts, and on Trionfi.com. I'm not sure I think it really qualifies as crackpot - I might better describe it as a bad theory. It is not explanatory enough, and it doesn't provide testability or prediction - which in history means that your theory will point you in a direction of research, and you will be rewarded with the predicted evidence, thus tending to confirm your theory.
Note - I'm not talking about single crackpot ideas or posts - everybody has those. I'm talking about whole theories, or critical chunks of theory, that are passionately defended.
Ross