Hello All,
I would like to ramble a little bit.
Yesterday I was reading The Newyorker and found something interesting: some people in the media has criticized James Cameron’s Avatar because “the movie fails to devote itself to a Christian narrative” !!!!!!! This is from the Newyorker:
“Ross Douthat, in The Times, deplored its celebration of pantheism and the absence of redemption”.
Taken at face value, we may just be witnessing pure Christian bigotry, but I think there is something more interesting underneath. For me, this has to do with one of the main problems we face with the tarot: its relationship with Christianity. Below the bigotry of these comments I detect an ontological urge that goes to the heart of what of what we can see as the strong imprint that redemption has in the way we craft our narratives and understand the world from a Western perspective.
One of the main problems I have with the strong emphasis many contemporary tarot-lovers put in that mix of Eastern philosophy and Jungian thought they like to think the tarot’s ‘message’ is, is that I find it not only a-historical, but as some sort of denial for what we could define as a Western Mind. I understand that these approaches emerged in the 70’s as part of the New Age movement, whose main agenda was to procure an spiritual alternative to the traditional, and fundamentally male-oriented, religions. In other words, I understand the political take-over of the tarot executed by feminist and pagan groups. I am sure that, from a historical perspective, this will be worth studying at some point. The problem I have with over imposing an Eastern-ish ideal of ‘enlightenment’ to the tarot is precisely its lack of redemption. The search for spiritual enlightenment, as suggested by Eastern philosophies suggests an ascendant narrative in which the individual progressively transcends his engagement with reality, either by finding enlightenment of by perfecting that quest via successive reincarnations. Within the ideal on ‘enlightenment’, one may say “Today is raining. Tomorrow it won’t” while understanding that neither option should be more or less desirable, but the ultimate goal is to position ourselves beyond such conundrum. Redemption -and I would argue, the Western Mind- doesn’t work like that. Our Western narrative, that narrative of redemption, suggests to us that we may very well endure the rain today at the expenses of the possibility of tomorrow’s blue sky (This is, after all, the big selling point of Christianity: the transcendence of an earthly life via resurrection).
We are of course talking about to different fictions, one that says “reality shouldn’t matter. Transcend it” and another one that says “reality matters. Cope with it”.
I am inclined to believe that, when it comes to the tarot, a circular narrative (immanence-redemption) is more likely to be iconographically verified than one of Enlightenment/Individuation (development of the Self). The "Regno, Regnavi, Sum sine regno, Regnabo" in our Wheel of Fortune mirrors the Circulus Vicissitudinis Rerum Humanarum, and the many works that in such fashion present to us an idea of impermanence that can be overcome. While these works may be inviting us to put in perspective the unsubstantial nature of our earthly life when contrasted with eternal life, its rhythm stills rings true when it comes to cope with our daily disappointments.
I guess that what I am trying to say is that, instead of taking the tarot’s images apart trying to make the parts add more than the whole, we may understand that the narrative that orients the tarot has become so ingrained in the culture that produced it as to surpass any religious affiliation. Yes, it is possible that the christian zealot may like to impose his ‘savior’ in every movie, buy beyond that, we all root for a second chance, either for us or for others. To define the extent of the relevance that out little game of images may have in our contemporary world, and more precisely, the kind of relevance that the narrative of redemption may have from a non-christian perspective, we must realize how ingrained this narrative of redemption is in the Western Mind as a mechanism to deal with the downturns of life. We are wired to endure the rain because it won’t rain tomorrow. In a success-oriented culture like ours, redemption is a very useful fiction to cope with failure.
End or the rambling.
All my Best,
EE
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