The Attitude of No Symbolism or Secret System.

[robert]

I go all over the place on this one. My gut tells me that we just haven't found (and may never find) the connecting thread. It might be a passion play, a star map, a poem, a novel.. something that would have grouped all of these things together.

Sometimes I think that they are just a random collection as Lorredan describes. Someone thought "Hey, instead of using one of the four suits, let's make a new one with special images", and grabbed what was nearby in the print shop, or cut them out of dad's library.

Sometimes I think that there was originally a larger group of images, one that had all the virtues, and more estates of man, and whatever else, and that some of these were removed as the game became defined.

Sometimes I wonder if they were like "Trading Cards". That at one point people were collecting and exchanging sacred images, on pilgrimages perhaps, or among tradesmen, and these are a collection from different "series", that were plainly just added on top as a group without meaning *as* a group.

For the most part, I "can" see a general estates-worldly experience-celestial estates design, but there are just too many little things that make me feel less than terribly confident about it. Why no Prudence? Why a Hanged Man? Why a Popess? Why an Empress? Why a Tower? I just think the story could be, and was, told with more common symbolism.

I can see logical groups.. The Virtues, the Sun-Moon-Star, the Angel and the Devil, Empress and Emperor, Pope and Popess. I can see Vices like Fortune, Foolishness. I can see Triumphs like Love, Death, Time, Eternity, and maybe even Fame and Chastity too.

So I wonder, what is the "thread" that could tie all of these groups together?

[Lorredan]

Why are you not packing Robert?
Anyway you have articulated exactly what I think also- I would feel more comfortable with something half way sequential- like a procession (not a triumph) where the locals knew what moving stage was coming next. Alas we are left with your last sentence..

So I wonder, what is the "thread" that could tie all of these groups together?

Funny thing is that the occultists like Levi actually believed they had found the thread, (and have made it somewhat acceptable) in Egypt hehehe. I could never understand why some remnant did not survive- like a headgear or a cartouche lying there in one of the images- after all the Chalices seemed to have survived for at least 6oo years or more (mamluk cards)
Will ponder some more.
~Lorredan~

[robert]

Why are you not packing Robert?

I'm afraid you've got me for another couple of days. It's Sunday night here, we leave on Wednesday night. Lots of time to solve the mystery of tarot!

Funny thing is that the occultists like Levi actually believed they had found the thread, (and have made it somewhat acceptable) in Egypt hehehe. I could never understand why some remnant did not survive- like a headgear or a cartouche lying there in one of the images

Vieville!

[Lorredan]

I forget about time zones !
Glad you winked cos' those look like Norman Kings/Knights to me not Pharaohs - but I guess at a push....a big push they could be Egyptians.
Now if there was a dung beetle, I would have to rethink
~Lorredan~

[jmd]

It's difficult to add something to a thread that has basically already included the main points I would have attempted in saying without the precision made.

There is, however, one point that remains unsaid that perhaps has more merit than has generally been allowed, and that is Mark Filipas's notion of an Alphabetic Masquerade as organising pattern for the set. Problems of course do arise in the notion, but to date find the principle the best so far presented to arrange and stabilise a set already emerging.

[robert]

It's difficult to add something to a thread that has basically already included the main points I would have attempted in saying without the precision made.

There is, however, one point that remains unsaid that perhaps has more merit than has generally been allowed, and that is Mark Filipas's notion of an Alphabetic Masquerade as organising pattern for the set. Problems of course do arise in the notion, but to date find the principle the best so far presented to arrange and stabilise a set already emerging.

I find it interesting...
http://www.spiritone.com/~mfilipas/Masq ... index.html

...but ultimately unsatisfying. It's an exciting idea, but I think there is just too much flexibility in the words that are chosen as representative.

Overall, if I were to follow the same concept of connecting the trumps to an alphabet, I'd be more likely to assume a connection to the Lingua Franca as discussed in this thread on AT:
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=75849

[jmd]

Right - agreed in many ways. The point here is not so much whether correct in terms of Hebrew, but the idea of a simple organising pattern consistent with the times during which there occurs stabilisation of trump order and number.

Whether Hebrew, Lingua Franca, Occitan, Ladino, or even late mediæval Latin, it is the idea of an alphabetic sequence as over-pattern that I find appealing due to its simplicity. Whether other languages may also account for the same, what Mark does is show that Hebrew can and does have such explanatory possibility.

I am not, of course, here arguing for this as explicatory cause for the overall deck... merely adding it as another consideration worth (re-)visiting.

[SteveGus]

The argument of no symbolism: has anyone ever considered the relationship between the tarot trumps and the Mexican game of Loteria?

Loteria is a gambling game similar to bingo, played with cards upon which a matrix of iconographic images are displayed. A banker draws from a deck of cards bearing images and announces them to the players, who mark it if the matching image is on their card. This was apparently designed as a game from back when literacy was less than universal, so images rather than letters and numbers are used. But the general play of the game is pretty much like bingo.

The images are iconic. The Mexican ones specifically refer to Mexican culture and environment; there are Native Indians depicted, arrows, cacti, parrots, and scorpions. A series of riddles is sometimes used to refer to the symbols instead of their proper names. Some arcane significance might be drawn from the traditional riddles. ("Este mundo es una bola, y nosotros un balón")

The images have some emotional valence; they are not neutral. Drunkards, Death, and a skull appear among them, as do the world, the moon, the sun, and the star. Oddly, death is 14. I could easily imagine using these images to make an oracle from. But nobody looks to Mexico for the wisdom of the ages, it seems, and the tradition of actually playing the game is too lively to cloak the purpose of the images with mystery and intrigue.

[jmd]

I am unaware of the game, Steve.

I terms of Mexico and tarot, I do not think it is that people are unwilling to look therein to find worthy esoteric value (and realise this is not quite what you said), but rather that in terms of tarot, it seems unconnected in the latter's development once it reached Mexico. Of course, there may be something in its closer connection to tarot in its European origin if the Wikipedia entry to which you connect is correct in its claim of the game deriving from 15th century Italy.

In terms of how an impulse or spiritual archetype seeks to manifest in various places under local conditions, a comparison between the images of the game, and, if known, how they even came to be selected, would be something undoubtedly worth pursuing. I would personally enjoy reading about such comparisons and some of the historical developments of Loteria!

[SteveGus]

That's closer to the point I was trying to make. I doubt that Loteria and Tarot are connected, or if they are, the connection is tenuous. And there is some kind of order of cosmological precedence in the Tarot trumps that does not seem to be present in the Loteria icons.

Still, Loteria is a collection of symbols used in a game to which their notional content is entirely irrelevant. In the game, they serve only the purpose of being familiar, iconic, and easily distinguished from each other. Loteria is an example that suggests that a collection of evocative images could be assembled for game playing without reference to the ideas or images themselves.