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The Necessity to Have |
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There are hundreds of Tarot games and new ones each year, are produced. Some are beautiful and others, insignificant. Personally, we have always liked the Aquarian Tarot, published by Morgan Press Inc., Dobbs Ferry, New York 10522. The pictures are superb! There are others like the Tarot of Oswald Wirth, but they should not be confused with the Tarot of Marseille.
The Aquarian Tarot and the Tarot of Oswald Wirth Now is not the time to talk about the origin of the tradition of Marseille, but we have the proof that the model called the Tarot of Marseille is the original one, and that the most ancient known Italian Tarots have copied it. Indeed, some may argue that actually, the most ancient Tarots known in this tradition come from the 1700s, with the Dodal of 1701, made by Dodal, a master card maker in Lyon, then the Payen of 1743, made by Payen, master card maker in Avignon, and the Convers of 1760, made by Convers who was, as well, a master card maker in Marseille. If today we do not have older decks, the fault goes to the authorities at the time, who imposed, for commercial reasons of their own, on 19th October 1701, the destruction of all the molds that were used to manufacture the cards. And the 17th of March 1703, they forced people not to use the cards with the ancient portraits. Fortunately, modernizing them did not mean completely reinventing the pictures. The concept of each arcana was preserved. One must only look at the historic Tarots to realize that there remains, thank God, continuity in the core. Indeed, when the master card maker Convers drew his Tarot in 1760 by modifying in a dramatic way the original symbolism, he was eliminating the authentic tradition of the Tarot of Marseille; instead he created HIS tradition of the Tarot of Marseille. If Convers, through his « personal touch » allowed a more popular spreading of the Tarot of Marseille, it nevertheless remains that he « copied » the preceding Tarots. As an example, compare the knight of swords of the Tarot of Pierre Payen of 1743 with that of Convers of 1760. We can see in the second deck an obvious forgery, including on the horse’s croup an embellishment quasi identical in both sets, while the « black soil » became, as if by magic of the Convers, a simple gold colored soil. There could be no added comments…
The knight of Jean Pierre Payen and the knight of Convers With all the criticism about the evolution of this tradition, it remains that the Marseille tradition, whether from Convers or otherwise, guards the essential traces of the original Tarot. Let us take the example of the TOWER OF GOD. In the drawing of the arcana, the building does not collapse with its lifting crest. When we decode the meaning of this arcana we discover that it cannot mean destruction… Yet, many authors insist on seeing or depicting a house that is crumbling.
The Tower of God You are entitled to know that history amuses itself in games of hide and seek, because in the oldest decks found such as the Italian Tarot of Visconti of 1450, this card is never found. A simple examination shows the absurdity of trying to symbolize this arcana by a house that is being destroyed: in the Tarot, there are no arcanas that depict a bad principle ! So why should this arcana be the exception ? |
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Often, we forget that the letters which make up the words on your computer screen are symbols, which, tied together, form an idea. In the Middle Ages, to educate an illiterate people, the authorities chose to use the media of imagery. The totality of images – replacing words – told stories. We find this concept in the making of a cartoon strip. The concepts of each arcana are precise; they do not allow for a bad interpretation, just as we do not substitute in the word « mother », the letter m with the letter f, because it would simply mean « father ». Unfortunately, the very lucrative market of cards attracted people of all types, more interested in monetary gains than in the knowledge transmitted by this game. With time, the decks came to change and precision was lost : spelling mistakes appeared, fingers disappeared in the pictures, details got altered, and the result had nothing to do with occult messages ! What young Tarot reader did not wish to uncover that these « anomalies » were planned ? It is easy to find an irrational reason to explain, why for instance, the roman numerals in the EMPEROR is written IIII and not as it is taught in school IV. We can discuss that the principle of 5 (V in roman numeral) could not exist before the principle of 4. The idea, simplistically is pleasant, yet has nothing to do with a realistic one: it is simply the way they wrote in those days. We should not omit the fact that in the Middle Ages, most people did not have the instruction of the clergy. And even the way of writing changed from one region to another. We still find inscriptions of ‘j’ for I: jIII, or even jiii. A distinction must be made between what was added with what was wanted. The proof is in the stick held by THE FOOL: it has the shape of a spoon. Why a spoon ? Is it the fantasy of the designer or a realistic detail ? Well, rare are those who know a medieval proverb, which says: « the one who wants to dine with the Devil must have a spoon with a long handle. » Indeed, it is easier not to burn one’s fingers while dining with him !
The Emperor The Fool One must be careful about authors who explain an anomaly without a justification, or without a historical proof ! Their excessive imagination does not award letters of nobility to the drawing of the arcanas. The world of tarology is full of so-called knowledgeable people, who abuse the ignorance of their public. In the mind of the creators of the Tarot, the picture was to have "simply" spoken by itself... even if it held different levels of perception, just as a phrase can have many meanings. The mechanism which allows picking a card, is based on visual attraction. I regret to disappoint those who pass their hands over the cards before choosing them. Experience shows that it does not work that way. If you think about it, the hand that picks the card because of its energy will always tend to chose the ones agreeable to him, with the same type of energy, hence the same type of cards. The phenomenon of visual attraction is the same that presides in divination by tealeaves. It is enough for the clairvoyant to ask himself a specific question related to love, work, money, and so on, so that the eyes are automatically attracted by certain leaf patterns, for instance, a heart representing felicity or a cross showing the end of something. The success of a good draw lies in the type of graphic found on the back of a deck. Unfortunately, most Tarot decks have one or two colors, and sometimes a uniform image. The reason for this is simply financial, because each additional color increases the cost. It is a happy occurrence that Editions de Mortagne has agreed to reproduce the back of Kris Hadar’s deck, as it was conceived for divination. It is enough to look at the back of the deck…
………And compare it to the backs of 2 other samples of decks to understand the pertinence of this remark !
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