76
GR. wrote:
Marseille Tarot by Camelia Elias, just recently published, might be of interest, Mark. She's also got a blog at https://taroflexions.wordpress.com/
Thanks Gabe! :'

I hadn't noticed this new publication. I have just ordered it.

There does seems to be a growing flurry of interest in interpretations of both the Major and Minor Arcana using older pre-Golden Dawn approaches. Especially the Tarot de Marseilles.

I was aware of the Alejandro Jodorowsky and Yoav Ben-Dov's books on the Tarot de Marseilles but this new Camelia Elias book looks an excellent addition to the resources available using that approach.

There is also the forthcoming English translation of Paul Marteau's classic Le Tarot de Marseille by Paris Finley. I understand the project has previously been delayed over copyright issues regarding displaying Paul Marteau's design of the TdM for the publisher Grimaud.

http://www.planetlight.com/td/content/t ... u-preorder

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

77
Mark wrote:Delaforge wrote:
Although the Pope represented Religion, it was not a symbol of 'conventional' or 'established religion'. Nor did it stand for conventionality or the establishment. Those associations came later once the GD correspondence of the card with Taurus had taken hold. Thus have the supposed astrological correspondences affected the cards' divinatory meanings.
Really? Interesting. What sources led you to that conclusion?
Besides Papus and Paul Christian, Minetta and Crowley, there are these sources:

Religion, law; marriage; conscience. [Sepharial, following the Papus/Chrtstian line]
The regulation of the passions, self-control. [Sepharial]
A disposition for the religious and spiritual life; the ability to submit the personality to that which is higher than itself. [Painted Caravan, allied to the above] (In relation to the last meaning, Madeline Montalban gives as one significance of the card: Man proposes, God disposes.)
Mercy, Beneficence, Kindness, Goodness. Reversed: Over-kindness, Weakness, Foolish exercise of generosity. [Mathers; a variation of the Papus/Chrstian view]
The querent will meet a man who can advise and guide him/her. A man with a certain amount of authority. [Arnold Crowther]
Religion. Divine aspiration. Self-mastery. Society. Journeying. Reunion. [Frank Lind, "How to Read the Tarot"] (Reunion is another facet of Marriage [Union])

There are others but this is what I could muster at short notice.

The texts from which these quotes are taken either pre-date the publication of the Waite-Smith tarot, or the authors of the texts have either never been exposed to Golden Dawn teaching (i.e. The Pope = taurus which may be interpreted as the ultra-coventionality of Fixed Earth) or have rejected the teaching.

It is only later, from the mid-'60s onwards, that Trump 5 is associated with the Establishment and the stifling effects of conventional religion and such like.

The GD didn't teach that the Hierophant represented the ultra-conventionality of Fixed Earth. That, I believe, is something added in by modern tarot readers once they had come in contact with the idea that Trump 5 corresponded to Taurus. The GD placed more emphasis on the Hierophant (a particular name for the Order) as the revealer of the sacred mysteries and gave it divinatory meanings such as Teaching, Explanation.
Mark wrote: I am currently looking into obtaining some books on the French tradition of Tarot De Marseilles interpretation ( such as Paul Marteau's book Le Tarot de Marseille ) which have been unaffected by the Anglo-American GD interpretations and associations. Although admitedly, Marteau's book only dates back to the 1930's. Still, I find it refreshing to have access to any interpretations not pre-conditioned by Golden Dawn thinking.
Mark
I recommend, as a source book, Papus's "The Divinatory Tarot" which compares Etteilla's interpretations of the cards with Paul Christian's. Christian was a pupil of Eliphaz Levi. Then you will have in one book the earliest thoughts of French occultists on the tarot. And the tarot Levi, Christian and Papus have in mind is, broadly speaking, the Marseilles Tarot. They believed its Trumps had become debased by careless copying (and looking at the Marseilles Tarot's Wheel of Fortune one can understand their concern) but basically the Tarot de Marseilles was their starting point.

Melissa

78
This thread is interesting. I had a Crowley Thoth tarot pack that I allowed somebody to talk me into giving to them for somebody else. Another person present did ask me to think if I really wanted to give them away, and afterwards it did feel a tiny bit like somebody had talked me out of my kidney :(

But I had got a bit fed up with the dogmatism of Crowleyanity. I don't like the way the court cards are different from other tarot packs, and I don't like the astrological connections, which are rich coming from Crowley who preached that astrology doesn't have much to offer, and his followers certainly don't seem to know much astrology, or have studied it, and repeat Crowley's preaching that it isn't important. I don't like the way Crowleyites put down anyone who isn't repeating their dogma. Like they know and you don't.

I have had some success scrying both Crowley tarot cards and more traditional ones. The images come sort of alive, and that feels more valid than some cult's interpretations. I find it interesting that somebody on this thread said that traditional cards are making a comeback.

But I need to learn to be more guarded with my personal boundaries and not be too generous in future. I do miss my tarot cards. But they aren't that expensive, one day I will get myself a pack that I really like, without Crowley's dogma written all over them, or astrological symbolism preached by a man who didn't study astrology in any depth and puts it down.

80
Michael Sternbach wrote:Fleur,

As a matter of fact, Crowley knew Astrology well. There is a thick and pretty interesting book by him, called The General Principles of Astrology.
Ok, maybe one day I will read it.

Astrological Associations of the Tarot by Golden Dawn?

81
Fleur:

The things you don't like about Crowley's Thoth tarot - the way the court cards are different from other tarot packs, and the astrological connections, particularly those on the spot cards - were all taken over by Crowley from the Golden Dawn. They do not originate with Crowley.

One can't trust what Crowley says about himself in his books. Judge him by his works. He possibly knew the principles of astrology better than those contemporaries of his who claimed to be astrologers. He met Evangeline Adams when he was in the States and was shocked and amused to find her interpreting Pluto in Gemini not as a generational index but in the same way one would interpret Saturn in Gemini. She appeared not to understand that Pluto remained in the same sign for 20 years or so.

As Michael has pointed out, Crowley wrote on astrology, though the book isn't well known among occultists and my guess is that it is not well known among astrologers either.

Melissa

Re: Astrological Associations of the Tarot by Golden Dawn?

82
delaforge wrote:Fleur:

The things you don't like about Crowley's Thoth tarot - the way the court cards are different from other tarot packs, and the astrological connections, particularly those on the spot cards - were all taken over by Crowley from the Golden Dawn. They do not originate with Crowley.

One can't trust what Crowley says about himself in his books. Judge him by his works. He possibly knew the principles of astrology better than those contemporaries of his who claimed to be astrologers. He met Evangeline Adams when he was in the States and was shocked and amused to find her interpreting Pluto in Gemini not as a generational index but in the same way one would interpret Saturn in Gemini. She appeared not to understand that Pluto remained in the same sign for 20 years or so.

As Michael has pointed out, Crowley wrote on astrology, though the book isn't well known among occultists and my guess is that it is not well known among astrologers either.

Melissa
I might have read that book ages ago and forgotten about it, I think Crowley made derisory comments about astrology in at least one of his books, or at least that it was unnecessary, and his followers seem to have run with that, they seem to regard astrology and thinking for yourself as unnecessary and I have never met one who knew or cared the first thing about astrology. Spiritual descendents of L Ron Hubbard rather than a genius like Jack Parsons. The Golden Dawn probably flowered into these cults.

Re: Astrological Associations of the Tarot by Golden Dawn?

83
delaforge wrote:Fleur:

The things you don't like about Crowley's Thoth tarot - the way the court cards are different from other tarot packs, and the astrological connections, particularly those on the spot cards - were all taken over by Crowley from the Golden Dawn. They do not originate with Crowley.
Exactly. The whole system of astrological attributions to the Thoth Tarot that I have shown here:

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic ... c&start=15

constitutes a part of the Golden Dawn teachings. It is therefore equally valid for all the GD derived decks, including the very popular Rider Waite Smith Tarot (although Waite didn't follow the GD scheme regarding the court cards but preferred the older system here).

Mark,

My take on the astrological associations is that I see them as attached to particular decks. Meaning that I would make different attributions when using a GD based deck than, for example, one of the traditional French decks. Much like there are different systems within Astrology, too.

Re: Astrological Associations of the Tarot by Golden Dawn?

84
Michael Sternbach wrote:The whole system of astrological attributions to the Thoth Tarot ... constitutes a part of the Golden Dawn teachings. It is therefore equally valid for all the GD derived decks, including the very popular Rider Waite Smith Tarot (although Waite didn't follow the GD scheme regarding the court cards but preferred the older system here).
Paul Foster Case, who like Waite was a one-time member of the Golden Dawn, does as Waite does with the court cards. I don't recall either man explaining why he had not held to GD teaching. Does anyone know their reasons?
Michael Sternbach wrote:My take on the astrological associations is that I see them as attached to particular decks. Meaning that I would make different attributions when using a GD based deck than, for example, one of the traditional French decks. Much like there are different systems within Astrology, too.
Michael,
Could you please give an example? When using a GD-based deck do you, for instance, take The Hierophant as corresponding to Taurus and when using a traditional French deck do you take The Pope as corresponding to Jupiter (as French writers such as Papus do)?

Melissa

Re: Astrological Associations of the Tarot by Golden Dawn?

85
Hi Melissa,

Pardon my delayed reply.
delaforge wrote:Paul Foster Case, who like Waite was a one-time member of the Golden Dawn, does as Waite does with the court cards. I don't recall either man explaining why he had not held to GD teaching. Does anyone know their reasons?
The GD system was not the only foundation for the RWS Tarot. Also the 15th century Sola-Busca deck had a strong influence on Waite and Smith. I can only speculate that this may have been the source also for the traditional scheme regarding the court cards they chose to follow.

And Case followed the RWS for the most part - his deck can in fact be regarded as a variation of the former.
Could you please give an example? When using a GD-based deck do you, for instance, take The Hierophant as corresponding to Taurus and when using a traditional French deck do you take The Pope as corresponding to Jupiter (as French writers such as Papus do)?

Melissa
Right. For another example, the Thoth Magus showing up in a reading - being connected to Mercury - could be a reference to quicksilver or to the nervous system etc. But I wouldn't make any such associations if using the Papus deck.