david
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 45
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Post by david on Nov 6, 2021 12:43:26 GMT
Fascinating Tarot lore. Thanks all.
Vault of Evil: Come for the Davies plug. Stay for the Tarot seminar.
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Post by Middoth on Nov 6, 2021 12:59:36 GMT
i use Thoth tarot firstly, it is the most beautiful secondly, it tells me everything
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Nov 6, 2021 13:05:13 GMT
Apparently the earliest known reference to the Tarot was in 1442 in Italy, and playing cards were most likely introduced from the Islamic world (probably from Mamluk Egypt) in the late fourteenth century. Antoine Court de Gébelin published his "preposterous theory" that the Tarot was invented by Egyptian priests for divination, in 1781. Within two years a professional fortune-teller called Etteilla had obviously read about it, and was using a Tarot deck, altered by himself, which he called "the book of Thoth". But it only took off, as Doctor Strange says, when Éliphas Lévi, a major figure in the occult revival, made his bizarre claims about them. Playing cards were used, however, for fortune telling before the Tarot, there is an English set from 1690 that survives. The most typical set is 78 cards. Four suits: Swords, Batons, Cups and Coins. 14 cards in each suit, from Ace to 10 and four court cards: King, Queen, Knight, and Jack, and 22 picture cards, usually numbered I to XXI in Roman or 1 to 21 in Arabic numerals. There is also the Fool, which stands out on its own. The 22 picture cards act as trumps and the Fool has its own rules. The earliest Tarot packs didn't number the trump cards, so the individual pictures had to be recognisable to the players so you knew what trump you were playing. The pictures do have some meaning, but it is in reference to the Italian elite and their world view, who would have played with these decks in the 15th century. What imaginative men Éliphas Lévi and the others before him must have been to fit these cards into a magical system. But we shouldn't think they were designed for it, rather they introduced the occult symbolism in various tortuous ways to an already existing pack of cards designed solely for game play. You can't beat the human imagination! In the book the Tarot games listed are: Scarto Mitigati French Tarot Grosstarock Ottocento Sicilian Tarocchi Tapp-Tarock Point-Tarock Königsrufen Cego Hungarian Tarokk Bavarian Tarock The book is Twelve Tarot Games by Michael Dummett. Published by Duckworth in 1980. Three images from Visconti-Sforza Tarot deck Queen of batons
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Nov 6, 2021 13:08:51 GMT
i use Thoth tarot firstly, it is the most beautiful secondly, it tells me everything
It's a very beautiful deck.
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Post by Middoth on Nov 6, 2021 13:36:32 GMT
this is what Eliphas Levi was like: Eliphas Levi was convinced that Paracelsus was engaged in Tarot cards, and was surprised that he did not find any references to the book of Hermes in his works. And then one evening, examining the"Neun Bücher Archidoxis" of the great occultist by the light of the lamp, he, tired of work, fell asleep ... and he dreamed of a hermetic laboratory. The majestic figure of a man suddenly before him ... it was Paracelsus. After Eliphas Levi told him of his fruitless search, he pulled a copper coin from a small purse hanging from his belt and handed him a copper coin. It was key to the tarot. But where can I get this coin? Paracelsus motioned for Eliphas Levi to follow him and, near the New Bridge, bowing to the ground, showed him a place ... between two cobbled streets. The next day, Eliphas Levi went to the place indicated in the dream. Passing the Conti embankment, located near the New Bridge, he saw a coin seller's stall and there, among many other coins, he found exactly the one he was looking for.
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Post by helrunar on Nov 6, 2021 14:51:55 GMT
It's too bad that Twelve Tarot Games appears to be one of those OP books that sells for outrageous prices on interweb vendors. Lovely images, Princess.
H.
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Post by helrunar on Nov 6, 2021 14:59:32 GMT
Middoth, that's a very cool story. There is a new English edition of Levi's most significant work, Dogme et rituel de la Haute Magie, translated if I remember rightly by self-appointed "Arch Druid" John Michael Greer, which came out three or so years ago. The Tarot plays a very important role in the book. One well known Witch (who is one of my favorite authors) wrote that Levi's system of assigning letters of the Hebrew alphabet to specific cards was one of the cornerstones of much magical practice as reconstructed in the Victorian era. My personal view is that the creation of the Thoth Tarot was Aleister Crowley's greatest achievement as a magician. A lot of credit for the extraordinary power of this Tarot must be accorded, again in my view, to the artist, Lady Frieda Harris. Some of Lady Frieda's letters (and a couple of Crowley's replies to her) can be read here: hermetic.com/crowley/crowley-harrisH.
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Nov 6, 2021 15:10:29 GMT
It's too bad that Twelve Tarot Games appears to be one of those OP books that sells for outrageous prices on interweb vendors. Lovely images, Princess. H. Really there isn't much about the history, the introduction is very brief. It's mostly how to play the various games.
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Post by Middoth on Nov 6, 2021 15:12:53 GMT
recently they found an unknown manuscript by Eliphas Levi, which was used to recreate his tarot. I cannot vouch for the authenticity of this manuscript, but the tarot has already been published
will you reveal her name?
Thank you!
and her human patience and perseverance considering how often she had to redraw
Did you know that Pamela Colman Smith illustrated Bram Stoker's "Lair of the White Worm"?
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Post by helrunar on Nov 6, 2021 15:34:02 GMT
Hi Middoth, I was thinking of Doreen Valiente--a very significant personality in the formation of modern Pagan Witchcraft--and her book The Rebirth of Witchcraft. An excellent read. Doreen was a very lively and expressive writer, and never slow to find the humor in the eccentric individuals and situations of which she wrote. If you read Frieda Harris's letters, you learn that she had her own occult contacts with various spirits (or archetypal energies, if you prefer) that helped guide her in her work on the Tarot. Aleister's letters are mostly all "where's my 10 thousand quid then." Last year I bought this book from a tiresomely ubiquitous online retail site, on a serious discount--I suppose price had been reduced--and it has excellent reproductions even of some really obscure works by Pamela Colman Smith, including her illustrations for Lair of the White Worm (the drawings are much better than the book). www.usgamesinc.com/pamela-colman-smith-the-untold-story.htmlcheers, Hel
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Nov 6, 2021 15:41:36 GMT
I found two more Tarot books by or co-authored by Michael Dummett.
This is from A History of Games Played with the Tarot Pack: The Game of Triumphs, Vol. 1
by Michael Dummett and John McLeod:
Ferrara
As we saw in Chapter l, there were three great original centres of the game of Tarot: Milan. Ferrara and Bologna: the line of descent from each can be traced by the different orders of the trumps observed in each tradition. This criterion shows that the Ferrarese form of the game spread northwards, to Venice and to Trent, in neither of those two cities does it appear to have become greatly popular. In Ferrara itself, on the other hand, it enjoyed a tremendous vogue, especially at the court of the d'Este rulers, from the early XV century until the end of the XVI, it is from the court account-books of 1442 that we have the first documentary references to Tarot cards. In 1598, however, Lucrezia d'Este, duchess of Urbino, renounced on behalf of her nephew Cesare his claim to the ducal throne of Ferrara in favour of the Papacy. It was from the Pope that the Fstensi held the dukedom of Ferrara, and Pope Clement VIII refused, on the ground of his illegitimacy, to recognise the right of Cesare d'Este to succeed Duke Alfonso II. Cesare removed himself to Modena, a dukedom that the Estensi held from the Emperor, and Cardinal Aldobrandini entered Ferrara to govern it on behalf of the Pope, who, with his successors henceforth became its direct overlord. There is no sign that the popularity of the game of Tarot survived the move to Modena, either in Modena or in Ferrara itself. The Ferrarese form of the game may he said to have died out at the end of the XVI century, or very soon afterwards. It appears to be in Ferrara that the practice of numbering the trump cards began_ Two sheets from the late XV century for a Tarot pack which can be assigned with almost complete certainty to Ferrara are to be found in several collections, between them they show the Matto, all twenty-one trumps and all sixteen court cards.' On these, all the trumps are numbered save the highest, the World. There are also several literary sources which list the trumps in the Ferrarese ordcr.
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Nov 7, 2021 14:35:20 GMT
Also from A History of Games Played with the Tarot Pack: The Game of Triumphs, Vol. 1 by Michael Dummett and John McLeod:
Those interested in the other matters discussed in The Game of Tarot can consult other works. For Tarot occultism, A Wicked Pack of Cards (Duckworth, London, 1996) by Ronald Decker, Thierry Depaulis and Michael Dummett, and its successor, A History of the Occult Tarot 1870-1970, issued by the same publisher in 2002, by Ronald Decker and Michael Dummett. For the history on card games in general, David Parlett's The 0xford Guide to Card Games (Oxtford University Press, 1990). For the history of Trappola games, Trappola (Piatnik, Vienna. 1988) by Robert S. Kissel and Michael Dummett, or the monograph - much shorter than this book - that we hope that someone is going to write. And those who can read Italian and want to know the history of Tarot cards designed for play can consult Michael Dummett's still very largely up to date II Monde e l'Angelo (Bibliopolis, Naples, 1993). or. for those who can read French. the less comprehensive and not quite so up to date Tarot, jeu et magie, the catalogue, edited by Thierry Depaulis, of the great exhibition of Tarot cards at the Bibliothéque Nationale in Paris in 1984. For anything else, they can look at a copy of The Game of Tarot in one of the libraries.
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Post by helrunar on Nov 7, 2021 16:01:19 GMT
My favorite book on the Tarot is 78 Degrees of Wisdom by Rachel Pollack, who is really a Tarot genius. Mary Greer's Tarot for yourself is also highly recommended by numerous authorities, but I have still never read Greer's book. I did hear an interview with her several years ago on a friend's podcast--she's very down to Earth and a fascinating speaker. I first learned Tarot through one of Eden Gray's books which we had in the town public library when I was a child in the late Sixties. This is an interesting little article about Eden. She lived into her 90s! marykgreer.com/2008/03/27/eden-grays-fools-journey/I'll try to stop writing about the Tarot as I'm sure some on here are quite bored with the topic. H.
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Post by jamesdoig on Nov 7, 2021 20:16:38 GMT
I'll try to stop writing about the Tarot as I'm sure some on here are quite bored with the topic. I've got to admit I don't know much about the tarot. I think the first time I saw a tarot deck was a set that came out following The Man With The Golden Gun. The occultist A.E. Waite wrote about it, and the publisher Rider used to issue sets 'designed by Pamela Colman Smith under the direction of Arthur Edward Waite.' T.E.D. Klein used the tarot to good creepy effect in 'Petey' and also The Ceremonies.
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david
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 45
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Post by david on Nov 8, 2021 10:53:04 GMT
I've been reading Providence After Dark, a collection of miscellaneous writings by T.E.D. Klein. In one of the pieces in the book, he discusses his use of the Tarot in writing "Petey." Reading PAD has inspired me to go back and re-read some of Klein's fiction. "Petey" is on my reading agenda soon, and this Tarot talk has further whetted my appetite for it.
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