Tarot: Hebrew Letters Attributed to the Trumps

I am delighted to announce that I have had a resolution of a query I have had with tarot for ever. I see that I wrote about the difficulty four years ago and have only come to any resolution by the chance discovery of a website today.
The problem has been to find a system of Hebrew letters attribution for the Major Arcana. A major reason for this problem has been my own insistence that aleph should be given to the Magician because his body forms the letter's shape (as opposed to the Golden Dawn's insistence that the Fool should be aleph - apart from my own stubbornness that their system was wrong, the Golden Dawn attributions otherwise made sense). This of course left me with the problem of where to put the fool. And I was not comfortable with the way McGregor Mathers arbitrarily placed him at position 20.
I have been delighted to find the website of Mark Filipas. I don't buy his theory that the tarot was created as a sort of Hebrew ABC but I think his attributions are spot on. He also uses mediaeval Hebrew to explain the connections and places the Fool right at the end. The only difficulty with the Rider Waite deck is that he's using the Marseille deck and of course Justice and Strength are the other way round.
What is the importance of this? I maintain the tarot started life as a game but one built on the world surrounding it, and a part of the world was the kabbalistic world view which underlies the philosophy eventually connected to the tarot when it became an occult tool. Filipas makes the point that the world view can also be seen in the chess set. For the reader the underlying meaning of the Hebrew letters provides an insight into the reading, as well as having a magical power in their own right.

Tarot: Drama and Facts

This post was inspired by a post on somebody else's blog (which I'm not going to reference) about a book which claims to set in opposition the drama with which we surround ourselves, and cool rational facts about our current human situation. I am also not going to reference the book because I haven't read it and would end up being critical of what various summaries I have read, say what the book says.

I feel the main constituency for the book is people perturbed by the hysterical ranting so prevalent in our media - rich world, that the environment is doomed, all of the money in the world will shortly be in the hands of two people and then the only thing we will have to look forward to is the impending Armageddon which will probably be next week anyway. Of course I'm a queen and drama is second nature. I'm also cynical enough to think that no amount of trying to balance out drama with facts will stop some clown creating another disaster at whim.
Nonetheless this opposition made me wonder what tarot cards would represent the dramatic world view and which would represent the cold rational factual world. I thought I knew this anyway but was in for a surprise when I actually pulled some cards.

For a start I thought that if cards indicating cold rationality would be anywhere it would be in the suit of Swords, which of course represent thought. But I was surprised to find that the archetypal drama queen cards were virtually all in Swords, not in Wands where I had naively expected them to be. True of course some are in Wands and some in Cups and none in the doughty Earth-element Pentacles. I was even more surprised to find that there weren't more in the Major Arcana, at least in my opinion. Perhaps it says more about my own approach but I personally don't consider Death or Judgement to be drama cards - in fact I noticed that I was seeing almost all the events of the Major Arcana as things which just happen and not cause to make a song and dance. On the other hand I did see much more drama in the relatively pedestrian events of the Minor Arcana. As usual you think you're setting out to get to know the tarot but it shows you yourself.

So where is cool, rational, factual thinkin represented in the tarot? Certainly not where I expected and I wonder whether all of my opinions in this post are indicative of my own inner world, since I found that the cards I think indicate rational thinking also indicate power and authority. All four kings, for example. I was surprised to find that three of the cards I picked are Pentacles, suggesting that the tarot is saying that if you want to think rationally you have to have both feet on the ground. I also tried out another hunch I had that since there are hints in the RWS tarot of the alternative suit attribution of Swords to Water and Cups to Air (see the Knight of Cup's helmet for example, there would be a hidden resource of empirical thinking in the Cups, but they proved to be a reservoir of watery emotion.
I am genuinely surprised by this and will no doubt be revisiting it. Oh and apologies for the way the post is set out if you're reading on a computer - inserting photos always upsets blogger and I don't like having photos on a line to themselves. Sigh. This one is probably better looking in mobile view.

Tarot : The Magician

I have written here before about Pamela Colman Smith's own preferred method of understanding the tarot cards, which is to get into the position of the characters. What has only recently struck me is that other images in our cultural memory can also assume the same positions and thus be linked energetically. I have always had difficulty with the Magician, but not since I saw this comparison somewhere on the Internet.

Who'd have made this connection without seeing it? And who'd have thought the Magician energy would be the same as a young man going out clubbing? Bit obvious when you think that dancing is widely used in magical traditions!
I'm quite sure I've commented on how John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever was an early crush of mine, so let's have a sound track for such is my Will. I do like a hairy chest and what's not to love about little black briefs?

The X-Files

I am back at work and after initially being absolutely ridiculous they are now being better about making adjustments for me. Unfortunately the assessment they arranged was useless so I have been obliged to tell them that and tell them what I actually need to work a computer - I swear I don't go around looking for trouble.
Meanwhile they have a member of admin staff sitting with me to do my computing, which has the great advantage that my colleague who has an undiagnosed personality disorder is sooo jealous! Never mind - she's handed her notice in but isn't telling anyone and I happen to know she will hate her new job even more than she hates this one.
Actually I could have done with more time off, simply because I still have some box sets I didn't get time to watch. So I am starting a mammoth rewatch of the X-Files. It dates me precisely of course that it was very formative on me on its first broadcast.
I am in the middle of season one and I love the way Mulder comes up with his paranormal explanations for things - versus Scully's cold rationality. The moment he began a sentence with the words, 'Specialists in alternative life designs...', I was in love.
In retrospect of course it seems quite cosy and reminiscent. I'm even finding myself coveting an Apple Powerbook Duo again. Now if anyone can tell me where I can find the index card program I found so useful in Windows 3, life would be perfect.

Tarot: Before, During and After Decks

I am still in touch with my novice master from my Benedictine days and he recently commented that I've always had a funny attitude to authority. While I understand that he's been on the receiving end of that attitude, there's actually nothing funny about it at all: there is literally nobody more deferential to authority than me... as long as the authority in question is right! I seem to carry this attitude through into my magic and it's probably just as well I have never found my way into a coven. 

Several years ago a deck called the New Vision Tarot was published which consists of alternative takes on what is happening in the RWS deck. In true Hound style, while I rather liked it I disagreed with some of the interpretations because in my opinion they reduced the options in the card to only one. For example it allows us to see one possibility of what the Fool is walking towards but prevents the querent's imagination of what else he *could* be facing. 

The other side of this coin is of course the deck prompts some rethinking of what is happening in the cards and some irreverent interpretation, which is of course the sort of interpretation the Hound likes best. The perceived thoughts of the horse in the 6 of Wands are always revealing, for example. 

I see that there are now both Before and After tarot decks available. They seem to have exactly the same strengths and weaknesses as the New Vision Tarot. For example After's vision of the Fool hanging off a cliff by his fingertips is a common one but by no means the only one. I personally always think much of the point of this card is that the Fool is striding towards something he can see but we can't, but again this is my own favoured interpretation and it is good to be reminded that there are others out there. Similarly I would never have pictured the Fool having to catch the dog first, which is how he's pictured in the Before tarot - once again showing that the question 'What happens before/after this scene?' is one which really reveals a person's mindset. I'm not going to publish my own idea of what happened to the Fool before our snapshot of him, because now I come to verbalise it it is slightly too revealing and frankly rather embarrassing! 

The other shortcoming of this before/after technique is that in some cards there is no question: for example there is no question what happens next in the Tower - the Tower collapses and everyone dies. Of course in this scenario the alternative vision technique may still be helpful - for example the querent may see themselves as a rescuer who has not been able to get there in time, and of course what comes before the Tower can be very revealing indeed. 

Since I've deprived you of my embarrassing idea of what has happened before for the Fool, I will reveal that I have very tellingly always thought that the horse in the 6 of Wands is thinking, 'What a twat'. 

The Imagined Country

I have been reading about children's TV series of the sixties and seventies which draw on the folkloric zeitgeist of the time. I mean The Owl Service, Penda's Fen and others of that ilk, which I was too young to see at the time, although I have seen some of them since.
These programmes also drew heavily on the fear at the time that the contemporary idea of progress was bringing the rural world to an end. This led to a romanticisation of the rural world.
This was all the rage when I was a child but has fortunately left me largely untouched. Even then I was a complete townie!
It is unfortunate that the romantic idea of the country as well as some rather fanciful ideas of British folklore and history after the Christianisation of the country tend to dominate in the modern witchcraft and Pagan worlds. The reality of much rural life, both now and in the past, is endless slog and precarious conditions - animals and crops simply never give you a day off, and these unromantic conditions were exactly what those who flocked into the cities at the industrial revolution were seeking to flee.
I suppose what I'm getting at is the ahistorical romantic view of the country, pseudo history and an imagined past, created in fear of the present. Even 'using' the country in this way is a form of colonialism and making these TV programmes means the world of technology invading the idealised country : the illustration shows the filming of Akenfield.

Tarot: Water

There is a tradition that the water glimpsed on the other side of the veil in the High Priestess card is the same water we see on every other tarot card which shows water. In the Major Arcana it next appears as a waterfall in the next card after the High Priestess before disappearing for a good few cards (update 13.5.18 - ignore this, there's water on the Chariot)  and reappearing in Temperance.
What does this water signify? I think I have an answer from another member of the Golden Dawn, Dion Fortune. These two ladies *may* have belonged to different schisms of the order, I haven't checked, but the obvious source for understanding the world of this tarot deck is the Golden Dawn tradition.
I found this quote in Patricia Crowther:

'The sound of that running water [at her husband's funeral] remained a mystery for some time, until the day I obtained a copy of Through the Gates of Death by Dion Fortune (Aquarian Press, 1957). As I held this book, it fell open at a particular page, where I read the following passage:

"When spiritual love is coming to us from the Inner Planes we have only to still the outer senses for a moment to hear it purling like a brook, a steady flow, coming to us all the time from the eternal and steadfast soul that has gone ahead to the Next Country. "

'Fortune calls it the" Brook of Love", or the "Communion of Love", and tells us that no psychic powers are needed for it to reach the mundane consciousness. She advises us to send back our own personal flow of love to our loved ones on the Inner Planes.' (Patricia Crowther:High Priestess. Phoenix Publishing, Blaine, Washington, 1998, p. 110)

So the water comes from higher planes - in my naughty way I'm going to gloss this as not only referring to love but generally to things of the higher planes. The cards on which it appears reference higher things (among others) and the cards in which it does not appear indicate the more 'mundane' tasks of the Fool's journey.
I know I have argued repeatedly here against these kinds of divisions but the world view here is that of the Golden Dawn, not necessarily my own. Many tarotists criticise this deck precisely because of that world view. Meh.
Have a sound track also stolen from another worldview. Vidi aquam: I saw water flowing out of the Temple, from its right side, Alleluia: And all who came to this water were saved, And they shall say: Alleluia, Alleluia.  To quote Wikipedia: 'The text refers to the words of the prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel 47:1)^[2], who saw the waters gushing forth from the Temple as a sanctifying flood that flows through the earth.' 

Tea Leaf Reading with Dame Hilda Bracket

May is Masturbation Month

It will surprise regular readers that I, an almost terminal non-joiner, have found an event that I want to join in with. With gusto. Frequently. Of course it's masturbation month.
I've written here before with my rather devastating brand of frankness about my use of porn and the fact I wank. In fact I've been wanking quite happily since my first time at the age of eight.
I'm celebrating the month by basically doing it more and watching more porn so I'm more aroused. Bit strange to be joining in like this!

Tarot : Weather

Pam was, among other things, a theatrical set designer and the attention of the tarot community has tended to focus on the 'stage' cards in the RWS tarot (you can tell which they are by a straight line on the 'stage' of the card, giving exactly the impression of a back drop.
Another way of setting the mood in theatre and on the silver screen is with the weather. Watch a film noir and I'll guarantee you it will be raining or foggy, for example, and anyone who has seen Murder by Death will remember how the atmosphere is created by artificial rain and food.
The weather is used by Pam in her tarot surprisingly rarely. Only on these cards in fact, although I realise I have missed out the snow of the 5 of Pentacles.
The cards with 'heavy weather' either indicate major turmoil (sorry, but I have to describe it as a barometric change) or belong to the always troublesome suit of Swords, where because it is about Air, pretty well anything can happen.

Tarot Feathers

I first noticed it on Temperance: feathers and wings in the world outside the RWS tarot deck are a marvel of evolution and their tidy perfection is quite something. So how did Pam manage to make the feathers on the Temperance angel's wings look so tatty - no effort is even made to make them point the same way.
I wondered whether it was a 'hidden Mickey' but have been unable to spy any pictures or words in the pattern of the feathers. The other cards depicting wings also show feathers which look tatty, but Temperance is the worst.
We know that Pam rushed through the poorly paid commission of designing a tarot deck so perhaps immaculate feathers were the least of her concerns. Perhaps she drew Temperance after the others.

Tarot : The Fingers on the 10 of Swords

As always when I am ill, the tarot leaps into my hand for another layer of initiation. I can't believe it has taken me this long to come across the explanation that the man's fingers on the 10 of Swords are in the same position as those of the hierophant, only seen the other way round. Sandra Thomson's explanation that they are in a Japanese mudra always seemed to me unlikely.
From Wikipedia:
'In many modern packs, the Hierophant is represented with his right hand raised in what is known esoterically as the blessing or benediction, with two fingers pointing skyward and two pointing down, thus forming a bridge between Heaven and Earthreminiscent of that formed by the body of The Hanged Man. The Hierophant is thus a true "pontiff", in that he is the builder of the bridge between deity and humanity.'
I suppose if we see the other side in the 10 of Swords we see what is behind the curtain, and the man has experienced initiation. The wreck he is in is turned round by holding on to the knowledge and blessing he has acquired, and the clouds are clearing.

Tarot Cards without People

You can now get decks which make their lack of people a virtue, but that's not what I mean. Even in a standard RWS deck some of the cards don't show any people at all. It may be significant that they include aces - clearly what is depicted is not manifest on our plane and there are bigger things at stake than mere human experience. This may explain why I've always found the 3 of Swords and 8 of Wands difficult to read and it may help to think of them as relatively impersonal processes. I left the 4 of Swords on its own because while it does not show actual people it shows artwork showing people so it's out on its own a bit. Of course if you read with a non-pictorial deck the proportion of cards showing humans is much different and so is the emphasis of the deck.