This is a game played with cards, a conversation which will try to answer a relatively simple question: Can the Tarot deck, or any system like it, describe reality?
I think this is a good question and I hope I don't stretch it out of shape with my answer.
I don't think that it explains many things very well at all. As a tool for either divination or meditation it requires the seeker to provide all the context and then do all the heavy lifting to arrive at any sort of point. It doesn't express, it is an expression. It doesn't address us, but its presence helps us address ourselves.
If it offers any ultimate explanation to the seeker, it's that he or she is an infinite being passing through a finite world, and illustrates what sorts of things are prone to happen there. Is this information strengthened or weakened by how far the Tarot has strayed from its original purpose and cultural context? I say strengthened. But I'd be curious to hear what others think...
The tarot is absolutely terrible at describing particular objects. Don't laugh, this is a big deal. If I am reading for someone who is probably going to choke to death during a pleasant chicken dinner, I am pretty sure there is no way I could tell them so. Maybe I could say that a physical pain will come during a moment of relaxation, and maybe even indicate that food, evening, or some specific guest will be involved. But the Tarot has no way of saying "Roast chicken = danger."
Off the top of my head, the impossibility of denoting specific nouns is one of spreads and significations, not of the deck itself. Here:
Let's say that we took a deck of playing cards (or, you know, the Minor Arcana) and decided that we would try to read the cards to figure out what the querent was thinking about using only ten cards (kind of like twenty questions).
We could call the four suits Animals, Minerals, Vegetables, and Conceptuals, each suit having 10+ different ideas to further close in on the thing. A Celtic Cross spread would have Conceptual/Animal (a deity), or Animal/Conceptual (a person), or something like that at the center, and the other cards would narrow it down a great deal.
You probably still could not say "Your mother's index finger," but maybe you could say "a finger" that way. But to get even that much specificity, I don't think you'd be able to say anything *but* nouns, which would be pretty useless.
Hermitosis: "If it offers any ultimate explanation to the seeker, it's that he or she is an infinite being passing through a finite world, and illustrates what sorts of things are prone to happen there."
I have so many questions! I think the biggest one is what an "ultimate explanation" looks like. Are you saying that in the context of "meditation" the Tarot user gets descriptions, not of any particular situation, material or psychological, but a view of the whole universe and how it works? Why would that happen?
Well, I guess if we presume that the Tarot could answer any possible question through card-selection, then we might presume that the deck as a whole would be not only a cosmology, but a reverse-engineered epistemology. That is, it would give a view of the universe and of how we receive information about it.
So, you are characterizing the universe as the deck describes it, yes? But you have not said what sort of things it talks about at all. That is okay, we can get to cosmology later. The idea that the deck says the reader/querent is finite and the universe infinite is an interesting one (the idea that we could "pass through" something infinite, implying that we could come out the both sides, though we are finite is maybe harder to think about). How does the deck of cards describe the difference between an infinite and a finite thing?
I have so many questions! I think the biggest one is what an "ultimate explanation" looks like. Are you saying that in the context of "meditation" the Tarot user gets descriptions, not of any particular situation, material or psychological, but a view of the whole universe and how it works? Why would that happen?
Well, first of all I said IF it offers an ultimate explanation. I'm not convinced it does, or needs to. And by "ultimate explanation" I mean, is there an overall point to the Tarot at all, beyond what has been impressed on it by various religious and mystical paradigms? Perhaps. Does that become apparent to one who meditates on it? Definitely. But different views of the universe from different angles come from meditating on different things, so I don't thing the Tarot is particularly unique in this way.
The idea that the deck says the reader/querent is finite and the universe infinite is an interesting one (the idea that we could "pass through" something infinite, implying that we could come out the both sides, though we are finite is maybe harder to think about). How does the deck of cards describe the difference between an infinite and a finite thing?
I can't tell if you are misquoting my original statement or deliberately reversing it to make a point, but I will elaborate on what I said either way.
The Major Arcana essentially describes the seasons and changes of an infinite consciousness as it evolves; this is generally approached as not just a sequence from 0 to 21, but as a wheel performing cycles.
The Minor Arcana, on the other hand, presents a harmoniously finite world and an outline of the basic laws and attributes of that world.
As far as I can tell, by shuffling the two together you are essentially re-enacting the process by which those two principles become entangled, and the reading describes how the two might or ought to interact, one being mutable while the other is fixed.
How does the deck describe the difference between them? A few ways, I think. There are no religious figures in the Minor Arcana whatsoever; the Aces are essentially the point of intersection, as they hint at otherworldly intervention, a rend between worlds. The numerlogical system of the Minor Arcana is based on four and ten, which are kabbalistically associated with completion and manifestation. How does that suit you for starters?
I can't tell if you are misquoting my original statement or deliberately reversing it to make a point, but I will elaborate on what I said either way.
That reversal was totally accidental, sorry. I will try not to do that again. But my question remains. I am not sure that Gods, completion, or manifestation indicate infinity, but if they do it is basically as if those cards were labeled "Infinite things." They are finite in number and combination, though, so their combination is not a higher order of infinity (remember the book "The Mystery of the Aleph?").
Okay, I will explain that one: If you take the set, for instance, of "all counting numbers numbers higher than one" and add one more to it, it doesn't become any larger, because whatever it would now reach it would have reached anyway. So, there is no +1 to that infinite sequence, and, it stands to reason, no +2 either. In fact (really, go read "The Mystery of the Aleph"), if add "all counting numbers higher than one" to itself, it still doesn't get any larger. Only when it is squared can it begin to describe MORE INFINITE INFINITIES.
So, 22 infinities are collectively no more infinite than any one of them. This is interesting, because it would seem that the system which contains all of these infinities should be greater still, but it seems to me it is not. But that are really only infinite upon the authority of those labels, seems more problematic to me. Could it be that "really big" or "very important" would be more to point than "infinite?"
A good question for later, maybe, can a deck of cards describe "infinitude" and "finitude."
I am not sure that Gods, completion, or manifestation indicate infinity, but if they do it is basically as if those cards were labeled "Infinite things." They are finite in number and combination, though, so their combination is not a higher order of infinity
By religious figures I didn't mean gods, I meant beings like popes, papesses, angels, and other figures that champion the soul's journey, whereas the Minor Arcana's court cards are essentially the land-baron sort of royalty, not the god-kings of earlier times.
And I mean that they're infinite in that a schematic drawn of the Major Arcana would be a hoop, as opposed to a schematic of the Minor which looks more like an NBA tourney.
I think this is a good question and I hope I don't stretch it out of shape with my answer.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that it explains many things very well at all. As a tool for either divination or meditation it requires the seeker to provide all the context and then do all the heavy lifting to arrive at any sort of point. It doesn't express, it is an expression. It doesn't address us, but its presence helps us address ourselves.
If it offers any ultimate explanation to the seeker, it's that he or she is an infinite being passing through a finite world, and illustrates what sorts of things are prone to happen there. Is this information strengthened or weakened by how far the Tarot has strayed from its original purpose and cultural context? I say strengthened. But I'd be curious to hear what others think...
The tarot is absolutely terrible at describing particular objects. Don't laugh, this is a big deal. If I am reading for someone who is probably going to choke to death during a pleasant chicken dinner, I am pretty sure there is no way I could tell them so. Maybe I could say that a physical pain will come during a moment of relaxation, and maybe even indicate that food, evening, or some specific guest will be involved. But the Tarot has no way of saying "Roast chicken = danger."
ReplyDeleteOff the top of my head, the impossibility of denoting specific nouns is one of spreads and significations, not of the deck itself. Here:
Let's say that we took a deck of playing cards (or, you know, the Minor Arcana) and decided that we would try to read the cards to figure out what the querent was thinking about using only ten cards (kind of like twenty questions).
We could call the four suits Animals, Minerals, Vegetables, and Conceptuals, each suit having 10+ different ideas to further close in on the thing. A Celtic Cross spread would have Conceptual/Animal (a deity), or Animal/Conceptual (a person), or something like that at the center, and the other cards would narrow it down a great deal.
You probably still could not say "Your mother's index finger," but maybe you could say "a finger" that way. But to get even that much specificity, I don't think you'd be able to say anything *but* nouns, which would be pretty useless.
Hermitosis: "If it offers any ultimate explanation to the seeker, it's that he or she is an infinite being passing through a finite world, and illustrates what sorts of things are prone to happen there."
ReplyDeleteI have so many questions! I think the biggest one is what an "ultimate explanation" looks like. Are you saying that in the context of "meditation" the Tarot user gets descriptions, not of any particular situation, material or psychological, but a view of the whole universe and how it works? Why would that happen?
Well, I guess if we presume that the Tarot could answer any possible question through card-selection, then we might presume that the deck as a whole would be not only a cosmology, but a reverse-engineered epistemology. That is, it would give a view of the universe and of how we receive information about it.
So, you are characterizing the universe as the deck describes it, yes? But you have not said what sort of things it talks about at all. That is okay, we can get to cosmology later. The idea that the deck says the reader/querent is finite and the universe infinite is an interesting one (the idea that we could "pass through" something infinite, implying that we could come out the both sides, though we are finite is maybe harder to think about). How does the deck of cards describe the difference between an infinite and a finite thing?
I have so many questions! I think the biggest one is what an "ultimate explanation" looks like. Are you saying that in the context of "meditation" the Tarot user gets descriptions, not of any particular situation, material or psychological, but a view of the whole universe and how it works? Why would that happen?
ReplyDeleteWell, first of all I said IF it offers an ultimate explanation. I'm not convinced it does, or needs to. And by "ultimate explanation" I mean, is there an overall point to the Tarot at all, beyond what has been impressed on it by various religious and mystical paradigms? Perhaps. Does that become apparent to one who meditates on it? Definitely. But different views of the universe from different angles come from meditating on different things, so I don't thing the Tarot is particularly unique in this way.
The idea that the deck says the reader/querent is finite and the universe infinite is an interesting one (the idea that we could "pass through" something infinite, implying that we could come out the both sides, though we are finite is maybe harder to think about). How does the deck of cards describe the difference between an infinite and a finite thing?
I can't tell if you are misquoting my original statement or deliberately reversing it to make a point, but I will elaborate on what I said either way.
The Major Arcana essentially describes the seasons and changes of an infinite consciousness as it evolves; this is generally approached as not just a sequence from 0 to 21, but as a wheel performing cycles.
The Minor Arcana, on the other hand, presents a harmoniously finite world and an outline of the basic laws and attributes of that world.
As far as I can tell, by shuffling the two together you are essentially re-enacting the process by which those two principles become entangled, and the reading describes how the two might or ought to interact, one being mutable while the other is fixed.
How does the deck describe the difference between them? A few ways, I think. There are no religious figures in the Minor Arcana whatsoever; the Aces are essentially the point of intersection, as they hint at otherworldly intervention, a rend between worlds. The numerlogical system of the Minor Arcana is based on four and ten, which are kabbalistically associated with completion and manifestation. How does that suit you for starters?
I can't tell if you are misquoting my original statement or deliberately reversing it to make a point, but I will elaborate on what I said either way.
ReplyDeleteThat reversal was totally accidental, sorry. I will try not to do that again. But my question remains. I am not sure that Gods, completion, or manifestation indicate infinity, but if they do it is basically as if those cards were labeled "Infinite things." They are finite in number and combination, though, so their combination is not a higher order of infinity (remember the book "The Mystery of the Aleph?").
Okay, I will explain that one: If you take the set, for instance, of "all counting numbers numbers higher than one" and add one more to it, it doesn't become any larger, because whatever it would now reach it would have reached anyway. So, there is no +1 to that infinite sequence, and, it stands to reason, no +2 either. In fact (really, go read "The Mystery of the Aleph"), if add "all counting numbers higher than one" to itself, it still doesn't get any larger. Only when it is squared can it begin to describe MORE INFINITE INFINITIES.
So, 22 infinities are collectively no more infinite than any one of them. This is interesting, because it would seem that the system which contains all of these infinities should be greater still, but it seems to me it is not. But that are really only infinite upon the authority of those labels, seems more problematic to me. Could it be that "really big" or "very important" would be more to point than "infinite?"
A good question for later, maybe, can a deck of cards describe "infinitude" and "finitude."
I am not sure that Gods, completion, or manifestation indicate infinity, but if they do it is basically as if those cards were labeled "Infinite things." They are finite in number and combination, though, so their combination is not a higher order of infinity
ReplyDeleteBy religious figures I didn't mean gods, I meant beings like popes, papesses, angels, and other figures that champion the soul's journey, whereas the Minor Arcana's court cards are essentially the land-baron sort of royalty, not the god-kings of earlier times.
And I mean that they're infinite in that a schematic drawn of the Major Arcana would be a hoop, as opposed to a schematic of the Minor which looks more like an NBA tourney.
That is a sort of infinity I can get behind (maybe better called being a closed system, though?)
ReplyDelete