More useful insights from Paul Marteau's Tarot de Marseille book. I'm over half-way through it now and I'm not entirely sure I like his writing style; while his observations are generally coherent if a bit clinical, they tend to wander all over the spiritual, mental/emotional and material landscape without much disciplined organizational rigor other than … Continue reading Even and Odd Pips: Closed and Open Circuits
Pips
The Fives and Sevens: Transition and Improvement
In modern tarot practice, the Fives and Sevens are generally interpreted as difficult cards. But Paul Marteau, writing about the Tarot de Marseille in 1949, gave me a different perspective. It became apparent as I read his book that Marteau was heavily influenced by the numerological thinking of fellow Frenchman Joseph Maxwell in the latter's … Continue reading The Fives and Sevens: Transition and Improvement
A Tarot de Marseille “Energy Translation” Tableau
Here I align the seminal "root power" of the Ace and the linear binary projection of the Two with the "agency" of the court cards and the situational "ways and means" symbolized by the remaining pips to produce a developmental tableau that enlivens Tarot de Marseille delineation. Rather than following the esoteric assumption that only … Continue reading A Tarot de Marseille “Energy Translation” Tableau
The “Condensing and Concentrating” Cups
In his 1949 Tarot de Marseille book, Paul Marteau made frequent use of the term "condensing" when discussing the action of the suit of Cups on the emotional "vapors" (my word, not his) of the human psyche. The Cups are obviously vessels for holding liquid, and my fanciful take on Marteau's idea is that they … Continue reading The “Condensing and Concentrating” Cups
Pleasure and Fun, On The Double
This morning I was thinking abut the old Doublemint gum jingle and how it might be applied to the elemental dignities between the Minor Arcana in two-card sets. "Double your pleasure, double your fun!" But I switched it up a bit to create four "opportunities:" "Double your pleasure, double your pain;Double your money, double your … Continue reading Pleasure and Fun, On The Double
The Threes as “Feedback Loop”
In my reading I came across the assertion that the Two in tarot always represents an incipient action arising from the potential embodied in the Ace of its suit. (It shows the "first step" or initial outbound impulse that the static, self-absorbed Ace has only been pondering up to that point.) The imputed binary state … Continue reading The Threes as “Feedback Loop”
Islands in the Sea: The “Gateless” Suit of Pentacles
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is one of the more intriguing and challenging mental tasks I've undertaken in a while: rethinking the numbered cards of Pentacles in line with Barbara Walker's discussion in The Secrets of the Tarot: History, Origins and Symbolism. I've long felt that the quaint, folkloric descriptions that have grown up around the Minor … Continue reading Islands in the Sea: The “Gateless” Suit of Pentacles
The Unevolved Fire Signs: A Study in Vanity
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I struggled to find a polite way to say "arrogance" without actually saying it, but that would be an extreme example of my point. Also, there is an idea here regarding the reversed court cards and their Golden Dawn assignment to the Chaldean zodiac that warrants further exploration in another essay. In astrology … Continue reading The Unevolved Fire Signs: A Study in Vanity
The Suit of Wands As “Arrows”
I'm currently reading Alain Bougearel's book, The Language of the Cards: An Initiation into French Cartomancy (OUROBOROS Editions, August 16, 2020), in which he equates the tarot suit of Batons (modern Wands) to the playing-card suit of Diamonds, and associates the arrowhead-shaped suit emblem with the military arrow as a weapon of ranged combat. He … Continue reading The Suit of Wands As “Arrows”
“Set the Table, Doug”
As my revisionist thinking on the significance of the Major Arcana in a tarot reading continues to churn up fresh ideas, I entertained the notion that the functional relationship between the minor cards, court cards and trump cards might be likened to the experience of dining out. The minor cards provide the "meat-and-potatoes" of the … Continue reading “Set the Table, Doug”
