The Dilettante Among Symbols by desmontes on Scribd
Monday, April 10, 2017
Saturday, April 8, 2017
Spread: Papus' Rapid Process
What must we do if we wish to draw out the horoscope of any matter?
1. You should take the minor arcana and separate the suit of cards that refers to the kind of consultation you require.
If it is some business you are about to undertake, you must take the Sceptres or Diamonds. If it is a love affair, take the Cups or Hearts. For a law-suit, or any struggle, take Swords or Spades. In a money matter, the Pentacles or Clubs.
2. Shuffle the cards selected, then ask the Inquirer to cut them.
3. Take the four first cards from the top of the pack, and without looking at them place them in a cross ... , from left to right, as shown by the numbers (1-4).
4. Then take your major arcana (which should always be separated from the minor arcana), shuffle them, and let them be cut for you.
5. You then ask the Inquirer to draw out seven cards from the major arcana by chance, and to give them to you without looking at them.
6. Shuffle these seven cards, and when the Inquirer has cut them, take the three top cards, and without looking at them arrange them in a triangle, in the following order-- (I-II)
7. Take up the cards so that you can see them and read the oracles, noticing that the card placed at number 1 indicates the commencement. The card placed at number 2 indicates the apogee, at number 3 the obstacles, lastly, at number 4 the fall.
The major arcanum placed at I indicates the influences that have weighed in the affair during the Past. The major arcanum in II. indicates the influence exerted over the Present. The arcanum at number III. shows the influence which will affect and determine the Future.
These cards can be very rapidly deciphered when the habit is once acquired. But one important point should be noted, that when the rapid process is used for fortune-telling, the figures do not exclusively represent persons of especial complexion. The King represents a man, without any other distinction, the Queen a woman, the Knight a young man, and the Knave a child.
Spread: Foli's Grand Star
The Number of Cards may Vary.
There are various ways of telling fortunes with cards arranged in the form of a star, and whichever of these may be preferred, it will always be found necessary to use an uneven number of cards in addition to the one representing the inquirer. Some stars are done with thirteen cards, some with fifteen, and so on, but the real Grand Star must have twenty-one cards placed round the representative one.
The Method.
Suppose the inquirer be a fair man, the king of hearts would be the card selected to form the centre of the star. This representative card is placed face upwards on the table, and the remaining thirty-one cards of the pack (the twos, threes, fours, fives, and sixes having been previously removed) must then be shuffled, and cut with the left hand.
In the accompanying diagram the cards are numbered in the order that they are placed in upon the table, taking the representative as No. 1. The mode of withdrawing the cards from the pack is as follows: The first ten cards are thrown aside after the first cut, and the eleventh card is placed below No. 1; then cut out a second time, and place the top card of the pack on the table above No. 1; cut a third time, take the bottom card of the pack in the hand and place it to the left of No. s. The cards must be cut every time a card is to be
withdrawn, and they are taken alternately from the top and bottom of the pack as above directed. Great care should be observed in the placing of the cards in due order, as any deviation will affect the reading at a subsequent stage of the process. The last card, No. 22, is placed across the foot of the representative.
The Reading in Pairs.
When the Grand Star has been thus formed, the cards must read in pairs, taking the outside circle in this order: 14 and 16, 21 and 19, 15 and 17, 20 and 18. Then take the inner circle, moving from left to right thus: 6 and 10, 9 and 12, 8 and 13, 7 and 11; the four centre points are paired thus: 4 and 2, 5 and 3; and the last card, No. 22, is taken separately. The significations are, of course, taken with regard to the relative positions of the cards, and their special reference to the central figure of the inquirer. This is a picturesque and simple way of consulting the cards, and will probably be a favourite with most people.
Diagram of the Grand Star.
The central card, No. 1, represents the inquirer, and each card is numbered in the order in which it is taken from the pack.
Excerpted from "Fortune Telling by Cards" by P.R.S. Foli, 1915.
Reading Tips: The Transfer Process
Draw two cards at random and examine the details that are repeated or are changed from one card to the other: colors, objects, shapes, the direction the figures are looking ... The interpretation can vary depending on the order in which the cards are placed.
~ Jodorowsky
~ Jodorowsky
Thursday, April 6, 2017
The Marseilles Tarot Ethos by Enrique Enriquez
QUESTION:
I've been a subscriber to your list for some time. I've come to really love the rich symbolism of the Rider-Waite deck, but I've also wanted to learn the Marseille's Eteilla symbolism and meanings. While I'm happy to listen to the cards for new meanings each time I read, my head gets a little jumbled automatically imposing the RWS meanings on cards whose images don't support those meanings.
If you had one tip for someone moving from the RWS system to the Marseille's system, what would it be? And while I know each deck has its aesthetic, if you had to describe the difference in ethos between the RWS system and Marseille's system, how would you do it?
Much Thanks,
Paul Sireci
P.S. - I don't read professionally, but I do use both decks daily.
ANSWER:
A description of the Marseille tarot's "ethos" may be tricky as the literature describing it amounts to a succession of the personal, subjective projections of its authors. How not to fall into the same trap?
I wouldn't say there is a Marseille tarot "method." I rather see it as a "tradition."
That tradition can be seen as having two distinctive moments. First there was a time when the image-makers were active, printing tarots. So far, we only have retrieved enough pieces of that puzzle to outline the passing on, generation after generation, of a set of images that have remained somehow consistent, from Jean Noblet (1650) to, perhaps, Nicolas Conver (1760). Sadly, no commentary about the images survived. We know nothing about what these image-makers were thinking when they printed these tarots. We only know the images are preserved with minimal alterations.
The commentary came later. In fact, I would say the second distinctive moment within the Marseille tradition came about in the 1930s, after Paul Marteau "rebranded" these French tarots sharing a similar pattern as "tarots de Marseille". With Marteau, the Marseille tarot became aware of itself. Most people agree that the first appearance of the "Marseille tarot" notion can be found in Papus, who was then referring to these decks either produced in the city of Marseille or exported to the world through the port of Marseille; but for all practical purposes it was Paul Marteau, head of the Grimaud printing house, who in the 1930s "coined" the "Tarot de Marseille" brand and made the deck available for sale. It is said that Marteau was reacting to the increasing popularity of the RWS deck.
In the last ten years we have seen what could perhaps be a third act in this narrative with the edition of decks that hope to "restore" the Marseille tarot images. Most notably we have Chris Haddar, Philippe Camoin and Alejandro Jodorowsky, Jean-Claude and Roxanne Flornoy, Yoav Ben-Dov and Wilfried Houdoin. While the theories and speculations of all these authors may diverge, the point that remains consistent is the preservation of the images. We still see minor additions or alterations, just as we observed among Noblet, Dodal, Chosson, etc. But the images remain the same.
If we observe what happened after the RWS became popular and we contrast it with what has happened to the Marseille tarot, that difference of ethos starts to emerge. For example, the post-RWS "star" is a symbol that stands for something other than a heavenly body. Once we are there, any star will do. Year after year, we see a proliferation of new decks in which the star-as-symbol takes new and different visual incarnations without stopping to clearly describe what The Star card symbolizes.
Within the Marseille tradition, The Star is that precise image of a naked woman pouring water "Ã la belle etoile" (under the night's sky). If we were to modify the image we would be stepping outside the lexicon of the Marseille tarot. I am using here the word "lexicon" with a precise intention, as the main characteristic of the Marseille tarot ethos, the only one on which all the commentators agree, is that we are in the presence of a visual language. It could be argued that all tarots are a visual language, but here we are talking about a language that requires no (symbolic) interpretation, as it manifests through direct comprehension, pretty much like street signs.
For example, we often hear or read how The Star card represents "hope". But hope is an abstract notion. In the Marseille tarot, Lestoile give us the experience of being naked (exposed) kneeling down (surrendered) pouring water (releasing, dropping, giving). The whole image amounts to a feeling of abandonment that we feel in our bodies, not with our heads, and therefore is physical, not intellectual.
If we were to modify the image we see in Arcane 17, switching it for whatever tickles our fancy, we won't experience these feelings. More important, once the image has been modified we won't be able to map its similarities with Temperance, an image in which a (winged) woman stands, holding the same vases we see in The Star. If we were to choose a different image for Temperance, we wouldn't be able to see these vases she is holding in the two twins embracing under The Sun. These twins can be mapped into the dogs we see in The Moon, the two minions in The Devil, the two persons falling from The Tower, or the two acolytes kneeling before The Pope.
If we change one image, the language collapses.
The commentators of the Marseille tradition (Marteau, Unger, Flornoy, Camoin, Jodorowsky, et. al) agree in a few directions:
- Regard the trumps as a whole, not as a series of individual images.
- Pay attention to the characters' gestures and glances.
In the Marseille tarot the gestures of the characters we see in the cards aren't independent occurrences. We see these gestures, details and elements, repeated from card to card in consistent patterns. The Marseille tarot is a tool for experience. In a sense, we could speak here of a kind of visual magic, based on two traditional strategies:
- Visual similarity
- Visual proximity
The Marseille tarot "spells" ideas by presenting us with the recurrence of signs. Elements that look the same are thought to be conceptually related. Elements that occupy the same position in the cards are thought to be conceptually related.
An additional direction which I personally find worth exploring but that has received very little attention is wordplay. Tchalai Unger writes about it with some detail, showing us how LE MAT (another name for The Fool) is a word that suggests "fool" but also "mast", "matte" and death (as in "check mate"). Jodorowsky also points out how some of the trumps names are actual puns, like LE PENDU, which in French can be heard equally as "the hanged one" or "hard bread."
Once we consider wordplay, we open a door to a rich French tradition of both verbal and visual punning that would take us far back, to Rabelais, Rene Marot, medieval heraldry and all of their successive heirs: Gerard de Nerval, Jean-Pierre Brisset, Alfred Jarry, Raymond Roussel, the Surrealists, the Oulipians, and also esoteric writers like Grasset de Orcet, Rene Guenon and the mythical Fulcanelli. All of them were very much aware of the nature of wordplay as an engine for meditation and thought. Understood within that lineage, the Marseille tarot becomes a tool to unlock the mind to the multiversality of signs.
All my Best,
enrique enriquez/hieroglyphic terrorism
I've been a subscriber to your list for some time. I've come to really love the rich symbolism of the Rider-Waite deck, but I've also wanted to learn the Marseille's Eteilla symbolism and meanings. While I'm happy to listen to the cards for new meanings each time I read, my head gets a little jumbled automatically imposing the RWS meanings on cards whose images don't support those meanings.
If you had one tip for someone moving from the RWS system to the Marseille's system, what would it be? And while I know each deck has its aesthetic, if you had to describe the difference in ethos between the RWS system and Marseille's system, how would you do it?
Much Thanks,
Paul Sireci
P.S. - I don't read professionally, but I do use both decks daily.
ANSWER:
A description of the Marseille tarot's "ethos" may be tricky as the literature describing it amounts to a succession of the personal, subjective projections of its authors. How not to fall into the same trap?
I wouldn't say there is a Marseille tarot "method." I rather see it as a "tradition."
That tradition can be seen as having two distinctive moments. First there was a time when the image-makers were active, printing tarots. So far, we only have retrieved enough pieces of that puzzle to outline the passing on, generation after generation, of a set of images that have remained somehow consistent, from Jean Noblet (1650) to, perhaps, Nicolas Conver (1760). Sadly, no commentary about the images survived. We know nothing about what these image-makers were thinking when they printed these tarots. We only know the images are preserved with minimal alterations.
The commentary came later. In fact, I would say the second distinctive moment within the Marseille tradition came about in the 1930s, after Paul Marteau "rebranded" these French tarots sharing a similar pattern as "tarots de Marseille". With Marteau, the Marseille tarot became aware of itself. Most people agree that the first appearance of the "Marseille tarot" notion can be found in Papus, who was then referring to these decks either produced in the city of Marseille or exported to the world through the port of Marseille; but for all practical purposes it was Paul Marteau, head of the Grimaud printing house, who in the 1930s "coined" the "Tarot de Marseille" brand and made the deck available for sale. It is said that Marteau was reacting to the increasing popularity of the RWS deck.
In the last ten years we have seen what could perhaps be a third act in this narrative with the edition of decks that hope to "restore" the Marseille tarot images. Most notably we have Chris Haddar, Philippe Camoin and Alejandro Jodorowsky, Jean-Claude and Roxanne Flornoy, Yoav Ben-Dov and Wilfried Houdoin. While the theories and speculations of all these authors may diverge, the point that remains consistent is the preservation of the images. We still see minor additions or alterations, just as we observed among Noblet, Dodal, Chosson, etc. But the images remain the same.
If we observe what happened after the RWS became popular and we contrast it with what has happened to the Marseille tarot, that difference of ethos starts to emerge. For example, the post-RWS "star" is a symbol that stands for something other than a heavenly body. Once we are there, any star will do. Year after year, we see a proliferation of new decks in which the star-as-symbol takes new and different visual incarnations without stopping to clearly describe what The Star card symbolizes.
Within the Marseille tradition, The Star is that precise image of a naked woman pouring water "Ã la belle etoile" (under the night's sky). If we were to modify the image we would be stepping outside the lexicon of the Marseille tarot. I am using here the word "lexicon" with a precise intention, as the main characteristic of the Marseille tarot ethos, the only one on which all the commentators agree, is that we are in the presence of a visual language. It could be argued that all tarots are a visual language, but here we are talking about a language that requires no (symbolic) interpretation, as it manifests through direct comprehension, pretty much like street signs.
For example, we often hear or read how The Star card represents "hope". But hope is an abstract notion. In the Marseille tarot, Lestoile give us the experience of being naked (exposed) kneeling down (surrendered) pouring water (releasing, dropping, giving). The whole image amounts to a feeling of abandonment that we feel in our bodies, not with our heads, and therefore is physical, not intellectual.
If we were to modify the image we see in Arcane 17, switching it for whatever tickles our fancy, we won't experience these feelings. More important, once the image has been modified we won't be able to map its similarities with Temperance, an image in which a (winged) woman stands, holding the same vases we see in The Star. If we were to choose a different image for Temperance, we wouldn't be able to see these vases she is holding in the two twins embracing under The Sun. These twins can be mapped into the dogs we see in The Moon, the two minions in The Devil, the two persons falling from The Tower, or the two acolytes kneeling before The Pope.
If we change one image, the language collapses.
The commentators of the Marseille tradition (Marteau, Unger, Flornoy, Camoin, Jodorowsky, et. al) agree in a few directions:
- Regard the trumps as a whole, not as a series of individual images.
- Pay attention to the characters' gestures and glances.
In the Marseille tarot the gestures of the characters we see in the cards aren't independent occurrences. We see these gestures, details and elements, repeated from card to card in consistent patterns. The Marseille tarot is a tool for experience. In a sense, we could speak here of a kind of visual magic, based on two traditional strategies:
- Visual similarity
- Visual proximity
The Marseille tarot "spells" ideas by presenting us with the recurrence of signs. Elements that look the same are thought to be conceptually related. Elements that occupy the same position in the cards are thought to be conceptually related.
An additional direction which I personally find worth exploring but that has received very little attention is wordplay. Tchalai Unger writes about it with some detail, showing us how LE MAT (another name for The Fool) is a word that suggests "fool" but also "mast", "matte" and death (as in "check mate"). Jodorowsky also points out how some of the trumps names are actual puns, like LE PENDU, which in French can be heard equally as "the hanged one" or "hard bread."
Once we consider wordplay, we open a door to a rich French tradition of both verbal and visual punning that would take us far back, to Rabelais, Rene Marot, medieval heraldry and all of their successive heirs: Gerard de Nerval, Jean-Pierre Brisset, Alfred Jarry, Raymond Roussel, the Surrealists, the Oulipians, and also esoteric writers like Grasset de Orcet, Rene Guenon and the mythical Fulcanelli. All of them were very much aware of the nature of wordplay as an engine for meditation and thought. Understood within that lineage, the Marseille tarot becomes a tool to unlock the mind to the multiversality of signs.
All my Best,
enrique enriquez/hieroglyphic terrorism
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