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T A R O T - CARTOMANCY

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Author Topic: T A R O T - CARTOMANCY  (Read 1305 times)
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Bianca
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« on: August 04, 2007, 12:48:59 pm »









MODERN DECK DESIGNS





The modern, 78-card tarot deck has two distinct parts:

The Major Arcana ("greater secrets"), or trump cards, consists of 21 cards without suits, plus a 22nd card, The Fool, which is often given the value of zero: The Fool, The Magician, The High Priestess, The Empress, The Emperor, The Hierophant, The Lovers, The Chariot, Strength, The Hermit, Wheel of Fortune, Justice, The Hanged Man, Death, Temperance, The Devil, The Tower, The Star, The Moon, The Sun, Judgment, and The World.

The minor arcana ("lesser secrets") consists of 56 cards (sometimes referred to as pips), divided into four suits of 14 cards each: ten numbered cards and four court cards. The court cards are the page, knight, queen and king in each of the four tarot suits. The traditional Italian Tarot suits are Swords, Batons, Coins and Cups; in modern Tarot decks, however, the batons suit is often called Wands, Rods or Staves, while the coins suit is often called Pentacles or disks.

The terms Major Arcana and Minor Arcana are only used in esoteric practice.





DIFFERENCES AMONG THE DECKS







 Le Chariot, from the Tarot of Marseilles.




The Chariot from the Rider-Waite Tarot deck This is a recolored image of a card in the Rider-Waite tarot deck. The

 quality of colors may differ slightly from the US Games versions.A variety of styles of tarot decks and designs have existed and a number of typical regional patterns emerged. Historically, one of the most important designs is now usually known as the Tarot de Marseilles. This standard pattern was the one studied by Court de Gébelin, and cards based on this style illustrate his Le Monde primitif. The Tarot de Marseilles was also popularized in the 20th century by Paul Marteau. Some current editions of cards based on the Marseilles design go back to a deck of a particular Marseilles design that was printed by Nicolas Conver in 1760. Other regional styles include the "Swiss" Tarot; this one substitutes Juno and Jupiter for the Papess, or High Priestess and the Pope, or Hierophant. In Florence an expanded deck called Minchiate was used; this deck of 96 cards includes astrological symbols and the four elements, as well as traditional Tarot cards.

Older decks such as the Visconti-Sforza and Marseilles are less detailed than more modern decks. A Marseilles-type deck is usually distinguished by having repetitive motifs on the pip cards as opposed to full scenes found on "Rider-Waite" style decks.

Some decks exist primarily as artwork; and such "art decks" sometimes contain only the 22 cards of the Major Arcana. Esoteric decks are often used in conjunction with the study of the Hermetic Qabala; in these decks the Major Arcana are illustrated in accordance with Qabalistic principles while the numbered suit cards (2 through 10) sometimes bear only stylized renderings of the suit symbol. However, under the influence of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, decks used in the English-speaking world for divination often bear illustrated scenes on the numeric cards to facilitate divination. The more simply illustrated "Marseilles" style decks are nevertheless used esoterically, for divination, and previously for game play. (Note that the French card game of tarot is now generally played using a relatively modern 19th-century design of German origin. Such Tarot decks generally have 21 trumps with genre scenes from 19th-century life, a Fool, and have court and pip cards that closely resemble today's French playing cards.)




Modern deck design in common use for French Tarot card game.
 
An influential deck in English-speaking countries is the Rider-Waite deck (sometimes called simply the Rider deck). (See also discussion of the general expression "Rider-Waite-Smith" below, to indicate a category of decks that includes the "Rider-Waite" deck as well as decks which use the line drawings of the Rider-Waite deck, such as the Universal Waite deck, or decks using scenes on the pip cards as opposed to simple motif repetition.) (In contrast, in French-speaking countries, the Marseilles deck enjoys the equivalent popularity.) The images were drawn by artist Pamela Colman-Smith, to the instructions of Christian mystic and occultist Arthur Edward Waite, and originally published by the Rider Company in 1910. While the deck is sometimes known as a simple, user-friendly one, its imagery, especially in the Trumps, is complex and replete with occult symbolism. The subjects of the trumps are based on those of the earliest decks, but have been significantly modified to reflect Waite and Smith's view of Tarot. An important difference from Marseilles-style decks is that Smith drew scenes on the numeric cards to depict divinatory meanings; those divinatory meanings derive, in great part, from traditional cartomantic divinatory meanings (e.g., Etteilla and others) and from divinatory meanings first espoused by The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, of which both Waite and Smith were members. However, it isn't the first deck to include completely illustrated numeric cards. The first to do so was the 15th-century Sola-Busca deck; however, in this case, the illustrations apparently were not made to facilitate divination.


 The Magician, card number 1 in what cartomancers call the "major arcana".This is a recolored image of a card in the Rider-Waite tarot deck. The quality of colors may differ slightly from the US Games versions.Numerous other decks that are loosely based on Rider-Waite (as noted below) have been published from the mid-20th century through today. They are sometimes called Rider-Waite-Smith clones; however, the term is misleading. They are not exact copies as the term clone would imply. Instead, they are variations.


 
The Tower from the Rider-Waite Tarot deckThis is a recolored image of a card in the Rider-Waite tarot deck. The quality of colors may differ slightly from the US Games versions.



The Tower from the Tarot of MarseillesA widely-used esoteric Tarot deck is Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot (pronounced /təʊt/ or /θɒθ/). The often controversial Crowley engaged the artist Lady Frieda Harris to paint the cards for the deck.

In contrast to the Thoth deck's colourfulness, the illustrations on Paul Foster Case's B.O.T.A. Tarot deck are black line drawings on white cards; this is an unlaminated deck intended to be coloured by its owner. Other esoteric decks include the Golden Dawn Tarot, which is apparently based on a deck by S.L. MacGregor Mathers.  Numerous other decks exist, including the Tree of Life Tarot whose cards are stark symbolic catalogs, and the Cosmic Tarot.

The Marseilles-style Tarot decks generally feature numbered minor arcana cards that look very much like the pip cards of modern playing card decks. The Marseilles' numbered minor arcana cards do not have scenes depicted on them; rather, they sport a geometric arrangement of the number of suit symbols (e.g., swords, rods, cups, coins) corresponding to the number of the card (accompanied by botanical and other non-scenic flourishes), while the court cards are often illustrated with flat, two-dimensional drawings.

Other modern decks created since the time of the first publishing of the Rider-Waite deck in 1909 vary in their card imagery. The variety is almost endless, and grows yearly. For instance, cat-lovers may have the Tarot of the Cat People, a deck complete with cats in every picture. The Tarot of the Witches and the Aquarian Tarot retain the conventional cards with varying designs.
   
                                                               
                                                                MOTHERPEACE TAROT

These modern decks change the cards to varying degrees. For example, the Motherpeace Tarot is notable for its circular cards and feminist angle: the mainly male characters have been replaced by females. The Tarot of Baseball has suits of bats, mitts, balls and bases; "coaches" and "MVPs" instead of Queens and Kings; and major arcana cards like "The Catcher", "The Rule Book" and "Batting a Thousand". In the Silicon Valley Tarot, major arcana cards include The Hacker, Flame War, The Layoff and The Garage; the suits are Networks, Cubicles, Disks and Hosts; the court cards CIO, Salesman, Marketeer and New Hire. Another tarot in recent years has been the Robin Wood Tarot. This deck retains the Rider-Waite theme while adding some very soft and colorful Pagan symbolism. As with other decks, the cards are available with a companion book written by Ms. Wood which details all of the symbolism and colors utilized in the Major and Minor Arcana.
« Last Edit: August 04, 2007, 09:25:14 pm by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

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