Oh phooey. One little dent and it all goes kasplooey!

[miniproject]

This photoblog will recommence when:

* I get a new digital camera

* My boyfriend fixes my camera

* My dad lends me his camera

* Or I learn how to use my (maybe crappy, but better than nothing) phone camera




HMPH.

Comments

[nashira]

Those are very cool! :D I've never used a Rider-Waite deck so I didn't really realise it has christian themes. It seems a bit odd to me...

I have The Mythic Tarot as my main and I also have the Arthurian Tarot. They're both very beautiful though the Arthurian one seems darker/more serious than the mythic.

[miniproject]

Oooh - the mythic tarot was the first deck I purchased because I felt drawn to it. My very first deck was a "Swiss JJ1" but it was so *bleh* that I don't consider it really my own chosen first deck. It was just how I stumbled across tarot and became intrigued. The mythic tarot is really nice. Cool choice! I'll take a look at the Arthurian. Haven't heard of that one..

And I believe the mythic and probably Arthurian would be Rider-Waite "clones" too. If you've done some research into tarot origins, you probably know about how Pamela Colman Smith, apparently psychic, drew the cards at Arthur Waite's request sometime in the 19thC, reinterpreting the earlier Marseille and Eturia style decks that dated back to the 14th century. She's taken as the "canon" alongside the naughty Aleister Crowley, who produced his own deviant, and some say very superior version of the structure of tarot, also working with a talented female artist.

Compare and contrast the 8th/11th trumps of the two decks - Justice in Waite's case, and Adjustment in Crowley's. Strength in Waite's case and Lust in Crowley's. Crowley was of the idea that instead of a universe ruled by morality and integrity, the world was a mechanically moving series of actions and events that had no relation to our morality, if there is such a thing, and in essence the most powerful (and good) thing in this world is lust. So uh... it can be a bit of a weighty decision which deck to prefer over the other. I think Crowley's deck is too fricken complicated to be any fun anyway. The guy was a genius as well as a sociopath.

Anyway, if you compare "Crowley's deck" to Waite's, it becomes obvious who was Christian and who preferred the "do as thou wilt" philiosophy of life. Waite's Lovers trump is Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, being forced to make a choice by the angel Gaabriel to stay or go. Crowley's is a harmonious marriage of the opposites, much like the Temperance trump (again in Waite's deck featuring an angel, which is a Christian diety) and in Crowley's deck this is point-blank re-named "Art" and shows the harmonious mingling of diverse elements to form new compounds and substances. No angels. No judgement. In fact Crowley re-named the Judgment trump of Waite's deck "The Aeon" and drew on Egyptian gods to hint that a new age of freedom from such was on its way. The Rider-Waite deck shows the angel of judgment blowing a trumpet to call the dead souls up to heaven, for the day of their judgment. Very Christian! A lot of modern takes on that card re-name it something like "liberation" which I like a lot better, personally. Wrestling with this trump helped me root out some inherited complexes anyway... which is just part of being a Westerner. Meh. Our roots are Christian and the Rider-Waite deck is most definitely so. In that deck, the symbols on the wheel of fortune directly refer to Jesus Christ and what are the four beasts surrounding the dancer in the world? The four apostles. Brrr. The whole thing reeks of religion.

Robin Wood is a pagan and spent ten years on her deck, making it non-Christian. *pats it lovingly*

Sorry for the lecture! I love me some tarot.. :-P