strange arcanum box

Ummmm... can you say psycho babel? :roll:

I think you take me WAY to seriously for the good of your own mental health _

 

Was that the psychology dept in the uni where they built that tall linguistics wing?

 

Heh heh...
Fatman 2
Khat 0

 

YEAH! That's the ONE :nod: (or was that the tower of babel??? Damned immortality always screwing with the memory :smash: )

 

The Tower of Babel is a bible legend. All the people of the world were trying to build a tower that would reach into heaven, so God sent down a lightning bolt or some such which not only destroyed the Tower, but also changed everyone's speech so that they couldn't understand each other, and couldn't build another Tower. Everyone went off with the other people they could understand, and that's how the nations of the world were born.

Or so my memory says.

 

And a very excellent memory you have too! That is exactly the story. :nod:
(I should know I was there, The whole thing was a rather shocking experiance to say the least )

For a bit of extra trivia, in the tarot deck the 16th card is called the Tower and it is the tower of babel that this card reffers too

 

Why is a Biblical symbol in a tarot deck? I thought Tarot was Celtic in origin.

Not that I know much about that kind of stuff.

 

Actually the first Tarot dates back to ancient Eygpt but some scholars think that the cards may be even older then that but no one is certain. The 16th card uses the tower to represent sudden shock or surprise. An unexpected event that could be unfortunate....

 

You're a lot more sure of that than the sites I've just been looking at. Tarot.com includes a long essay pondering the origins and several sites less generous to mysticism claim it was an evolution of an Italian rennaisance card game.

All the sites seem to agree that cartomancy could not predate the invention of the playing card, which is attributed to 10th/11th century China or Korea.

BTW, I notice you have no smileys in your post. Did you use them all up?

 

Damn, you're right Sheriff! No smileys! It's a miracle!

Khat, I seriously doubt that the Egyptians were the first to have Tarot cards. I don't think that the Pharaohs would have stood for that kind of shit. They worshipped animals like crocodiles and cats (but certainly not the ones like you, which you are sure to claim) and I'm guessing they wouldn't have believed in cards telling the future.

I'm much more inclined the Chinese had them when the Sheriff claimed they did (or rather his sources did). The Chinese really had their shit together - gunpowder, rocketry, kites, the abbacus, pizza, ice cream and many more have all been attributed to the Chinese first.

 

Actually no smileys cause this is a subject I have studied for over 2 decades so I get involved when I type about it and forget to smile

I know about the debates I have been a part of them But the truth is that no one knows how the tarot came to be or were they came from. True the oldest (mostly complete) deck was traced to Italy but even that deck was said to be copied from a deck that was used by gypsies. And it is this point that is undisputed, the gypsies are credited for introducing the tarot to the Europeans and are mainly responsable for it's spreading throughout europe.

When you talk about the cards and cartomancy this is the full deck of the tarot. But the tarot originally consisted of only 21 "Trumps". These are what we call the "Major Arcana" (the tower being one of these). The Minor Arcana (the grandsire of today modern deck of cards) all agree was added only after the tarot was introduced into europe (but again no one seems to be certain as to just when that was.)

The 21 Trumps are legend and the oldest examples of them found contact signs and symbols considered to be very ancient indeed. The forms that the trumps decended from is unknown anymore then the actual order they are supposed to be in.....

 

The way I had it explained to me was a lot simpler.

The Major Arcana (Fool, Magician, High Priestess, Empress, Emperor, Heirophant, Lovers, Chariot, Strength, Hermit, Wheel of Fortune, Justice, Hanged Man, Death, Temperance, Devil, Tower, Star, Moon, Sun, Justice, and World) are part Celtic, part German, part Gaul, and part Romanian. The Minor Arcana (1 through Kind of Swords, Cups, Wands, and Pentacles) are Roman/Italian. These cards comprise current playing card decks.

China had an entirely different way of doing a similar thing, and it's called the I Ching. It is not on cards.

 

Actually, when I said "cartomancy" I meant "divinations using playing cards". Clearly, if Tarot existed before cards, they were in some other form, regardless of the Arcana they used.

I said it because

From the articles I read (admittedly just the usual dubious web sources), it seems that you had it a bit confused. Those articles DO talk about Egyptians in connection with Tarot decks, but they are Egyptian gypsies of the 18th/19th century, rather than ancient Egyptians.

They also talk about ancient Egyptians, but stipulate an oral tradition (ie. no cards). I didn't see anyone claiming that there were ancient card decks. That link to ancient Egypt is in no way widely accepted, which is what I meant when I said you seemed more sure of it (ie. you stated it as undubitable fact) than the articles.

As for the smileys, I like your posts better without them. Using one every sentence gives me the same feeling as someone mugging their facial expressions like a mime artist. If you can't communicate without loading even minor statements with emotion, you should see a therapist. Oops - is that another trip to the tower of psycho babel?

 

Sorry but I can not agree with this train of thought. If one were to study the Trumps the first thing one would note is that the number of trumps coorspond exactly to the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. One would also note that even though the trumps have many biblical refferances that they also seem to have just as many refferances to the Hebrew Kabalah. For example the high priestess, the Heirophant, the Hermit, the wheel of fortune, Justice and the Tower all have strong ties to the Jewish culture. Yes there is some flavoring of the aforementioned cultures present in todays deck, but it is important to note that many of todays decks are more under the influence of artistic interpretation then historical.

The link to Ancient Egypt is not clear until one studies and gives creedance to the undeniable links the Arcana have to the ancient Jews (who did indeed have a written language at that time).
The Hermit for example, this trump in it's oldest form shows the star of David as the light that guides the hermit. It is said that this is because during the time of Moses on the night of Passover their was a Jewish prophet who went through the streets with his lantern warning all people to mark there doors with lambs blood if they did not wish to suffer the lose of their first born. Those who listened to the wisdom of his words no matter how crazy they may have sounded were blessed and those who did not lost their first born child. The Hermit thus now stands for the light of truth that is available for any who dwell in darkness should they wish to see it.

Justice is said to represent the wisdom of King Solomon who in deciding to split the child in half was able to determine the child's true mother.

The Chariot in it's most ancient form has always been driven by two sphinxes and has been linked to the power of the Egyptian Pharaoh and his mastery over man, beast and transportation, making him like unto a God.

I can go on and on cause I have more then enough knowledge to write a book on the subject but I will not write it here. Suffice it to say I have studied long enough to have developed my own theory as to how the cards came to be and know enough of their symbology to make a fairly good case for it. But until one can find solid archological proof on the matter a theory will always be just that a theory.

But why is it so important to make me like you? I am different and I think smiles are both fun and youthful. I would like your posts better with smileys cause they tend to be pleasurable breaks in your tendency to drone on and on about any given subject. But it is not an important enough matter to me to try and change your way of communicating or to try and analyze your reason for not doing so based on my personal cultural experainces. So yes you did say it best:

Indeed it is my friend :thumbup:

PS please forgive spelling errors I know there are a lot in this post

 

Those were interesting facts. I can't contribute any except for this web links:

http://www.tarothermit.com/
http://www.innerself.com/Miscellaneous/history.htm
http://members.aol.com/imladriscb/history.htm
http://roswell.fortunecity.com/leehigh/ ... hadow5.htm
http://www.mystichouse.com/tarot1/history.htm
http://www.tarot-decks.com/tarotarticle.htm
http://www.tarotcam.com/tarothistory.html
http://www.salemtarot.com/tarothistory.html
http://www.geocities.com/showdan_evac/index.html

These web links contains information about the history of Tarots.

 

Hel Khat, the symbols to which you refer were also important to any Catholic culture in the medieval or Rennaisance world, since the symbols appear in the Old Testament. In other words, they no more support your theory of ancient Egyptian origin than any of the other theories.

We're all different. I was asking you to stop being irritating, not to turn in your individuality license. Do you say that to everyone who asks you to stop being annoying?

 

Hel Khat - gypsies (both the ethnic and cultural group) are originally from India, not Egypt; hence, even if gypsies were the origins of Tarot, it's unlikely that it started in Egypt, as by the time they'd migrated that far they had also splintered.

 

See what I mean you have to turn a civil discussion into an insult.
So No I do not, cause you're the only annoying person who has asked me to stop being annoying. Now shall we degrade this further?

By the way the next time you type a message to me please use MORE smiley's cause your lack of smiley useage is annoying the hell out of me. I mean how hard can it be you have a whole palet of smiley's right there for you to use next to every post??? Thank you for your consideration.... _


And my arguments hold no merit for you because you are ignorant. Not an insult but a fact, to educate a person of your limited intellegence in this matter, especially one as close minded as yourself would take more time then it is honestly worth....

No matter what light I try to shed on a subject that you pretend to know so much about you come up with basless reasons to paint my efforts as baseless which to me is the height of ignorance. I take time to type a whole page of information to try and enlighten you and all you can say in one mere paragraph is just because I say it's a mirror don't make it a mirror!
well wHere did I get all this information from? and who do you think that you are as being so important that I have to make up shit just to make you believe me!? Frankly I could care less what you think about the Tarot or anything else for that matter because you could apparntly careless about my thoughts. You just want me to type shit so you can debate it for the sake of debate. Screw that..... :minigun:

 

Hel Khat, I'm with Fatman on this one - your evidence isn't compelling. It's certainly interesting to note that the Hermit is related to the Passover festival, but it doesn't mean anything.

Maybe you're the close minded one on this - you seem to have already made up your mind and don't seem prepared to listen to Fatman's arguments. While you may have a lot of knowledge on the subject doesn't mean you can't learn anything from someone who isn't as knowledgeable as you. They may have found a source that you haven't, yet because of your knowledge you are quite prepared to dismiss it, yet attack someone for trying to be open-minded on this subject. For shame.

Nice way to edit his post to suit your own needs by the way. Real classy...

 

But hey no problem here I simply consider the source..... I no longer feel the need to reply to anyone in the "good ole boys club" anyway (it'd just be considered "spam" ya know) :thumbup: