​Réflexions de Pelletier sur les Petites Cartes du Tarot de Marseille

Partie Un

With a start I awoke. I’d been asleep for a mere 20 minutes. “What if we’ve been looking at ‘suit meanings’ incorrectly for years?”

Stick with me on this. I’d just woken up.

Many see the suit of Swords as Air. Why?

Swords are made of earth, forged in fire, and tempered in water. Does that make them air?

As instruments of war, I wonder where is air in war? Fiery disputes, the heat of battle. I suppose ‘bombs bursting in air’ is air, but they got shot out of a cannon by gasses from a burning propellant.

Thoughts? Data? Information? Swords? An instrument of war?

I was flummoxed as I lay there in bed, wide awake.

Wands…fire? I can see that wood is used to start fires, but so are coal and peat.

Passion? Sticks?

It has been written, that in 1664 while at Trinity College, Isaac Newton used a staff to trace arcs on a south facing wall, following the track of the sun, making a hash mark at each hour. Day after day, arc after arc, tracing the movement of the sun, the shadow of the staff turned gnomon moving from right to left.

His idea was that one could walk up to a blank southern wall on a cloudy day, place a staff in the ground, draw an arc on the wall, make a mark and state without fear of error, “tomorrow at 1800 hours, the sun will cast a shadow…here”.

A single wand may serve as a Gnomon. It may also illustrate a straight line.

Two wands? You can describe an angle. Or create a compass and describe a circle (with a point in the center), showing a radius.

Three wands? You may create a triangle, or a point above a plane.

With four wands you may describe a polygon.

Now why would I place the wands in the shapes used in the tarot? Perhaps to use as a teaching tool. “Here are five rods. What shapes can be created?”

Wands…perhaps they are about information, data, thinking and thoughts. Perhaps the stuff of air.

Perhaps the Swords, being implements of war, fit better with fire (napalm & nuclear bombs are both of fire).

I have come to believe that the difficulties described by the suit of Swords are better illustrated by fire than air (to fire in anger, a white hot rage).

Perhaps it’s time to view the minors of the Tarot de Marseille without being chained by what we were told by the Golden Dawn.

Something I’ve been musing over.

In the coming weeks I’ll be sharing more ideas about viewing the TdM with fresh eyes.

Stay tuned.