Paul Huson’s Tarot World

I highly recommend this interview by Arlene deWinter with Paul Huson.

Long ago (1971) Paul wrote a book on tarot called The Devil’s Picturebook: The Compleat Guide to Tarot Cards: Their Origins and their Usage. It was one of my earliest tarot books and gave me a better sense of the true tarot history then most other books of the time. Along with his Mastering Witchcraft, I got a rich sense of classical and pagan witchy lore out of a more sophisticated European sensibility than was usually found in the U.S.

More recently Paul wrote one of the finest books on the Renaissance history of tarot – Mystical Origins of the Tarot: From Ancient Roots to Modern Usage, which I consider to be an absolute MUST for anyone interested in tarot’s past. It also offers the best material for those who want to read the cards using ideas that were likely associated with the images from the beginning. It is filled with rare translations and hundreds of drawings of decks, comparing them to related medieval and Renaissance artworks.

Paul’s most recent offering is a jewel-like deck from Lo Scarabeo based on the drawings he did for Mystical Origins: Dame Fortune’s Wheel Tarot. It is a richly colorful and eclectic rendering of what a more plebian deck of the 15th-16th century might have looked like, borrowing from several late 15th century woodcuts as well as the elaborate gold-leaf, hand painted decks of the nobles, along with some Marseille touches. The Minors feature scenic imagery based on Etteilla’s 18th century meanings (upon which both MacGregor Mathers and A.E. Waite based their cartomantic interpretations).

In my opinion, no tarot library is complete without Mystical Origins of the Tarot and Dame Fortune’s Wheel, and I guarantee that both will give you many long hours of  enjoyment as you dig out all those reproduction decks (or the Encyclopedia of Tarot) to compare the ideas and imagery.

Secrets of the Playing Card

The History Channel TV program Decoding the Past produced a 45 minute episode on the “Secrets of the Playing Card” (2006) featuring several well-known tarot historians like David Parlett,  Thierry DePaulis (A Wicked Pack of Cards) and Jean Huets (who was co-author with Stuart Kaplan on The Encyclopedia of Tarot). The  mystical, magical and divinatory aspects of cards begins around 18:00, the tarot around 24:45, and fortune telling at 32:15. There are lots of images of rare cards. Unfortunately, they keep showing modern replacements for missing Visconti cards to illustrate 15th century concepts. The Egyptian, Masonic and Templar role is played up, though they eventually admit that “these theories are generally dismissed by historians.” The images for the fortune-telling section feature the New Orleans Voodoo Tarot (shown over and over again) reinforcing the idea of tarot as a dark, scary medium that belies the far more sensible verbal commentary. They subtly misrepresented modern tarot readers in this part. All-in-all, this video is well worth viewing.

Roseanne Cash – The Wheel

How many tarot cards can you find in this music video, “The Wheel” by Roseanne Cash? List them in the comments.

Rosanne Cash – The Wheel (Official Music Video) –

PCS Commemorative Set Arrived!

I’m so excited. My Pamela Colman Smith Commemorative Tarot Set has arrived from U.S. Games. The book of Pixie’s art is delightful—full of colorful images and showing a full range of her work, including a couple of pieces from late in her life. Waite’s Pictorial Key to the Tarot (included) is the same-old book in a new cover but with no pictures (huh?). The postcards are great to have—a very nice bonus.

The deck—well, I’m not too sure how I feel about it. It’s now named the Smith-Waite Tarot—yeah! Pixie’s hand-lettering graces the cards (not like the modern yellow-box version where the names are typeset). The colors are muted and a bit dark (but better than that horrible “Original” version). An attempt was made to make the cards seem old. To me, it just makes them look a little dirty. Although plastic coated and stiff, the card stock seems to be of good quality (slightly thicker than the other decks), and it has a waxy matte finish rather than high gloss. I think it will hold up well to long-term use. The card backs are simple, featuring the Rosicrucian Rose from the Death card and Pixie’s initials against a light dusky blue background.

As to the details on the cards: The lines are well defined. We can now see clearly that the coloring of both boots on the 7 of Pentacles is the same. The difference was a later mistake. There is a green liquid spill on the 5 of Cups. There does not appear to be a stream between the feet of the man on the 7 of Wands. The PAX in the stained glass window of the 4 of Swords is unambiguously visible. There is no shadow on the face of the woman in the 9 of Pentacles (as it appears in the old University Books edition). Anyone notice anything else?

The four decks above and below are:—top left: the 2009 Smith-Waite (printed in China); top right: the 1993 Original Rider-Waite (printed in Belgium); lower left: the 1971 Rider & Co. Tarot (printed in Switzerland); lower right: the current U.S. Games Rider-Waite (printed in Italy).

Note the change of face, body width and some cloud shapes in the “Original” version (top right) of the Page of Swords. You can see more images from the new Smith-Waite deck here.

Read this informative discussion between Stuart Kaplan and Malcolm Muckle at the Society of Tarot and Astrology Readers.

Tarot Deck Promotional Videos

More and more tarot deck creators are creating “trailers” promoting their tarot decks and posting them to YouTube. Here’s a couple. Let me know about ones you like and I’ll post more.

The Wizards Tarot by John Blumen and Corrine Kenner

The Gaian Tarot Music Video. Art by Joanna Powell Colbert; music by Craig Olsen.

The Fairy Tale Tarot by Lisa Hunt

Deviant Moon Tarot by Patrick Valenza

Legacy of the Divine Tarot by Ciro Marchetti

Tarot of the Masters by James Ricklef

Navigator’s Tarot of the Mystic Sea by Julia Turk (more)

Marlene Dietrich as Tarot Reader

Tanya (Marlene Dietrich), a cigar-smoking brothel-keeper, refuses to read the cards for Detective Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles) in the film noir masterpiece, Touch of Evil (1958; re-edited/restored 1998). The music is “Tanya’s Theme” by Henry Mancini. It looks to me like a Swiss 1JJ deck.

Check out other tarot media appearances here.

Rossetti’s “The Card-Dealer”

Pre-Raphaelite artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s first published poem, “The Card-Dealer,” was based on a painting by Theodore von Holst (1810-1844) called “The Wish” or “The Fortune-Teller” (1840). The poem, which epitomized Rossetti’s fascination with the theme of the femme fatale, was inspired by the painting that he described as being of “a beautiful woman, richly dressed, who is sitting at a lamp-lit table, dealing out cards, with a peculiar fixedness of expression.” In his poem, the woman (Death?, La Morte, in Rossetti’s Italian) plays with men as she plays with the cards, which, we are told, represent the heart that craves the more it feeds, the diamond that makes even the base seem brave, the club that smites, and the spade that digs a grave.

“The Card-Dealer” (1852; revised 1870)
by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Could you not drink her gaze like wine?
Yet though its splendour swoon
Into the silence languidly
As a tune into a tune,
Those eyes unravel the coiled night
And know the stars at noon.

The gold that’s heaped beside her hand,
In truth rich prize it were;
And rich the dreams that wreathe her brows
With magic stillness there;
And he were rich who should unwind
That woven golden hair.

Around her, where she sits, the dance
Now breathes its eager heat;
And not more lightly or more true
Fall there the dancers’ feet
Than fall her cards on the bright board
As ’twere an heart that beat.

Her fingers let them softly through,
Smooth polished silent things;
And each one as it falls reflects
In swift light-shadowings,
Blood-red and purple, green and blue,
The great eyes of her rings.

Whom plays she with? With thee, who lov’st
Those gems upon her hand;
With me, who search her secret brows;
With all men, bless’d or bann’d.
We play together, she and we,
Within a vain strange land:

A land without any order,—
Day even as night, (one saith,)—
Where who lieth down ariseth not
Nor the sleeper awakeneth;
A land of darkness as darkness itself
And of the shadow of death.

What be her cards, you ask? Even these:—
The heart, that doth but crave
More, having fed; the diamond,
Skilled to make base seem brave;
The club, for smiting in the dark;
The spade, to dig a grave.

And do you ask what game she plays?
With me ’tis lost or won;
With thee it is playing still; with him
It is not well begun;
But ’tis a game she plays with all
Beneath the sway o’ the sun.

Thou seest the card that falls,—she knows
The card that followeth:
Her game in thy tongue is called Life,
As ebbs thy daily breath:
When she shall speak, thou’lt learn her tongue
And know she calls it Death.

Read more about the poem and the painting here.

Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas

Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas by Tom Robbins (1994) is about the transformative quest of materialist commodities broker, Gwen Mati, in the days immediately following a stock market crash. It is literally a Fool’s Journey—told in the second person present tense as if it were a tarot spread explained by a reader. Indeed, one of the characters in the book is Gwen’s tarot reader.

In this excerpt the Fool appears in Robbins’ inimitable style:

“A giddy youth is skipping through the wilderness, seemingly oblivious to the dangers around him. His cap is on backwards as if he doesn’t know, or doesn’t care, whether he’s coming or going. Dum-dum-dee-dum. Skip along, skip along. In his left hand he holds, as though presenting it to society, a white rose, the apple’s opposite, emblem of purity and innocence. Over his right shoulder, tramp-style, a stick with a bag hanging from it. `What’s in your bag, Fool?’ `Dum-dum-dee-dum.’ ‘We’ll trade you a kilo of gold for the contents of your bag, sight unseen.’ ‘Dum-dum-dee-dum.’ He is an admirer of clouds, and with his eyes turned upward, he has skipped right to the brink of a deep and rocky chasm. The promontory is crumbling beneath his boots, yet forward he goes, clear eyes squinting in the sun, a smile on his lips, his bag of useless trinkets swinging wildly.”

Years ago, Tom Robbins was asked on National Public Radio why the Fool applies to this protagonist, and he answered: “Well, the card applies to all of us, really [which may be why the book is addressed to "you"]. The Fool card may be the most important card in the Tarot deck, in that it epitomizes the Fool’s journey. We’re all on this journey, whether we know it or not. In the context of this book, the three days in the life of Gwendolyn Mati that are described in this book—she is on an escalated Fool’s journey.”

Playing Cards in Jails Helping to Solve Cold Cases

Playing cards, used by inmates in jails for card games, are now being used to get help on cold cases. Each of the 52 playing cards contains information about a murder, a missing person or another unsolved crime. While this topic is not about card divination, I find it fascinating that cards are being used to generate information that would not otherwise be known. Read about it here. The article also shows that the rules concerning use of tarot and other cards in prison cells is not consistent across the prison system (see this post on the use of tarot cards as a religious item in a prison).

Pamela Colman Smith Commemorative Tarot Set

Exciting News! U.S. Games has announced a new tarot deck set celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Rider-Waite Deck, and honoring the artistry of Pamela Colman Smith. Read my review here.

The deluxe set will include the Smith-Waite Centennial Tarot Deck (reproduced from the original 1909 deck – hey, it’s about time, thank you very much!) and two books:

• The Artwork and Times of Pamela Colman Smith, by Stuart R. Kaplan, with over one hundred examples of her non-tarot art.
  
• The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite, in a new format.

The set also includes two prints of Pamela Colman Smith, one photo and one self-portrait, both 5” X 7” suitable for framing; six color postcards of artwork by Pamela Colman Smith; and Spread Sheet Guide. Everything is attractively packaged in a deluxe keepsake case. Price: $35.00

I believe it is expected for May 2009 unless there are delays. See the U.S. Games promotional information here.