I'm afraid that's not quite true, HappyOldGuy. Western is not the same as English-speaking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot_of_Marseilles


http://www.tarothermit.com/marseilles.htm

The Tarot of Marseilles, which predates the Rider-Waite deck by quite a period, remains popular in France, Italy and Spain.


To be fair, Tarot's place was changed by Etteilla and others' fortune telling shenanigans - the deck has a history of being used simply as playing cards for centuries.

My calling you out on your research was largely down to your failure to present much in the way of useful facts about the Tarot deck. When I said "your biases are showing" I was pointing out that you seemed to be seeing it solely through the lenses of your particular occult background rather than demonstrating any kind of argument based on knowledge of the longer history of the Tarot. When you say things like "the deck is a metaphor" etc, you're implicitly presenting the view of the organisation as the only correct one, rather than saying "Organisation X views the deck as a metaphor; X's view ought to be considered seriously for the following reasons."

You could have narrowed your proposition to something that would have been much harder to dispute, e.g. "In the English-speaking world, the predominantly used deck is Rider-Waite. Waite was a member of the Golden Dawn, who did much to popularise the use of Tarot in America and the U.K. They felt there was more to the use of the cards than divination, and that the cards could also be used for meditative purposes. I also feel the cards have value for meditative purposes." That would have sidestepped the whole divinatory angle, avoided discussion about the "point" of the deck with reference to history and usage in the latin countries and required a lot less batting things back and forth seeking clarification.


I oversimplified, because the people I was addressing were not in any position to appreciate the nuance. However, it was not much of an oversimplification. The "Tarot of Marsailles" is simply a deck of playing cards. The reference you should have made was to "The Tarot of the Bohemians" by Papus. However I'm going to guess that I'm the only personm in this thread who has tried to read it, and that certainly none have succeeded. It's an impenetrable disaster.

That's why I didn't say that they originated it. I said that all modern Tarot are descended from them. Because they took preexisting ideas and created a comprehensive system off of them that is the foundation for virtually everything that people do with cards today.

He's not listening OldGuy he's too busy trying to be right.....poor thing.

I have read Papus's book and yes its hard going. It helps if one has a grasp of the figurative language employed throughout the book.

Dont think Kimbo would have much of a problem as there are ALOT of Kabbalistic terms and concepts used. He also draws very heavily on Masonic and Rosicrucian symbols and themes amoungst others.

For the interseted: http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/tob/tob03.htm

If you want to brag about your knowledge and try and talk down from it, you'd better have some evidence of knowledge to share. Nothing you've said about the Tarot this discussion has convinced me that you ever really looked into its history at all. Maybe you have spent time muddling around with occultists. So what? Unless you can provide strong evidence that their beliefs are of provable use and value, you can't use their adoption of astrological symbols and the Tarot deck as justification for their existence, and you're still less entitled to protest the debunking of people using these symbols in con jobs to fleece punters.

Show me one post were I have protested about the debumking of fraud.....

Just one......

As I said earlier your penadry is no substitute for knowledge and as presented in the part of your post above, your apparent need to lie to make a point highlights your lack of understanding.

Do yourself a favour and quit pretending you know what your talking about.

Merely insulting you is not an ad hominem fallacy: them calling you an idiot would be ad hominem if they said "You are an idiot, therefore your argument is invalid."

What is instead happening is thus:
Your argument is bullshit.
You keep repeating, and expanding upon, your argument.
Therefore, you are an idiot.
That isn't an ad hominem fallacy; that's inductive reasoning.

No thats not inductive reasoning thats you being a dick.

No thats not inductive reasoning thats you being a dick.

..and as mom used to say, it takes one to know one.

At least I have one.......

People. Please.

I am a huge fan of spewing random insults, but at least try to bring the funny!

Historically many Europeans have contributed to the field eg Kabbalah surfaced in France and Spain around 12th-13th centuary (Kimbo?).

kabbalah started in talmudic times. there are warnings and prohibitions regarding teaching kabbalah within tractates dated around the 1st centruy BCE. however, most kabbalah that people today know of stems from sefer yetzirah which dates between 8th and 11th centuries. after that the sefer zohar came about in the 13th century, and the rabbi israel ben eliezer aka ba'al shem tov, aka be'sht simplified kabbalah for common jews in the 18th century. besht's contributions to kabbalah are the most widely studied and are the foundations for chassidic judaism.

but, enough shitting in a james randi thread with ideas that james would call "flim flam".

if anybody here would like, i will start a kabbalah thread in the skeptic forum for Q&A.

EDIT: that is an VERY condensed history of kabbalah, i left out lots of scholars and seferim for the most basic explination of the origins of kabbalah. also, most kabbalah teachings, post talmudic/midrashic times, came from spain/portugal and later eastern europe and russia.

Well at least we agree on something....

:-)

yeah, taking money from stupid teenagers is cool! :)

I oversimplified, because the people I was addressing were not in any position to appreciate the nuance. However, it was not much of an oversimplification. The "Tarot of Marsailles" is simply a deck of playing cards. The reference you should have made was to "The Tarot of the Bohemians" by Papus. However I'm going to guess that I'm the only personm in this thread who has tried to read it, and that certainly none have succeeded. It's an impenetrable disaster.

That's why I didn't say that they originated it. I said that all modern Tarot are descended from them. Because they took preexisting ideas and created a comprehensive system off of them that is the foundation for virtually everything that people do with cards today.
I'm interested, now. Forgive me for questioning you, since you seem to know a bit about it. Are you saying that the current Tarot tradition in France also primarily descends directly from the Golden Dawn and similar organisations? I was under the impression, from the usage of a different deck and Wikipedia's statement that French tarot readers frequently employ only the major arcana, that the French tradition had taken a different direction.

Also, any comments on Etteilla's Tarot as a progenitor?


Show me one post were I have protested about the debumking of fraud.....

Just one......

As I said earlier your penadry is no substitute for knowledge and as presented in the part of your post above, your apparent need to lie to make a point highlights your lack of understanding.
To lie? What are you suggesting I'm lying about? Saying you're not entitled to protest the debunking of the con artists isn't the same as saying that you've done so. If that was your strongest answer to the last post I threw at you, you're hopeless. Is English your first language?

Now, how about, y'know, actually answering my points? "Pedantry" is a useful word, but it only stretches so far, and when you've been exposed as talking complete bollocks, yelling "pedantry" isn't going to make the stink go away.

To lie? What are you suggesting I'm lying about? Saying you're not entitled to protest the debunking of the con artists isn't the same as saying that you've done so. If that was your strongest answer to the last post I threw at you, you're hopeless. Is English your first language?

Now, how about, y'know, actually answering my points? "Pedantry" is a useful word, but it only stretches so far, and when you've been exposed as talking complete bollocks, yelling "pedantry" isn't going to make the stink go away.

Hell, I think a little real pedantry, based on real facts would be very refreshing, as opposed to the slinging of pseudo-science and secret society metaphysical bullshit.

I'm interested, now. Forgive me for questioning you, since you seem to know a bit about it. Are you saying that the current Tarot tradition in France also primarily descends directly from the Golden Dawn and similar organisations? I was under the impression, from the usage of a different deck and Wikipedia's statement that French tarot readers frequently employ only the major arcana, that the French tradition had taken a different direction.

Also, any comments on Etteilla's Tarot as a progenitor?


'Primarily' is a tricky distinction for me (non french speaking) to make. And I no longer have access to the library that I did most of my reading on back when I got curious about the topic (I actually did a paper on it way back when). I know that the golden dawn absorbed the earlier french ideas (especially via Eliphas Levi) into their system and that their system was then massively influential, including in France. What I couldn't tell you is how much there might have been a parallel transmission of the original ideas in France. I wouldn't be at all surprised, but I'm unaware of any details.

I'm interested, now. Forgive me for questioning you, since you seem to know a bit about it. Are you saying that the current Tarot tradition in France also primarily descends directly from the Golden Dawn and similar organisations? I was under the impression, from the usage of a different deck and Wikipedia's statement that French tarot readers frequently employ only the major arcana, that the French tradition had taken a different direction.

Also, any comments on Etteilla's Tarot as a progenitor?


To lie? What are you suggesting I'm lying about? Saying you're not entitled to protest the debunking of the con artists isn't the same as saying that you've done so.

There is no doubt that Etteilla deck was hugely influential on the form the Tarot took. He made no claims to have invented it himself (as far as I know) but rather to have corrected inaccuracy (as he put it).

But not everybody was enthussed by it, "Etteilla, a confused, obscure, fantastic but persevering Kabalist, reproduced in alchemy the eccentricities of his misconstrued and mutilated Tarot; metals in his crucibles assumed extraordinary forms, which excited the curiosity of all Paris, with no greater profit to the operator than the fees which were paid by his visitors. " E Levi on the Etteilla's Tarot.

Etteilla's first book on the subject in 1770 made use of pique pack. It wasnt until a number of years after a contempary of Etteilla's, Antoine Court de Gebalin, published a book on the estoeric knowledge of the Tarot did Etteilla publish a book on the divinatory use of the Tarot and his version of the cards. Some would say he did this to jump on the bandwagon and make a bit of cash.....fancy that!

As to the lying thing, my apologies if I read that wrong. To me it seemed like you were implying that I protested against showing people to be fruadulent. An error on my behalf sorry.

Mmmmmmm so after a few pages of hysterical uneducated reaction, by people who didnt actually know what they were talking about, we arrive at silence.

Not 'oh sorry I called you an idiot' or 'well maybe you know what your talking about please excuse me for being a dick'.

Such humility is truley overwelming.

:-D

can't speak for anybody else, but i got bored with the thread after we talked about 14 year old girls panties.

i mean, seriously, it can't really go anywhere from there. you know what i mean????

I guess so

:-D

You gonna do a Kabalah QnA thread then?

sure, why not. i'm no maven by kabbalah, but it will be good for the lulz and the skeptics.