The Prodigal Sun

[dodalisque]

Too sunny and life-enhancing for you?

ha ha - you could say that and you would say that and you did. someone else might say pollyannaish. i have to watch my step here, since it was you who gifted me the jodo deck! but my major beef with the colours is they're gauche, hard, unsubtle. it's similar to (one of) the problems i have with Renoir - the palette is grotesque. it jars, like jar-jar binks or the music of Heart.

Only you could manage to tar Jar-Jar, Renoir, and Heart with the same brush.

[dodalisque]

I'd love to translate a Tarot book.

I wish you would volunteer to translate Wilfried Houdouin's companion book for his "Millenium Tarot". An English translation was promised about 4 or 5 years ago but I understand Wilfried is an extreme perfectionist - his deck his based on that very principle - so that might explain it. Do you know that deck? The majors have some innovations that are quite mysterious to me, and I would like to read about his rationale since he is such a serious scholar of the TdM, but the pip cards have an eerie precision that is quite unique. Strange things happen to my eyes when I look at them. The whole concept of the deck - based apparently on sacred geometry - is very original and beautiful. So beautiful that I don't really care whether it's true or not. I have seen French copies of the book and it looks like a manual for a Formula-1 racing car.

[chiscotheque]

The Triple Goddess - maiden, mother and crone - the female equivalent of the Christian trinity, but greater. Robert Graves' "The White Goddess", which posits a feminist theology belonging to ancient matriarchal cultures from the distant pre-Christian, pre-Platonic past, a religion for poets as worshipers of the Muse

see - this fits hand-in-glove with Jung's idea of the Anima, since a Man's Anima is the mediator - the holy spirit, Hermes - between the conscious and the sub-conscious. this is why the muses are always female, because it's from a male perspective. (on a side-bar: this is in part why i have always found Ariel in The Tempest strange - by rights, he should be a female. might the suggestion be, that similar to the way women have male muses (Animus) and Shakespeare had a strong homosexual aspect (cf. The Sonnets) that Shakespeare considered at least some of his muses to be male?)


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[chiscotheque]

The tarot itself is actually a lot bigger than that. I'm afraid I've been hypnotised by Enrique Enriquez into thinking of the deck as primarily a work of art before it is anything else. We can see in it whatever idea the imagery supports. I'm speaking as a reader of cards here, but I suppose in this section of the site I should be behaving more like a historian, speculating on what these mysterious images might have meant to a French Catholic of the 17th/18th century.

isn't it exactly because the tarot is a work of art why it works also as a divinatory tool, and why it seems to allude to myth and mysticism from Egypt to Greece to pagan to Gnosticism to eastern thought? all these things are aspects of the same thing are they not? call it perennial wisdom or the collective unconscious or metaphysical Truth - there is no particular right interpretation, just as the finite can never fully understand the infinite; instead, it taps into what bit of it it can. the mistake is delineating it as True in some absolute sense and excluding everything else, a chronic malady of the west - from Christianity to capitalism to science - albeit such a tendency is a primal human defect.


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[dodalisque]

The Triple Goddess - maiden, mother and crone - the female equivalent of the Christian trinity, but greater. Robert Graves' "The White Goddess", which posits a feminist theology belonging to ancient matriarchal cultures from the distant pre-Christian, pre-Platonic past, a religion for poets as worshipers of the Muse

see - this fits hand-in-glove with Jung's idea of the Anima, since a Man's Anima is the mediator - the holy spirit, Hermes - between the conscious and the sub-conscious. this is why the muses are always female, because it's from a male perspective. (on a side-bar: this is in part why i have always found Ariel in The Tempest strange - by rights, he should be a female. might the suggestion be, that similar to the way women have male muses (Animus) and Shakespeare had a strong homosexual aspect (cf. The Sonnets) that Shakespeare considered at least some of his muses to be male?)

Graves himself was of the opinion that poetry is a particularly dangerous occupation for a woman because the only Muse she has is herself. He never acknowledged equality between the sexes: woman's superiority was too evident. He was also accused once of creating a philosophy that was merely another version of Jungianism. Graves just shook his head sorrowfully and said, "Oh, if only it was that simple." Of course, we don't have to believe him.
Is there any indication in the text of The Tempest that Ariel is male? Isn't it left open, to suggest that Ariel is a genderless spirit? Is there such a thing as a genderless spirit, I wonder, or do they all swing that way? Maybe another tarot question for Plato's Cave.

[dodalisque]

the mistake is delineating it

Yes, it's funny, isn't it, we don't know what it is and can't describe it, but we recognise it instantly. Like falling in love, it's a non-communicable disease.

[Diana]

That makes sense about the triple Goddess. So many of these in history. I wonder why... do you know ?

Pances as a name for the Popess is interesting. certain people might say everything went to hell in a handbasket when women started wearing the pance. the abdomen locale calls to mind Paul's girdle of Truth. But surely if it is belly that is meant it refers to a matrix of ideas - matrix itself means womb and mat cognates with maternal. the womb and the belly button connect all humans to their mother, hence the first mother, Eve. some Asians call this locus Hara. silly humans, standing so erect, expose this vulnerable area. and of course, as a metaphor, the belly is not only the center of the body, but along with the womb is a metaphor of the Soul - where both physical and metaphysical life begins.


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What does this "pance" mean in English ?? Is it a chastity belt ??

The old French word, which is not used anymore except in certain expressions, really referred to the belly, the stomach and perhaps the womb. It's still used today with the spelling "panse" to designate one of the stomachs of ruminants.

(Why do you often end your posts with three spaces and then a fullstop?)

[Diana]

I suppose by Hinduism I mean the same sort of thing that chiscotheque is talking about when he discusses chakras in connection with La Maison Dieu. In Jodo's book, called in English "The Way of Tarot", even the little blue animal on the Fool card is described as stimulating the Fool's root chakra. And then in Jodo's commentary every button and frill and nail is counted and given a precise numerological interpretation that I doubt was on the minds of the people who made the deck.

But who knows, perhaps the subconscious of those early creators had penetrated to a level of cosmic organisation that eastern religions have a vocabulary for but Christianity generally doesn't. And some theories I have read about the origins of the deck discuss places and times when numerous religions seemed to live in harmony, so that Christian card-makers rubbed shoulders with devotees of the Jewish mysticism of the kabbalah and with Islamic mystics. My anti-intellectual bias tends to prefer to explain the creation of the cards as being more haphazard and accidental, determined perhaps rather by artistic than spiritual considerations. But I'm always ready to be persuaded that I'm wrong. I certainly believe in, even tinker with, chakras and all the rest of it, but I never came across any recognition of their existence in Christian teachings. Maybe that's exactly why Christianity needs the tarot, to establish a respectable tradition of western mysticism.

The coloured confetti on La Maison Dieu could be coins from the treasure chest kept in a tax haven in the store-room at the top of the tower.

There is a card in one of the historical decks - is it a Marseilles ? - where there's a guy standing and on his body are sort of round circles which seem to designate something similar to the chakras. I've a HUGE hole in my brain. I can't remember which deck nor which card it is. I searched for it yesterday for about an hour! Which one am I thinking of ??? It has always puzzled me. I feel very cross with myself for not remembering - how can I forget something like that ?

I think the subconscious of the creators did "penetrate to a level of cosmic organisation" that you mention. One can find correspondences with things they were not able to know at the time. For instance, there seems to be a correspondence with the atomic numbers of elements and the Tarot. Coincidence ? Or the natural order of things which only becomes apparent when the time is right. There was definitely a huge influence of Jewish and Islamic mysticism in all the business of the day for the cardmakers. They were steeped in such considerations which have been crushed and obliterated by the tsunami force of the Christian church.

I think there are some mentions in the bible of chakras - but not designated with this name. I can't recall the passages now - they are few - but I have come across them. But they're not a huge theme.

I don't see how anyone cannot see deliberate spiritual considerations in the Tarot of Marseilles. Not so much with the Italian cards, but the TdM is a whole different set up to those. The first were playing cards - pretty pictures for the Italian elite to play with - but they got picked up quickly by those who saw them as an opportunity to counter the ideology of the Church.

[Diana]

Of course I'm forgetting "Meditations on the Tarot" by Anonymous (viz. Valentin Tomberg), that great, but for me largely unreadable, interpretation of the major arcana in terms of Christian hermeticism, which is exactly the sort of "respectable tradition of Christian mysticism" I'm talking about. But however monumental and brilliant it is, I still think that book is ONE way of interpreting the cards, a sort of gigantic single reading on the theme of spiritual discipline using the whole major arcana.

The tarot itself is actually a lot bigger than that. I'm afraid I've been hypnotised by Enrique Enriquez into thinking of the deck as primarily a work of art before it is anything else. We can see in it whatever idea the imagery supports. I'm speaking as a reader of cards here, but I suppose in this section of the site I should be behaving more like a historian, speculating on what these mysterious images might have meant to a French Catholic of the 17th/18th century.

I'm a huge fan of Tomberg's book - however unreadable it is. As I'm studying the Papesse in great depth (my task for January), I reread it yesterday. I think I understood about 10% but what I did, was hugely profitable. I'll be rereading it a few times for my study.

From what I understand of and from this book, Tomberg, being a Catholic convert, throughout this book is reassuring the Catholic church of his allegiance to it - in spite of his leanings towards Hermeticism. Due to his past, the church may have had doubts. As I'm not well versed in Roman Catholicism, there's a lot that I'll never grasp - he speaks of the 7 Sacraments for instance which although I can read about them theoretically, I can't fully understand their significance. His book is astounding. It has a very special place in the Great Tarot Library of the Sky. Anyway, if anyone is interested in Christian Hermeticism, his book is the place to start ! I wrote something some time ago about the difference between Hermeticism and Christian Hermeticism. If it's appropriate one day, I'll post it on CoT - if the topic comes up.

From my personal perspective and searchings, reading the cards (like we do in our reading circles) is fun and gives me great satisfaction, but it certainly takes a second place compared to the mystical and spiritual teachings and explanations it contains. The Tarot of Marseilles is always by my side - or at least in my heart - when I'm pondering or meditating or studying on my mystical journey. It's been a huge help and has provided many stepping stones.

[Diana]

The Triple Goddess - maiden, mother and crone - the female equivalent of the Christian trinity, but greater. Robert Graves' "The White Goddess", which posits a feminist theology belonging to ancient matriarchal cultures from the distant pre-Christian, pre-Platonic past, a religion for poets as worshipers of the Muse, and became a sort of holy book during the 70s in the US. (Another immensely difficult, unreadable book to place next to "Meditations on the Tarot" on my bottom shelf.) In his novel "King Jesus" Graves rewrites the story of Christ's death as a revenge of the Triple Goddess in payment for centuries of neglect by the patriarchal religious structure. He wrote widely about the subject of mythology, and scathingly about Christian and Jewish biblical scholarship, translated many Latin and Greek texts, and also published "The Greek Myths" which has become a sort of textbook on the subject. But he was predominantly a poet with leanings toward Sufism and the occult. Check out his poem "To Juan at Winter Solstice". written for his newborn son. He lived most of his life in exile in Deja, Majorca but was half Irish-half German, so a rather strange mix. My favourite writer, and I have to take every opportunity I can to shamelessly wrench the discussion in the direction of something I know about.

Aaah ! The maiden, mother and crone. That makes sense. Thank you !!

Robert Graves, I think I have some ill conceived misconceptions about him. I've never read anything by him. He was often talked about on Aeclectic in the early days (but then people suddenly talking about him - almost as if he had gone "out of fashion") and I remember people saying that a lot of what he said was controversial and even worse fanciful. So I took their word for it. I'll now look more into him, because I trust your judgement. What an amazing poem "To Juan at Winter Solstice". Makes one want to soar. I didn't understand a word of it - lol!!

So please plug Robert Graves whenever you can !! How interesting that he had leanings towards Sufism. I'm in awe of Sufism. I don't want to convert to Islam so I could never be a Sufi (I have a deep respect for Islamic teachings and the Holy Qur'an ), but I read and watch a lot of youtube videos and it's helped me make a lot of sense out of things and filled a lot of gaps that I couldn't fill otherwise.

[Diana]

I'd love to translate a Tarot book.

I wish you would volunteer to translate Wilfried Houdouin's companion book for his "Millenium Tarot". An English translation was promised about 4 or 5 years ago but I understand Wilfried is an extreme perfectionist - his deck his based on that very principle - so that might explain it. Do you know that deck? The majors have some innovations that are quite mysterious to me, and I would like to read about his rationale since he is such a serious scholar of the TdM, but the pip cards have an eerie precision that is quite unique. Strange things happen to my eyes when I look at them. The whole concept of the deck - based apparently on sacred geometry - is very original and beautiful. So beautiful that I don't really care whether it's true or not. I have seen French copies of the book and it looks like a manual for a Formula-1 racing car.

I know very little about the Millenium Tarot. Thanks for mentioning it - it was not in my line of sight. I'll look into it... and see whether an offer to translate the book would be something I would do. If he's a perfectionist, that's right up my street - when I translate, I can take sometimes up to half an hour to find the right expression or word. My aim when translating is also for people to not guess that it's a translation - which is not an easy task.

Sacred geometry is not something that I've ever been able to grasp (just the word "geometry" makes my brain go into panic mode) so maybe I wouldn't be the ideal person to do the translation !

I'm sure there is sacred geometry in the Tarot. Of this I have no doubt.

[Diana]

The tarot itself is actually a lot bigger than that. I'm afraid I've been hypnotised by Enrique Enriquez into thinking of the deck as primarily a work of art before it is anything else. We can see in it whatever idea the imagery supports. I'm speaking as a reader of cards here, but I suppose in this section of the site I should be behaving more like a historian, speculating on what these mysterious images might have meant to a French Catholic of the 17th/18th century.

isn't it exactly because the tarot is a work of art why it works also as a divinatory tool, and why it seems to allude to myth and mysticism from Egypt to Greece to pagan to Gnosticism to eastern thought? all these things are aspects of the same thing are they not? call it perennial wisdom or the collective unconscious or metaphysical Truth - there is no particular right interpretation, just as the finite can never fully understand the infinite; instead, it taps into what bit of it it can. the mistake is delineating it as True in some absolute sense and excluding everything else, a chronic malady of the west - from Christianity to capitalism to science - albeit such a tendency is a primal human defect.


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Yes, what he said.

[dodalisque]

What does this "pance" mean in English ?? Is it a chastity belt ??

The old French word, which is not used anymore except in certain expressions, really referred to the belly, the stomach and perhaps the womb. It's still used today with the spelling "panse" to designate one of the stomachs of ruminants.

I think the closest English word is "paunch", still used to describe a big round belly, usually a man's from a lifetime of beer-drinking. It's very weird to find this word attached to this card. The Dodal is the only example of this, I think. The Queen of Swords always looks pregnant to me but not the Popess. There is that cheeky popular old English legend of Pope Joan, who dressed as a man and became Pope without anyone discovering her secret until the moment of her inauguration, when unfortunately her water broke and she gave birth during the ceremony in the Vatican. Medieval fake news.

Enrique seems to believe that some of the odd words and mis-spellings in the French titles of the cards are meant to encourage us to indulge in anagrams and wordplay, such as homophones, which the French seem to love - whole sentences can be homophonic - but which don't work in English at all. Some of EE's readings are made up entirely of meditations on anagrams of the card titles. In fact Enrique doesn't seem to read cards very often anymore - the reason given is that no-one has a good question - but puts most of his energy into wordplay and what in English is called Concrete Poetry. Essentially he looks at the alphabet and the components of individual words as if they were visual artifacts like tarot cards, and experiments with rearranging them in the same way he draws attention to odd shapes and details in tarot images. His work with language is a continuation of his approach to tarot, seeing images predominantly, but not exclusively, as a collection of design elements.

[dodalisque]

There is a card in one of the historical decks - is it a Marseilles ? - where there's a guy standing and on his body are sort of round circles which seem to designate something similar to the chakras.

I've never seen that in a TdM. Plato talks about "the 7 soul centres" and most of Christianity is underpinned by Plato since St. Augustine, but the idea never made it through into mainstream Christianity, which mostly seems to focus on questions of ethics rather than physio-spiritual energies. Monks in monasteries were apparently encouraged to use the cards as aids to meditation, and I have a copy of an English translation of two very early texts in Latin written in the 1400s that discuss the symbolic potential of the deck. So it was recognised very early as a source of wisdom. I'll find that book title for you if you like. I think you'd be interested and may even know about it already.

[dodalisque]

So please plug Robert Graves whenever you can !! How interesting that he had leanings towards Sufism. I'm in awe of Sufism. I don't want to convert to Islam so I could never be a Sufi (I have a deep respect for Islamic teachings and the Holy Qur'an ), but I read and watch a lot of youtube videos and it's helped me make a lot of sense out of things and filled a lot of gaps that I couldn't fill otherwise.

Graves and Idries Shah were very close friends and collaborated on the first popular book about Sufism in English. But they fell out when Shah persuaded Graves to do a new translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam using a family manuscript that turned out to be a bad copy of the original. Bad blow to Graves, but his translation is beautiful.

[chiscotheque]

I think the closest English word is "paunch"

isn't pances just a female version of the world phant seen in the Hierophant? therefor phant & pance is from the Greek phaínō, "I show, i make known". the origin of phaínō is PIE bʰeh₂, meaning "I shine", "I give light", "I become". from phants and pance comes fancy and fantasy.


.

[Diana]

I've never seen that in a TdM. Plato talks about "the 7 soul centres" and most of Christianity is underpinned by Plato since St. Augustine, but the idea never made it through into mainstream Christianity, which mostly seems to focus on questions of ethics rather than physio-spiritual energies. Monks in monasteries were apparently encouraged to use the cards as aids to meditation, and I have a copy of an English translation of two very early texts in Latin written in the 1400s that discuss the symbolic potential of the deck. So it was recognised very early as a source of wisdom. I'll find that book title for you if you like. I think you'd be interested and may even know about it already.

I darn wish I could remember which card it is. I'll make a post about it. It's very likely someone knows who's not reading this thread.

About the monks in the monasteries, there is a theory proposed - perhaps first by the tarot historian Ross Caldwell but I'm not certain - that the tarot cards were possibly used as educational guides, sort of like an illustrated textbook. I don't recall it being monks, but it was something to do with the lay clergy perhaps or the young lads learning in seminaries or whatever they called them. I looked for this article the other day, but didn't find it. I must be looking in the wrong place. When I stumble upon it one day, I'll post the link unless someone else finds it before me.

Thanks also for the 7 soul centres and Plato and St. Augustine and all observation. And I like how you formulate it all. It's very eloquent. I'd never heard the term "physio-spiritual" energies. I had to check what physio actually meant. They give too meanings : nature and physical. I'm not sure I understand this expression.

Oh, please do find the book title ! That would be lovely. Also, do you have another time traveller joke ?

[Diana]

I think the closest English word is "paunch", still used to describe a big round belly, usually a man's from a lifetime of beer-drinking. It's very weird to find this word attached to this card. The Dodal is the only example of this, I think. The Queen of Swords always looks pregnant to me but not the Popess. There is that cheeky popular old English legend of Pope Joan, who dressed as a man and became Pope without anyone discovering her secret until the moment of her inauguration, when unfortunately her water broke and she gave birth during the ceremony in the Vatican. Medieval fake news.

As I'm studying the Papesse this month, I'm definitely going to look into this. Go onto all the French websites of etymology and try and dig up something really substantial. And taking chiscotheque's very astute remarks about this word which I've never seen mentioned anywhere else. Also other sources of course. I did this once a long time ago for the word "Mat" which is actually the most common term for the Fool in French speaking tarot. Fool "Fou/Fol" is used but much less than "Le Mat". I think I even may have kept my research somewhere. It would be nice to discuss this word on CoT.

Enrique seems to believe that some of the odd words and mis-spellings in the French titles of the cards are meant to encourage us to indulge in anagrams and wordplay, such as homophones, which the French seem to love - whole sentences can be homophonic - but which don't work in English at all. Some of EE's readings are made up entirely of meditations on anagrams of the card titles. In fact Enrique doesn't seem to read cards very often anymore - the reason given is that no-one has a good question - but puts most of his energy into wordplay and what in English is called Concrete Poetry. Essentially he looks at the alphabet and the components of individual words as if they were visual artifacts like tarot cards, and experiments with rearranging them in the same way he draws attention to odd shapes and details in tarot images. His work with language is a continuation of his approach to tarot, seeing images predominantly, but not exclusively, as a collection of design elements.

I doubt that there is a single serious and worthy tarologist in the French speaking world who would not agree with Enrique about the odd words and mis-spellings on the cards. For them it is an evidence. I agree with them 100%. They're full of mystery those titles. A few may be printing errors, but those would be a very small minority.

[Diana]

I think the closest English word is "paunch"

isn't pances just a female version of the world phant seen in the Hierophant? therefor phant & pance is from the Greek phaínō, "I show, i make known". the origin of phaínō is PIE bʰeh₂, meaning "I shine", "I give light", "I become". from phants and pance comes fancy and fantasy.


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That is very astute indeed. Something to really ponder on and research. You may be on to something there.

[Diana]

Of course I'm forgetting "Meditations on the Tarot" by Anonymous (viz. Valentin Tomberg), that great, but for me largely unreadable, interpretation of the major arcana in terms of Christian hermeticism, which is exactly the sort of "respectable tradition of Christian mysticism" I'm talking about. But however monumental and brilliant it is, I still think that book is ONE way of interpreting the cards, a sort of gigantic single reading on the theme of spiritual discipline using the whole major arcana.

dodalisque : I was looking up some things today on the internet on Meditations on the Tarot, and there's one description of it that sounded to me very interesting. The guy in the discussion was saying : With Tomberg, he always ties things back to the Christian core of Christ's redemption of the fallen world and bringing it back to union with God. Essentially he's attempting to do for Hermeticism what St. Aquinas did for Aristotle, baptize that which is of value from the ancient traditions and bring it into the faith.

[dodalisque]

I think the closest English word is "paunch"

isn't pances just a female version of the world phant seen in the Hierophant? therefor phant & pance is from the Greek phaínō, "I show, i make known". the origin of phaínō is PIE bʰeh₂, meaning "I shine", "I give light", "I become". from phants and pance comes fancy and fantasy.

I think the "phant" part comes from the past tense of the Greek word "phemi" which simply means "to speak". A Hierophant is someone who "speaks of sacred things". Phants and pance have no connection other than their appearance together in the word "fancypants".

[chiscotheque]

I think the "phant" part comes from the past tense of the Greek word "phemi" which simply means "to speak".

as so often, Dodalisque, you're wrong. to quote wiktionary -
Hierophant: From Ancient Greek ἱεροφάντης (hierophántēs), from ἱερός (hierós, “holy”) + φαίνω (phaínō, “I show, make known”)
to quote the online etymology website -\
Late Latin hierophantes, from Greek hierophantes "one who teaches the rites of sacrifice and worship," literally "one who shows sacred things," from hieros "sacred," from PIE root *eis-, forming words denoting passion (see ire) + phainein "to reveal, bring to light" (from PIE root *bha- (1) "to shine")

[dodalisque]

I'd never heard the term "physio-spiritual" energies. I had to check what physio actually meant. They give too meanings : nature and physical. I'm not sure I understand this expression.

Oh, please do find the book title ! That would be lovely. Also, do you have another time traveller joke ?

I had never heard the word "physio-spiritual" before either. By "physio" I meant simply something that is in the body, like a muscle, but connects us to experiences outside the body in a metaphysical dimension. Chakras are at the interface between the physical and the metaphysical. They apparently seem to roughly correspond to the main nodes of what western medical science calls the endocrine system, but when conditions shift in those centres and various chemicals are released into our body our consciousness shifts. However, the influence can go the other way around, so that shifts in our consciousness affect our endocrine system. So who is to say whether a chakra is a physical thing or a metaphysical thing? It's both...an interface.

I found that book."Explaining the Tarot" by Ross Caldwell, Thierry Depaulis, and Marco Ponzi. Two essays in Italian, one by Piscina and one by Pratesi from about 1565, so not in Latin as I thought or as early as I thought. The Italian is on one side of the page and opposite it is the English translation. The whole book is just 70 pages. I think perhaps it's of historical or scholarly interest more than an aid to getting deeper insight into the deck. But I'm more of a reader than an historian.

I wish I did have more time-traveler jokes, but no. In English this genre is sometimes called a "quantum joke". My main source is the great Texas folk singer Townes van Zandt whose jokes were a big part of his performance. He only had about 5 of them but he performed them every night like his songs. An example: A guy, an ordinary-looking guy, goes into a bar and quietly takes a table in the corner. The bartender goes over to take his order and he looks up and says: "Three shots of gin, please." The bartender blinks, then lays out three small glasses on the table and puts a shot of gin into each. The guy takes an hour or so to quietly drink the three gins then leaves. A couple of weeks later, maybe longer, the same guy comes into the bar and goes over to the same table in the corner. Once again he asks the bartender for "three shots of gin" and slowly drinks them up. But as he is passing the bar on the way out, the bartender says,"Excuse me, I was wondering why you always order "three shots of gin" instead of, you know, a single shot of gin three times." "Ah," the man says, "Well, the thing is, I have two brothers, one who lives in Dublin and the other who lives in Hamburg. And when each of us has a drink we all have a drink of for each of us. It's like a family tradition." "Oh," says the bartender, "that's really cool. Thank you for sharing that with me. Have a nice day." So a few weeks go by, then one day the man shows up in the bar again. The bartender grabs his cloth and goes over to the corner table to take the man's order. But this time the man, who seems rather quieter and more glum than ever, lifts his head and says, "TWO shots of gin, please." He takes his time drinking the two gins, then as he's leaving the bartender comes out from behind the bar and says, "Excuse me, I'm sorry to disturb you, and I know it's not any of my business, but we kind of know each other, and so I was wondering, I hope nothing has happened to any of your brothers." "Oh no, they're fine," the man said, "I quit drinking."

[dodalisque]

I think the "phant" part comes from the past tense of the Greek word "phemi" which simply means "to speak".

as so often, Dodalisque, you're wrong. to quote wiktionary -
Hierophant: From Ancient Greek ἱεροφάντης (hierophántēs), from ἱερός (hierós, “holy”) + φαίνω (phaínō, “I show, make known”)
to quote the online etymology website -\
Late Latin hierophantes, from Greek hierophantes "one who teaches the rites of sacrifice and worship," literally "one who shows sacred things," from hieros "sacred," from PIE root *eis-, forming words denoting passion (see ire) + phainein "to reveal, bring to light" (from PIE root *bha- (1) "to shine")

You haven't heard the last of this! It's bad enough being wrong about things I know nothing about. But it seems a bit below the belt, if you don't mind me saying so, to point out mistakes in my specialist areas. Enjoy your Pyrrhic victory while you can. Better get onto Google quick to check out what "Phyrric victory" means, eh. You'll get yours, Etymology Boy!

[Diana]

I found that book."Explaining the Tarot" by Ross Caldwell, Thierry Depaulis, and Marco Ponzi. Two essays in Italian, one by Piscina and one by Pratesi from about 1565, so not in Latin as I thought or as early as I thought. The Italian is on one side of the page and opposite it is the English translation. The whole book is just 70 pages. I think perhaps it's of historical or scholarly interest more than an aid to getting deeper insight into the deck. But I'm more of a reader than an historian.

Oh, well Ross Caldwell I knew from Aeclectic. A great tarot historian indeed. One day when I'm not so broke (where did my money go????) I'll buy it. Thanks for the tip.

I loved that joke of yours. I thought of it all morning and chuckled away. I'll keep it for a pub night to tell my friends. In fact, I may even play out the scenario."Two shots of vodka" I'll tell the barman.