Tarot for the 21st Century!
Alchemical Tarot
I use the Alchemical Tarot and was wondering if there was anyone else in the forums that's interested, as I am, in discovering what is added to the deck by the alchemical symbolism and what the origin of some of the imagery is. I'll post things here as I discover them, but one thing that I would like to share is a discovery that I made about the Devil card.
The way that the man and woman are cojoined in the the image reminds me of the imagery from Rosarium Philosophorum, for example:
... but there are a lot of images in R.P. where the man and woman are joined.
Also, the image of the man and woman having sex is very reminiscent of the the censored version of The Lovers from alchemical tarot. The position of the two figures is very close to being the same, and they are both wearing crowns.
The way that the man and woman are cojoined in the the image reminds me of the imagery from Rosarium Philosophorum, for example:
... but there are a lot of images in R.P. where the man and woman are joined.
Also, the image of the man and woman having sex is very reminiscent of the the censored version of The Lovers from alchemical tarot. The position of the two figures is very close to being the same, and they are both wearing crowns.
I'm trying to do this without having access to Robert Place's courses at this time, but if you'd like to get them, they're available here.
Tags: Alchemical, Alchemy, Tarot
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Arthur on -
Randomly browsing colored alchemical emblems, I found the following that are interesting for comparison to certain of the cards in the Alchemical Tarot. I'm not including a lot of information about the images, I just think that the comparison is interesting.
This resembles somewhat the two of vessels.
This resembles very much The Hierophant.
And this I thought was interesting in comparison to the Five of Staffs.
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Permalink Reply by Kirsten on -
I'm definitely interested! I have the new deck which of course didn't come with the (old) book, and have been relying on the Aeclectic Tarot forum on the Alchemical Tarot study group (which is terrific).
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Permalink Reply by Arthur on
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Wow, thanks for pointing me to that. I spent WAY too much time yesterday going over those posts! It's here if anyone is interested:
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=49722
And actually has excerpts from the original book with lots of great information and information about source images.
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