Talk:Tarot card reading/Archive 1

Spreads
Three Card Tarot Spreads, Five Card Tarot Spreads, Nine Card Tarot Spreads, Celtic Cross Tarot Spreads, Large Tarot Spreads, Shape-Based Tarot Spreads, icetea8 (talk) 12:28, 1 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure we should be expanding the article in that way. So far, what's currently in that section is not even adequately sourced. Plus there is the issue that "Wikipedia is not a howto guide". For an encyclopedia, I think that a general (sourced!) explanation of what a tarot spread is, with a (sourced!) list of named variants and a small number of examples of usage, is certainly sufficient. Yworo (talk) 13:29, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

TODO
I'll be working on the article over the next several weeks. My intent is to flesh out the linkages between early tarot and Occult practices in the 18th through 20th century, name some names (of key people, key decks), and so on.I'll perhaps look at spreads. Any suggestions on sources, directions, welcome Dr.Sosteric (talk) 01:50, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I've posted links to various sources above. One thing I think should be included here is the Bolognese tarot divination. Very few people know of the Bolognese practice as it was very recently discovered.Smiloid (talk) 10:49, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

March 7 - 2013 -> 861 internal back links link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divinatory,_esoteric_and_occult_tarot (47) -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr.Sosteric (talk • contribs) 17:42, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Note to Smiloid.

The use of Tarot for cartomancy, can be traced to 1690 in England. It does indeed appear to be a separate history although, having said that, cartomancy becomes inextricably linked with the esoteric tarot at its inception. I'll work on the article and cover a bit of the history of cartomancy, but at the point where we get into the esoteric tarot the two become one and the same.

Dr.Sosteric (talk) 23:20, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

I think you're confusing cartomancy with standard playing cards with tarot cartomancy. They do have a separate history. Modern occult tarot originates in 18th century France. There was however an independent practice of tarot cartomancy in Bologna, Italy shorty prior to the French occult appropriation of tarot, but it was an independent development which did not influence the French or English tarot occultists. Here are some sources for this information

http://www.wopc.co.uk/tarot/divination.html

http://marygreer.wordpress.com/2008/04/01/origins-of-divination-with-playing-cards/

http://i-p-c-s.org/history.html

http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Bolognese_Tarot_Divination

http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Tarot_History

Smiloid (talk) 10:44, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi there, I'm not sure if those sources are accurate. Mary Greer points to a reference in Pedro Ciruelo (1528) that she says makes a reference to Italian cartomancy. The quotation is "Estas suertes se echan en muchas maneras; o con dados o con cartas de naipes o con cédulas escritas"

I threw that into Google translate and it comes up "This lot is cast in many ways, or with dice or cards or letters of written ballots." admittedly we need a real Spanish speaker to translate that but even now I'm not seeing a reference to cartomancy here. More likely the author is referring to use of the Tarot for gambling purposes.

http://i-p-c-s.org/history.html doesn't seem to contain any reference to italian cartomancy

http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Bolognese_Tarot_Divination suggest Tarot cartomancy did exist in Italy, but admits there are no printed sources and it was thus an "oral" tradition. In fact it says "Until 2000, the Bolognese tradition seems to have been a purely oral tradition" which doesn't seem to make any sense at all. Surely the Bolognese oral tradition would have been put down into words long before 2000.

I'm still not seeing any evidence in the suggested references for Tarot Cartomany prior to 18th century France, but maybe I'm blind.

Dr.Sosteric (talk) 13:59, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Smiloid, you are be right after all. Franco Pratesi. Tarot in Bologna: Documents from the University Library. The Playing-Card, Vol. XVII, No. 4. pp 136-146). contains the required evidence! Thanks for bringing this to my attention!

Pratesi also points out the use of the trumps for political allegory.

Dr.Sosteric (talk) 14:26, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

destructive revert
Hi there, I just had two weeks of edits to an article reverted based on a spurious claim that my sources did not meet Wikipedia standards. In fact all my edits have been sourced with from established scholarly sources, or primary sources in the occult literature. The article I have created has been a marked improvement over the article that was there before. In fact I began editing the article because the article called for attention from an EXPERT on the occult tarot, of which I am. The sources that I have added to the article include


 * ^ Ronald Decker and Michael Dummett, History of the Occult Tarot, London: Duckworth, 2002 ISBN 978-0715631225
 * ^ Paul Huson Mystical Origins of the Tarot: From Ancient Roots to Modern Usage, Vermont: Destiny Books, 2004 ISBN 978-0892811908
 * ^ Robert Place, The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination, New York: Tarcher/Penguin, 2005 ISBN 978-1585423491
 * Ronald Decker and Michael Dummett. A history of the occult tarot, 1870-1970. London: Duckworth, 2002. ISBN 0715610147.
 * a b c d Michael Dummett. The Game of Tarot. London: Duckworth, 1980. ISBN 0715631225
 * R. Steele. A notice of the Ludus Triumphorum and Some Early Italian Card Games: With Some Remarks on the Origin of the Game of Cards,' Archaelogia, vol LVII, 1900. pp. 185-200
 * ^ P.D. Ouspensky. The Symbolism of the tarot: philosophy of occultism in pictures and numbers. Dover Publications. 1976
 * ^ Inna Semetsky. Tarot images and spiritual education: the three I’s model. International Journal of Children’s Spirituality. 16(3): 249–260. 2011
 * ^ Eliphas Levi. The Key of the Mysteries. Translated by Aleister Crowley. Red Wheel/Weiser. 2002 ISBN 0877280789
 * ^ John Beeb. A Tarot Reading on the Possibility of Nuclear War. Psychological Perspectives: A Quarterly Journal of Jungian Thought. 16(1): 97-106. pp. 97
 * ^ Sallie Nichols. The Wisdom of the Fool. Psychological Perspective: A Quarterly Journal of Jungian Thought. 5(2): 97-116. 1974
 * ^ Inna Semetsky. When Cathy was a Little Girl: The Healing Praxis of Tarot Images. International Journal of Children's Spirituality. 15(1): 59-72. 2010. pp. 59

I am relying extensively on DUMMETT who is a respected authority in the field. Can I just go ahead and undo the revert? and can I get a better explanation from the fellow who did the revert on why he would do that? Mike Sosteric PhD 23:09, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

the current revert takes it back to a time when wiki officials were calling for attention from an expert, when it less scholarly than it was after my intervention, and when the actual citations came primarily from occult authors themselves, and NOT established historical experts (like Dummett).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divinatory,_esoteric_and_occult_tarot. User:Dr.Sosteric talk at 23:09, 11 March 2013‎ (UTC) sign added by Tito Dutta (contact) 23:22, 11 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi, you'll notice that I kept most of your edit to the introduction, but not this section:, which if anything, should probably just be a single well written short paragraph. Note that you are expected to discuss the issue on the article talk page, as is highlighted in WP:BRD. IRWolfie- (talk) 23:19, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Welcome to Teahouse! Have you tried to discuss it with the editor or at its talk page? --Tito Dutta (contact) Editor in question is already replying! --Tito Dutta (contact) 23:23, 11 March 2013 (UTC)


 * NO, you took out a substantial portion of the history of the occult and divinatory tarot, a history that is both sourced in established historical work, and relevant to the title of the document. You have stripped out tons of historical detail, all properly sourced, all relevant to the article, and all deeply informative and interesting to a Sociologist like myself. I have been building a history of the the occult and cartomantic tarot, providing links to primary sources, building a comparison of occult and cartomantic decks, incorporating reference suggestions by other users, and generally improving the scholarly quality of the article. I am doing this as part of my own research program into the tarot, and as part of an article I am writing entitled The Sociology of the Western Tarot, which I will publish in an established scholarly journal. If the article is too long now it can certainly be shortened after completion but your reversion lowers the quality of the article.

I began editing this article because in an earlier version of that article there was a call for expert attention

I thought I could contribute my scholarly expertise, training, and the research I was currently doing to improving the article. I am doing this as part of my research at Athabasca University into the scholarly utility of the wiki (see my talk page "The Revolution that is" for a research note that hopefully be published in the International Review of Research into Open and Distance Education (currently under review). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dr.Sosteric

You have reverted to a version of the article contemporaneous with that appeal, and removed that appeal to make it look as if the article is now an improvement over my contributions, which it is not. If you have a concern with article length you should have raised that on my talk page and asked me to deal with it, rather than stomping in an undoing clos to forty hours of research labour. You should also have identified the specific "self published" sources you refer to (there may be one, which I'm more than happy to take out). But again, a note on my talk page would have shown more respect for my work than you have shown.

You're not making a good case for the scholarly utility of the wiki when you stomp in like that and just erase the contributions of a scholar hard at work on the article. I am quite offended and put off by this.

i read the BOLD, revert, discuss cycle and will move this into the talk page. I'm shacking my head though at the extra work this is creating for me just because you didn't bother to carefully check the citations I added to the document, or ask about the historical detail I was adding before you went ahead and reverted. The sections you deleted had the most authoritative sources in the entire article.

Also please note on the talk page I was explaining what I intended to do (see my TODO section above where I explicitly inform about my intentions). Did you even look at the talk page before you erased all the work I had done? Shouldn't you have read the talk page and responded to my OBVIOUS and POLITE NOTIFICATION OF MY INTENTIONS before you reverted, perhaps suggesting citations (as I requested) or providing guidance on further edits?Mike Sosteric PhD 00:41, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Deleting an informative table without cause
You know, I'm shaking my head even more after seeing you took out the table that I was creating that provided a historical overview of the major arcana from several seminal occult decks, and replaced it with an older, less informative table. I am sure ANYBODY interested in the occult and cartomantic table would have found the existence of such a comparison, which I was putting together with painstaking detail, quite interesting.

To be specific you replaced this table (which is based on exhaustive research into seminal tarot decks), all emerging either from Dummett (1980), Dummett and Decker (2002), or actual examination of historic card images...

with this one, which contains nothing but a duplication of information that any user of tarot could get simply by picking up a standard deck.

And please note the table that you restored in INNACCURATE. It implies Ettielle's deck in the preamble to the sectin, but uses modern arcana names derived form the Tarot de Marseilles, and established fully in the A.E. Waite deck. This is a deck that Ettielle BROKE WITH in developing his cartomantic/Egyptian alternative. There is no historical detail in the table you restored and it doesn't provide any information that couldn't otherwise be acquired by simply picking up a modern deck. The table you restored in an absolute waste of Wikipedia space.

Can you please tell me why you removed my table and replaced it with an older, less informative, historically vacuous construction?

Mike Sosteric PhD 00:41, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Deleting properly cited sources
Here's an example of one of the paragraphs you deleted

''Four individuals stand out as the founding fathers of the widespread esoteric tarot (and tarot cartomancy). These individuals are Antoine Court de Gébelin, M[onsieur] le C[omte] de M.***,[12] Etteilla, and Mlle Marie-Anne Adelaide Lenormand (1776-1843) (whose real name was Jean-Baptiste Alliette).[13] Understanding the profound magical, mystical, semiotic, psychological, and archetypal significance of the Tarot requires us to understand the intersection of Tarot with 18th and 19th century occult as imprinted on the tarot. The modern occult tarot emerged at exactly the same time as the cartomantic tarot did and can be traced precisely to the publication of Le Monde Primitif, by Antoine Court de Gébelin, a Protestant pastor. Court de Gebelin's seminal book was published by private subscription several years after he became an active Freemason and member of the Lodge of the Neuf Soeurs.[3] It is a massive opus, incomplete at nine volumes![3]. Most of the book is taken up promulgating a wholly speculative (and suspiciously Feudal and Christian) view of history that suggested there had once been a "golden age" (the age of the garden of Eden perhaps) in which "all men had shared a common language, common customs, a common culture and a common religion."[14] According to Court this golden age was a reflection of "an eternal and immutable order, which unites heaven and earth, the body and the soul, the physical and the moral...."[3]''

all citations from this paragraph are Dummett (1980). This paragraph is important, identifies the four founding figures in the history of the occult/cartomantic tarot, identifies key historical primary sources, and summarizes close to twenty pages of Dummett's commentary. Subsequent paragraphs provide the same key historical details, identifying the contributions of each of these four figures, key primary texts, and so on.

The section

Forward into the Mysteries
Is a section I just started. It was to deal with neo-occultists staring with Levi and continuing finally to A.E. Waite and Crowley. One of the deleted sections included the following:

''The idea of the cards as a mystical key was further developed by Eliphas Lévi (1810-1875). Lévi (whose real name was Alphonse-Louise Constance) was educated in the seminary of Saint-Sulipice, was ordained as a deacon, but never became a priest. Lévi published several occult books including:''

1855 Dogme de le haute magie 1856 Rituel de le haute magie (companion to Dogme de le haute magie) 1856 Dogme et rituel del Haute Magie (the 1855 and 1856 books in one volume) 1860 Historie de le Magie 1861 La Clé des grands mysteres 1865 La Science des esprites

''Dummett (1980, pp. 114) notes that it is from Dogme et rituel that the "whole of the modern occultist movement stems." Lévi claims to have discovered a great secret, formerly hidden in ancient parables and esoteric obfuscation, and that secret is a Lux (light, or Astral light) that moves behind and is contained within all of reality. On the tarot, Lévi claimed to have "been the first to 'have discovered intact and still unknown this key of all doctrines and all philosophies of the old world'; 'without the Tarot', he tells us, 'the Magic of the ancients is a closed book....'" Dummett (1980, pp. 118). Lévi rejected Court de Gébelin's claims about an Egyptian origin of the deck symbols (going instead back to Tarot de Marseille, called it The Book of Hermes, suggested it had immense antiquity, that it existed long before Moses, and that is was in fact a universal key of erudition, philosophy, and magic that could (and would) unlock Hermetic and Cabbalistic mysteries. According to Lévi, "An imprisoned person with no other book than the Tarot, if he knew how to use it, could in a few years acquire universal knowledge, and would be able to speak on all subjects with unequalled learning and inexhaustible eloquence.[15]''

The above is important because it identifies Eliphas Lévi as a key figure in the development of the modern occultist movement, and identifies why that is!!! In addition the historical document where the contribution can be found is identified (i.e. Dogme et rituel), and Levi's hyperbolic claims (claims that remain a feature of occult writers) are noted. Once again, Dummett (1980) and Decker and Dummett (2002) are primary sources.

I could go on but the historical information and attention to detail you stripped out is stunning to me. I can't even begin magine why you would do it, except that perhaps you jumped to too quick conclusions. I can see criticisms of the article length and style as appropriate, and some of the information should go into Levi's entry on Wikipedia, but as I said in my TODO, it is a work in progress and I would have cleaned it up when I was through the history.

Mike Sosteric PhD 00:56, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Destroyed Comparison
Interested individuals can compare my version of the article

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Divinatory,_esoteric_and_occult_tarot&oldid=543506044

with the destroyed version here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divinatory,_esoteric_and_occult_tarot

Notice the loss of detail, the erasure of an important table of tarot data, the removal of a section of "founding figures," and the erasure of detailed enumeration of the contributions of these founding figures in the history of the occult/divinatory tarot. Notice the inclusion of females in the list of founding figures (a non-sexist overview in a historically horribly sexist endeavor). Also gone is a developing distinction between cartomantic decks and occult decks, established criticisms of occult authors, key historical moments, and an analysis of the emergence of key ideas in the occult tradition (i.e. notions that that tarot had Egyptian origins, cabalistic significance, divine origins, and etc.). All in all https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:IRWolfie- reversions totally undermine contributions that significantly improved the historical and critical accuracy of the article and that would surely have led to a scholarly relevant treatment of the subject matter.

Also note here is the original article as it appeared just prior to receiving my attention

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Divinatory,_esoteric_and_occult_tarot&oldid=529782672

Note the wikiproject appeal for an expert to pay attention. What exactly was the point of that appeal if, when an expert showed up, the contributions would be erased?

Mike Sosteric PhD 01:03, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Through the Temple Door
Here's another section removed by the bold revision

''Shortly before Oswald Wirth published his first deck, the Marquis Stanislas de Guaita formed the Cabalistic Order of the Rosy Cross (1988) along with Dr Papus, François-Charles Barlet, and Joséphin Sar Péladan (1858-1918). Prior to this there had been a general decline and degeneration of occult secret brotherhoods but de Guaita's foundaion of the Rosy Cross Order rejuvenated the occult movement. This is a significant moment in the development of the occult tarot since it is at this point that the Tarot enters into the temple as an important aspect aspect of ritual, in particular initiation.[3] The association of Tarot with initiation was formalized by François-Charles Barlet whose 1889 essay Le Tarot initiatique give a interpretation of the trumps as an initiatory sequence chronicling the spiritual development from neophyte to adept.[3] This was followed by the publication of Le Tarot des Bohémiens by Papus, a significant milestone because it represents the first authentic attempt to "reveal" the wisdom of the ancients and the divinatory excellence of the occult Tarot..[3] This may seem counter intuitive at this point but prior to the publication of Le Tarot des Bohémiens occultists had simply extolled the virtues of the Tarot as masterpiece without ever enumerating the details of the Secret Doctrine contained within. Papus's attempt is tortuous, dotted with dismissive sexism, full of EPMO (like "false ascription," a common sin among esoteric writers), and fails to do anything other than read into the Tarot already established doctrine[3]''

This section contributed to the history of the Tarot being written in this article by pointing out the exact historical moment when the Occult tarot became association with "INITIATION" into secret orders. It also points out the figures associated with this development, as well as the primary sources (e.g. Le Tarot des Bohémiens) where the moment occurred. Once again the source for this very important paragraph (and it is important because the occult tarot is also an initiatory tarot from this moment forward) is Dummett (1980). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr.Sosteric (talk • contribs) 01:58, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

A suggestion?
May I be so bold as to suggest that you work on all these individual problems separately, and maybe one at a time? All editors on Wikipedia are volunteers, with more or less time to spend on any given thing. Also please remember to sign your contributions by typing four tildes ( ~ ), rather than typing out your name? That time stamps the addition, and makes the discussion easier to follow. Remember, there is no deadline for anything on Wikipedia. If this takes a couple weeks (or longer) to work out, it takes that long. You've got to give the other editors time to respond. As the article was reverted back to where it was before the editor wanting to add the new content came along, perhaps you all should just address this one issue at a time. And yes, I see that an expert opinion was requested on this article, but you all have to remember that articles are edited by consensus, and expert opinions are valued and appreciated, at the end of the day, it will still be the consensus of all the editors on the page as to what should be here. One editor's status as an expert does not make his input more important. It all comes down to the agreement on the strength of the various sources and the strength of the reference and policy based arguments made by all the editors working on this page. I will not be one of them. I just dropped in to offer some constructive hints as to a methodology for resolving this conflict. Best of luck to you all. Gtwfan52 (talk) 05:26, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Consensus
Dr. Sosteric, you are new to Wikipedia, and it will take a while for you to learn how we interact here. I suggest that you read and think about a guideline called assume good faith. Most of the editors you've interacted with so far are highly experienced editors working on a wide range of topics. They lack your topic specific expertise perhaps but they are experts in building and maintaining the world's greatest free information resource. You are expected to assume that other editors are acting in good faith for the good of the encyclopedia.. The stable content of an article is determined by consensus among ALL interested editors, whether or not they are topic experts. A collaborative, constructive attitude when interacting with others is expected, so please avoid accusing other editors of destructive behavior without first making a sincere effort to compromise and develop consensus about article content. And please be aware that we do not publish original research here. Everything you write on Wikipedia must be an accurate and neutral summary of what reliable, independent sources say about the topic. Good luck to you.  Cullen 328  Let's discuss it  15:15, 12 March 2013 (UTC)