Maybe Now You'll Remember

Jun 20, 2012 postscript:

Of course, A Serious Man might take a more expansive view of Tarot.

Jul 5, 2012 postscript:

The S.H.I.T. quoted above is from 1986. That S.H.I.T. continues to dominate much of the “historical research” in online Tarot fora today. Here is a recent example that was not posted to a forum on fortune-telling, psychology, New Age religion, or some other appropriate topic, but to a forum on Tarot history.

People are fascinated by the Tarot, not as a card game, but as an oracle, spiritual discipline, or hidden wisdom. This fascination has been explained by the cards being created by implausible Egyptians or Kabbalists, or plausible Humanists and Neoplatonists. But the proximate reason for the fascination must lie in the cards themselves, not their origin. Maybe it is time for an old fashioned formalist analysis of the deck itself. Once this is done, asking why this formal structure attracts us, and how it was created, might be more easily answered.

If you look at the conclusion (“how it was created”) and the introduction (“not as a card game”) you can see the shorter(1): Tarot was not created as a card game. The author wants desperately to be taken seriously while pursuing a silly goal, arguing against the historical evidence. The writer offers no reason for his rejection of the findings and conclusions of playing-card historians, (collectively, what Ross has dubbed the “Standard Model” of Tarot history), and no indication that he is even familiar with that material or with the iconographic studies of Moakley and Dummett, much less the extensions of their work by Ross and myself. He simply ignores all that and says, let's try something less fact-based, something more speculative and congenial to the “people”.

Of course, by “people” the author of that quote is referring to “stupid people” and “dishonest people”. Some of those who use Tarot for divination do not pretend to have any interest in early Tarot history, or at least do not attempt to manufacture a false connection between the two. Others are the fools and frauds, (matto and bagatto), who created the endless streams of pseudo-historical apologetics for occult inventions.

There is another group interested in Tarot, but it is a very tiny one: historians. This small group of intrepid folk seek to understand the early history of Tarot in terms of that early history, and to understand the modern folklore on its own terms. Modern Tarot folklore was NOT created in the Italian Renaissance, any more than in ancient Egypt. These blunders, fantasies, superstitions, and scams were created by French Freemasons and fortune-tellers during the Romantic reaction against the Enlightenment. That fanciful rejection of the Age of Reason is the source of these confections. Modern Tarot folklore was vastly elaborated and developed during even later periods, and these are the formative environments that must be studied to learn about occult Tarot. These studies have been pursued in extensive detail, once again owing to Michael Dummett, and it would be worthwhile to add to those researches by emphasizing the social context.

However, the most salient point to be made is the absolute rejection of that writer's conclusion. He asserts the same S.H.I.T. as O'Neill: by understanding modern Tarot folklore we can thereby explain “how it was created”. This is fucking retarded. Tarot was created more than three centuries before this modern mythology was added, in a very different milieu, for very different purposes. The historical evidence is clear:

Tarot was created by Roman Catholics in 15th-century Italy to play card games.

That is the only legitimate context for pre-Gébelin Tarot iconography.

______________________

Notes:
 ✎ 1. Shorter: an Internet tradition of snarky rejoinder. The “shorter” of an argument or position is a sardonic summary with the implication that said argument or position – when stated plainly – is moronic or otherwise contemptible.

The Eyes of Bedlam

Majority rule is fine in most circumstances, but... in a insane asylum?

Don't follow the crowd – especially when the crowd is full of Tarot enthusiasts. Tarot appeals most strongly to people of questionable judgment, fortune-tellers and their clients, occultists, and others devoted to fantasy. In such a field more than most, one needs to choose the road less traveled. Erasmus commented on the Pythagorean proverb, per publicam viam ne ambules.

Walk not in the public highway. St Jerome's explanation is: Do not follow common errors. For human affairs have never gone so well that the best pleases the majority. Hence some express it like this: 'Refuse the king's highway and take the byroads.' This piece of advice agrees with the teaching of the Gospel, which recommends us to avoid the broad road where most people walk, and take the narrow way, trodden by few but leading to immortality.

Avoid error vulgi. A speculum principis, (circa 1512-1515), for François I, included this illustration of the two paths: the narrow road to glory and the more popular path, to perdition.

Here, of course, Erasmus is thinking of St. Matthew's account of the two ways, [Mt. 7:13-14] and this is likewise the theme of the drawing—the broad road (Via regia) that leads to perdition, and the narrow but steep pathway (Semita) to Heaven. On the left side, the few virtuous people (Boni Viri pauci) who have attempted this latter path are conducted by Rectitudo, who carries the attributes of compasses and ruler to emphasize her straightness, to the gate of Heaven, where they are welcomed by Immortality (Immortalitas), holding a fiery disc inscribed with the IHS monogram, and surrounded by angels. To the other side, the broad way contains a crowd led by Common Error (Error Vulgi), who is not merely blind but has never had eyes; among her followers the elegant man in a feathered hat looking at his own reflection in a mirror stands for Vanity, the half-nude woman eating and drinking for Gluttony, the embracing couple behind her for Lust, and the man with the raised sword for Anger. Error Vulgi leads her followers into the mouth of Hell, in which stands Death, surrounded by devils. The deadly sins lead, through death, to eternal damnation.
Erasmian Wit and Proverbial Wisdom: An Illustrated Moral Compendium for François I
Jean, Michel Massing, 1995.

May 5, 2012 postscript:

Brainstorming without any brains – a transient tempest in Russell's Teapot, full of sound and fury, signifying... less than nothing.

I have often thought and indeed argued that Tarotards are a parody, a joke against reason. But it is not a natural blindness that afflicts Tarot enthusiasts—it is an acquired pathology, a willful rejection of the obvious. (It often appears to be contagious, but the disease must already be present in a chronic form. Association with other carriers then precipitates an acute episode, as illustrated above.) They are fiction writers and, appropriate to that pursuit, they have adopted Stephen King’s approach to fact: “Reality can take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.” Like Lord Nelson, one must turn a blind eye to the truth, or just bury one’s head in the sand, to be truly Tarotarded.

May 21, 2012 postscript:

Just when an apotheosis of stupid seems to have occurred, yet another level is found. The brain-fart du jour combines standard New Age blather, a Neoplatonic je ne sais quoi, with a variant of the perennial canard of a supposed “marriage deck.” The Neoplatonic hand-waving has been conventional since the 1970s, recycled in the 80s, 90s, and in the slime-pits of online Tarot in the 21st century. The idea that one or more of the hand-painted luxury decks might have been a marriage gift also has a long history, and some plausible arguments have been constructed... although not in the present case. There has never be any plausible argument that the design of the trump cycle itself was in any way connected to a wedding and, again, no such argument appears in the present puddle of drool.

The 5x14 Theory

Two weeks ago, Ross Caldwell started a thread on the Tarot History forum about Huck's "Chess Tarot" theory. He argued that “simply shouting ‘self-evident nonsense’ is not an intellectually – much less scholarly – sound way to dismiss an argument”. He therefore presented more detailed and substantive arguments against specific claims. I chimed in with some additional arguments, but I also disagreed with his initial point: sometimes shouting that the emperor has no clothes is the best response. The next day I offered a more detailed explanation of why “self-evident nonsense” may be the best response to self-evident nonsense, especially after repeated debunkings, as well as some additional detailed (and illustrated) rejoinders to the nonsense.

The main point of the present post is to provide a few links to earlier discussions. Well, that and to provide an opportunity for further discussion of the Emperor’s fancy new outfit.

Debating and Debunking

So we will begin with a digression into the question of methods and the amazingly high tolerance for bullshit exhibited by people who claim to be interested in Tarot history. The first problem is that debating bullshit elevates bullshit. This is the problem of “punching down” at an opponent. (E.g., Keith Olbermann elevated his own position by feuding with Bill O’Reilly, the most popular cable news personality. O’Reilly attempted to remain “above the fray” by never mentioning Olbermann’s name: don’t punch down.) The second problem is that even debunking bullshit still reiterates bullshit. This is the problem of “familiarity bias”.

Debating bullshit is related to the folly of encouraging Tarot enthusiasts to participate in historical discussions, and the basic difference between debating and debunking. Bullshit artists naturally feel the same affection for debunkers that a cobra feels toward a mongoose or honey badger. The most important victory a charlatan can achieve is respect. Everything else flows from that – once folly and fraud are accepted as legitimate positions then fools and deceivers cannot be challenged.

For example, as every Republican political operative knows, as long as the media is occupied with GOP bullshit, (like whether the President is a U.S. citizen, or whether he is a Muslim, or whether he hates white people, or whether he wants to destroy capitalism, raise taxes on working folks, outlaw guns, establish Death Panels to kill grandma, legislate reparations for slavery, gut the military, denigrate motherhood, etc.), the Republicans win. Debating bullshit means accepting bullshit as a legitimate position, and simultaneously discounting reality. You can’t examine the onslaught of Republican legislation attacking women’s rights, (from equal pay, contraception, abortion, the Violence Against Women Act, etc.), at the same time you are arguing about Ann Romney’s lies. (FWIW, the unemployed wife of a wealthy Wall Street tycoon is not what most people would call a “working woman”.) Bullshit wins, reality loses.

That is why bullshit needs to be debunked rather than debated, and the partisans of bullshit need to be identified as such. If bullshit cannot be marginalized, then it wins. In terms of Tarot, this means that most Tarot enthusiasts, most of the time, should be discouraged from participation in historical discussions. Their goals are not only incompatible with the goals of historical research, but diametrically opposed to it. Switching analogies, they are like people who write fan fiction: their preferred pastime is day-dreaming about some cherished fantasy world, adding new story lines to a hallowed mythos.

HEY! Buffy and Willow are cool, but what if they were PIRATES in sexy Halloween-pirate outfits... but more like comic-book super heroes, ’cause that’s really what they are... and we can call it historical research into vampires and witches, ’cause otherwise it might sound stoopid.

Of course, fanfic does not pretend to be historical research. But that is the nature of online Tarot history discussions of alchemy, Albigensians, ancient Egypt, and all the rest of the traditional silliness. Rather than attempting to answer historical questions based on historical evidence, they want to create endless new, pseudo-historical questions based on imagination. Respectfully addressing their endless fictions not only helps establish and propagate nonsense, but also gives it a patina of respectability. Even disdainfully debunking them probably does more harm than good, reaffirming the importance and centrality of the nonsensical claims.

Because such childish make-believe is by far the dominant theme in both books and online discussions of Tarot history, acknowledgement and repetition by the few reasonable voices simply adds to the weight of familiarity: this stuff is what everybody talks about, so it must be sorta true, maybe. Most of the time, with most people, reason is not dominant in establishing beliefs. Most people seem to be only dimly rational creatures, and repetition, repetition, repetition is a greater factor in spreading belief with the masses than verifiable evidence and sound logic. Debunking often works to strengthen the credibility of the bullshit. There is a growing body of research on this subject.

Any attempt to explicitly discredit false information necessarily involves a repetition of the false information, which may contribute to its later familiarity and acceptance. Although this problem has been known since Allport and Lepkin’s research (1945) into wartime rumors, the idea that false information needs to be confronted is so appealing that it is still at the heart of many information campaigns.
(Skeptics Beware.)

People who are tested immediately after being presented with a Myth/Fact presentation are likely to remember the facts. Short-term memory retains the new information, but it tends not to stick. Familiarity bias results in a higher retention of the well-known myth than the newly introduced fact. One such test involved two flyers, each promoting the facts about the safety and benefits of flu shots.

Participants’ attitude judgments and behavioral intentions showed a parallel pattern. Right after reading the flyer, flyers both improved participants’ attitudes toward flu vaccination and increased their intention to get vaccinated, relative to participants who had not read a flyer. The same positive influence was observed after a 30 minute delay for participants who had only read the facts. In contrast, the “Facts & Myths” flyer backfired after a delay: these participants reported less favorable attitudes toward flue vaccination and lower behavioral intentions than control participants who read no flyer at all.
(Skeptics Beware.)

The following links are different takes on the same basic ideas. Anyone interested in myth-busting should read at least a few such articles.

1. Sceptics Beware: The Dangers of Debunking Myths.
2. Repetition: The Key to Spreading Lies.
3. The Intricacies of Setting People Straight.
4. Myth-Making: Say It Often, People Will Believe.
5. Analyzing Rumors, Gossip, and Urban Legends Through Their Conversational Properties.
6.a. Why You Can't Replace Myths with Good Information.
6.b. How Myths Affect Thinking.
7. Mythbusters: Are the odds stacked against us?
8. The Debunking Handbook.

Old News: Chess and the 5x14 Theory

The 5x14 Theory is a zombie theory. Not a theory about zombies, but a lifeless theory that remains animated by mysterious forces -- the walking dead. Famous zombie theories of Tarot include an ancient Egyptian origin, transmission by Gypsies, the Knights Templar, Albigensians, Kabbalistic content, etc. These theories were never plausible, they never offered any genuine explanation of anything, and they have been debunked in detail long ago. Nonetheless, they won't stay down, (and they will eat your brains). People become attached to them. Repetition is far more persuasive than evidence and logic and, in the last decade, the 5x14 Theory has been the most aggressively promoted nonsense in the world of Tarot. So, despite the downside to discussing bullshit in detail, it still seems worthwhile to collect a few links to earlier discussions. It may be a mistake to debate detail; it may be counter-productive to even debunk or explicitly dismiss bullshit; but it seems necessary.

Well... just one more little digression first. As discussed above, different people come to the study of Tarot history with different motivations. Some seek answers to basic historical questions. Many many more seek a diversion, a social pastime with pretensions to intellectual and spiritual elitism. These people tend to have little use for facts. For those who are interested in history, the first question to ask is whether there is a question to ask.

Is there a legitimate historical question? A fact-based question that necessitates some answer? If not, then we need not speculate. Desire to speculate is not enough to justify speculation – there needs to be some real question, a fact that requires explanation. Second, is there a reasonably sufficient and plausible answer? One consistent with the facts and having adequate explanatory power to make sense of the evidence? If so, then we need not speculate further. In particular, there is no justification for ignoring a good, fact-based answer and substituting elaborate and far-fetched speculation.

Okay... some links to old discussions.

In 2003, Lothar Teikemeier (“autorbis”) put up a page of arguments supporting the 5x14 Theory on GeoCities. GeoCities is gone but the Wayback Machine still has the page. He also posted the material to TarotL at that time: About 70-cards Trionfi decks (Jan 4, 2003). A version is still online at trionfi.com, from 2009, and a shorter version here. Back in 2003 the topic was pretty far outside the TarotL mainstream, and appears to have generated little discussion at the time. In 2004, Robert Mealing started a thread about the 15th-century Italian origin of Tarot. In a tangential response, Huck Meyer (“Tarocchi7”, thought by some to be a sock-puppet alter-ego of Lothar) posted a handful of the 5x14 Theory arguments to that thread on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum, and cross-posted to some newsgroups and TarotL. His presentation was a bit incoherent, so in my first reply I also addressed the more structured (at least by enumeration) arguments presented earlier by Teikemeier. They are all parts of the same mutating theory.

Debating the Italian Origin of Tarot Cards (Sat Mar 13, 2004)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TarotL/message/40668
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TarotL/message/40761

confused about 5x14 (Thu Feb 17, 2005)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TarotL/message/44952

As is usually the case, Ross has offered excellent discussions. He provides detailed analyses of almost every point.

The Number 21 and the Tarot Trumps (03 Jan 2008)
http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=1307553&postcount=11

"The 5x14 Theory: An Investigation" part II (28 Nov 2009)
http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=365&p=5129#p5129
http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=365&p=5129#p5130

Bolognese sequence / Holy Cow "22" (06 Jan 2010)
http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=334&start=130#p5524

Chess as a factor in the origin of Tarot (03 Aug 2010)
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?p=2414778#post2414778

A final comment about the notion of Tarot being derived from Chess:

LOOK AT THE FUCKING PICTURES!

An Allegorical Hierarchy—One Series of 22 Unique Personifications

Two Ranks of Mankind—Matching Sets of Social Status w/Duplication

Some will find the Chess/Tarot idea to be self-evident nonsense. Others are morons. No, it does not matter how many times or for how many years you insist that the square peg really does fit in the round hole – it is just wrong. And everybody who looks, knows it.

The Father of Iconography

Erwin Panofsky was born 120 years ago today, March 30, 1892. He is one of the fathers of iconography, the branch of art history which deals with the subject matter. Here is the introductory section of Panofsky’s seminal essay, from his 1939 Studies in Iconology. The way he fails to clearly explain the third level of analysis is indicative of the problems that have plagued analysts ever since. Nonetheless, his three levels have been the starting point for all subsequent discussions.

Iconography is that branch of the history of art which concerns itself with the subject matter or meaning of works of art, as opposed to their form. Let us, then, try to define the distinction between subject matter or meaning on the one hand, and form on the other. When an acquaintance greets me on the street by removing his hat, what I see from a formal point of view is nothing but the change of certain details within a configuration forming part of the general pattern of colour, lines and volumes which constitutes my world of vision. When I identify, as I automatically do, this configuration as an object (gentleman), and the change of detail as an event (hat-removing), I have already overstepped the limits of purely formal perception and entered a first sphere of subject matter or meaning. The meaning thus perceived is of an elementary and easily understandable nature, and we shall call it the factual meaning; it is apprehended by simply identifying certain visible forms with certain objects known to me from practical experience, and by identifying the change in their relations with certain actions or events.

Now the objects and events thus identified will naturally produce a certain reaction within myself. From the way my acquaintance performs his action I may be able to sense whether he is in a good or bad humour, and whether his feelings towards me are indifferent, friendly or hostile. These psychological nuances will invest the gestures of my acquaintance with a further meaning which we shall call expressional. It differs from the factual one in that it is apprehended, not by simple identification, but by ‘empathy. To understand it, I need a certain sensitivity, but this sensitivity is still part of my practical experience, that is, of my every-day familiarity with objects and events. Therefore both the factual and the expressional meaning may be classified together: they constitute the class of primary or natural meanings.

However, my realization that the lifting of the hat stands for a greeting belongs in an altogether different realm of interpretation. This form of salute is peculiar to the western world and is a residue of mediaeval chivalry: armed men used to remove their helmets to make clear their peaceful intentions and their confidence in the peaceful intentions of others. Neither an Australian bushman nor an ancient Greek could be expected to realize that the lifting of a hat is not only a practical event with certain expressional connotations, but also a sign of politeness. To understand this significance of the gentleman's action I must not only be familiar with the practical world of objects and events, but also with the more-than-practical world of customs and cultural traditions peculiar to a certain civilization. Conversely, my acquaintance could not feel impelled to greet me by removing his hat were he not conscious of the significance of this feat. As for the expressional connotations which accompany his action, he may or may not be conscious of them. Therefore, when I interpret the removal of a hat as a polite greeting, I recognize in it a meaning which may be called secondary or conventional; it differs from the primary or natural one in that it is intelligible instead of being sensible, and in that it has been consciously imparted to the practical action by which it is conveyed.

And finally: besides constituting a natural event in space and time, besides naturally indicating moods or feelings, besides conveying a conventional greeting, the action of my acquaintance can reveal to an experienced observer all that goes to makeup his ‘personality.’ This personality is conditioned by his being a man of the twentieth century, by his national, social and educational background, by the previous history of his life and by his present surroundings, but it is also distinguished by an individual manner of viewing things and reacting to the world which, if rationalized, would have to be called a philosophy. In the isolated action of a polite greeting all these factors do not manifest themselves comprehensively, but nevertheless symptomatically. We could not construct a mental portrait of the man on the basis of this single action, but only by co-ordinating a large number of similar observations and by interpreting them in connection with our general information as to the gentleman's period, nationality, class, intellectual traditions and so forth. Yet all the qualities which this mental portrait would show explicitly are implicitly inherent in every single action, so that, conversely, every single action can be interpreted in the light of those qualities.

The meaning thus discovered may be called the intrinsic meaning or content; it is essential where the two other kinds of meaning, the primary or natural and the secondary or conventional, are phenomenal. It may be defined as a unifying principle which underlies and explains both the visible event and its intelligible significance, and which determines even the form in which the visible event takes shape. This intrinsic meaning or content is, of course, as much above the sphere of conscious volitions as the expressional meaning is beneath this sphere.

Transferring the results of this analysis from every-day life to a work of art, we can distinguish in its subject matter or meaning the same three strata:

1: PRIMARY OR NATURAL SUBJECT MATTER, subdivided into FACTUAL and EXPRESSIONAL. It is apprehended by identifying pure forms, that is: certain configurations of line and colour, or certain peculiarly shaped lumps of bronze or stone, as representations of natural objects such as human beings, animals, plants, houses, tools and so forth; by identifying their mutual relations as events; and by perceiving such expressional qualities as the mournful character of a pose or gesture, or the homelike and peaceful atmosphere of an interior. The world of pure forms thus recognized as carriers of primary or natural meanings may be called the world of artistic motifs. An enumeration of these motifs would be a pre-iconographical description of the work of art.

2: SECONDARY OR CONVENTIONAL SUBJECT MATTER. It is apprehended by realizing that a male figure with a knife represents St. Bartholomew, that a female figure with a peach in her hand is a personification of Veracity, that a group of figures seated at a dinner table in a certain arrangement and in certain poses represents the Last Supper, or that two figures fighting each other in a certain manner represent the Combat of Vice and Virtue. In doing this we connect. artistic motifs and combinations of artistic motifs (compositions) with themes or concepts. Motifs thus recognized as carriers of a secondary or conventional meaning may be called images, and combinations of images are what the ancient theorists of art called ‘invenzioni;’ we are wont to call them stories and allegories.1 The identification of such images, stories and allegories is the domain of iconography in the narrower sense of the word. In fact, when we loosely speak of ‘subject matter as opposed to form’ we chiefly mean the sphere of secondary or conventional subject matter, viz. the world of specific themes or concepts manifested in images, stories and allegories, as opposed to the sphere of primary or natural subject matter manifested in artistic motifs. ‘Formal analysis’ in Wölfflin's sense is largely an analysis of motifs and combinations of motifs (compositions); for a formal analysis in the strict sense of the word would even have to avoid such expressions as ‘man,’ ‘horse,’ or ‘column,’ let alone such evaluations as ‘the ugly triangle between the legs of Michelangelo's David’ or ‘the admirable clarification of the joints in a human body.’ It is obvious that a correct iconographical analysis in the narrower sense presupposes a correct identification of the motifs. If the knife that enables us to identify a St. Bartholomew is not a knife but a cork-screw, the figure is not a St. Bartholomew. Furthermore it is important to note that the statement ‘this figure is an image of St. Bartholomew’ implies the conscious intention of the artist to represent St. Bartholomew, while the expressional qualities of the figure may well be unintentional.

3: INTRINSIC MEANING OR CONTENT. It is apprehended by ascertaining those underlying principles which reveal the basic attitude of a nation, a period, a class, a religious or philosophical persuasion--unconsciously qualified by one personality and condensed into one work. Needless to say, these principles are manifested by, and therefore throw light on, both ‘compositional methods’ and ‘iconographical significance.’ In the 14th and 15th centuries for instance (the earliest example can be dated around 1310), the traditional type of the Nativity with the Virgin Mary reclining in bed or on a couch was frequently replaced by a new one which shows the Virgin kneeling before the Child in adoration. From a compositional point of view this change means, roughly speaking, the substitution of a triangular scheme for a rectangular one; from an iconographical point of view in the narrower sense of the term, it means the introduction of a new theme textually formulated by such writers as Pseudo-Bonaventura and St. Bridget. But at the same time it reveals a new emotional attitude peculiar to the later phases of the Middle Ages. A really exhaustive interpretation of the intrinsic meaning or content might even show that the technical procedures characteristic of a certain country, period, or artist, for instance Michelangelo's preference for sculpture in stone instead of in bronze, or the peculiar use of hatchings in his drawings, are symptomatic of the same basic attitude that is discernible in all the other specific qualities of his style. In thus conceiving of pure forms, motifs, images, stories and allegories as manifestations of underlying principles, we interpret all these elements as what Ernst Cassirer has called ‘symbolical’ values. As long as we limit ourselves to stating that Leonardo da Vinci's famous fresco shows a group of thirteen men around a dinner table, and that this group of men represents the Last Supper, we deal with the work of art as such, and we interpret its compositional and iconographical features as its own properties or qualifications. But when we try to understand it as a document of Leonardo's personality, or of the civilization of the Italian High Renaissance, or of a peculiar religious attitude, we deal with the work of art as a symptom of something else which expresses itself in a countless variety of other symptoms, and we interpret its compositional and iconographical features as more particularized evidence of this ‘something else.’ The discovery and interpretation of these ‘symbolical’ values (which are generally unknown to the artist himself and may even emphatically differ from what he consciously intended to express) is the object of what we may call iconography in a deeper sense: of a method of interpretation which arises as a synthesis rather than as an analysis. And as the correct identification of the motifs is the prerequisite of a correct iconographical analysis in the narrower sense, the correct analysis of images, stories and allegories is the prerequisite of a correct iconographical interpretation in a deeper sense,--unless we deal with such works of art in which the whole sphere of secondary or conventional subject matter is eliminated, and a direct transition from motifs to content is striven for, as is the case with European landscape painting, still-life and genre; that is, on the whole, with exceptional phenomena, which mark the later, over-sophisticated phases of a long development.

Bob Wills is Still the King

My last post to the Aeclectic Historical Research forum was a playful rejoinder to a post by Melanchollic. (See Enrique Enriquez’ conversation with R.A. Hendley, aka RAH, aka Melanchollic.) It gave offense and has been removed, and an assortment of others have disappeared down the memory hole as well. And why not? After all, falsifying history is what Tarot “historians” do best.

The brief exchange is reproduced here (with illustrations and a couple Voltaire quotes added) just because it was fun and offered opportunity to link to some AATW stuff. Melanchollic wrote:

Most of us know and love (or hate) Mike. Love or hate, the man sticks to his guns. He's the John Wayne of tarot.

To which I replied:

Life is tough... but it’s tougher if you’re stupid. (Sergeant Stryker, Sands of Iwo Jima)

Melanchollic wrote:

I hold similar views to Mike, and read his blog, though I agree with you that he might catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

To which I replied:

Leonard: I'm just saying, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Sheldon: You catch even more with manure; what's your point?

Melanchollic wrote:

(However, I do get some amount of evil pleasure when he lays in to some poor cowpoke. Being from South Texas and all.)

To which I replied:

Bob Wills is still the king. (Waylon Jennings, Bob Wills is Still the King) But Ray Benson rules!

Dozens of other recents posts on that forum have directly or indirectly attacked me, and more than a few contain lies about me and things I've written or am accused of having written. However, my post was singled out by the moderator—within minutes it generated a warning about off-topic posts. I can only take comfort from the spiritual wisdom of Voltaire.

I made but one prayer to God, a very short one. “O Lord, make our enemies quite ridiculous!” God granted it.