I've long been fascinated by the concept of magic and our use of things like talismanic incantations and magic potions to effortlessly bring the results we want. And if, as I noted earlier this week, the golem can be updated for the 21st century, so too can other standards of the mystical world ... like the Tarot.
The Tarot is a set of specialized playing cards used for fortune-telling or divination. A Tarot deck contains 78 cards, divided into a "Major Arcana" of 22 cards and a "Minor Arcana" of 56.
The cards of the "Major Arcana" describe an person's journey through different stages of understanding and awareness, and eventually to enlightenment*. They talk about the main themes present in the world around us, and often signify important stages of one's psychological and/or spiritual development and evolution. The Major Arcana cards are: The Fool, The Magician, The High Priestess, The Empress, The Emperor, The Hierophant**, The Lovers, The Chariot, Strength, The Hermit, Wheel of Fortune, Justice, The Hanged Man, Death, Temperance, The Devil, The Tower, The Star, The Moon, The Sun, Judgement, and The World; typical designs of a few of these are shown below ...
The "Minor Arcana" cards, on the other hand, describe the day-to-day aspects of our daily life: our work, feelings, thoughts, finances, and so on, considered to be not as important as the Spiritual aspect contained within the Majors. Minor Arcana cards are divided into four Suits (Wands, Swords, Cups, and Pentacles***) of 14 cards each, which align with the four traditional elements of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth ...
Wands and Swords are considered masculine, being associated with the "masculine" symbols of Fire (passion, energy, and desire) and Air (logic, reason, and thinking); Cups and Pentacles are considered feminine, being associated with the "feminine" symbols of Water (feelings and emotions) and Earth (materialistic and practical concepts like money, and careers).
Got all that?
Okay, having now considered the traditional Tarot deck, it occurs to me that it no longer meets the needs of those who wish to interpret Der Furor's America. Therefore, as a service to MAGAts who wish to use the Tarot predict their futures (or explain Der Furor's policies†), I offer the following redesign to create a new, MAGA-friendly version:
The Major Arcana change as follows:
The Fool is replaced by The Cabinet;The Magician is replaced by Fox News††;The High Priestess is replaced by Karoline Leavitt;The Empress is replaced by Melania Trump;The Emperor is replaced by Steven Miller;The Hierophant is replaced by Q;The Lovers is replaced by The Trumpettes;The Chariot is replaced by The Cybertruck;Strength is replaced by Bombast;The Hermit is replaced by Steve Bannon;The Wheel of Fortune is replaced by The Tariff;Justice is not used in the MAGA Tarot;The Hanged Man is replaced by Mike Pence;Death is replaced by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.;Temperance is replaced by Pete Hegseth/Brett Kavanaugh;The Devil is replaced by The Immigrant;The Tower is replaced by Mar-a-Lago;The Star is replaced by Kid Rock;The Moon is replaced by The Midnight Tweet;
The Sun is replaced by Der Furor, the center of the MAGA universe;Judgement is not used in the MAGA Tarot; and,The World is replaced by America.
The Suits of the Minor Arcana change as follows (note that, in accordance with MAGA beliefs, all are now masculine):
Wands is replaced by Phalluses
Swords is replaced by Bunker BustersCups is replaced by Six-Packs; and,Pentacles is replaced by Red Hats
There is, of course, a great deal more to the arcane pseudoscience of reading Tarot cards, and I don't pretend to understand it all. I'll just limit myself to the design of the deck, and the MAGAts can figure out the rest on their own.
Have a good day, or as good a day as your Tarot reading suggests you're going to have.
More thoughts coming.
Bilbo
* However this is defined.
** One who interprets sacred mysteries or esoteric principles.
*** A "pentacle" is "a talisman or magical object, used as a symbol of the element of earth.
† To the extent that any of these can be explained.
†† For its power to instantly transmute the wildest fiction into truth.
1 comment:
I was a practitioner of Tarot reading a half century ago. I figured out it was "cold reading" (I didn't have any info on that until much later, thank you James Randi) and stopped as the practice was telling me true things I didn't really want to know about people I was working and living with at that time. It's like Sir Terry's 1st sight, do you really want to know? A half century later and I make the connection. I feel I may have been duller in my youth so the fears of cognitive declines are lessened. A bit.
I used the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. In today's terms we would say that each card represents a meme. I would do a ritual with the shuffled deck (I had a bandana to hold the cards and would ask the participant to cut the deck) and lay out the cards in a particular arrangement on the bandana. I would then relate what each card means in that particular position to the person involved and let the card and the person's reaction to that "meme" tell me a story which I would then weave into prose, hopefully getting a favorable reading.
Then I had a shipmate named Billy who asked if I would do a reading for him. Billy was an ... jerk. Plain and simple. I could not finish the reading as each card called him out, I remember pulling the cards into a pile and tossing them in the rubbish bin. Billy was incensed, but fuck him, what an jerk, did no further business with him.
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