Camoin Tarot Forum

[Paul]

We have been discovering various optical puzzles in the Tarot de Marseille, specifically by Camoin/Jodo.

Here are the discoveries thus far:

The bull is completed.

The imps are glorified.

This one is pending "approval":
The wing of the Eagle is completed.

Anymore puzzles that students have seen? And, proposals on their signficance?

Paul

[iñigo]

Hi all:

good puzzles, for instance, the leg of the lion on 11...it´s a unicorn horn..but this is a link to the minor arcans

by the way...the wing on the 11´s hat would represent the protection and the kind of thoughts that the 11 has. The action of La force is led by the highest toughts of divinity.

Moooore!!!

regards and happy new year for all of you!

[Paul]

Hello iñigo:

There are some more photos in the French forum, by Fanclem. I suppose I could post them here by "edit" function, if that is not rude.

Can you show us this Unicorn?

[iñigo]

Hi guys/girls:

It is not possible to see any unicorn on 11, but the horn.

If you guys pay attention on the hypothetical legs of the Lion,




you guys can confirm that they are not an usual legs. One of them is like a slim stick. In fact this is an unicorn horn stuck in the lion´s heart....

But we find the presence of the unicorn in the minor arcans: cavalier de baton and reyne de coupe.For that, we could consider that the thing taking the control of the lion´s heart is a combination of a creative action (cavalier de baton) and an emotional action (reyne de coupe)

What do you think about?

best regards,
Iñigo.

[Phine]

Hi @ all


That´s really great!!
I think I will keep on surching this weekend! Now that you gave me an idea how to have a look at the cards... There should be some more puzzles to be discovered...


And thank you Paul for opening this thread .


Best wishes,

[Paul]

You're very welcome, Phine!

I had hoped that this topic was not top secret agent man level, if you know what I mean.

I will be eager to see any discoveries that you are able to make this weekend! I keep fiddling with possible further puzzles.

[Phine]

Hello to everyone -

and thank you for welcoming me, Paul.


Ok, I prepared my puzzle - copied the cards, laminated and trimmed them to get rid of the borders which I always feel as a handicap while overlapping the cards...
I always, well I felt it more than I saw it, that especially two cards differ in height from the others - it´s XIII L'Arcane Sans Nom and XXI Le Monde. Today I recognized it while trimming the pictures... Maybe because Mort is focussed to the ground and Le Mond reaching for something higher?? But that is another theme to be discussed somewhere else, I suppose .

I had hoped that this topic was not top secret agent man level, if you know what I mean.

I can´t imagine that discovering "secrets" by ourselves could be *chargeable* - au contraire, mon cher ... finding them just by playing around with the cards should be in the sense of Mr. Jodorowsky and Mr. Camoin . I'd like to stress that Mr. Jodo didn't accept any other teacher than the tarot itself, as he wrote in his book. So I think we're on a good track!



All the best to you,

[Phine]

Hi dear tarotists ,


as I tried to find some pieces that might belong together I looked for some fragmentary details. Starting with 0 Le Mat it was that animal I wanted to complete...

So I ran over the deck to find something blue matching with its torso - which I thing I found in XVII L'Etoile. The woman in trump XVII looks a little sad the way the fool is walking off. And the animal could be her feelings trying to hold the fool back from walking away. Or it shows her emotions guarding / accompanying the fool.
But I admit the blending is not so smooth as the eagles wing which becomes complete in La Forces hat.





Ok, I'll look for some more !

[Paul]

Ok, I prepared my puzzle - copied the cards, laminated and trimmed them to get rid of the borders which I always feel as a handicap while overlapping the cards...

Wow! I admire your handiwork. And you have a laminator! Oh, the things I'd laminate with a laminator. I would become a World Laminator!
I would seek world domination through lamination!

I always, well I felt it more than I saw it, that especially two cards differ in height from the others - it´s XIII L'Arcane Sans Nom and XXI Le Monde. Today I recognized it while trimming the pictures... Maybe because Mort is focussed to the ground and Le Mond reaching for something higher?? But that is another theme to be discussed somewhere else, I suppose .

I was unclear on this puzzle-- did you have a match in mind, visually?

Paul

[Paul]

So I ran over the deck to find something blue matching with its torso - which I thing I found in XVII L'Etoile. The woman in trump XVII looks a little sad the way the fool is walking off. And the animal could be her feelings trying to hold the fool back from walking away. Or it shows her emotions guarding / accompanying the fool.
But I admit the blending is not so smooth as the eagles wing which becomes complete in La Forces hat.

This one is beautiful. You may also want to check out the French forum version of this thread at puzzles-optiques-dans-le-tarot-de-marseille-t1222.html.

Fanclem also matched up Le Pape with the doggie/cat/creature/thingie on Le Mat.

The reason why your match may be salient is that Camoin associates Le Toille with Le Mat in a special relationship. It has to do with the constellations on the cards. If you look at a star map of ancient constellations, you can't help but see these constellations on the Tarot, interspersed throughout. I believe he associates Sirius with the dog on Le Mat, and then Le Toille pictures a kind of flooding of the Nile theme. Sirius is called the "Dog Star" and is part of the constellation Canis Major. Egyptians called it the Dog Star due to Osiris' dog head and the star associated with Osiris. They associated its rising with the flooding of the Nile, which was of course, not a catastrophic event at all, but one heralding a fresh new year of agricultural fertility and the start of the Egyptian New Year. One can quickly see synchronicities between these traditional card meanings and these ideas.

Here's Osiris, romanticized; note his green body and compare with Le Mat:


Now, I believe the Egyptian equivalent of Osiris was Orion (Greek). In this constellation map, I see Orion followed by Sirius.


I also see Lepus, the hare, which is what I tended to associate with the creature on Le Mat. Also, notice Eradanus the river flowing (this river is on Le Toille). Also, notice the horn on Moniceros, The Unicorn. Now, Moniceros was to my knowledge not recognized at the Tarot's inception (but I could be wrong). I see a Unicorn horn suggestion in Le Mat. So, all in all, these cards are nicely connected, and when occuring together in a spread, I would imagine could signal great blessings.

Always learning,

Paul

[Phine]

Hello everybody


Thank you Paul for the link and the great explanation (I will have to reread it and gonna go in for a closer look).

I always, well I felt it more than I saw it, that especially two cards differ in height from the others - it´s XIII L'Arcane Sans Nom and XXI Le Monde. Today I recognized it while trimming the pictures... Maybe because Mort is focussed to the ground and Le Mond reaching for something higher?? But that is another theme to be discussed somewhere else, I suppose .

I was unclear on this puzzle-- did you have a match in mind, visually?

I hope I got your question right to answer it in a correct way :
Looking at the cards I always noticed that the picture of trump XIII L'Arcane Sans Nom is higher than the other - the image fills the space where the other cards show their names in the footer.
XXI Le Monde is the only card of the trumps where the picture reaches into the header showing the number. When I trimmed the cards I had to decide where to cut... So I made my choice not to cut off the aureols. The effect was: XIII and XXI show the same height (one has no footer, the other kept the header) and protrude the rest of the cards !


(What seems to be a shorter card in the front must be a reflection - the other cards have the same gauges.)

Remarking this "phenomenon" I thought both cards ought to have a special connection. As the skeleton is busy cutting on the ground (on earth, cutting off the footer) the direction of aspiration in XXI Le Monde seems to lead upwards, indicated by the aureols (rising into the header). Both trumps exceed the limits (? I don't know how the idiom)...
That's just what came into my mind.
What is jumping into my eyes in this very moment: The scarf of Le Mond's lady is an eye rhyme to the scythe of Death , the scarf seems to be a sort of solution of the scythe in form and colour.
And the spine of Death is alike the leaves of the laurel wreath, like a preliminary stage of the laurel...
I will stop this here for this time .



Thanks for all the insights

[Phine]

Me again...

Paul, I think you gave me the missing link :

Here's Osiris, romanticized; note his green body and compare with Le Mat:

I always wondered about the "green fool" in the Thoth-Deck... So this could be the clue!


xxx

[Paul]

Hello Phine:

Yes, I believe that many of the Majors can be matched up to Egyptian gods and goddesses. Then, the conversion to Greek is a natural extrapolation.

This makes the Tarot highly cross-cultural, which is a point that I think Camoin might make in his book. I don't recall if Jodorowsky made this point explicitly or not.

Thanks for the pictures, a picture is worth a thousand words, plus I'm a visual learner, so I enjoy them.

Paul

[eltarot78]

Excuse my horrible know English, are often involved in the forum in Spanish, I am interested in this puzzle game with the tarot, let them here the image of the unicorn.

[Phine]

Thank you eltarot,


that´s really great - the lady and the unicorn !

(Unfortunately I had two hard weeks in the office, I couldn´t spend any time to look for other puzzles - but I will stay tuned !).



@ Paul:

Dear Paul,

Yes, I believe that many of the Majors can be matched up to Egyptian gods and goddesses. Then, the conversion to Greek is a natural extrapolation.

You´re certainly right - I learned something about this connections in a one-year-course of the Thoth-Deck, but sometimes it confuses me ...



Best wishes,