[cunninglily]

I found this on an excellent Tarot site I frequent and thought some of you may be interested. For a bit of contextual clarification, three of the cardinal virtues are thought to be represented in the Tarot with Prudence, as fourth, not clearly depicted. What follows adopts the theory that Prudence is *assumed* within the other three.

The Tarot, along with the Cabala (or Kabbalah or Qabalah) are thought to hold the key to "life, the universe and everything" (for you Douglas Adams fans) in symbol form, and *works* as an associative prompt furthering ones' own intuitive awareness and understanding. Both are primarily "meditative devices", arguing a slightly different understanding of meditation than those of us schooled in Eastern methods and ideas. The idea is not to empty the mind in Western meditative practice, but to fill it, to direct it, to give it shape and order. As the Tarot is arguably based on Medieval Christian ideas and symbology, it is not a stretch for the Christian to find a good tool in it.


R.G Mortimer in his 'Elements of Moral
Theology' writes:

quote
The interconnection of the four cardinal virtues may be put more
technically in this way. You cannot have a perfect virtue without
prudence, for it is prudence that enables a man to determine in every
given case what action, justice, for example, or temperance, demands.
It is not always easy to know what is the "fair thing to do", and to
arrive at the correct answer is the work of prudence. We may often
observe a man who performs countless acts of generosity and who yet
does not acquire the virtue of generosity, because his actions are at
the same time imprudent—for example, the indiscriminate almsgiver is
for this reason a man of generous impulses, but without the virtue of
generosity. Again, if a man be the slave of any one vice he lacks
prudence: for how can one who repeatedly acts against reason, as a
vicious man does, be called prudent? And if a man lacks prudence, how
can he know how to be brave or just or temperate? He may perform
brave and just acts from time to time, and so foster his natural
disposition to bravery as to come near to having the virtue, but he
is clearly a man whose judgment cannot be trusted, especially in
difficult circumstances. But as a virtue is a habit of acting rightly
easily and always, for this reason—that he lacks prudence—he has not
virtues. Thus all the virtues depend on prudence as their guide,
whereby are determined the proper means for obtaining their ends, and
for avoiding those extremes between which the virtues lie. And
prudence depends on the other virtues in the sense that they make the
exercise of prudence easier; for vices corrupt the judgment and blind
the vision,-but the virtues confer clarity of mind and keenness of
perception, and the best counsellors are always not the clever
merely, but the just and upright.


It will not have escaped notice that we have spoken hitherto of the
virtues as wholly within the sphere of natural morality. They are
good habits, acquired patiently by the exercise of the human will in
obedience to the conclusions of the human reason. By prudence
determining on all occasions what is fair, by prudence steering a
middle course along the path of fortitude between the extremes of
cowardice on the one hand and reck*lessness on the other, by prudence
standing firm on the rock of temperance against the seductions of
indulgence and the errors of over-austerity, the natural man builds
up in himself the moral virtues.
end quote

A view that is to be found also in pagan antiquity, particular among
the Stoics. The Stoic Seneca wrote 'Perfect prudence is perfect
virtue'. It is the mother of the other cardinal virtues in the sense
that they are naturally applied or arise from the exercise
of 'perfect prudence'; or if you prefer is the foundation upon which
the other virtues are built. Therefore maybe we can say that prudence
is not missing, its presence is implicit in the other three?

The three virtues of the tarot appear in the Bible of Notger in a
form similar to tarot images, fortitude as an angel holding the mouth
of a lion , Justice an angel with scales , temperance an angel
pouring from one vase to another. So there does appear to have been
some sort of schema in which these three particular virtues are
classed together as a group, without the other cardinal virtue
prudence which may from the considerations above be taken as
implicit. It can be found here [you may be asked if you want to
install Japanese font, just select 'cancel', the text is in English]:

http://www7.ocn.ne.j...ndog/Enotg1.htm

The author of the site suggests the devil card is maybe the
dark 'counterpart' of Justice [Archangel Michael], and the tower as
the dark 'counterpart' of Fortitude [Archangel Gabriel - the Strength
of God associated with destruction of the Walls of Jericho and Sodom
and Gomorah]. He makes no suggestion for Temperance [possibly related
to the Archangel Raphael - the healing or medicine of God], any
suggestions? Presumably it would be one of the other two 'dark' cards
traitor or death?

[cunninglily]

Quote

I found this on an excellent Tarot site I frequent and thought some of you may be interested.

It strikes me on rereading the post that the entire quoted text may not be meaningful for those of you who are not familiar with the 22 Major Arcana of the Tarot. They are:

0 - The Fool (In-spir-ation)

1 - The Magician (Concentration)

2 - The High Priestess (Receptivity)

3 - The Empress (Imagination)

4 - The Emperor (Order)

5 - The Hierophant (Intuition)

6 - The Lovers (Discrimination or Discernment)

7 - The Chariot (The Will)

8 - Strength (Fortitude)

9 - The Hermit (Wisdom)

10- The Wheel of Fortune (Fate or Divine Law)

11- Justice (Karmic Law or Cause and Effect)

12- The Hanged Man (Metanoia or The Law of Reversal)

13- Death (Death and Transformation)

14- Temperance (Equilibrium)

15- The Devil (Bondage)

16- The Tower (Crisis and Liberation)

17- The Star (Hope)

18- The Moon (Dark Night of the Soul and the Depths)

19- The Sun (Regeneration)

20- The Judgement (New Life and Resurrection)

21- The World or Universe (Liberation)


These are *my own* keywords...which doesn't mean I invented them exactly, but that they represent a personal synthesis of what I have studied and are slanted to reflect a more Christian point of view in this case, as my audience is Christian. This does not mean that any Tarotist would object to these keywords, only that some from a different religious tradition would emphasis other keywords equally valid. The key thing to remember here is that the Tarot is a "filing system" of correspondences and associations, so is amenable to the associations of the student, within the structure of traditional and accrued or historical meaning. Paul Foster Case said that the associative meaning of each of these cards is exhaustless, because each student brings their own wealth of experience, knowledge, intuition, worldview and et al to the discussion.

I have been invited to give a talk on the Tarot to the UCC church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana this summer. Any interest you guys express is likely to be rewarded (or punished, depending on your point of view) with ample response.


lily