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I have a similar story, but I have to give a bit of background first:
I was on a LARP once, that played in a post apocalyptic world where the Russians had taken over the area. We were playing as a resistance cell, secretly undermining their rule. Propaganda leaflets, secret meetings, sabotage, assassinations, covert actions, attacks, … Fun times.
Anyway, to enter the LARP you had to go through a Russian checkpoint. That was the first thing any character had to do. The ‘guards’ harassed you a bit, you had to go through insane bureaucracy, standing in line… It kind of set the tone for the whole event. Well, there was my friend, playing in the same resistance cell as me, going through the checkpoint.
The guard asks for his papers. My friend grabs something from his pocket and gives it to the guard. It wasn’t his identification paper, it was a resistance propaganda leaflet we made for the event. He had taken it from the wrong pocket. He was executed soon after.
It wasn’t that bad, of course. He changed clothes and returned as an other member of the resistance, but that was probably the quickest ‘start to death’ in any LARP.
once during a payment i was preoccupied talking to my friends and i handed my public transit pass to the cashier instead of my credit card. took me a second to turn back to her, and she just said jokingly “this doesn’t work here”. i apologized but i had a laugh.
As a long time Binding of Isaac player, I expected to hear you say that you instantly teleported back to the check-in counter.
“Here, I have a permit”
I didn’t know Jacob Drawfee posted here. BONUS
I feel like somebody trans and gay wouldn’t be into the Rider-Waite deck, which looks great but is the mayonnaise of tarot decks.
yeah there’s this cat deck i’m looking at right now
Well then link it, goddam.
Personally I’m not into the million different tarot decks (myself having the Rider-Waite just for the art aspect), but someone who’s themself out of the box would certainly have considered at least Crowley’s deck instead.
Those are cool. I like the hints of Art Nouveau in the first one — would be nice if the cards art itself leaned more into it.
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but it’s the canonical one
Tarot existed for ages before the Rider-Waite deck. In fact, the common playing cards descended from tarot.
Plus, there are multiple popular-ish decks from about the same time, owing to the boom of occultism in the couple decades around 1900. The Aleister Crowley deck is a famous one that’s different from Rider-Waite.
ok. It’s kinda why I chose “canonical” instead of “first”. As in, the ones people “reading fortunes” are using.
Ehhh, I think people are mostly kinda aware of the existence of the various tarot decks. I’d say rather that the Marseilles tarot is the major precursor to them all, having influenced both the playing cards and the Rider-Waite art.
ok, now this is the discussion that’s worthwhile. What word would you say the Rider-Waite deck represents? I feel that since it’s the one that Aleister Crowley is involved with, it feels like the point of reference for using the tarot deck for the occult instead of historical game playing reasons, which many sources use as a point of inspiration and reference?
What word would you use for Marseilles tarot and the Rider-Waite in these contexts?
Well, Rider-Waite is definitely the most popular one among people getting a deck as some new-agey tsatske (myself included). I’m just not sure that proper esotericists stick with it, when different designs also have different symbolism. E.g. Alejandro Jodorowsky, who used tarot as both symbols in his films and for some weird psychotherapy, has his own deck design.
Though, come to think of it, you’re right in that even most redesigns are based on Rider-Waite, just adding some modern graphics or whatnot. I guess the Marseilles deck is rather ‘prototypical’, since no one probably uses it unchanged.
To clarify, Crowley wasn’t involved with the Rider-Waite deck, to my knowledge — although at some time he was in the same Order of the Golden Dawn in which both mystic A. E. Waite and illustrator Pamela Colman Smith were members (and which influenced Crowley’s Thelema). The Rider-Waite deck definitely incorporates occult symbolism, and considering that the Order of the Golden Dawn was pretty influential in the movement, I’d guess that the imagery still holds — haven’t researched it in detail.
Crowley had designed his own deck, called Thoth Tarot, about thirty years later. It uses different symbolism and even rearranges some stuff like the trump cards and their alphanumeric correspondence. Alas, it’s very busy graphically compared to Rider-Waite.
Pharmacist: Yep this checks out, here’s your pills.
That’s good tho, isn’t it? I only know what’s shown in media and media likes to say shit like “The Death card is good. It just means there will be dramatic change.”
But then someone dies later on so… 🤷♂️
I feel like half of them mean change or new beginnings
They mean whatever the fortune teller wants the sucker to hear.
The death card… but inverted. It means death, but not for you! Death to high interest rates. This is your sign to go ahead with the home equity loan.
That was an ID card, just not the right one.
Well, if you believe in tarot, then you should feel embarrassed
Sure, if you pick up almost any book on Tarot, it’s going to have some mystical nonsense in it, but it’s also a tool for brainstorming and an inexpensive way to get a lot of cool art. Check out The Sceptic’s Tarot if you’re curious about non-supernatural usage of Tarot cards.
Also, some people have found it to be an aid for psychology, similar to Rorschach tests. I don’t think this has been studied, though.
Using tarot to spark discussion and introspection in therapy has always worked great for me with young witchy clients who say “I don’t know” to every question I ask them lol
For non-witchy but otherwise similar clients, I like to use adapted versions of Chuck Klosterman’s 23 Questions
hey that was my answer word for word except i ended at me
As someone who despises magical thinking: I think tarot art is fucking awesome
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It’s mechanical storytelling. It’s up to you to interpret the outcome as would fit your current life situation and find analyses that you might not have before.
Are the cards telling the future? No.
But they’re still neat! In always impressed at the the artistry, and attention to detail of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, and all the work that had to be done to tie it, visually and thematically, onto Golden Dawn-style Hermetic Qabalah, is all very interesting
We can’t all be as enlightened a thinker as you, FistingEnthusiast.
… And here I am thinking FistingEnthusiast and FartMaster69 must surely have a lot in common.
When will I learn to never make assumptions on the internet sigh
You can’t fart through a clenched fist.
I’ll need photographic evidence of this
Oh yes you can
Well not with that attitude…
They are a master, they would know
Some people choose stupidity
Sadly, that stupidity leaks into other facets of life, like anti-vax bullshit and the like
It’s no different to belief in any of the invisible men living in the clouds, it’s just trendy among those who avoid soap.
That’s cool if you don’t believe in it. But it’s weird to position yourself smug and superior to others, when your name is FistingEnthusiast.
Idk man, some people like fisting, others like occultism. At least reading a tarot card or summoning a goetic demon doesn’t have the capacity to rip my holes open ¯_(ツ)_/¯
summoning a goetic demon doesn’t have the capacity to rip my holes open
Well, my study of the Lesser Key of Solomon was a total waste of time then.
I don’t believe in Tarot.
But I do own a deck because of JoJo’s Bizarre adventure and because I have used it in my homebrew DnD campaigns to signify allies and enemies (like Persona 5).
I would 100% carry The Fool if I had a clear phone case, because whimsy.
There is nothing wrong in having one around.
Also the history of the imagery and the artistic reinterpretation of theme decks such as yours is fascinating. I have one that’s emoji, one that’s all cats, and one that’s designed to look like crayon scribbles in a wide ruled notebook. In each one you can hold up equivalent cards and see how each artist interpreted the individual card under the overall theme.
here's some examples
Tarot is also a great introspective and meditative practice that allows you to mirror your own thoughts back to you and gain a different perspective. Esoteric spiritual practices are by the literal definition of that first word as diverse as the people who practice them.
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it’s right fucking there. i can touch it. it exists. it’s cards. i am confuse.
Yeah, but not as embarrassed as someone going around belittling people for participating in harmless spiritualism.
The last thing this world needs is more people going in for bullshit woo without evidence
The Venn diagram of people who genuinely believe in horoscopes and tarot, and anti-vax idiots is fucking close to a circle
Leave the reddit atheist thing at reddit.
The form spiritual beliefs and practices take is dictated by material and social conditions, its not productive to call everyone who responds to these conditions bad if you actually want to interact with society instead of whatever the fuck reddit atheists do.
I was born in the seventies
I have been an atheist my whole life, so I don’t know why you think my contempt for woo has anything to do with reddit
I delight in the wonders of the world, and marvel at our universe
But I don’t need to believe in absurdities in order to do so
There’s a world of difference between being a romantic and enjoying whimsy, and woo.
!and I don’t give a fuck what you think!<
Why would you respond to a stranger whose thoughts you don’t give a fuck about?
hey, more contempt from a gen-Xer when we are polite to you. And then HEY WHAT DID GEN X EVER DO BESIDES DROP THE BALL FOR AN ENTIRE GENERATION AND TREAT EVERYONE WITH CONTEMPT i think i remember that conversation yesterday.
and yet I bet you suspend your disbelief when consuming media such as video games, film and TV.
Same instinct and process.
Temporarily suspending disbelief for entertainment and actually believing in the occult are different things. I’m sure there are lots of people who do tarot for fun and just suspend disbelief, but there’s also a lot of people who actually believe in magic and use it to make important decisions. One is harmless, the other betrays a dangerous lack of critical thinking that pervades every aspect of a person’s life.
and there are people who send death threats to tv writers and video game developers, far from harmless
Say your name is Klein Moretti while at it.
Double down. Tell them “the Arcana is the means by which all is revealed” and refuse to elaborate further.
As a bonus, if the pharmacist is a Persona player there’s a good chance the phrase will trigger a traumatic flashback to a certain 14-phase final boss fight, giving you the chance to simply grab your pills and go.
This reminds me of the movie The Lookout. In it, at one point the protagonist is pulled over and asked for his driver’s license. However, he’s mentally disabled and, in that scene, very stressed out; instead he hands the officer a card indicating his disabled status rather than his license and is subsequently released without turning in identifying information, which turns out to be beneficial for him. 2007 was a different time.
Also, I’m not saying OP is disabled or anything, my brain just practices freeform association so the whole “handing over the wrong card” thing connected to a movie I haven’t seen in almost twenty years.
Reminds me of that one time I was sitting on a tram going to school and an older guy came to me and shown me a card. I thought it was ticket control, so I showed him my tram pass and he nodded and went away. Only then did my sleepy brain manage to realise what was on his card - that he’s disabled and wants my seat. Apparently he mistook my card for something similar too, since he didn’t argue and just went away.
I did jump up and let him sit afterwards, but it took me a bit to realise what just happened.
symbolizes new beginnings, boundless potential, innocence, and taking a leap of faith into the unknown
I’m going to interpret handing someone a fool tarot as handing them a memory wipe, like it says ‘pretend we’re meeting for the first time. Abracadabra!’
A little bit like Dr Who’s psychic paper
There’s a video game mechanic in there somewhere…
Yeah actually I’ve only started to learn what tarot cards are because of Balatro, which, for the most part, manages to match up their symbolic meaning with their function.
The Fool for instance lets you re-generate the last power card you played - new beginnings, innocence.
The High Priestess summons astrology cards - fortune telling, hidden knowledge, foresight.
The Tower turns cards into ‘stone cards’ which makes more sense once you have the context of the gameplay. It’s a fall from grace, basically, and loss of potential.
I used it as a self-imposed game mechanic on a LARP once. Had a tarot deck to draw from before some important decisions. This directly lead to my character’s suicide near the end.
