Amber Fate (amberfate) wrote, @ 2003-03-29 11:21:00

Current mood:	calm
Current music:	"Building a Mystery", Sarah McLachlan

Offering the first; The Fool




The Fool.

Card 0 in nearly all tarot decks, though occasionally found in slot 22. In the classic decks (Rider-Waite and its descendants), the Fool is shown as a young person of indeterminate gender (though we are invited to assume male) with a small dog. "His" head is tilted upwards, watching the clouds dreamily, while at "his" feet the dog barks, trying to pull his owner back from the cliff--and potential certain destruction. Will disaster be averted? Will "he" step off the cliff? Will "he" plummet to his doom, or fly away?

The Fool, in this depiction, hovers in the moment of indecision.




"When the time comes, as it always does, when the old rules, conceptual structures, prejudices and beliefs are not longer adequate to the challenges at hand, then a Divine Maniac is needed. He or she lives in a private world, and so is not bound by the shared conventions, preconceptions or norms of the society. The Gods--or Chance--select the Idiot who will become the savior who will transform society. He is elevated to King for a short time (for only so much madness can be tolerated), and must undergo many transformations before, with luck, he rejuvenates the world.

"On a personal level, there are times in all of our lives when customary thought patterns have outlived there usefulness. Then it is time for Divine Madness (mania). There are no rules for this, for it is the rules that are bankrupt. The only escape is inspired frenzy and the blind leap into the abyss. We may hope for the best, but there are no guarantees."
--The Pythagoran Tarot




This is closest to the interpretation of older Tarot decks; with the publication of the Rider-Waite tarot deck in 1909, the Fool came to represent a kind of ageless child, a foolish dreamer and believer in dreams who would walk off a cliff face rather than turn around and listen to a higher, more Apollonian conscience.

This was not always so. In tarot decks existing before Rider-Waite, the Fool--numbered either 0, to indicate the start of the soul's journey, or 22, to indicate the prime evolved power of the mage--the Fool represented two archetypal characters in society:




1. The Beggar

The beggar is seen as a crafty person by some, a pitiful, miserable figure by others. In certain societies, begging is an art form and beggars are seen as the most visible manifestation of God, so as to create in any observers a desire to be generous and supportive of their fellow humans, in any condition. In most more industrialized cultures, beggars are viewed as non-contributors who are leaching off the body politic as a whole, and must be rooted out and eliminated.

Myself, I prefer the first view, that of beggar as metaphorical reminder: There are those in greater distress than you; give what you can, when you can, when you feel you must, and remain true to your faith in God. However the individual perceives such a higher power.

2. The Jester

The Jester, the Cosmic Dupe, the Holy Fool--all these are titles for the archetypal trickster, the incarnate being who, through pranking and jesting, brings the individual to an understanding of metaphoric truth. The trickster and the Cosmic Dupe are two sides of the same coin--the trickster pranking the dupe, the dupe getting tricked, back and forth throughout all times and cultures. The reason royalty relied on jesters was not just because it's fun to laugh; the jester was able to comment about the king, and about the kingdom, in ways the peasantry weren't allowed, and as the king's minion, would not receive punishment for bringing up these points. In this way, the king heard the views of the people, and was able to most properly gauge if the kingdom was a happy one.

Jesters, tricksters, god-touched fools--the wisdom of the world is found in their most casual utterings. Truth in madness, it is said, and truthfully so at times--madmen are occasionally aligned with the most basic universal set of teachings.




Read the Fool card in most modern decks as the Soul on the first step of the Journey; the most basic representation of the Self; the true Heart exposed to the elements. Depending on where this card lands in the reading, it usually represents yourself on your journey.

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