LE BATELEVR

-Before come into LE BATELEVR topic I think it s worth remember from where Tarot de marseille comes just beacuse is the first card numbered.
After France conquest Milan in 1494 the soldiers specially brought to France the italian deck which was unnamed and unnumbered.
Then the french master engravers re worked the entirely deck on an iconographic sense and also numbered and named the cards.
I think they try to adapt the images of the cards to the french feeling and past culture.
For example if one see TEMPERANCE or more subtle changed L HERMIT card one can if pay attention another intention within.
What about LA MAISON DIEV ? and so on...
So TdM is for me has a different visual interpretation than Italian decks as Visconti.
A whole past french culture run within...

- LE BATELEVR

1-Aside the common depiction of the card as one can see on many decks one thing really shock me:
It s the first card numbered of the whole sequence and the figure is watching to the opposite side of the sequence.
He is looking outside the sequence he is not watching LA PAPESSE the second card.(Which also do the same )
I said that LE MAT isn t the first or the end card because it has not number so LE BATELEVR is not watching him for me.
So where is he watching ?
-I think he is watching to a white card not drawn.
A card without a number a name a figure as a depiction of it.
He is watching to a world not born yet a world of ideas not "worked" yet a world of emotions not said yet a world "Us" world not "drawn" yet.
That world is that of the Archetype.You want to call it Unconscious go ahead but I don t think so because that "zone" ours zone is already here and only one is the responsible of it.
No.That is the world of our Soul which has more wisdom than us and "plan" or design situations on ours real life which the purpose that we "grow" "something" this time.Ours Souls protect us and watch that we are trying to understand aside the pain it s cost.
LE BATELEVR is his agent and just only "put on earth" the Soul plan.
In the grade we notice that we begin to work with him around us...
We begin to work with energy around us with him trying to balance ours environment.
But of course we aren t aside "ours circle" so first we must understand that all have connection within.
We can t move energy for us without affect the rest around us.
Each life has a "circle" of influence / short or large / deep or not.
That suppose a responsibility because we are sending energy every time.
Lifes as those of Jesus or Buda suppose a "circle " of influence that cover the WHOLE world.

2-Another detail of course is the sun finger (or ring finger) of the left hand.
It s clearly a penis.
So we have : Sun - Left - Penis = Attraction of the Divine Energy
Left side attract / Right side give or send.
If one draw a line starting in the middle of the gland where is the line that will ends on the sex of LE BATELEVR so not on the coin he has on his right hand.
He is loading his genitals with divine energy.
-The penis has an skin colour as his hair but not his hands and his face.
He tell us that he is using his energy attracted in this ours physical world with a physical way.
-The skin coloured hair is a depiction of time travelled working "here" / He has experience enough about this.
His face and hands are uncoloured so not of this world.Because that is his real nature.
He is working here but he is not from here.
His left hand has a coin or a little stone.He know that changes must begin since the little since the begin since our innermost.
May be a parallel of the seed of sesame which is very little but if we can faith we can move mountains.
He is doing magic ? / Okay Magic is based on Faith.That is the secret.

3-The table:
A table that ends outside the card so meaning that his "circle" is beyond the card so has influence on the sequence.
The legs of the table are skin coloured so his work has a "material" purpose.
-The three dice that sum 20 so the rest cards of the sequence.
LE BATELEVR roll the dices so the "story" of the sequence.
That is why I said before he is the agent of ours Souls.
His right leg firmly touch the middle leg of the table /he is pouring the result energy of his work on the earth / ours physical everyday world. (As L ESTOILLE does)
His left leg is attracting the energy of the earth so to end the circle or best beginning a new one.

eugim

He does his little trick and makes something disappear. You know it's fake, everybody knows it's fake, but just for a split second, you get this psychological moment where the rules are off and anything can happen.

Robert Hunter wrote a song about that called "Ripple" - "Ripple in still water, when there is no pebble tossed, nor wind to blow."

I think that's why this card relates to beginnings and potential. You don't know what's going to happen in the beginning, almost anything is possible.

1-He is an Alchemist for me.
But working with energy around him an inside him.
2-He depict ours potential power to change the reality.Though we can not escape from X card because we choose it be there we can on each turn of the wheel be more conscious of it.
But nothing one can change around us if we first we do not change the current of energy that comes from ours inside to the ours external world.

eugim

Yes! He's changing reality.

-Yes ...

1-He is doing a double work
a-Downloading divine energies to earth and trying not to harm to us.
b-And "reworking" ours energies around him to be more able to bear that divine energies he did adapt to us.

eugim

-This is the first card numbered of the sequence of twenty one that of course begin at the left and ends at the right.
So why is he looking toward to the left instead to the right so to the sequence he began ?
What is he looking for ?
Is he looking to someone ?
( LE MAT has not a number so not a place )

-May be he is part of the sequence as an outsider ?

-Why also LA PAPESSE do the same ?
At least she is looking to him... // Why ?
Could be a link between her book and his work ?
(Why she is not beside LE PAPE ? /So why she is clearly placed beside LE BATELEVR ? )

-What is outside the sequence,there where LE BATELEVR is looking ?

Maybe he wants his audience to look in that direction. A little misdirection so he can do his sleight-of-hand.

But when you see La Papesse assisting him, it gets interesting. I can see why she isn't with Le Pape, they aren't supposed to be couple like the Emperor and Imperatrice. But the shady guy as her boon companion?

One simple explanation is that he is giving his audience a moment of mystery and wonder through trickery, she is also experiencing some epiphany that made her look up from her book and stare off into space. Is her scripture any different from a man running a shell game? No wonder there have always been sermons against the cards!
But everyone should experience expanded possibilities. And scripture doesn't do it for everyone. Some of us need a guy who makes peas disappear.

This is a very little example I gave to show how much help to see a card in its context,aside it s own meaning,that always is poor when one consider it without its context,so the cards beside and by extension the whole sequence.
This way open ours minds enhance ours intuitions and give to ours imagination "a visual iconography support" for sustain ours vision.
Thanks to this way ours eyes tell to us "first" what they see before all we read blind ours minds...
After I finish the 22 trip sequence I will return to "Tarot structure" thread to analyze this in deeper way.

* Cards must wake up ours imagination so not contrary ...
As you did.
You start from what you saw.
The details of the cards are there.
After this both have ours own vision of the cards,agree or not.
But was sustained by a visual analysis of the card.

-See you later.

So returning to visual observations:

1-I only accept what is in the card.
So which audience you refer? / Outside ? / Where ?
I can not see it.
I think it is a supposition.
Excuse me but I think that all the details and situations one can see on a card are there for a purpose.
A thing that isn t there simply doesn t exists for me.
If the designer /creator of the pattern of the deck want it,was be there.If not don t.

-Here we have an example of audience as we can see at the Tarot de Paris (early XVII century)

-Just for me the only possibility I found is that LE BATELEVR is looking to LE MAT because he is looking to someone that exists (has a name) but has not a place on the sequence because he has not a number.
So indirectly I found I reason to where place LE MAT so beside LE BATELEVR (at his left) instead place him after LE MONDE (The another and only last possibility)

-You know that is enough discussion about this topic on the web...
So where one must place LE MAT.

* But LE BATELEVR gave me the answer...
He is looking to someone that one can not see on the card because is someone that exists but not physically understood.
LE MAT is not from this ours material world that is why (I insist) he has not a number so a place on the sequence.
The whole sequence of the 21 cards explain what happen inside it not outside.
So this a reason for me to think that each little detail of the 21 cards must has a reason to be there.
If not one can not see it there.
Simple as that. Only exist what you see on the cards.
Tarot de Marseille is sustained by itself.

Jean Dodal (1701-1715 ):

-The only possibility that I consider LE MAT after LE MONDE if we are agree that as LE MAT has not a number so not a place,is that "he walk trough the whole sequence " NOT SEEN" because he is unnumbered so not placed,so not physically here.
And I am absolutely convinced that this IS.

-So LE MAT is at the beginning first and at the end second...
Here is an example of the deck of Jean Pierre Payen (1713-18)



* So he is returning to "his" beginning so by extension that of the sequence.
Just because he is the "ruler eye" of the whole sequence of the 21 cards ...
He is a depiction of the OUROBOROS
A depiction of God incarnated in the Universe.
Who tireless "walk" trough his universe-body and return to "ours" sense of "time and place,here and there" that does not exists for him.
For him is an endless PRESENT,

*-WE SUPPOSE HE IS WALKING IN TIME AND PLACE !

I AM AWESOME

FACTFACTFACT