Ahh, the Fool. A card we know so much, yet so little about. Even its placement in the deck is uncertain. As Waite (v*) noted, "the truth is that the real arrangement of the [major arcana] cards has never transpired." The Fool is sometimes unnumbered, often 0, sometimes 1 or 21. Or, as Waite thought, best numbered 0 but situated between Judgement (XX) and the World (XXI).
Perhaps the placement simply doesn't matter? Perhaps..., but vagueness seems an unsatisfactory answer. The purpose of this short blog is not to answer the (probably) unanswerable questions. Instead, I present a selection of interesting "bits", musings and quotes that may inspire greater consideration, contemplation and meditation on the beggar, madman, fool.
The Fool (pictured above) is from Ciro's Legacy Divine Tarot (available on the iPad and as a printed deck x***). I chose this version of the Fool to kickstart the Blog as I've often thought of the Fool as mirrored by the 'Lord of the Dance':
I danced in the morning
When the world was begun,
And I danced in the moon
And the stars and the sun...
But I'm jumping ahead... or am I? The Fool would never be trapped by a mere linear historical or ordered progression. But we must preserve some sense of order (for now) lest our heads explode as we launch ourselves down rabbits holes. So we'll begin with Waite's description of the Fool:
"The fool carries a wallet; he is looking over his shoulder and does not know that he is on the brink of a precipice; but a dog or some other animal - some call it a tiger - is attacking him from behind, and he is hurried to his destruction unawares."
Pamela Smith's illustration for the Rider-Waite deck (left) doesn't reflect Waite's description; the dog appears more companion than assailant. Waite's description appears to be of earlier decks such as the Renault tarot of Besançon (circa 1820 –1830)(xx), where Le Fou (The Fool) is clearly under attack though he seems oblivious to the peril.
I rather prefer the 'friendlier' version of the card (and it fits better with 'the character behind the Fool', which we'll look at shortly). Cassandra Eason offers interesting thoughts on the Fool's dog:
In many modern decks rather than being chased "the Fool is accompanied by a dog, a symbol of instinctive awareness we all possess to guide us along our unique path. ... However, it can be difficult to trust intuition in an age where logic and left brained thinking is valued and a business woman is expected to be hard-headed and rational. Yet intuition, as symbolised in the Fool card, is every woman's friend" (v***)
Early, hand painted Tarot cards were usually based on real characters. Some insight into this card may be gained by examining the character the Fool (or early versions of the Fool) was likely based on; Saint Francis of Assisi * also known as God's Fool. The dog as companion then seems a more fitting association as St Francis is the patron saint of animals (and ecology) and a friend to all.
The following extracts from Timothy Betts & Christine Valters Paintner offer interesting insight into The Fool/St. Francis origin:
"In [St Francis's] life, like the Fool in the game of Tarot, St. Francis. 'lost to every one, and substituted himself in place of everyone of them'" **
"There are many aspects of Francis’ foolishness, from stripping his clothing publicly, appearing naked in the church, renouncing his wealth, befriending all creatures, and calling his community of brothers “fools for Christ” reflecting the words of St. Paul “We are fools for the sake of Christ” (1 Cor. 4:10). He tames a wolf and during the Crusades he walks unarmed across the Egyptian desert into the Sultan’s camp where he had every reason to expect his own death, a foolish act indeed.
We are always being called to new revelation and to see the world from another perspective. The inner Fool is the one who helps us to see things anew and to dismantle the accepted wisdom of our times. Paul also writes “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1 Cor. 1:20b) Productivity, striving, consumption, and speed are some of the false gods of our western culture. A life committed to following the Divine path is one which makes the world’s wisdom seem foolish, but conversely, the world looks upon those with spiritual commitment often as the ones who are “fools.”
This can be a challenging archetype for some of us as we often try to do everything possible to avoid appearing foolish. However, this archetype is the one which helps to subvert the dominant paradigm of acceptable ways of thinking and living. " (***)
Ultimately, it does not matter who the Fool is, or may have been based on. This Major Arcana card (particularly modern renditions) represents an archetype. However, attempting to understand archetypes via abstract ideas is a difficult process and greater understanding can often be gained by studying an example of the archetype. I suggest that St. Francis's journey through life offers considerable insight into the ideas behind The Fool.
...and also makes a nice segway into... The Fool's Journey
"The Fool represents the soul of everyman, which, after it is clothed in a body, appears on earth and goes through the life experiences depicted in the 21 cards of the Major Arcana, sometimes thought of as archetypes of the subconscious. Let each reader use his imagination and find here his own map of the soul’s quest, for these are symbols that are deep within each one of us" (x**)
The Fool's journey through the Major Arcana, pretty much taken as a given in modern decks, is a relatively new idea. Coined by Eden Gray in the 1970's (though she likely came up with the concept in the 60's) the Fool's Journey was simply an epilogue to the Complete Guide to the Tarot. But what an impact that epilogue has had!
Personally, I don't like to think of the Fool as a beginning or that the Fool's Journey is remotely linear. The fool goes where he will, dancing between and challenging all the other archetypes of the Major Arcana; beginnings and endings are continuous, overlapping, and interwoven.
No dance with the Devil ... er Fool, I meant Fool ... would be complete without something from the (in)famous madman/genius author of the Thoth deck (left), Aleister Crowley - a self embodiment of the Fool.
"The really important feature of this card is that its number should be 0. It represents therefore the negative above the tree of life, the source of all things. It is the Qabasistic Zero. It is the equation of the universe, the initial and the final balance of opposites; Air, in this card, therefore quintessentially means a vacuum" (x*)
Hmmm, like most Crowley statements it's not easy to pin the meaning down anymore than we can easily understand why the Fool may act in ways contrary to our personal worldview! But the quote hints at the more holistic nature of the fool; numbered 0 and a source but not (necessarily) the start. Perhaps the following passage better sums up the holistic nature of the Fool:
"Call it what you want, but It’s the One thing that contains all the other things in the world — It’s the great One beyond which there is nothing. Now, that “nothing” is a pretty important concept in the Qabalah, because that’s where the One and subsequently all the other stuff comes from. In the Tarot, this super-nothing is represented by the Fool card.
A pure buffoon skips toward his doom.
An abyss of profound uncertainties.
It takes a Fool to seed that womb
With all possible, possibilities.
Ultimately, the Fool is the only real Tarot card. In essence, all the other cards live inside the Fool — just like you and me and all the other components of creation live inside the inscrutable consciousness of Deity." (v***)
...and that brings an end to this little dance. More a collection of thoughts than an analysis but hopefully enough to inspire you to further contemplation of the Fool. If you are looking for something considerably more linear then I recommend From Il Matto to the Fool in Tarot (found on Tarot Heritage) which delves into the history of the Fool card.
A final thought; if you think the Fool can be numbered, measured and easily defined then consider:
All measurement is a lie - from 'The Transexual Book of the Dead'
...and a final final thought (because holistically 'final' has no more meaning than 'beginning'). We might consider what comes after the Fool? Not the Magician in the line of trumps but the moment after the snapshot depicted on any specific Fool card.
The 'moment after' from the In Between Tarot deck by Janine Worthington, and
the view 'from behind' from the Vice Versa deck by Massimiliano Filadoro
Decks Featured
The Rider-Waite Tarot Deck By Arthur Edward Waite, Pamela Smith
The In Between Tarot Deck By Janine Worthington, Franco Rivolli
The Viceversa Tarot Deck By Filadoro, Massimiliano, Corsi, Davide
The Thoth Tarot Deck By Aleister Crowley, Lady Frieda Harris
Legacy of the Divine Tarot Deck By Ciro Marchetti
Credits & References
* (Picture credit) AnonymousUnknown author, FAL, via Wikimedia Commons
** Timothy Betts, Ph.D., (1998) Tarot and the New Millenium: The story of Who's on the Cards and Why.
*** Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE, Feast of St. Francis and the Holy Fool ~ A love note from your online abbess, https://abbeyofthearts.com/blog/2017/10/01/feast-of-st-francis-and-the-holy-fool-a-love-note-from-your-online-abbess-2/
**** By F. F. Solesio (editor) - http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10513772t, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46880756
v* A.E.Waite, The Pictorial key to the Tarot.
v** The Fool from Rider-Waite deck by illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith
v*** Cassandra Eason, Tarot talks to the woman within : Teach yourself to rely on her support.
v**** Lon Milo DuQuette - The Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford - 2001" full text at https://archive.org/stream/LonMiloDuquette-TheChickenQabalahOfRabbiLamedBenClifford-2001/DuquetteLonMilo-TheChickenQabalahOfRabbiLamedBenClifford-2001_djvu.txt
x* Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth.
x** Eden Gray, The Complete Guide to the Tarot
x*** Ciro Marchetti (2009) Legacy of the Divine Tarot Cards
x**** Ronan Hardiman (Songwriter) Lord of the Dance lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
xx Renault, cardmaker from Besançon in France, fl. 1820, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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