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Furthermore, under no circumstances do I want to create an ‘authorised version’
of the cards. If I refuse to explain the cards, then anyone’s views on what they
are about has the potential to be as good as any other person’s, including my own.
I can compare your score of 19 out of 20 in maths with mine of 2 out of 20, but
no-one can tell me categorically that Picasso was a greater painter than Matisse,
or either than Rembrandt. Similarly, Jack and Jill will see the cards each in their
own way, and both points of view will be able to shed light on them. That
truth
which has any value is not something established categorically at some point in
time, so that all that is required for ever afterwards is to repeat: ‘so-and-so
said’. Valuable truth emerges little by little, like a cairn to which each traveller
adds one stone.
I too am learning from the cards as I use them. The meanings listed in the directory
are the fruit of over a decade of probing, but they are not definitive. They define
not the limits of the cards, but only the limits of my current understanding. Future
development in understanding of the cards will be advanced, not retarded, by the
absence of an ‘official’ account of them against which every other account must
be tested; an account which attempts to impose upon others the limits of my own
understanding, in the form of some kind of ‘orthodox’ version.
I do not intend to imply that the cards are just a cryptic crossword created by
myself, as a kind of assault course. So let me be more explicit about the authorship
of the content of the cards. First, my own input involves the structure of the pack
and naming of the cards. The graphics of the original hard copy were worked out
in collaboration with the graphics designer. The status of the illustrations varies
from cases where I supervised the work of an illustrator very closely, to others
where I had very little input. In some of the latter cases, any of the four artists
might come up with substantial modifications on my original brief, or even make
outright ‘mistakes’. I often let these stand, though in other cases I rejected them.
A few illustrations I had to refuse entirely, as I felt that the personal had hijacked
the universal. Overall, there are numerous elements in the illustrations which are
there because one or other illustrator felt the urge to introduce them. I never
asked for rational explanations of these interpolations.
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