Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!actnyc!gcf
From: gcf@actnyc.UUCP (Gordon Fitch)
Newsgroups: sci.misc
Subject: Re: Digression
Message-ID: <794@actnyc.UUCP>
Date: 12 Apr 88 16:28:37 GMT
References: <5017@uwmcsd1.UUCP> <2790@gryphon.CTS.COM> <1221@uop.edu> <1294@uop.edu> <11010@mimsy.UUCP>
Reply-To: gcf@actnyc.UUCP (Gordon Fitch)
Organization: InterACT Corporation
Lines: 18

In article <11010@mimsy.UUCP> chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes:
}>In article <472@flatline.UUCP> erict@flatline.UUCP (eric townsend) writes:
}>>Nit pick:  "Calling a spade a spade" is a racist cliche'.
}In article <1294@uop.edu> todd@uop.edu (Dr. Nethack) writes:
}>... the term comes from cards, not racism, (where it was later attributed to).
}Ah, but where did the *cards* come from?
}In fact the origin is not racist but classist.  Swords (now Clubs)
}symbolised the nobility; Diamonds, the merchants; Cups (Hearts), the
}Priesthood, and of course, Spades, the working class: the farmers.

This is not what my book* on the Tarot deck says.  It says clubs
derive from wands, and spades from swords.  The former represent
creative power, the latter force of any kind.  Those who are enthused
about the Tarot deck generally attribute its origins to a period long
before the late middle ages, when the class system alluded to above
was in operation in Europe.

*One of Waite's.