Further Down the Rabbit Hole (Playing the ‘Pataphysical Machine, Part III)

“But what I like to say in lieu of an answer, is that card readers are good at participating in the creation of ‘fictional truth’.” Camelia Elias

“We can see how, as a pataphysical machine, the Marseilles tarot can help us reach those two degrees of separation with reality that pataphysics prescribes, but a warning is in order: we may end up eating the bread crumbs trail we left behind to orient ourselves, never finding our way back home.” Enrique Enriquez

In two recent offerings (One, Two), I explore Enrique Enriquez’ characterization of the Tarot of Marseilles as a “’Pataphysical Machine”, a refinement of Jodorowsky’s “Metaphysical Machine” depiction.

Instead of further engaging the Marseilles as a participant without conceptual input into the design of these rather odd pata-experimental operations and maneuvers, I thought that it may be a good idea to get some opinions from the deck herself prior to continuing with Part III, hence the following exchange…

Marseilles, what can you expose about the relationship between ‘Pataphysics and the Tarot that we may not be aware of?

Answer 1

 So, what are Temperence and The Charioteer looking at?

Answer 2

 And what is the Popesse looking at?

Answer 3

Oh, I see. So what do you make of Alfred Jarry’s statement “the virtual or imaginary nature of things as glimpsed by the heightened vision of poetry or science or love can be seized and lived as real”?

Answer 4

 So, what is the Popesse looking at now?

Answer 5

 And what is in Death’s gaze?

Answer 6

Yes, always the ecstatic alchemist, Jarry indeed danced too close to the edge...perhaps. What's your hypothesis regarding a (fictive) solution to our conundrum?

Answer 7

Ah...a riddle within the riddle, do you have anything else to tell us?

Answer 8

 And the Pope’s gaze?

Answer 9

Thank you Marseilles...we shall carry on with our investigations. Hopefully, we will do Jarry justice.

Accessing Jarry’s “universe supplemental to this one” via Parallel, Simultaneous Consultation of Two Marseilles Tarot Decks (Playing the ‘Pataphysical Machine Part II)

Image 1

“… for the tarot cannot be used to understand what is real, but to understand how what isn’t real can become realizable." Enrique Enriquez

“Cards, in the absence of a question, what is the answer?” Camelia Elias (from “Five of Cups” newsletter)

In a recent post I suggested several experimental methods of consulting the Marseilles Tarot with a view towards using this ‘Pataphysical Machine as a means of exposing various aspects of the nature of possibly realizable imaginary solutions.

Here, I will outline hypothetical operations involved in amplifying the power of the Marseilles Tarot as an experimental device that may be used in a more ambitious and revelatory exploration of the ‘Pataverse, which parallels our ordinary reality.

1. Separate the major arcana from two Marseilles decks (I use the Jororowsky-Camion & the Noblet-Flornoy in this demonstration) and thoroughly shuffle the two individual new packs of trumps.

2. Spread each into loose piles of cards, the Jodorowsky on the left and the Noblet on the right.

3. Ask the piles, “Cards, in the absence of a question, what is the answer?”, then simultaneously, with your left hand, randomly pick a card from the jumble of cards in the left hand pile, while randomly picking a card with your right hand from the pile on the right. Place the cards face down in the “first position”. Repeat this process twice more, so that six cards are on the table, alternating L, R, L, R, L, R. (see Image 1).

4. This operation results in two co-mingled “three card spreads”…three pairs. The same procedure may be used, of course, to produce other types of spreads.

Image 2

5. Flip the “L” cards. What you see is what I am designating the spread for the “left hand universe”, Jarry’s universe supplemental to this one…non-ordinary reality? How have the cards answered? (see image 2) Return the cards to the face down position. 

Image 3

6. Flip the “R” cards. What you now see is what I am designating the spread for the “right hand universe”, Jarry’s “this one”…our ordinary reality. How have these cards answered? (see image 3) Leave these cards face up.

 

Image 4

7. Flip the "L" cards. Now we may read the cards either as three L/R pairs or as a sentence of six cards, which superpose two parallel universes. (see image 4)

8. What has been revealed (or partially "covered up") about the nature of reality ?

Jarry sightings in San Francisco

Faust, Ubu, Troll, Ha Ha!

Playing the 'Pataphysical Machine (Compositions for Marseilles Tarot)

"...we would like to challenge Alejandro Jodorowsky’s definition of the Marseille tarot as a “metaphysical machine” by re-defining it, instead, as a “’pataphysical machine”; for the tarot cannot be used to understand what is real, but to understand how what isn’t real can become realizable." Enrique Enriquez

A modest proposal...

Instead of looking at the Marseilles Tarot as a pataphysical machine, let's look at it as a pataphysical musical instrument...say a synthesizer....that spews forth its scandalous music when the tuning knobs of anomaly, clinamen, syzyzy, exception and inversion are turned all the way up and spun capriciously as the rhythms, themselves, unfold.

At the outset it should be noted that in the improvisations with the Marseilles Tarot described below, no question is posed to the deck prior to a playing of the cards. The cards fall and are "heard" as the deck is played in a variety of pataphysically inspired ways, yielding a "performance" which may suggest an imaginary solution to an unposed problem. Perusal of this solution may then, at times, expose a previously unimagined quandary.

The following machinations and visual representations of possible results should obviously not be considered in any way exhaustive, but rather merely suggestive of operations that may reveal unexpected "ahas" when applied systematically. 

All of the maneuvers are done with the Major Arcana only but would also apply if the entire deck were used.

First, obtain two identical decks and separate the Major Arcana. Thoroughly shuffle the two sets of Major Arcana into each other and then cut the resulting 44 card "deck". Either do a reading (three cards or some sort of spread) with one half of the deck, in which some of the trumps will be duplicated, others completely missing, or do a reading with the entire new deck, in which all of the trumps are duplicated.

Do this several times. What new songs are the cards singing?

Alfred Jarry often inverted everyday behaviors for pataphysical effect. As is well known, for example, he would sometimes have his dinner served backwards (from cheese to soup) much to the consternation (or amusement) of the restaurant staff and customers.

A variety of ways of playing the Marseilles backwards come to mind. 

Deal the cards from the bottom of the deck instead of the top, for example, or fan the cards like a stage magician and have the querent "pick a card" several times from the middle of the deck to create the spread (not backwards, but not off the top either).

Or, let the cards fall on the table, then read them in a mirror.

How does the mirror image of the Marseilles play, sound, speak...differently from the usual orientation?

A mirror can also be used to invert the cards top to bottom...

...to what effect?

"‘Pataphysical art has often been associated with the use of various self-imposed restraints: one of the most famous being the ‘pataphysician George Perec’s 1985 novel La Disparition which is written without using the letter ‘e’ at all. And, curiously, one of the most autonomously beautiful pieces of music in this collection is composed using a set of similar constraints: Christopher Hobbs’ L’Auteur se Retire: Aprés Schubert (2000) uses the Andante from Schubert’s Ab Major sonata of 1817 in the following manner (in Hobbs’ own description):

'L’Auteur... is a set of pieces which uses a lipogrammatic procedure whereby the letters of a composer’s name which correspond to musical notes (using the German notation convention in which S represents Eb and so on) are removed from a chosen example of the composer’s work. The pitches are removed whenever they occur in any register. The resulting gaps are replaced sometimes by silences of the same duration as the notes, sometimes by extending the prevous note.'

...and, be assured, the ensuing piece, far from being the rabidly dissonant scrap of conceptual silliness it sounds like turns out to be an exquisite little magic trick, analogous to removing all the red pigment from a Botticelli and discovering it’s become a map revealing the burial place of the holy grail."

http://www.melancholyrhino.com/reviews/pataphysics.html

Impose constraints upon the Marseilles deck (in this case, the whole deck). Remove an entire suit, or certain trumps and see how readings play out over a period of time...using both a "standard interpretation" approach to the cards, and then an observational/intuitive "what's happening - how does it make you feel" approach.

Or, to really explore  the idea of imaginary solutions, buy a blank tarot deck and, first, "play" the blank cards by themselves and visualize the cards that have fallen to the table. (Others have suggested this approach but not within the pataphysical context.)

Next, see what the blank "sounds" like with accompaniment...

...or...

Cinematic montage effects, while always present in combinations of cards, are accentuated when the imaginal element is invoked. 

What are the imaginary problems for these "imaginary" solutions? But aren't these solutions really "real"?

"By turning whomever uses it into a ‘pataphysician, the Marseilles tarot becomes a tool of unmatched obsolescence to face the future. If Alfred Jarry, the father of ʻpataphysics, defined it as “the science of imaginary solutions”, we can confidently use the his definition to account for the process of choosing a life’s course based on a random selection of tarot cards!" Enrique Enriquez