Shadow Arcana
Sorry for the change in trajectory. I've got a bunch of posts in progress dealing with basic stuff, but I haven't been able to work on them recently. So here's a fluff piece to distract you. On page 84 of Major Arcana , the author speculates on other "Shadow Arcana" beyond the traditional 22 in the Rider–Waite tarot deck. These include "the Ship, Prudence, Misery, the Drowned Sailor, or the Merchant." Most of the cards named come from unorthodox tarot decks–the Ship from the Lenormand tarot deck , Prudence from the Thoth tarot deck , Misery and the Merchant from the Mantegna tarot deck –except the Drowned Sailor which comes from T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land." The passage speculates on the origins of the these Shadows: are these paths founded by Agarthans that were not revealed to Akhenaten? Tools of the Saurians, the Dragon, or the Black Star? Creations of the other immortal traditions indigenous to China, Africa, the Americas, et al? Crea