{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2232",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 2232,
    "subject": "Little, Big: Tarots and cycles",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2000-05-04T09:20:30+00:00",
    "last": "2000-05-04T09:20:30+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0970@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Adam Stephanides",
        "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net"
      },
      "date": "2000-05-04T09:20:30+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Little, Big: Tarots and cycles",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "mantis wrote:\nThis was actually =Adam= who wrote that (and we thank him for using those\ncitations all over the place)."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "You're welcome.  That's one good habit, at any rate, I derived from my\nyears in grad school."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Adam also argues against my numerology/cycles by saying that the number of\nfairies is 52 =now=, that it was more before; thus the magic number\n=cannot= be 52.  Well, sure, you can believe that . . . but I think there\nare two things: first, the magic number for the Alice & Co. is 52, or\nthere-abouts (since after all that is the number that go through and take\nup their stations); there is no guarantee that the previous (or \"old\")\nmagic number was 52.\n\n[snip]\n\nSo you see where I'm heading with this: the old \"real\" Tarot reflects the\nold order of fairies.  The shifting of numbers, arranged from high to low\nas if a sequence across time, reflects their real dying off.  Through the\nhistory of the real Tarot deck, from many cards to fewer, we see reflected\nthe hidden history of the fairies."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "An ingenious scheme to save your theory, and one which neatly solves the\nproblem of the number of cards, which had occurred to me, if only\nvaguely (I never saw alga's piece).  I see two objections, though.\n\n1) The repeated statements, in the conversation between Sophie and the\nreturned Lilac, that the number of fairies left is \"so few\" (\"A\nParliament,\" VI, 2) suggest that the number remaining is only a small\nproportion, and that there were originally hundreds or even thousands,\ntoo many for any tarot deck.  I seem to recall Sophie's shock when she\nfirst guesses that there are only fifty-two left, which would support\nthe same conclusion, but I can't find the passage.\n\n2) If the current number of Drinkwaters isn't equal to the original\nnumber of fairies, then what reason is there to think that the\nDrinkwaters replacing the fairies is a cyclical event at all?  As far as\nI can remember, the only \"race\" of fairies we ever hear about are the\nones the Drinkwaters interact with.  (Even if we accept the\nBramble-Drinkwater theory of concentric worlds as accurate, this doesn't\nimply successive types of fairies, since it's said explicitly that one\nrace of fairies occupies all the inner \"worlds.\")\n\n--Adam"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}