Where it concerns ‘Matters Halliday’, one of the talking points that has kept cropping up over the past forty years or so has centered around what I would call, ‘things that go bump in the night’.
In my opinion, Eugene Halliday (like myself) was not what I would call ‘a great believer’ here. However, I would claim that, over the years, through his interpretation of the pictorial symbolism to be found in many subjects, such Astrology, heraldry, etc. etc., he had much of interest to say about mankind’s early attempts to make sense of matters that were of great importance to him – such as life; the cosmos; death; etc.,
One of Eugene Halliday’s earliest recorded talks – given in Liverpool sometime during the early 1960’s and that was of great interest to me – centers around his interpretation of the symbology contained in Tarot cards. More particularly, the symbolism contained in the Major Arcana of a deck illustrated by Pamela Smith in 1910, and usually referred to as the ‘Rider-Waite’ deck. (My preferred deck, in case you’re interested, is the ‘Marseilles Deck’).
Eugene Halliday’s interpretation of these Tarot images traces (through the first seven of the major trumps at least) an historical sequence – that of the evolution of ‘Power’ in the material world, expressed through the individual. An interpretation that I would claim is unique to him.
I should perhaps also mention here that I was an enthusiastic student re the symbology of tarot cards long before I came across this recording of his talk. But I would add that I have never had any interest in ‘reading’ these cards; or any belief in their imagined ability to somehow ‘foretell the future’. My interest is, I would claim, more in line with what I take to be the perspective taken by Eugene Halliday in this early talk of his.
All that being said, Eugene Halliday was, after his death, credited – in the series of books published as ‘The Collected Works of Eugene Halliday’ (also known also as ‘The Blue Books’) with authoring ‘The Tarot’, published as Volume Five of this collection.
This particular volume was withdrawn from publication not long after it was made available to subscribers of these works (of which I was one), for reasons that I don’t intend to go into right now… I will mention though that the material contained in this publication, and attributed by the publishers to Eugene Halliday as author, is nothing like the subject-matter of that earlier recorded talk I refer to above. And also, that the source of the material contained in ‘The Tarot’ – particularly the final couple of chapters – is something of a give-away for those who, like me, claim to have some familiarity at least, with the wealth of material that has been published about Tarot cards in the UK since around 1950 … (a clue there 🙂 ).
Anyway, here’s a downloadable copy.
Eugene Halliday Collected Works Vol 5 – THE TAROT
Finally, if anyone here would like to discuss the material contained in this book, or any related matter, please do feel free to contact me by email at: archive.query@gmail.com
Bob Hardy
Portland OR
22nd April, 2018
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