h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Erm... thirded?

He asked for emails, so I guess we already know what he wants.

The consensus seems to be that this is pickable rather than a candidate for the Flea Market.

Any takers, Scouts?

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So... did this go from abandoned, to picked, to the front page without much actual review or editing?


I just tried to read it and it's full of unqualified statements. It's an interesting entry, granted... but it still seems very raw.

This is why it's important to comment in Peer Review.

If you'd like to comment on the entry, drop us a line at the Editorial Feedback page and we can look at any specific improvements you might have

The autor was only there for 4 postings. After that there was really no point in commenting since the author was not going to read them.

We (well I was) were assuming that somebody would recuse it from PR and improve it to enter it back into PR for a proper critism.

Hello. I am very sorry for my lack of response. I've been having a lot of computer problems and was without an internet connection for quite some time. I recently recovered my email address and the mail telling this had been accepted arrived.

Thank you for getting the headers sorted and again, I'm sorry for not being around to do it myself.

There was the suggestion that many of the statements were unqualified. I was not sure how in depth to make this. If desired, I can look out some of my references - I mostly drew from the research of the card historian (and philosopher) Michael Dummett published over four or five books. These are the only books that give an academic account of the cards' history. I have also read numerous occult accounts (I began with the occult ones). I did try to illustrate some of the implausabilities of the occult account by drawing attention to the development of the designs and order, along with the reliance on a late and much altered pattern. I also drew attention to the difference in methodology. These points, I feel, stand for themselves.

One post suggested that the cards' history goes back much further than the 14th century. There is no evidence of this. In fact, I was being generous by suggesting 14th century - the first record of Tarot cards is early 15th century. The 52 card pack that we are familiar with, does have a longer history, comming to Europe via the Islamic world and may be a development from tile games played in China and India. These cards had suits of batons, swords, coins and cups, with 3 court cards of a page, knight, and king - although, being Islamic, they did not depict images of people but bore abstract patterns.

The one source oftent cited by occultists for an older history is Paul Christian. Christian published what he claimed to be a translation of Iamblicus' book held by the British Museum. In fact the passage does not exist in any of Iamblicus' work, though when Christian published in France, there were few readers who would have been able to check his claims.

Hello philebus1972, It's good to have you back. Congratulations on getting your article on the front page! There are still a few gaps in the Entry that have been pointed out by some helpful Researchers, and it would be great if you could join in the discussion here in order that we come up with as definitive an Entry as possible: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F47997?thread=3244568 Thanks!