How does Kabbalah fit in with the Tarot....

Rosanne

I asked Thoth and he replied using his Drunvalo voice.

Long before Sumeria existed, before Egypt had built Saqqara, before the Indus Valley flourished, Tarot lived, dancing in high culture. The Sphinx knows the Truth. We are much more than we know. We have forgotten. Tarot has not forgotten, so to make sure we remember Tarot became a game and a riddle.
The riddle was to keep us interested and the game was to keep us gambling. The real interesting thing about the riddle is that it looks like many things- but that is just to fool us. It is really just a game we can clothe with a riddle.


I came to the conclusion that I will just keep wondering all the way to 2012, because as he was intoning his message Thoth was winking at me!

Ante up your apples- let the game begin.

~Rosanne
 

Greg Stanton

Ange, here's the skinny:

There's no evidence that Tarot cards were conceived with Kabbalistic philosophy or that they use Kabbalistic symbolism. It is far more likely, and by all indications probable, that they were drawn using popular secular and religious iconography of Medieval Europe. Indeed, all of the images are common to the period. Think of Lotería cards drawn 600 years ago and you'll get a clear picture of how they were seen at the time.

It wasn't until the 18th century that a connection between Tarot, the Hebrew alphabet and Kabbalah was considered, and not until the late 19th century that the possibility was explored extensively -- by Levi and the Golden Dawn. It is interesting to note that neither of these sources agreed as to the attribution of the letters or Kabbalistic concepts. In fact, every author on the subject at the time had distinctly different ideas as to how the Kabbalah and Tarot relates to each other. It wasn't until the 20th century, with the publication of the Golden Dawn materials and Crowley's own book, that a commonly-accepted system was established -- albeit at the expense of the original tarot. The cards and their designs, and how they were originally conceived and viewed, were altered extensively to fit a particular "esoteric" philosophy -- namely the Qabalah (spelled with a Q to differentiate it from authentic Jewish Kabbalah).

In short, understanding Kabbalistic symbolism as it relates to the Tarot is important only if you are studying the Crowley or the Golden Dawn Tarot. Its importance is negligible if you are using a RWS deck, and completely irrelevant if your deck of choice is a Marseilles.

If you want a thoroughly objective and scholarly study of the occult tarot, please read "A Wicked Pack of Cards" and "A History of the Occult Tarot". The contents of both these books are summarized quite well in "The Mystical Origins of the Tarot" by Paul Huson.
 

Yygdrasilian

Eternity is a Child at Play

I agree, Qabala / Kabballah (however you wish to spell it) may or may not have been involved in Tarot's inception. But the occultists have, at the very least, hijacked the idiom to convey a codex which is adaptable to any system that can accommodate a 10 number, 22 letter cipher.

It seems the real question here is whether you wish to limit your understanding of Tarot to an analysis of medieval parades or whether you'd like to know how to solve the cipher as presented by Aleister Crowley. It certainly wouldn't hurt to read everything you can on the carnivalesque from Rabelais to Bakhtin. And only a FOOL would claim no relation between Tarot and Carnivals.

Choosing one to the exclusion of the other, however, will give only a partial understanding of the history of Tarot.

I am simply trying to make the case that, where the cipher is concerned, the occultists who have shaped the evolution of Tarot were looking for its solution. Or, to be more accurate, were looking for a way to inject this gnosis into the popular imagination without revealing it outright.

Crowley presented the cipher mostly unscrambled. He too left flaws, but his were intentional and serve a specific function in the puzzle when you correct them. Other decks that utilize the cipher either scramble the code to protect it from the uninitiated or are made by the uninitiated - the same as what occurs with the Kabballah Tree of Life Glyph.

Any discussion of the ifs or hows of Kabballah fitting with Tarot (the subject of this thread) must address this cipher.

As it ultimately leads to an object that functions as a map and a calendar, its utility as a coherent system is easily demonstrable through astronomy. It addresses, specifically, the Harmony of the Spheres - and, as such, is the quintessence of Pythagorean philosophy and, therefore, at the roots of our Western tradition. But, what's really far out is how it utilizes the glyphs of astrology as an alphabet to construct this object.

I would think something like this would appeal to historians, Tarot enthusiasts and astrologers alike. I also expect it will meet great resistance from the too-literal minded as well as those who intend to keep it a secret.

If I seem like I am having fun with it by speaking in riddles or rattling some cages it is because I am.

Apples Anyone?
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=108025
 

Rob

Yygdrasilian said:
I agree, Qabala / Kabballah (however you wish to spell it) may or may not have been involved in Tarot's inception. But the occultists have, at the very least, hijacked the idiom to convey a codex which is adaptable to any system that can accommodate a 10 number, 22 letter cipher.

It seems the real question here is whether you wish to limit your understanding of Tarot to an analysis of medieval parades or whether you'd like to know how to solve the cipher as presented by Aleister Crowley. It certainly wouldn't hurt to read everything you can on the carnivalesque from Rabelais to Bakhtin. And only a FOOL would claim no relation between Tarot and Carnivals.

Choosing one to the exclusion of the other, however, will give only a partial understanding of the history of Tarot.

I am simply trying to make the case that, where the cipher is concerned, the occultists who have shaped the evolution of Tarot were looking for its solution. Or, to be more accurate, were looking for a way to inject this gnosis into the popular imagination without revealing it outright.

Crowley presented the cipher mostly unscrambled. He too left flaws, but his were intentional and serve a specific function in the puzzle when you correct them. Other decks that utilize the cipher either scramble the code to protect it from the uninitiated or are made by the uninitiated - the same as what occurs with the Kabballah Tree of Life Glyph.

Any discussion of the ifs or hows of Kabballah fitting with Tarot (the subject of this thread) must address this cipher.

As it ultimately leads to an object that functions as a map and a calendar, its utility as a coherent system is easily demonstrable through astronomy. It addresses, specifically, the Harmony of the Spheres - and, as such, is the quintessence of Pythagorean philosophy and, therefore, at the roots of our Western tradition. But, what's really far out is how it utilizes the glyphs of astrology as an alphabet to construct this object.

I would think something like this would appeal to historians, Tarot enthusiasts and astrologers alike. I also expect it will meet great resistance from the too-literal minded as well as those who intend to keep it a secret.

If I seem like I am having fun with it by speaking in riddles or rattling some cages it is because I am.

Apples Anyone?
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=108025

Profound truths remain profound when stated plainly.

There's no reason to use deliberate cryptic or ambiguous language/formatting of your posts on the subject just to confuse people who simply don't have time to spend cracking a code suggested by an anonymous internet user whose username is contrived from the improperly spelled name of a Norse mythological tree.

If Aleister Crowley himself asked me to investigate this cipher, I would, because he's a well known and widely respected occultist who signed his name to everything. An anonymous Internet user babbling about secrets kept from the uninitiated and flinging around all manner of unrelated mythological verbiage is not going to convince me to spend time on anything.

Further, I don't think people here respond well to being called "a FOOL if you don't subscribe to this philosophy I tout," nor to accusations that they're "too literal-minded" if they don't care about your puzzle. If you want people to be even remotely interested in what you have to say, you need to show that there's more to your argument than deliberately confused language/formatting and poorly contrived riddles...not just insult the intelligence of those who (smartly) filter the recipients of their valuable time by genuineness of their character.

Again, profound truths remain profound when stated plainly.
 

Greg Stanton

Strategeus said:
Profound truths remain profound when stated plainly.
I couldn't agree more.

The problem with esotericism in general is that none of its so-called "truths" can be expressed simply. It's all a vast, complicated web of symbols that link to other symbols that indicate profound meanings expressed by... more symbols.

The language of Tarot is not that complicated, and there's no reason to make it more complex then it is by adding a layer of Kabbalah on top of it. I have no problem with Kabbalah as a stand-alone philosophy -- though occult Qabbalists declare that it is integral to all of the workings of the Universe -- its effect on Tarot is more of a distorition than a system of deeper learning.

In my experience, forcing every religion, philosophy, paradigm, etc, through the plumbing of the Tree of Life LIMITS ones understanding of a thing rather than clarifying it. Qabbalistic "correspondences" (a 20th-century concept, btw) are a real hinderance to seeing things as they actually exist.
 

Rob

Greg Stanton said:
I couldn't agree more.

The problem with esotericism in general is that none of its so-called "truths" can be expressed simply. It's all a vast, complicated web of symbols that link to other symbols that indicate profound meanings expressed by... more symbols.

The language of Tarot is not that complicated, and there's no reason to make it more complex then it is by adding a layer of Kabbalah on top of it. I have no problem with Kabbalah as a stand-alone philosophy -- though occult Qabbalists declare that it is integral to all of the workings of the Universe -- its effect on Tarot is more of a distorition than a system of deeper learning.

In my experience, forcing every religion, philosophy, paradigm, etc, through the plumbing of the Tree of Life LIMITS ones understanding of a thing rather than clarifying it. Qabbalistic "correspondences" (a 20th-century concept, btw) are a real hinderance to seeing things as they actually exist.

Even Kabbalah and Levi/GD/other correspondences are not that complicated once you get past the over-emphasized mysticism - the concepts are fairly simple and not particularly "mystical." I don't think they're necessarily useless - I think they can help you wrap your mind around concepts through useful mnemonics, especially if you're already familiar with another system with which you can associate the Tarot. But that would be only a beginning, or a supplement, to further study and experience with the art.

I think anyone who has been around Tarot and its practitioners for a while would assert that you can use it with great success for both divination and spiritual growth without ever having read an esoteric text.
 

Greg Stanton

Kabbalistic concepts are fairly simple. However, modern occultism's reliance on Qabbalah and Qabbalistic correspondences has caused a considerable amount of misunderstandings and complexities -- not to mention flat-out inaccuracies being perpetrated by popular writers in the field.

Add to this the common misperception that <thing A> corresponds to <thing B> and therefore both = the same thing. Not so at all. Things must be understood on their own terms, not only in relation to each other. Apollo, Ra and Christ are NOT the same deity, though I have had some Qabbalists tell me otherwise. This type of thinking is lethal to an honest perception of reality.
 

Rosanne

Like I lightly said earlier The real interesting thing about the riddle is that it looks like many things- But to make the 'many things fit' there is always a squeezing in on parts of the theory. There is also never any full agreement.
The only thing that totally fits the scheme of Tarot is Tarot. It is not the Phoenician Abjad (my personal favourite) It is not the book of the Dead, it is not a stargate, it is not a complete pattern of Alchemy, it is not completely a calander or an almanac, it is not Kaballah; there are always anomalies and one card or another gets forced in somewhere else. Just as Yygdrasilian said to have to revise the apparent code/cipher/puzzle to make it fit the theory.

If anyone is interested in making a 3D puzzle look up the writings of Paul A La Violette who thinks about the connections between the images of Tarot and the Genesis of the Cosmos. It comes down to things like the cards been assigned to constellations in the wave pattern of Cardinal/fixed/mutable and other considerations. For example The Magician is part Taurus/mainly Aries, part Pisces - but after 12 cards it gets messy- just like all the other theories gets messy somewhere and you have to squeeze a square peg into a round hole.
To answer the original question you do not have to know Kaballah to use Tarot but like all correspondences it can enrich your experience. I have more enrichment of all these subjects if I use them and learn about them aside from Tarot (in their own right). The same goes for this cipher/code idea.
~Rosanne
 

Nevada

Greg Stanton said:
The language of Tarot is not that complicated, and there's no reason to make it more complex then it is by adding a layer of Kabbalah on top of it. I have no problem with Kabbalah as a stand-alone philosophy -- though occult Qabbalists declare that it is integral to all of the workings of the Universe -- its effect on Tarot is more of a distorition than a system of deeper learning.
I agree that forcing Kabbalah onto the Tarot may be needlessly complicating to our understanding of Tarot. On the other hand, I find that as someone who's been looking at and using the Tarot for years, that same overlay uncomplicates the Tree of Life quite a bit for me, and I've wanted a better understanding of that for some time. It brings in concepts from Tarot that I'm already familiar with, so that the Sephiroth and the paths between them don't seem such foreign territory for my mind to traverse.

Everything we learn complicates to some degree everything that we've learned before. But sometimes we can learn things in a particular order that also helps simplify the entire complex as we go along. I believe the Universe is interdependent, and in that it's a vast, complex system. I don't hope to understand it completely, but every incremental bit of understanding I can achieve is like spice in a good meal, and if the spices are blended just right, my tongue is much happier.

That said, I don't like cryptic riddles that waste my time and lead nowhere, and I think that profundity is often found in the statements that somehow simplify complex concepts for us, rather than in statements that complicate or obfuscate those concepts even more.
Strategeus said:
Even Kabbalah and Levi/GD/other correspondences are not that complicated once you get past the over-emphasized mysticism - the concepts are fairly simple and not particularly "mystical." I don't think they're necessarily useless - I think they can help you wrap your mind around concepts through useful mnemonics, especially if you're already familiar with another system with which you can associate the Tarot. But that would be only a beginning, or a supplement, to further study and experience with the art.

I think anyone who has been around Tarot and its practitioners for a while would assert that you can use it with great success for both divination and spiritual growth without ever having read an esoteric text.
Agreed. Yes, I think that overlaying the Tarot on the Tree of Life provides one of those correspondences that clears things up a little -- at least for me.

Nevada
 

Rob

It's very easy to say something like "well Crowley was mostly right, but if you change it around, you get the REAL answer!" or "they intentionally scrambled the Tarot...if you put it in the RIGHT order, then it matches all these things!" as justifications for simply rearranging it to suit your needs. This applies to any system, language, or concept.

Example:
If I reverse the order of the letters in FEET I get TEEF, which sounds like THIEF, so the foot showing beneath Justice's robe is actually a sign of INJUSTICE clothed in a shroud of ostensible righteousness! Clearly! Wow, what an epic profundity!

Tarot history is chock full of people rearranging the deck for various purposes, and it continues today. It's interesting as an intellectual exercise, and I can't see it hurting as a further exploration of Tarot (it's just as closed-minded to say it's useless as it is to say it's the one and only key), but it certainly isn't for everyone, and believe it or not, that's ok! It's OK for people to have different ways of looking at a spiritual system. Really!