Tarot and Kabbala

kapoore

I am proposing a new thread on an aspect of Tarot history that has driven me nuts since my introduction to the Tarot over 15 years ago. I am referring to the relationship between the Tarot and the Hebrew Kabbala. Recent topics on the History Forum have revived this conundrum of all conundrums--Teheuti's blog on the Hebrew alphabet, and my interaction with Yygdrasilian on Renaissance philosopher Nichol as of Cusa's and Dionysius suppose reliance on Kabbala. I thought a sharing of sources around this topic might turn some lights on in the hall of mirrors.

I am not well versed in Kabbala. In fact, I have read only the Sefer Yesirah, but I have read some secondary sources: Gershom Scholem, Eliot Wolfson, and Steven M. Wasserstrom. I sense, though, that the contributors to the Forum are much better read in the primary sources and can contribute to the debate from that perspective. What I have to share are fragments from my readings over the years that have eventually formed a line of interconnections.

First I want to simply review what probably everyone already knows about Tarot and Kabbala. The Kabbala's relation to Tarot was synthesized by the Golden Dawn, which in turn got material through Eliphas Levi probably via Kenneth Mackensie. And Eliphas Levi got his material from Athanasius Kircher and Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim.

Paul Huson has an excellent summary in his Mystical Origins of the Tarot:
"During the course of his kabbalistic studies, Levi had come across a tradition reported in the sixteenth century by Agrippa...whereby each of the four letters of the tetragrammaton could be assigned to one of the four Pythagorean elements, thus J-Fire, H-Water, V-Air, and H-Earth."
Levi writes this all out in the History of Magic, and Huson has an excellent quote on pp62. Mathers in turn copies portions of Levi's history into the Greater Key of Solomon.

I'm assuming that most would accept the above summary as an historical basis to launch a further discussion. If this thread interests the Forum members I could further extend it into a disucssion of the connections to Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522) who perhaps is a key figure in that he knew Agrippa and Trithemius. And shared with Cusa the fraternity, the Brotherhood of the Common Life.
 

Yygdrasilian

Facetious, I?

Oh..... but didn’t you know? The origins of Tarot, particularly the Trumps, has nothing to do with Kabbala as it has been demonstrated quite conclusively that they were invented for the amusement of teenage girls - their familial ties with the 'architects' of the Renaissance is purely a matter of coincidence. There couldn’t possibly be any compelling reason for such learned men, whose intellectual and artistic pursuits challenged over 1000 years of Roman Orthodox hegemony, to conceal ‘forbidden knowledge’ in plain sight; nor is it feasible they’d have any motive for spreading a symbolic language throughout Europe under the guise of a simple card game. It’s not like they were interested in a rebirth of learning... and, even if they were, how could clandestinely injecting a mystic doctrine into the popular imagination serve that purpose?

Obviously, the claims of occultists in the centuries following have no basis in reality as they have never explicitly spelled out the ‘secret’ details of the supposed esoteric tradition(s) concerning their “Book of Thoth”. They’ve just been preying on the ignorance of Egypt-o-maniacs hungry for a little magic in their lives.

No, my friend... you’re wasting your time. Any possible correlation between Tarot, the Kabbalah, alchemy and astrology has been grafted on hundreds of years after the cards’ inception - and even that is dubious as no one has ever demonstrated how such a system might encode a coherent teaching of practical value or relate it to observable phenomena.

Even if someone could, it isn’t as if the majority of historians who’ve refuted theories of Hebrew &/or Egyptian origins would seriously discuss them... but, since the only time we're wasting is our own, tell me more of this Johann Reuchlin.
 

Major Tom

Yygdrasilian said:
The origins of Tarot, particularly the Trumps, has nothing to do with Kabbala

I don't think kapoore was talking about the origins of tarot, but the origins of Kabbala. He's interested in dicussing the origins of Kabbala's association with tarot. I for one would be interested, but probably can't contribute much.
 

PIRUCHO

Just please...
Again with this lie ?
Marsilio Ficino just only translated the Corpus Hermeticum.
His "interested" disciple Pico della Mirandola,distorted it without any support and since him began the caravan of lies till the worst of all :Eliphas Levi.
Marsilio Ficcino was one of the best true minds of his time.He translated the best of Greek tradition for Europe.

-Nothing related with Qabbalah.

Qabbalah has any link with Tarot.

Just my view.

Pirucho.
 

PIRUCHO

Qabbalah as Gershom Scholem remarked is pure Neo Platonism.
So the purest Hebrew orthodox line of thought denied it and reject it.


-Any lies ahead about Qabbalah ?
Ask to Madonna....
 

PIRUCHO

Qabbalah born in Spain around the XIII century thanks to the Arab reign there.
The Arabs brought to Spain the best light for the minds at this time.
They brought to Spain algebra and also the best Alexandria School heritage (from century I to III ).

-Qabbalah owe to Neoplatonism its whole precepts.
I think that the best example of this is the Corpus Hermeticum.
 

Yygdrasilian

Never Sit On A Bushel

Major Tom said:
I don't think kapoore was talking about the origins of tarot, but the origins of Kabbala. He's interested in dicussing the origins of Kabbala's association with tarot.
Kapoore said:
I am proposing a new thread on an aspect of Tarot history that has driven me nuts since my introduction to the Tarot over 15 years ago. I am referring to the relationship between the Tarot and the Hebrew Kabbala.
I too am interested in the origins of their association... and the fact remains that they could very easily have been associated since Tarot's beginnings.
 

Bernice

Yygdrasilian: I too am interested in the origins of their association... and the fact remains that they could very easily have been associated since Tarot's beginnings.

Hello Yygdrasilian,

I read your posts with interest but I'm very, very, doubtful about an early association between the tarot (trumps) and the kabbalah .

We have copies of early trump decks (Spain & Italy) and not all of them were 22 in number, nor did the images correspond with the Paths. I believe it was a later developement - after the 78 card Tarot was standardized.

I also think that the early 'esoteric' developement would have been created for working with the kabbalah system - not divining with it.

Bee :)
 

kapoore

Johann Reuchlin

Hi Yygdrasilian,
I am not as certain as you that the Tarot Trumps don't contain a hidden riddle, but I agree they probably are not Kabbalistic in the "orthodox" sense. I do though have a bias that where there is smoke there is fire. I have never completely dismissed the wild assumptions of Eliphas Levi. So, yes, I do think that the "22" additional cards relate obliquely to "22" Hebrew letters--at least it is worth some historical research.

I have some fragmentary notes on the subject. We know that the Golden Dawn took information from Heinrich Cornelius Neetsheim (Agrippa for short). According to an article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Agrippa, he lectured on Johann Reuchlin's Cabalistic book, De verbo mirifico (1494). Translated this title means, "Wonderworking Word"
Unfortunately there is not an English translation of this book, but in Germany there is a new institute to study Johann Reuchlin. I plan to read his second book when I get a chance to get to the University Library.

Well, so what? Agrippa might have gotten his Cabalistic ideas from Ruechlin. Perhaps interesting, or perhaps not. Also of importance here is that Agrippa was a student of the Abbot Trithemius of Sponheim, and Reuchlin at one time attended Trithemius private literary society. I refer now to the Dictionary of Gnosis of Western Esotericism Volume II for an article on Trithemius. (There is also a good article on Reuchlin here but more of an emphasis on his difficulties with the Inquisition) Trithemius dates are 1483-1505. I quote, "Following youthful stays in Trier and the Netherlands, Trithemius settled in Heidelberg for the completion of his formal education. While there he fell into company with some of the foremost German humanists of his day, among them...Johannes Reuchlin, joining them in forming the Rhenish literary sodality." It turns out that Nicholas of Cusa was one of Trithemius's primary influences. Perhaps the literary sodality spent time discussing Cusa who also seems to have been a primary influence on Reuchlin as well. This is confirmed by Gershom Scholem in his book, Origins of the Kabbalah. Where he quotes a passage from the book of Azriel that Reuchlin used in his translation, and then comments, "It is interesting to observe that precisely the decisive sentences of this passage on the Being and the Nought were quoted without a word of polemic or criticism by Johannes Reuchlin, a great admirer of Nicholas of Cusa, in the first fairly accurate Latin account of the Kabbalah. To be sure, Reuchlin did not know who was the author of this quotation, which was undoubtedly close to his own way of thinking. Being and Nought therefore are only different aspects of the supreresse of the divine reality."
Anyway, I won't quote the whole thing but the point is that Cusa and Azriel were both influenced by Eriugena and this is the confusion for Reuchlin. But there is a possible other point of interest here that Scholem missed and that is Cusa's own comments on the Tetragammaton in his sermon "In principio Erat Verbum" from Christmas 1430. His only source of Kabbalah was the Sefer Raziel, which he naturally condemns; but then goes on to illustrate the meaning of the "name." "Because this same most holy and most exalted divine name (Jehova) signifies God not according to any individual external power, as do other names, but according to omnipotence and to internal properties without regard to things exterior."

O.K. so this is interesting, but again perhaps not entirely convincing. Cusa mentions a dozen other intriguing clues here that might have instigated searches on the part of Trithemius, Agrippa, and Reuchlin. Things such as "sybils" "absolute necessity" etc. But what of the 22 number? And I will have to leave you there, although I believe i have some more relavant fragments for later. Warm regards...
 

Yygdrasilian

“Nothing is concealed from the wise and sensible...”

Bernice said:
I read your posts with interest but I'm very, very, doubtful about an early association between the tarot (trumps) and the kabbalah .

We have copies of early trump decks (Spain & Italy) and not all of them were 22 in number, nor did the images correspond with the Paths. I believe it was a later developement - after the 78 card Tarot was standardized.

I also think that the early 'esoteric' developement would have been created for working with the kabbalah system - not divining with it.
To be perfectly honest, I haven’t quite yet decided when exactly the association began either. I suspect it at least as early as the appearance of the 22 trumps and their enumeration, as the odds against their calendrical function being coincidental are, in a word, ‘astronomical.’ It is feasible that, from its earliest incarnation as Trionfi, until Crowley’s publication of the ‘initiated attributions’, this system was more or less encrypted to protect both its secrets and its keepers.

I doubt that its’ inventor(s) would have presented a 22-Trump/78-card deck at first as this would have revealed too much too soon, and thereby alerted contemporary enforcers of cultural hegemony to its heretical potential. Certainly, the cards were used for gameplay; and I wouldn’t dispute the value in understanding that aspect of its history. But, surely, this served as a convenient cover for its promulgation and use as an esoteric TooL.

Kapoore, I think, is on the right track in seeking out a lineage of ‘Kabbalists’ and ‘occultists’ who knew of Tarot’s sacred use well before Court de Gebelin, for its utility as a means of ‘working with the kabbalah system’ had to have been devised and implemented prior to his writings.