Book of Thoth Study Group #3: The Theory of the Correspondences of the Tarot

Ross G Caldwell

Crowley would have been familiar with ThROA from the Golden Dawn Zelator ceremony. Maybe someone with more time than I could do a quick scan. I think it's near the end, just before the closing section.

Thanks for reminding us of that, Aeon. I found it, posted as the third bold passage below.

But there were other Mathers sources, as well as entries in Knorr von Rosenroth (where Mathers got it), which show that much of it is classic Kabbalah. The Latin and Egyptian permutations are Mathers' own inventions, of course.

Mathers seems to be the first author to bring the word תרעא , Aramaic for “gate”, into the vernacular esoteric tradition (English, French or German), in his translation of Kabbala Deundata, The Kabbalah Unveiled (1887), “Idra Rabba, The Greater Holy Assembly”, §800-801:

“But when any portion is taken away therefrom (that is to say, when it is said IH, and not IHVH), then is understood (Microprosopus) the Holy Name (by the letter I, Yod) and ThORA, and Tauara, or the Gate (that is, the Bride, to whom is attributed the name ADNI, Adonai, whose number when written in its Plenitude is 671, as the word ThORA or ThROA exhibiteth it, summed up in the letter H, He, of the name IH), and that which is therein.

“When therefore it is called Tetragrammaton, man is mentioned, with the Gate Tauara included, and those which are therein [otherwise, concerning the inferior worlds. And when it is taken away from the gate (that is, when the letters Vau and He are not joined hereunto, of which the latter denoteth the inferior gate), then is understood the Holy Name (by the Yod, and the Gate and those which are therein (by the He in the name IH. But when it is called IHVH, it is called the man, ADM, and all the rest (conjoined therewith), namely, the gate and those (paths) which are therein.]”


S. L. MacGregor Mathers, Kabbala Denudata, the Kabbalah Unveiled, p. 210
https://archive.org/details/The_Kabbalah_Unveiled_-_S_L_Mac_Gregor_Mathers

For images of Rosenroth’s original text in Latin and Hebrew, and Mathers’ version (with explanatory footnotes), see:
http://www.rosscaldwell.com/crowley/rosenroth2ss800to801.jpg
(I have stitched together the bottom of page 480 (§§800-801) and the top of page 481 (§801) for ease of reading, hence the patchy look.)
http://www.rosscaldwell.com/crowley/rosenrothmathersp210.jpg

Mathers is also the first who presents all of these permutations of TARO together, in The Tarot: Its Occult Signification and Use (1888):

“My derivation of the word, which I have never found given by any author, is from the ancient hieroglyphical Egyptian word “târu”, to require an answer, or to consult; ergo, that which is consulted, or from which an answer is required. This appears to me to be the correct origin of the word, while the second t is an Egyptian hieroglyphic final, which is added to denote the feminine gender. The following are interesting metatheses of the letters of TARO: TORA (Hebrew) = Law; TROA (Hebrew) = Gate; ROTA (Latin) = it speaks, argues, or entreats; TAOR (Egyptian) = Täur, the Goddess of Darkness; ATOR (Egyptian) = Athor, the Egyptian Venus. A Mr. Lumley tells me that there is a Zend word “tarisk”, meaning “to require an answer”.”

(Mathers’ source for his Egyptian definitions was most likely Samuel Birch’s dictionary, in Christian Carl Josias Baron Bunsen, Egypt’s Place in Universal History, vol. 5 (posthumous, 1867), s.v. târu, pp. 519-520; likewise it must have the source for his definition of Zelator as “Zaruator, Searcher of Athor, the Goddess of Nature”, in the Zelator ritual, and the words “Khabs Am Pekht” as the original Egyptian form of “Konx Om Pax”, interpreted as “Light In Extension”)

https://books.google.fr/books?id=i7...iOhuaVxsTHAhXBWBQKHfL8DzQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

This made it into the Zelator initiation ritual of circa 1888, as the opening of the last words of the Hierophant to the initiate before the closing:

“In the Zelator Grade, the symbolism of the Tenth Sephirah Malkuth is especially shown, as well as the Tenth Path of the Sepher Yetsirah. Among other Mystic Titles, Malkuth is called SHAAR, the Gate, which by metathesis becomes ASHUR, meaning the number Ten. Also in Chaldee it is called THRAA, The Gate, which has the same number as the Great Name ADONAI, written in full: Aleph, Daleth, Nun, Yod, which both equal 671 in total numberation.”

(Israel Regardie, The Golden Dawn (Llewellyn, 1971), vol. 2, p. 65; = Israel Regardie et al., The Portable Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic (New Falcon Press, 2013),vol. 6, p. 86)

This section in turn contains a part paraphrase of the entry for שער in Rosenroth, Kabbala Denudata, vol. 1, pp. 723-724:

שער Porta est Malchuth, quia per metathesin efficit עשר , Illa autem è decade constat. Item Chaldaicum תרעא Porta, eundem numerum habet, quem plenitudo Adonai, hoc modo: אלף דלת נון יוד nempe 671. & huc pertinet Psal. 118. 20.

“ShOR, Gate is Malkuth, since by metathesis it makes OShR, while That (Malkuth) corresponds to the decade (OShR, “ten”). Similarly Aramaic ThROA Gate, has the very same number, which is Adonai in full, in this way: ALP DLTh NVN YVD, thus 671. And Psalm 118:20 pertains to this.”
(Psalm 118:20: “This gate of the LORD, into which the righteous shall enter”)

Another Order source using the permutations is an unofficial Tarot paper by Ethel Felkin, Soror Quaero Lucem, probably written after the schism in 1903 and the creation of the Stella Matutina. Commenting on the Universe, trump 21, she writes:

“Thus, in this card we find a synthesis of the whole Taro or Rota. The central figure should be taken as Hathor, Athor, or Ator, rather than Isis, thus indicating the hidden anagram which may perhaps be translated thus: ORAT – man prays. ATOR – to the Great Mother, TARO – who turns, ROTA – the wheel of Life and Death.”

(see Israel Regardie et al., The Portable Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic, volume 9, p. 54)

Knorr von Rosenroth, Kabbala Denudata (1677), “Locos Communes Kabbalisticos”, vol. 1; see pp. 723-724 (this volume was Crowley’s and Jones’ major source for words in Sepher Sephiroth, often listed with an “L.C.K.” entry; see the “Abbreviations, Signs and Figures” page, after the “Editorial Note”):
https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_oDUgg6Xh8LgC
Volume 2 (1684), “Idra Rabba”; see p. 480
https://books.google.fr/books?id=UD...age&q="kabbala ,denudata" "rosenroth"&f=false

Levi permuted TARO, ROTA and TORA in 1856 and 1861, but does not refer to ThROA.
Papus in 1889 has “TAROT, THORA, ROTA” on p. 17, but seems unaware of Mathers’ permutations, including ThROA, published the year before.
 

Ross G Caldwell

Secondly, I don't understand what Throa means, and why it means gate. To me it means something like a victorious trumpet sound, תרועה. I've seen wrong GD translations from time to time, although I can't think of any examples right now. Could this be another example?


For more on תרעא , see the entry at - https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/תרעא
Also Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (1903), pp. 1700-1701 (vol. 2)
https://archive.org/details/dictionaryoftarg02jastuoft
(the title page is unfortunately torn, but the rest of the book is in good condition; volume 1 is here, with title page intact –
https://archive.org/details/dictionaryoftarg01jastuoft )

The Targumim are Aramaic paraphrases and exegeses of the Biblical text, of considerable antiquity and authority, recording an oral tradition of schooling and preaching from the centuries after Hebrew had died as a spoken language and Aramaic had become the vernacular.

שער Hebrew “gate”; the most common Aramaic equivalent in the Targumim is תרעא

See for instance the volumes in the Bilingual Concordance to the Targum series, e.g.
Thomas J. Finlay, Bilingual Concordance to the Targum of the Prophets, vol. 17 part 3 (pp. 287-292; תרעא used for שער 98 times -
https://books.google.fr/books?id=C8...TDxwIVxr4UCh0kjAM2#v=onepage&q="תרעא"&f=false
 

Nemia

Thank you! Very interesting. An א at the end of a word usually hints to Aramaic. Once you use regular Latin letters to transcripe Hebrew or Aramaic, the difference between ה and א at the end of a word is lost. Thank you for clearing this up.
 

INIVEA

In reading this link that was provided above, of THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC
by Levi, translated by A.E.Waite

P.156 said:
the philosophical stone, and especially by its cubic form. This law, expressed by the tetrad in the Kabbalah, furnished the Hebrews with all the mysteries of their divine Tetragram. It may be said therefore that the philosophical stone is square in every sense, like the heavenly Jerusalem of St John ; that one of its sides is inscribed with the name ("ntbw" this came up as English not Hebrew please refer to the page to see the name in Hebrew) and the other with that of GOD ; that one of its facets bears the name of ADAM, a second that of HEVA, and the two others those of AZOT and INRI.

At the beginning of the French translation of a book by the Sieur de Nuisement on the philosophical salt, the spirit of the earth is represented standing on a cube over which tongues of flame are passing ; the phallus is replaced by a caduceus ; the sun and moon figure on the right and left breast ; he is bearded, crowned, and holds a sceptre in his hand. This is the Azoth of the sages on his pedestal of salt and sulphur. The symbolic head of the goat of Mendes is occasionally given to this figure, and it is then the Baphomet of the Templars and the Word of the Gnostics bizarre images which became scarecrows for the vulgar after affording food for thought to the sages, innocent hieroglyphs of thought and faith which have been a pretext for the rage of persecutions.

I found this interesting (bold text above) Azoth, this caught my eye seems It is mentioned in these thread of the study group. So I just thought to post this.