Tarot and Kabbala

Hi Mike,
I don't know if the term coincidence of opposites was used before Cusa otherwise why would he be credited with inventing the term, but probably the idea was there in some form. But this is the problem again because he is quoted out of context. I think he did take ideas from Proclus who used a similar term, and also of course Ps Dionysius uses opposites in a similar way.

Cusa's idea with this term was that humans can only know approximately because precise knowledge is unattainable. We cannot know the Maximum or the Minimum in measurement, for example. This idea of measurement began the scientific revolution, which is really a project of measuring everything. Yet we cannot have exact measurement. However, the absolute Maximum and the absolute Minimum coincide in the infinite. Everything is comparable in the finite world, but in the Infinite equality is possible. Playing cards are a metaphor for equality because whether a Trump suit or the lowest of the suits the backside is equal, and in shuffling we mix up the hierarchy.

But Huck is right. Cusa did take a stand against playing cards when reforming the clergy in his district where priests were apparently gambling with the parish income. He also took a stand against sex when the nunnery was run like a brothel. But he did see games as beneficial, and if the Tarot was invented for something like a Bible game I am not sure he would have taken a stand against it. There are Bible themes on some Trumps. Just to name a few who have remarked on Bible themes: Robert O'Neill in his Tarot Symbolism as well as his web page; Jeff Karlin in his web page; and Paul Huson in his Mystical Origins of the Tarot. On page 49 of this book, Huson writes that Cardinal Bessarion had a book on sortilege dedicated to him. Bessarion was Cusa's best friend.

The key question with Cusa, Bessarion, etc. is whether they played a card like game at the Council of Mantua. I had a small argument about this on the thread a while back. I asked a professor who was doing research on Cusa's secretary John Bussi to watch out for any info on playing cards. Apparently the quote on Cusa's game was taken from John Bussi who seemed to have a bit of a big mouth. He might have been with Cusa at the Council of Mantua--I think this was his first year of being his secretary. Maybe he was the one who made the report of how the game using the Tarrochi de mantegna was played. Later John Bussi seems to be in possession of the "Mantegna" cards when he is running the printing press for the Vatican.

Now, the summer has ended and maybe the professor's research on Bussi. I'll have to e-mail him before he gets too busy with classes and see what he learned about Bussi, and if in his diaries he reveals any card info...and report back to all of you..

But I am wondering if we aren't off topic here with too much Cusa. If someone wants to offer another thread of a topic that came up in here that isn't right on Tarot/Kabbalah. I feel everyone has made so many great contributions, but I'm not sure where to go from here.

kapoore said:

Later John Bussi seems to be in possession of the "Mantegna" cards when he is running the printing press for the Vatican.

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... ... who said this?

Did he perhaps got this from the Trionfi website?

We talk about Bussi in the context of the Mantegna Tarocchi as part of the hypothesis, that the printer Sweynheim might have been the engraver of the
but we surely do not declare, that Bussi was in possession of the Mantegna Tarocchi cards.

Or does he refer to really existent documentary evidence? If so, we would be very interested to hear about it.

Kapoore: I don't think Cusa is much of a digression, any more than Pseudo-Dionysus is. Pico dealt with the ideas of both, and where he was, even after his death (e.g. Paris up to 1650), the tarot seemed to be, too. However we have perhaps pursued them enough for this thread. I for one will continue to profit from your ideas on Ps.-D. and would welcome any more you have.

For myself, I for one have run out of things to say, except what is on my blogs that I've provided links to. I'd still welcome comments on them, here or there. Since it is the end of summer, some people following this thread who have something to say may be on vacation. I will keep checking it. I've really learned a lot here. Thanks for administering this thread.

Two loose ends. One, Beanu said he had a website developing his ideas. I can't find it; all I see is a book he wrote and his posts on forums.

I did notice that Beanu initiated a thread on tarot and Greek astrology. Actually, it is more on Greek gods generally. He posted some interesting images I wasn't aware of. I've started posting on that one, although I have yet to hear from Beanu himself. I'm not sure whether to continue there. It's a great subject, and one I'd like to pursue further.

Second, you mentioned a Neopythagorean text in Latin that you thought was relevant to tarot. I tried unsuccessfully to locate a translation of it--even the book you cited referring to it is one I would have to get by interlibrary loan.

One area where I think Neopythagorean texts might be relevant is with the pip cards, since they go from 1 to 10 and these were the primary Neopythagorean numbers. In relation to historical research, the trouble is that the Marseille pips are so nondescript that just about anything can be stuck onto them. However there are two places historically where they are not nondescript, namely the Sola-Busca pips (even though it is technically not a tarot, but a Triumph deck) and the Etteilla pip interpretations, as summarized by Papus in Le Tarot Divinitoire. Moreover, both of these sources are sources for the Waite-Smith deck, and hence of contemporary relevance as well. Actually, I have particular Neopythagorean texts in mind, which I think illuminate both. Another historical source is the trumps of various decks, especially the Marseille, using their numbers. That would be a third place to which to apply Neopythagorean texts.

So I'd like to see a thread applying Renaissance-accessible texts to these two or three very descriptive historical sources. I was thinking of posting on the existing thread, "minor arcana correspondences," since there's a lot there already, but nobody (since Beanu) has posted anything there for a few weeks; it might be too dormant. I do not feel comfortable administering a thread myself!

Hi Mike,
Maybe we should take a break from this thread for awhile. The work connecting Ps Dionysius text to the Trump suit of the Tarot is ongoing.

Probably the text I was referring to was on another thread, and it wasn't Pythagoras. You might be thinking of Calcidius's commentary on the Timaeus. The Timaeus is the most Pythagorean of Plato's work because it is here he gives the ratios of the musical scale. Calcidius wrote a commentary on this work that had as much influence as the Timaeus. I do think Calcidius's commentary has something to do with the Tarot. But it isn't translated out of Latin. I never read the commentary but I read Stephen Gersh's synopsis in his book, Concord in Discourse: Harmonics and Semiotics in Late Classical and Early medieval Platonism. You'll probably have to get it from the library as I believe it is out of print.

Sometimes I feel like I am going out on a limb with these ideas--such as the one on Calcidius's commentary. Yet we are interested in an area that gets very little scholarly attention, so maybe we make some wild assertion and someone decides to translate Calcidius's commentary. Or someone decides to translate something out of Latin that has to do with the cards, just to prove us wrong. With the Latin libraries in Europe there really are undiscovered treasures, and it is a matter of picking and choosing what to allow to rot and what to translate and save.

You can read some translations of Calcidius's work, though. He wrote a book "On Fate" and one "On Demons."

This Kabbalah/Tarot thread has been extremely valuable to me in terms of understanding the relationship between the Tarot and the Kabbalah. I appreciate everyone who was willing to dialogue with me, disagree with me, and correct me when I was wrong. I feel the most fruitful discusssions were from the time after the Tarot invention . I know more now about Agrippa, Reuchlin, Trithemius, Pico, Ricci, the Golden Dawn, and of course the modern Kabbalists and contemporary ways of working the Tree of Life diagram. Thank you to all. And good luck in your search for the holy grail of Tarot origins...

True Kabbala, with all its secrets I do not think that we propio "around"
and I believe that we will not ever.

There is a scheme called "reading Kabala" which is used for tarot cards, I use it only with this deck.

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/eclectic/

The High Priestess as the Hebrew TAV

In a sequential process undertaken by the Fool/Orion, I have been toying with various concepts that have exposed symbols of extreme complexities, and I submit this thread in the hope that someone may expand upon my theme - or support, at least.
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In noticing the fool, within the Fergus Hall deck, discarding numerous stones before him, of which actually forms the constellation of the Pleiades, lead me to ponder further that in Hebrew, the formation of this constellation, coincides with the letter "TAV" with a further link found in Geneses 9:13 stating: "I have set my bow in the clouds..."

This bow, in the form of "U" produces an ARK. (in the "n" position, it produces the familiar rainbow).

Oddly enough, this Tav, rendered in Hebrew, has a strikingly similar ideograph, to that of a whale - enter Jonah's whale.

This Ark, is a vessel to traverse the netherworld, and is represented in various ways such as, the Phoenix's Ban Ban, Moses' wicker basket (upon the Nile) and of cause, Jonah's whale.

I considered the Magician as furbishing the Fool with the necessary diagram and tools, in which to build this Ark (or navigate) and thought further, this Ark is non-other than the High Priestess, her self. She indicates mastery/ownership over this "ark" (womb) as clearly depicted within the Waite deck. She is seated before the "duat" (veiled behind the pillars of Jachin and Boas) which I further consider as being represented as the checkered firmament, of which the Empress resides upon.

This is the timeless story of Osiris' decent into the duat, and although all the pieces have not fallen into place, as yet, I thought someone out there may know a little more.

Don't sink the concept

BlackMoon said:

True Kabbala, with all its secrets I do not think that we propio "around"
and I believe that we will not ever.

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Yours is a healthy skepticism. Yes indeed, the main teachings were kept secret and subsequently evidently lost, probably with the expulsion from Spain (which cost the lives of many Jews). The original teaching that blossomed in Provence in the 12th century can be reconstructed, however, once two things are taken into consideration. FIRST, that the basis on which it built was Merkavah (the Work of the Chariot), and that the four Wheels (Ofanim) of Ezekiel's vision that formed the core of this teaching were those whose hubs are atop the head of Adam Qadmon (standing Upright Sentience), atop the head of seated Adam (man in meditation), at the heart of seated Adam, and at the center of the womb. Each successive wheel is half the height of its predecessor, and they map, respectively, the all-containing Monad, one's surroundings when meditating, the zodiac of one's body when meditating, and the (dark) hollow of the womb, which represents the womb of time (physical space). The three texts in which the Sefirot are described differently actually portray them as they manifest in the first three worlds: the Bahir in Atzilut (1st wheel), Sefer Yetzirah in Beriyah (2nd wheel), and the Zohar in Yetzirah (3rd wheel), the planetary cycles (eternity-greatyear-Saturn-Jupiter-Mars-year-Venus-Mercury-month-day) being how this third wheel manifests in the fourth (Asiyah). And SECOND, that the new discovery that was the seed of the new flowering of the 12th century was that of the close kinship of the Hebrew alphabet with the tree-alphabet of (British) Celtic bardic lore, which reached the Continent around that time riding on the back of 'The Matter of Britain' (the Arthurian cycle).

Once the Hebrew letters have been correctly correlated with the tree-alphabet in its 22-letter form as reconstructed (from its surviving twenty letters) by Robert Graves in The White Goddess (whereupon it becomes apparent that yod does not extend down to the line on which one writes because it represents the loranthus, counterpart of the mistletoe in druidic tradition in that it too grows on other trees rather than soil), not only do the two traditions fill each others holes (and enable one to see past the blinds of, for example, the reordering of the 12 simples in Hebrew) to reveal what Qabbalists surely knew (i.e. the simples' original order about the zodiac, in which samekh, shaped like a head, IS head aries, cheyt, shaped like shoulders-and-arms, IS shoulders-and-arms gemini, and so on), but in addition the origin of the trump imagery of the Tarot of Marseilles becomes clear as a bell, since these are based not on Hebrew numbering but on the numbers the bards gave the letters (from number symbolism, rather than simply the order in which Hebrew Canaanite letters were arranged, which conveys its own message, in the case of the simples three distinct ways of applying four elements to triads and cardinal directions).

If you are interested in what I have been able to reconstruct of the original (secret) teachings in this vein, a brief exposition of them within the context of the Tarot of Marseilles can be found here:

http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Bardic_origin_of_Tarot

(Crowley, the Golden Dawn, etc. knew none of this, save for the correct attribution of cycles to Sefirot, albeit they called the year, 6, the Sun, whose position Hermetically is more correctly at 2, Hokhmah, and rules the 2-6-10 or greatyear-year-day axis that forms the matrix of the periodic table.)

venicebard said:

The three texts in which the Sefirot are described differently actually portray them as they manifest in the first three worlds: the Bahir in Atzilut (1st wheel), Sefer Yetzirah in Beriyah (2nd wheel), and the Zohar in Yetzirah (3rd wheel), the planetary cycles (eternity-greatyear-Saturn-Jupiter-Mars-year-Venus-Mercury-month-day) being how this third wheel manifests in the fourth (Asiyah).

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My opinion:
You have some interesting ideas, but I would also caution you to presume this coorelation to Qabalistic Texts. The "Sepher Ha-Bahir" is not originally a book, per se, and the Zohar would probably not be on this list. The Zohar is a much later text whose subject is the Torah, and The Bahir was not compiled by an author as such, but by people who are believed to have collected everything they could find about Qabala from a single man, Rabbi Nehunya.

Also, the idea a book would be the Atziluth of a oral tradition is simply flawed. The Briatic would no doubt be the Pentateuch of the Torah, which is clarified by the Zohar. The Heikhalot as the foundational Knowledge would be the Da'at, which is the essence of the Middle Pillar not some gaping abyss or missing sphere nonsense, and the Sepher (Heikhalot) Yetzirah (Book of Laws of Formation), would be the Yetzirah as representing the Aemeth of Jacob as a means by which the methods of creation are given a correlation in the mind through the letters of language - essentially the first grammar book was also the first science book. The Assiah of the Qabala would be the actual Reception of it as an oral Tradition.

As for the rest, this is some interesting stuff to chew on, but i am wondering if it all ties together as easily as you theorize. Please do not mistake my skepticism as lack of interest or respect for your ideas.

brightcrazystar said:

My opinion:
You have some interesting ideas, but I would also caution you to presume this coorelation to Qabalistic Texts. The "Sepher Ha-Bahir" is not originally a book, per se, and the Zohar would probably not be on this list. The Zohar is a much later text whose subject is the Torah, and The Bahir was not compiled by an author as such, but by people who are believed to have collected everything they could find about Qabala from a single man, Rabbi Nehunya.

Also, the idea a book would be the Atziluth of a oral tradition is simply flawed.

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The Sefer ha-Bahir was first published near the time of Kabbalah's first flowering, in Provence, and in it the Sefirot are treated as individual emanations, their character determined by placement on the (first) wheel: ten because they lead from straight up ('aries')—Uprightness itself (the One, the exalted)—to straight back towards self (10th sign, 'capricorn'), thus representing "God's individuation" (as Gerschom Scholem put it), with for example 4th being Lovingkindness because it (4th sign, 'cancer') points straight out (forward) or towards other, and 6th being the divine Throne because it is the sign that is the approach ('virgo') to straight down ('libra'), the latter (7th) being the Holy Temple because straight down is the spoke that is the 'body' itself (the Upright Sentient form). These are the Sefirot as they appear to the knower of the conscious self (God the Father, in the Gnostic Trinity), the part dealing with what is eternal (i.e. of infinite duration).

In Sefer Yetzirah, which surfaced prior to the Bahir of course, they are emanated in pairs, hence representative of the second world. (They oscillate between the macrocosmic and microcosmic hexads, which are mis-named in astrology the male and femal hexads.) These are the Sefirot as they appear to the thinker of the conscious self (God the Holy Spirit, in the Gnostic Trinity), the part dealing with what has finite duration (i.e. thoughts, the cycling of karma).

In the Zohar, they are treated as three triads plus a tenth and are thus representative of the third world. But here there is a twist, for in reality the Tree as usually pictured actually represents the triangular tetraktys in a sense, determining four distinct 'earths' (that is, the forms underlying these): that of Upright Sentience itself (1); that of chaste male and female (2 & 3); that of reproducing male and female (4 & 5) and their agreed-upon offspring (6); and that of lustful male and female (7 & 8) and their not-agreed-upon offspring (9 & 10). These form the subdivisions of human emotion, that is, of the 'thinking' of the doer, the part of the conscious self that has to act in the fleeting (durationless) present instant, of which—as Plato points out—one remains forever ignorant (since ere one can turn attention to it it is gone), thus requiring guidance from thinker and knower (human doers, however, believing they can get by on sensation alone for the most part, hence the human condition).

The dynamics of the fourth world (Asiyah) are fascinating (and form the basis of hermetic science) but complex enough to be left for another day. It is interesting to me that the more-or-less correct assignment of cycles to Sefirot was preserved in ‘Hermetic Kabbalah’—which may trace its decent in part from ‘Christian Kabbalah’—even though what that current of tradition teaches about tarot is bunk (except, of course, for the basic correlation Asiyah-coins, Yetzirah-cups, Beriyah-swords, and Atzilut-batons).

The Briatic would no doubt be the Pentateuch of the Torah, which is clarified by the Zohar. The Heikhalot as the foundational Knowledge would be the Da'at, which is the essence of the Middle Pillar not some gaping abyss or missing sphere nonsense, and the Sepher (Heikhalot) Yetzirah (Book of Laws of Formation), would be the Yetzirah as representing the Aemeth of Jacob as a means by which the methods of creation are given a correlation in the mind through the letters of language - essentially the first grammar book was also the first science book. The Assiah of the Qabala would be the actual Reception of it as an oral Tradition.

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Sefer Yetzirah gives the Sefirot as they are in Beriyah; but yes, inasmuch as it details the threefold division of the letters that text covers the first three (and with intermediate mem, and the planetary cycles, the fourth?) worlds: the 'mothers' are the hubs of the wheels (mem-sofit of the 1st, shin of the 2nd, alef of the 3rd, and intermediate mem, I believe, of the 4th); the 'doubles' are the seven manifested signs of the 2nd wheel; and the 'simples' are the twelve spokes or signs of the 3rd wheel. These last must be restored (using the Irish tree-alphabet / calendar as guide) to their original order about the wheel before sense can be made of this: that order is (as shown by the shapes of the letters in both square Hebrew and Canaanite) samekh-tzaddi-cheyt-vav-ayn-qof-teyt-heh-zayn-yod-lamedh-nun, samekh being shaped like the head aries, cheyt like the shoulders gemini, etc., with heh, the letter added to Abram to make Abraham upon his circumcision, being the 8th sign (circumcision being on the 8th day), which is scorpio, the sign whose physiological attribution was called in old almanacs 'secrets' because it represents the male organ (the clitoris in the female, presumably). Indeed Canaanite heh (Greek epsilon, Latin E) is in the shape of a comb, and in the Eleusinian mysteries the female sex organ was evidently known as 'the woman's comb'.

Each world has a specific structure, and it was clear understanding of how said structure is elucidated in these three distinct sources (based on the four wheels) that was seemingly lost. I have seen zero indication of any survival of this knowledge into the twentieth century (indeed today the discrepancies in these sources are ascribed to putting Sefirot in a different order, which is ludicrous, since it is their numerical order which defines them) and scant evidence it was known even in Luria’s generation. By the way, I would place the heikhalot in relation to Beriyah, primarily, as it is in this world that the seven signs of the lower or manifested half of the wheel (from horizon without to horizon within) come into prominence as the seven 'double' letters (stops B-P-D-T-G-K and repeated stop R).

The 'formation' of Da’at is a direct result of the shattering of the vessels, that is, the collapse (in the third or form world, that of the recalcitrant doer of the conscious self, which is God the Son in the Gnostic Trinity) of Sefirot 4-9 into the angles distending from the signs (and of Sefirah 10 into the entire fourth quarter of that wheel, which thus leads to repetition or re-existence): this quality of Sefirot 4-10 being caught up in time's maelstrom, so to speak, leaves the fourth sign ('cancer') unassigned (which is Da’at, the ‘lost’ knowledge), because the remaining Sefirot acquire their ‘gender’ (male right pillar, female left pillar, neutral middle pillar) from where their angles end up, determined by what are called ‘cardinal’, ‘fixed’, and ‘mutable’ tetrads in astrology, which are actually the primordial cardinal, male, and female tetrads, respectively.

As for the rest, this is some interesting stuff to chew on, but i am wondering if it all ties together as easily as you theorize. Please do not mistake my skepticism as lack of interest or respect for your ideas.

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On the contrary, I am uplifted when anyone finds my ideas of any interest at all, since as sure as I am OF them, I am, shall we say, a poor salesman.

By the way, by way of clarity (i.e. truth in advertising), I am Gnostic, not Jewish, so my schooling in theology leaves something to be desired; that is, I am not a monotheist (meaning I see gods as masks we put on Truth to make it seem less threatening). Yet I value the teachings of this deeper Kabbalah more than my own life! for in them is preserved the true gnosis in its most developed form—which no doubt explains Christians' interest in them during the Renaissance.

My kind of humour

Thanks, Yydgdrasilian.

Yygdrasilian said:

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.

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