Mark Filipas - The Pasteboard Masquerade

With his work The Pasteboard Masquerade Mark Filipas suggests the theory that at least some versions the of the Tarot may be a lexicon of the Hebrew alphabet.

I've read his website, and his PDF, and have said that I find it compelling.

Yet, for some reason I still feel I can't quite say "I believe it". I think fundamentally it's a feeling that I can't double-check his work, I don't know Hebrew. It's been pointed out that all that is really needed is a Hebrew-English dictionary.. so maybe I'm just lazy, or don't want to believe that this is the answer.

While I don't think that Mark has said he believes the following.. part of it as well may be the difficulty I find associating some of the iconography with what little I know of Jewish iconography, as well as my reluctance to acknowledge any connection between the tarot and kabbalah.

I'm also a bit foggy on where Mark draws the line of influence. I believe he identifies the lexicon in the TdM, and certainly he places special attention to the design of the Soprafino Tarot. I suppose that if you believe the TdM is the "original" tarot, then it's easy enough to think that other decks are just copies that lost the intention. But if decks like the Bologna were earlier, then how can we account for this? Do they also share the lexicon? Did the creator of the TdM take something that existed and rebuild it to meet the lexicon?

If the TdM IS a Hebrew lexicon, what does that tell us about its creator and audience?

Are you willing to support Mark's theory? Does he provide enough evidence to convince you? Would you argue against it? Has the mystery of the meaning of tarot been discovered?

le pendu said:

While I don't think that Mark has said he believes the following.. part of it as well may be the difficulty I find associating some of the iconography with what little I know of Jewish iconography, as well as my reluctance to acknowledge any connection between the tarot and kabbalah.

Click to expand...

Mark does not claim a connection with the kabbalah, only that the Marseille [and the della rocca] is a sort of pictorial hebrew lexicon - as such all it requires is checking with a lexicon / hebrew dictionary against a variety of possible random letter attributions to develop a word list as a model of what may be achieved by chance, then a study as to whether Mark's is statistical significant in comparison to what may be achieved by chance. To be able to speak Hebrew may be an advantage, but is not necessary to examine or test his conclusions. I have already stated my objections and the reason for my belief that his word lists do not demonstrate the hypotheses in other threads (to which Mark himself has answered) so won't bother repeating them here. That does not mean that I believe he is necessarily wrong, only that it hasn't been demonstrated so far [with continuing research he may well be able to do so].

Kwaw

I was also under the impression that he had pulled his complete eBook from distribution because he was in the process of substantial revision of the material. I tried to purchase a copy about a year ago, and received no firm date for availability. He hasn't been on AT in a long while and since his website has gone offline, I haven't been able to find out anything about the progress.

Does anyone know the status of the revised Alphabetic Masquerade?

Scion

Another way to test it would be to find other printed works (alphabet books, prayer books etc.) done by the Jewish publishers of Italy of that period to see if there's common illustrations.

Though one would think, with the Bible Code software and such, that there's a gematrist out there who already knows the odds of randomly selecting "words beginning with Alef that appear on the Fool card".

Scion said:

I was also under the impression that he had pulled his complete eBook from distribution because he was in the process of substantial revision of the material. I tried to purchase a copy about a year ago, and received no firm date for availability. He hasn't been on AT in a long while and since his website has gone offline, I haven't been able to find out anything about the progress.

Does anyone know the status of the revised Alphabetic Masquerade?

Scion

Click to expand...

It is now back on line.

http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=1053070&postcount=30

Kwaw

Your link isn't quite right, kwaw: try this page on Mark's site, which itself links to the currently incomplete tarot.com store for the pdf.

I remember when Mark Filipas first announced his findings and publicised his booklet on the then quite popular Alt.tarot (this was at the time the largest Tarot discussion 'group', afterwards surpassed by TarotL, and thence to Aeclectic).

His views were harshly criticized and comments were made that an equivalent could as easily be found for letters that correspond with what many seem to want to find as 'better' - namely the GD variant (with Alef linked to, not the Bateleur as number one and similar in depiction, but with the Fool). No such coherent equivalent correspondence has been presented to date.

Kwaw has shown that for some cards, a significant number of words can indeed be found. Others have similarly found a number of words that can be seen into various cards' imagery. But these examples do not replicate Filipas's work as a whole.

I do not know if Mark Filipas started out with an alphabetic assumption, but what emerged is certainly something that is both elegant and more likely than any other presentation I have yet faced, in that it 'argues' from a perspective that is not anachronistic, and more likely than any statistical analysis of word-to-card ratio is likely to give - in other words, even if statistically it is not significant, the alphabeticisation of the sequence not only makes sense, but accounts for the imagery chosen, the total sequence, and the ordinal number allocated to the cards.

For myself, the explanatory force of the sequence adds a dimension that, though certainly not Kabalistic (after all, the Hebrew language was regarded as sacred to especially esoterically oriented Christians as well), allows for standardisation into tarot as we know it - ie, a foundation on the Marseille-type deck.

Ross Caldwell has mentioned elsewhere a possible enquiry that may lead to equivalences with 22 letters used of the Latin (our) alphabet in use at the time. Even if such a find results in a similar outcome, it only further adds to Mark's two central findings or suggestions: that Tarot's Atouts reflect an alphabetic sequence; and that this sequence has specific ordinal value beginning with the number one, with the Fool as outcast after the 21st.

Here is his example of a chain or alphabet sequence:

http://www.spiritone.com/~mfilipas/Masquerade/Essays/alpha.html

Unfortunately it isnt' a chain or complete sequence, as it appear to break down at the Hermit - TMPV. So unless Mark has found a hebrew source for TMPV [his transliteration of the latin for time] there is no sequence. I have looked for TMPV myself in several likely Hebrew sources - it is a word used in Lingua Franca so I looked in the Shay Lamora for instance [which includes many romance words of Lingua Franca transliterated in Hebrew script] but with no luck so far. (Where reference to time is made in Shay Lamora hebrew words have been used as far as I can see).

Here are his juggler words:

http://www.spiritone.com/~mfilipas/Masquerade/Abecedarium/index.html

Personally I find the majority questionable. I think 6 out of the 20 could be considered as possible 'hits', perhaps a couple more at a stretch. How many of the 20 there listed would you consider a 'hit'?

Kwaw

kwaw said:

I have looked for TMPV myself in several likely Hebrew sources - it is a word used in Lingua Franca so I looked in the Shay Lamora for instance [which includes many romance words of Lingua Franca transliterated in Hebrew script] but with no luck so far. (Where reference to time is made in Shay Lamora hebrew words have been used as far as I can see).

Kwaw

Click to expand...

If its of any interest some lingua franca words that can be found transliterated into Hebrew in the Shay Lamara, include for example:

bagatela
a trifle. baga+yla dy cwldy. This trifle of a solde. [SLE 70b, 133a]

baguette
stick. wcbt fy qlbha wwaHd lbagy+. And I found a stick in it. [SLE 50a]

In reference to the della rocca and lingua franca [but not necessarily Hebrew] we may observe:

The bagetelle [cobbler] with a batt, bot or bosetta [wooden shoe last or patten], a ballo [ball] that looks like a boccia di rose [rose blossom] and a bariletto [jug or pitcher] on his banco [bench] is having bevvy [a drink] from a basola [drinking glass].

Ballo - ball
Boccia di rose - rose blossom
Banco - a bench
Batt = shoe
Bosetta, bot wooden shoe last or patten
Bariletto - a pitcher or jug
Basola - a drinking glass
Bevvy - drink or Bebbe - he drank / drinks or Bibace - a drinker / drinking

Kwaw

le pendu said:

. . . part of it as well may be the difficulty I find associating some of the iconography with what little I know of Jewish iconography, as well as my reluctance to acknowledge any connection between the tarot and kabbalah.

Click to expand...

As to the former, being perhaps a lexicon for children on its exoteric level (even should my theory of its also having an esoteric dimension, based on bardic numeration, be correct), it is mere representational pictures, not iconography per se. And indeed my suspicion that TdM is (now that I see M.F.'s work) truly cross-ethnic (bardic Gnostic and Jewish) would obviate the need of it conforming to strictly Jewish iconography.

As for the latter, so would I be based on most modern hypotheses thereconcerning! and perhaps even based on only part of my own!

I suppose that if you believe the TdM is the "original" tarot, then it's easy enough to think that other decks are just copies that lost the intention. But if decks like the Bologna were earlier, then how can we account for this?

Click to expand...

I would say that if you believe the scattered trump-order variants found in Italy extant pre-Marseilles actually predate Marseilles historically, then you would have to reject Mark's hypothesis. But it has long seemed to me that the solidity of trump-order north of the Alps (and in them? i.e. Lombardy?) shows clearly that the Marseilles was the original form tarot took. Indeed your having shown the numbers and names a likely late addition helps with this hypothesis, showing that the trump-order was long established even before it began being indicated on the cards, a process occurring about when our earliest extant TdM appear, n'est ce pas? (And late appearance of names supports the cross-ethnic bardo-Judaic hypothesis [mine], as originally there would have been little besides an emblem or two to prevent a Kabbalist from seeing the High Priest where a Christian saw the Pope!)

If the TdM IS a Hebrew lexicon, what does that tell us about its creator and audience?

Click to expand...

Here I will give a nutshell view of what I said over at the Lingua-Franca thread. I honestly now believe it likely that the Tarot of Marseilles was both children's Jewish picture-lexicon and esoteric world-model (based on bardo-Judaic rectification of an extremely ancient tradition whence the Jewish and Keltic both branched off originally). It had its outer aspect, purely alphabetical -- and perhaps included in the design specifically to lure back any Jewish mind alienated by such a thing as a Pope being represented (though at least one Kabbalist considered the Pope in his day worth trying to convert, as I recall) -- and also an inner one, the outer aspect based on alef-bet order and the inner on bardic numeration.

This last can be traced in detail, hopefully, a process I have now begun. For example, while the esoteric XVIII LaLune is all the individual objects making up the picture and filed under the 18th letter, tzaddi, its overall thrust of meaning carries it into the realm of its tree-letter, Q-qof-quert the apple (which the Semitic letter originally pictured), whose esoteric meaning is fruit and virgo the womb: the picture can be seen as a mother 'losing her water', with the baby's face appearing at the birth-canal ready to be loosed into the world (i.e. to become a distinct physical being at libra, the direction of gravity [down, i.e. opposite aries the head]). Or more telling perhaps the case of samekh as 'prop': whereas exoterically it supports XV LeDiable, esoterically (i.e. more properly or as wisdom directs) it supports VIII Justice. And so on.

As I said on the other thread, I am now in even greater awe of the creators of the Marseilles (and only wish I could convey something of the thrill of this discovery to all you sourpusses out there . . . just joking).