Euthyphro Dilemma
Plotinus said:
"Since all men from their birth employ sense prior to intellect, and are necessarily first conversant with sensible things: Some, proceeding no farther, pass through life considering these as first and last; and apprehending what is painful to be evil, what is pleasant to be good, they deem it sufficient to shun the one and pursue the other. Some pretending to greater reason than the rest, esteem this wisdom; like earth-bound birds, though they have wings are unable to fly. The secret souls of others would recall them from pleasure to worthier pursuits; but they cannot soar: they choose the lower way and strive in vain. Thirdly, there are those divine men whose eyes pierce through clouds and darkness to supernal vision, where they abide as in their own lawful country."
Soundly based in the mathematics of acoustic geometry, the application of Tarot to the Hebrew alphabet (aleph=0) reveals “a work of the former Egyptians, one of their books that escaped the flames that devoured their superb libraries, and which contains their purest doctrines on interesting subjects.” The assertion has nothing to do with the literal translation of ‘egyptian’ hieroglyphs as, having been derived from them, the symbols attributed the Hebrew letters were once depicted by those hieroglyphs. Considered with their attribution to elements (mothers), planets (doubles) and zodiac (singles), partitioning the deck by digital root fits them together to form the components of a Caduceus. With respect to how the symbols of Tarot map onto the Qabalah Tree in order to represent this process, One could say the 10 sephiroth and 22 pathways of the Tree of Life are a kind of game board, and the numerology of the Tarot deck is used to gather the game pieces.
One versed in the alchemical allegories attending the Great Work will then see the iconography of the deck fall right into place - especially as concerns the purification of Gold ore through the use of antimony.
Technically, neither de Gebèlin, nor Crowley ever broke their oaths of secrecy concerning the proper application of the cypher. The Fool ushers in what ultimately leads to a prank. of sorts; but is himself a pun on the use of Zero (from the arabic word:
sifr), placed at both beginning and end in this cycle of major ‘secrets’ (arcana).
Although it is true there are dozens of systems presented with Tarot, the evolution of the Milan pattern: from
Viscounti-Sforza to
Tarot de Marseilles to
Book of Thoth - bears the imprint of an
aenigma that has been the philosopher’s riddle for ages. It evokes an eerie silence because those who know of what I speak do not wish to spoil the riddle; nor the ‘punch-line.’ And, given the subject matter, until One actually ‘sees’ the hidden stone for themselves, the whole contraption just sounds... foolish. But, to a Freemason delving in studies of ancient symbolism, at a time when the doctrine of
prisca sapientia was held by leading thinkers of mathematical & metrological inquiry, it is not too extreme to suppose that Court de Gébelin, the Comte de Mellet and their peers might have known about this connection between Tarot and the Great Pyramid’s location
roportions. A fraternal brotherhood deeply interested in the secrets of the master builders would have found it rather hard to miss.
777 = 231 : 343 : 127
Perhaps it is too much to expect art historians to solve such an exercise in cryptography...