Picture of a Chinese Pentacle

I was lucky enough to get my hands on a copy of A Pictorial History of Magic and the Supernatural by Maurice Bessy and as I was looking through it today I ran across this picture. It looked interesting so I thought I would share it and see what comments I might get on it. The accompanying caption reads:

"In China magical mirrors were used to foretell the future but also to exercise will-power."

Bessy calls it a magic "mirror," but I thought it had a strong resemblance to the "coins" commonly found on Marseille and other decks.

Click Me

It's indeed an ancient bronze mirror, from 1-3 century AD. What we see is an engraved side: the other side is polished to the effect of fine reflection. The diametre of these mirrors are usually 8 to 10 inches. Some scholars say they were used in skrying. Most consider they were symbols of political power.

for reference

http://www.osaka-archives.com/museum_cat_06.html

Of course we can assume these mirrors were used as a kind of currency in the ancient China. We have a record that a Chinese Emperor gave Japanese Shaman-Queen "Himiko" a hundred of these mirrors.

So it's a picture of the back side, that makes sense. Thanks for that info roppo.

There's another post, in another thread somewhere, that wonders if the Coins might actually be mirrors. There are several pics, one shows a lady looking into a mirror - very similar pose to the Queen of Coins (marseille).

Bee

I too thought I had seen something about this before but I didn't have a clue where. It probably was in another thread here. I'll have to dig a little and see if I can find it.

.....

Here is the post you are looking for.

Thanks for that thinbuddha. I had not seen that one.

For some reason I was thinking there was a thread with pictures like the ones roppo posted, but I could be wrong. I did some searching but it's like looking for a needle in a haystack. I did, however, run across an article at Wikipedia on Cartomancy that associates Diamonds with "Coins, or mirrors."

I've long held a belief that the Tarot was strongly influnced by the East. This is another piece of the puzzle that seems to have fallen into place. The Deniers on the Tarot cards look much too much like those Chinese mirrors for it to be an accident.

Abrac said:

The Deniers on the Tarot cards look much too much like those Chinese mirrors for it to be an accident.

Click to expand...

Well, hold on now. I think that the deniers also look too much like mandalas too. Doesn't mean that there is a direct (physical/cultural exchange). Mandalas, incidentally, are found pretty much everywhere you find people. Perhaps it is more like the collective unconscious that Jung talked about. Couldn't it be that circular patterns are just something that is pleasing to the human eye no matter where that human comes from? I'm not discounting the possibility that there could be a more direct connection- but it has hardly been proven because a couple designs look similar.

-tb

I explored a similar thing comparing the Coins to medieval nautical instruments, here;

https://www.tarotforum.net/threads/95980/

These associations interested me as merchants were traditionally associated with the watery Phlegmatic temperament.