When Did Discs/Coins become Pentacles?

Kiama

Hi all,

Well my question is fairly simple: When did the Discs/Coins suit become the suit of Pentacles? I am guessing it must be fairly recently, somewhere around the beginning of the occult revival, but I am not sure.

I ask this because I have just finished reading 'Tarot Trumps and the Holy Grail', and the author Margaret Starbird shocked me when she asserted that the early Tarot decks had pentacles on the Coins cards, and this pentacle being of five points is associated with the planet Venus, and therefore Mary Magdalene. I found the rest of the book very easy to believe and liked the way she linked the images in the early cards to the Templars and the heresy of the Holy Grail and Blodd Royal, but that bit just made me cringe a bit...

So, when did we move from Coins and Discs to Pentacles and other strange, Earth-related round objects? (A pet peeve of mine, sorry!)

Kiama
 

Le_Corsair

I think it was in the time of the Order of the Golden Dawn, or so I've heard, and that A.E. Waite was the one that inflicted it upon us. Probably there are going to be more informed answers than mine, but I did remember reading that in a thread or book recently.

Bob :THERM
 

Diana

I think it is as Bob says.

Same with Batons that were changed to Wands.

All ritualistic Golden Dawn stuff. Like the Bateleur who was transformed into a Magician.... (with a magic(k) wand???)

*(censored by me)*
 

catboxer

Ah, yes, good old Peter Pantacles.

Those five-point stars first showed up, I believe, on Waite's deck around 1910.

According to M. Dummet, Waite engineered the name change this way. When he was translating Levi's "Rituals of High Magic," Waite deliberately left the French word "pantacles" untranslated. Levi said that the suit of coins represented "pantacles," which I guess roughly translates as "talismans." Waite knew that English-speaking readers would interpret the word as meaning "pentacles," and then he exploited the misunderstanding by having Pamela Colman Smith draw those little star thingies on the coins of his own deck.

That's from "Wicked Pack," p. 47.
 

jmd

To Waite's defense, there are a number of important considerations which could be added.

But first let me add that I do not dispute what catboxer has said, and the wonderful research by Dummett, Depaulis and Decker. Their books have provided us with a wonderful dais from which to ascend.

In Transcendental Magic, Levi makes the comment 'the sacred symbol of two interlaced triangles, forming the six-pointed star, known in magic as the Pantacle or Seal of Solomon [...]'. Here already is a clear reference to a simple pantacle. Did Waite intend for a reading of 'pantacle' as 'pentagramme'? I personally doubt it, for the two terms would have been familiar enough to the audience for which he wrote.

Another factor is probably more likely. If the suit of disk is to be associated with pantacles - ie, with magical talismans, then a genuine question which could be asked is which is best indicated on the coin upon the Magus's table? Here three possibilities come to mind as likely candidates. The first is the fourfold equal-armed cross (as on the Wirth - which makes much sense if one is to link this suit to the Earth element), the other two are the pentagramme and the hexagramme.

As the Magician is about to transform the ingredients, the active principle of the pentagramme seems to make greater sense than the hexagramme, which would better fit the Hermit.

From here, it is but a short step to use the symbolic representation made upon one of the implements on the Magician's table to the whole suit - for better or worse.

Having made this possible line in reflection, that the word/prefix 'panta-' seems to suggest 'penta-' may be deemed a surface level reflection. The aspirant in either the GD or in Waite's own initiatic order would, I presume, have been told or shown how this very similarity must be treated: the candidate must be careful in his or her study, and not confuse words which, though being somewhat homophones, are etymologically distinct... a disposition quite contrary to the French tradition, which makes much of the language of the birds (homophony).
 

catboxer

Hi jmd:

My French is not that extensive, and I'm really in the woods when it comes to obscure terms like "pantacle."

But if the rough translation is "talisman," then here's a question for you. How many of the objects on the Magician's table in the Marseille decks might be considered talismans?

Answer: they all could, non? I can't even tell what they all are, but they are all probably some sort of doo-dads for divination or conjuring. I'm still trying to figure out what that white thing is on the Visconti-Sforza's Bagatto's table. It looks like a hat, or maybe a cake, but I'm pretty sure it's a talisman of some sort, no matter what else it is.
 

jmd

A pantacle, within the magical tradition, would have been understood by Levi and Waite not so much as a magical implement, but as an simple implement bearing a peculiar sigil. For this reason, the Kabalah's Tree of Life is at times also called a 'pantacle' within the French tradition.

Of the implements upon the table, and taking Wirth's deck as a basis from which Waite would also have worked, the only pantacle would be the 'coin', ie, the bearer of an inscription, such as a cross, pentagramme or hexagramme.

But my French too is rather limited. I am going here far more by my understanding, however limited, of the magical arts.

The sigils, drawn on more permanent surfaces, and often able to be carried upon one's body (as possibly pendants - another 'pen-' word ;)), would, I suggest, be what was intended.
 

pan

fascinating.

as i am given to recall,
the pentacle was used by early christians as far
back as the fifth century and then dropped.
Its most probable origin is with Core, the apple
Goddess, and the association with earth fairly clear. The christian term was "satanic Cross".

Assorted traditions place the pentacle as a symbol
of the earth far predating 1900, but i assume those are all suspect because after all, gardner
made the whole thing up...etc.

The real question in my mind is not how or why the transition from coins (a christianization) to pentacles occured, but how we managed to end up thinking these christianizations had any amount of authenticity?

I feel some days like i am swimming in a soup of misinformation.

I am sure that it is true that the golden dawn and crowley etc. had a strong influence upon Tarot;
it is my frank opinion that they were mostly attempting to fix christian junk that got blended in mostly by the bohemians.

Wether or not the pantacle bore pentacles or what exactly pantacle means or meant, the original object was a plate. For eating off of...not...
a cerimonial flat disk, symbolizing the earth itself, and communion with the physical and sustenance of the physical life.

In Wicca modernly, pantacle simply means a stone or wooden disk, and may or may not have a pentacle
inscribed upon it.
 

jmd

Pythagoreans also used the pentagramme as an acronym having five 'A' (pent-alpha).

With the Tarot, the four suits do first emerge prior to the Tarot's existence, with the Mamluk decks - ie, with Muslim decks - with one of the suit being Coins.

Historically, it seems that the Gypsies (not necessarily Bohemians) took to Tarot after it had already existed for some time. Their influence, if any, on deck designs is, I suggest, either negligable or non-existent.

The Tarot arose in an atmosphere very rich in Christian and Jewish culture. The Christian varieties of the time included numerous 'sects' which were considered either then or later heretical (such as the Cathars). I do not think that the vast amount of popular myopic neo-pagan views has contributed much to clearly seeing what may have been the case in earlier times - I'm not surprised that you feel that you are swimming in a soup of misinformation, pan. What it has contributed, however, is a revival, albeit in different form, of ancient Greek, Norse, Celtic , Egyptian and other culture's god and goddess forms, incorporated in ways both inspiring and meaningful in modern society.

The move from the drawing upon the suit of Coins of pentagrammes remains, for some, meaningful. For others it takes away from deeper symbolic imagery.
 

pan

" Historically, it seems that the Gypsies (not necessarily Bohemians) took to Tarot
after it had already existed for some time. Their influence, if any, on deck designs is,
I suggest, either negligable or non-existent."
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I can mostly agree with that.
The influence they did have was not on the cards themselves, but on the diviniations and interpretations of the cards. The gypsies/bohemians more or less invented the concept of using the cards for divination.
They had little or no understanding really of the cards and invented their own meanings.
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