Coins or Pentacles or Discs or Shields

I've been wondering about the suit of coins/ pentacles/ discs/ shields. From what I can make out, coins came first. It was replaced by pentacles by the Order of the Golden Dawn at the beginning of the 20th century or so. Motives: 1. to let the four suits correspond with the four tools in ritualistic magic. 2. to let them symbolise the magic of the manifest world instead of just materialism (money, job) like coins did. That's what I got from '78 degrees of Wisdom' by Rachel Pollack. Personally, I don't like the symbol of Pentacles for this suit. I'm more like the Pythagoreans, a pentagram represents the five elements to me. I'm curious what other people's opinion is about this?

But that's not all I wanted to know. Can anyone tell me when Discs came in? And what's a disc supposed to represent... All I can make out is, that it's a circle, a feminine form. Possibly representing the Earth, but if that's true, wouldn't a sphere be more apporpriate? And what's with Shields... Is that just as a polarity, swords vs shields, active vs passive, attack vs defence?

I'd be gratefull for anyone's insight about this!

And then some decks use stones for this suit, to represent the earth directly.

these are certainly interesting and valid questions, arcana. I do, however, like the transition from a strictly ecconomic suit toward a broader interpretation of wealth. To me and perhaps some in the Golden Dawn, true wealth is kept in three vaults: Mind, Spirit and Body. Building a balance of riches in these three areas creates "magic in the manifest world" in the purest form. From what I know Waite, who strongly influenced the transition in coins, loved ritual but wasn't fond of magic. In fact, When he became Grand Master of the Order in 1903, he changed the name to the Rectified Rite of the Golden Dawn and some members rejected his focus on mysticism over magic. A rival group, Stella Matutina (Morning Star) broke away from the rapidly deteriorating order under leadership of Yeats.

Does Plato say somewhere that a pentagram represents five elements? From my understanding Pythagoras left no record and Plato serves as our best source, although, others outside the commune did attempt to report on his secret practices.

Arcana said:

I've been wondering about the suit of coins/ pentacles/ discs/ shields. From what I can make out, coins came first. It was replaced by pentacles by the Order of the Golden Dawn at the beginning of the 20th century or so. Motives: 1. to let the four suits correspond with the four tools in ritualistic magic. 2. to let them symbolise the magic of the manifest world instead of just materialism (money, job) like coins did. That's what I got from '78 degrees of Wisdom' by Rachel Pollack. Personally, I don't like the symbol of Pentacles for this suit. I'm more like the Pythagoreans, a pentagram represents the five elements to me. I'm curious what other people's opinion is about this?

But that's not all I wanted to know. Can anyone tell me when Discs came in? And what's a disc supposed to represent... All I can make out is, that it's a circle, a feminine form. Possibly representing the Earth, but if that's true, wouldn't a sphere be more apporpriate? And what's with Shields... Is that just as a polarity, swords vs shields, active vs passive, attack vs defence?

I'd be gratefull for anyone's insight about this!

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I'm guessing, but I think Pantacles is Levi's name for Deniers, so this would be around 1860; "Disks" I think is Crowley's name, but it could also be a Golden Dawn appellation.

With a little more work - gathering quotes from The Book of Thoth and various Holy Books and A:.A:. rituals - I am sure I could show you that Crowley thought of the the "disk" as simply the two-dimensional equivalent of the sphere, and sometimes described the disk as "whirling" - i.e. essentially a sphere. He must also have been considering the Levi and Golden Dawn equation of the four elements with four ritual implements, and for them the Denier was the Pantacle/Pentacle, which is a flat disk. In his ritual instruction for making the implements, Liber A vel Armorum, he describes the Disk as made of wax, with a depiction of the universe inscribed on it ("based on the ingenium of the Practicus" (was it "Practicus" or "Theoricus"?).

I'm not sure if a "pantacle" is the same as a "pentacle" literally speaking. Waite or the GD may have been responsible for that.

This is only my un-reconstructed opinion from memory - I hope to be corrected where I am wrong.

Shields - are you thinking of the Swiss suits? Some of the earliest preserved decks have shields as a suit.

Thanks, Marion, of course there's stones as well. I can't believe I forgot to mention them!

Wandkind: it may be that my source about Pythagoras connecting the pentagram to the five elements in incorrect. I briefly googled the connection, but I didn't find any sites (in the top 20) that links the two directly together.

And Ross G Caldwell, off the top of my head I can only name one deck that uses shields and that's a modern one: the Arthurian tarot by Anna-Marie Ferguson. But I have read about other decks with this symbol. I didn't know it was used in some of the earliest decks though, I thought that would be coins. Thanks for the info on Crowley!

Ross G Caldwell said:

I'm guessing, but I think Pantacles is Levi's name for Deniers, so this would be around 1860; "Disks" I think is Crowley's name, but it could also be a Golden Dawn appellation.

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Michael Dummett and I corresponded about this and he said that Lévi in the French original (1855 Doctrine of Transcendental Magic) never used the word Pantacle (as Waite translated it) but only Pentacle. However Lévi clearly equated it with the Coin suit and used it as a term for "talisman." So the suit of Pentacles could be called the suit of Talismans. A disc is the form for many talismans. Also, I believe it was Lévi who notes that coins were originally also considered magical talismans in that wherever the coin spread so too did the influence of the ruler whose head was on the coin.

Dummett wrote me:
"As I had suspected, both in the passage from Levi that you quoted in
Crowley's translation, and in Book VI of Christian's _Histoire de la
magie_, the translators had substituted their own preferred names of the
suits for those used by the authors they were translating."

In Levi's _Clef des grands mysteres_ (p. 312) he names the suits: baton,
coupe, epee, and denier ou cercle. As Dummett notes, "cercle of course
mean 'circle' (and not 'pentacle')." Crowley translated it as pentacle.

However Dummett fails to note the following from Transcendental Magic (_Dogme et rituel de la haute magie_, published by Editions Bussière).
"Venons maintenant aux quatre signes, c'est-à-dire aux Bâtons, aux Coupes, aux Epées et aux Cercles ou Pentacles, vulgairement appelés Deniers." (p. 115). [Thanks to James Revak.]

Dummett also notes that in Christian's Book VI on the fatidic circles
the suit-names are Sceptre, Coupe, Glaive (Blade) and Sicle (Shekel)
which where also used in _L'Homme rouge des Tuileries_.

Somewhere Lévi speaks of the pentacle being the pre-eminent form of pantacle. And, "Paracelsus ... affirms that every magical figure and every
kabalistic sign of the pantacles which compel spirits, may be reduced to
two, which are the synthesis of all the others; these are the Sign of
the Macrocosm or the Seal of Solomon, ... and that of the Microcosm,
more potent even than the first--that is to say, the Pentagram. ... Now
a sign which summarizes ... all the occult forces of Nature..."
(Transcendental Magic, p. ?, see also Chapter X.)

And, "When conscious of failing will, the Magus turns
his eyes towards this symbol [the Pentacle], takes it in his right hand
and feels armed with intellectual omnipotence, ... provided that he is
familiar with the usages of the Pentacle, the Cup, the Wand and the
Sword." (Transcendental Magic, p. 241).

Note that the term Pentagram or Pentacle referred not to the Quintessence (fifth element) but to the Microcosm (or Below) as opposed to the Macrocosm (or Above).

The Martinist Orders adopted as their seal the "Pantacle Universel" drawn by Louis-Claude de Saint Martin to synthesize his comprehension of the Universe.

Crowley wrote somewhere: "Every fact, and even every falsehood, must enter into the Pantacle; it is the great storehouse from which the magician draws."

In _Magick Without Tears_ Chapter XX Crowley writes about "Talismans: The Lamen: The Pantacle."TALISMANS: THE LAMEN: THE PANTACLE":
"A talisman is a storehouse of some particular kind of energy, the kind that is needed to accomplish the task for which you have constructed it. . . . The Pantacle is often confused with both the others; accurately, it is a "Minutum Mundum", "the Universe in Little"; it is a map of all that exists, arranged in the Order of Nature."

The translation I have of Paul Christian's 1870 _History and
Practice of Magic_, Vol. 2, Book 6: "Theory and Practice of the Horoscope"
calls the suit Pentacles.

The Golden Dawn Cypher Manuscript also refers to the suit as Pentacles. While it is impossible to date the manuscript it is probably by Kenneth MacKenzie which puts it around 1870-1886. MacKenzie was strongly influenced by Lévi - having visited him to talk about the tarot.

Westcott in his 1887 Isiac Tablet associates the Diamond or Coin
with: "Female, Circle, Shekel, Pantacle [not Pentacle], Vesica Piscis,
Image of the World, Malkuth, Kingdom."

As early his 1888 booklet on the Tarot, MacGregor Mathers was
referring to Deniers as Pentacles. A chart names them "Money, Circles,
or Pentacles", and he says, "The Ace of Pentacles represents Eternal
Synthesis, the great whole of the visible Universe, the Realisation of
counterbalanced power."

Waite, in his 1889 Manual of Cartomancy, wrote: "It being understood
that the Suits are Cups, replacing Hearts; Swords, corresponding to
Spades; Wands, substituted for Diamonds; and Pantacles, representing
Clubs."

Mary

Teheuti said:

However Dummett fails to note the following from Transcendental Magic (_Dogme et rituel de la haute magie_, published by Editions Bussière).
"Venons maintenant aux quatre signes, c'est-à-dire aux Bâtons, aux Coupes, aux Epées et aux Cercles ou Pentacles, vulgairement appelés Deniers." (p. 115). [Thanks to James Revak.]

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Ah, good. So I was right - at least partly. Levi uses "Pentacles" for Deniers.

Somewhere Lévi speaks of the pentacle being the pre-eminent form of pantacle.

Click to expand...

So there is a difference between a "pentacle" (=pentangle, a five-pointed star) and a "pantacle" (= a PAN (everything) -t- angle (portrayed in a diagram))? I thought so anyway.

And, "Paracelsus ... affirms that every magical figure and every
kabalistic sign of the pantacles which compel spirits, may be reduced to
two, which are the synthesis of all the others; these are the Sign of
the Macrocosm or the Seal of Solomon, ... and that of the Microcosm,
more potent even than the first--that is to say, the Pentagram. ... Now
a sign which summarizes ... all the occult forces of Nature..."
(Transcendental Magic, p. ?, see also Chapter X.)

And, "When conscious of failing will, the Magus turns
his eyes towards this symbol [the Pentacle], takes it in his right hand
and feels armed with intellectual omnipotence, ... provided that he is
familiar with the usages of the Pentacle, the Cup, the Wand and the
Sword." (Transcendental Magic, p. 241).

Note that the term Pentagram or Pentacle referred not to the Quintessence (fifth element) but to the Microcosm (or Below) as opposed to the Macrocosm (or Above).

Click to expand...

It does all seem to go back to Levi. Mathers did not acknowledge his debt to him so much as Crowley, who believed himself the reincarnation of Levi (Crowley was born (or conceived) six months after Levi's death)

The Martinist Orders adopted as their seal the "Pantacle Universel" drawn by Louis-Claude de Saint Martin to synthesize his comprehension of the Universe.

Crowley wrote somewhere: "Every fact, and even every falsehood, must enter into the Pantacle; it is the great storehouse from which the magician draws."

Click to expand...

I remember Crowley like this too - "somewhere he wrote this..." Thankfully (or not) we have Google, and it shows that this statement comes from Book 4, part 2.

The Golden Dawn Cypher Manuscript also refers to the suit as Pentacles. While it is impossible to date the manuscript it is probably by Kenneth MacKenzie which puts it around 1870-1886. MacKenzie was strongly influenced by Lévi - having visited him to talk about the tarot.

Westcott in his 1887 Isiac Tablet associates the Diamond or Coin
with: "Female, Circle, Shekel, Pantacle [not Pentacle], Vesica Piscis,
Image of the World, Malkuth, Kingdom."

As early his 1888 booklet on the Tarot, MacGregor Mathers was
referring to Deniers as Pentacles. A chart names them "Money, Circles,
or Pentacles", and he says, "The Ace of Pentacles represents Eternal
Synthesis, the great whole of the visible Universe, the Realisation of
counterbalanced power."

Click to expand...

Good. As I thought, still nothing earlier than Levi for the pentacle=denier equation.

Waite, in his 1889 Manual of Cartomancy, wrote: "It being understood
that the Suits are Cups, replacing Hearts; Swords, corresponding to
Spades; Wands, substituted for Diamonds; and Pantacles, representing
Clubs."

Click to expand...

Interesting assignations! Wands for Diamonds and Pantacles for Clubs is unexpected. Compare the most ancient known (1582) and the traditional ones at
http://www.geocities.com/cartedatrionfi/Fragments/1540-1739.html
(scroll to year 1582)

Ross G Caldwell said:

...I am sure I could show you that Crowley thought of the the "disk" as simply the two-dimensional equivalent of the sphere, and sometimes described the disk as "whirling" - i.e. essentially a sphere.

Click to expand...

Thanks! I'd been having trouble picturing just how, once you leave the direction 'up', things spread out immediately to sweep the whole horizon: it's a disk whirling on its horizontal axis (in a sense)! I wonder if Crowley had stumbled (as did I – I'm not putting him down) onto the inner meaning of Keltic 'cauldron' and Orphic 'world-egg', that is, that they take in the entire 360-degree horizon without on the way down and the entire 360-degree horizon within on the way up?

My take on Deniers/Coins is not economic so much as material: they are rounds, primarily, and thus represent cycles (astronomical and otherwise)

It may be worth also putting a link to an earlier thread that also touches on this question (not a long thread, by the way):
It may also be worth noting that the sense of 'pentacle' (or rather 'pantacle') as magical amulet that Levi uses is somewhat similar to that used by Agrippa in his penultimate chapter of the third book of Occult Philosophy (the final, by the way, given our interests, on the Bateleur by any other name) - strictly speaking, of course, these last two do not form part of his books, but rather his censure and retraction.

Agrippa of course also depicts the pentagramme within the circle in a number of places within that book, both as part of his progression of human figures (later also used, interestingly, for a major Eurythmic sequence by Rudolf Steiner - the "I think speech" set), as well as giving a clear link to the pythagorean Pentemychos.

I realise that this goes outside of a strict investigation into the correlation between Coins and Pantacle (which is normally considered as a figure inscribed within a circle, and thus a Denier is an excellent model), but those who have used the two, and especially Levi and those of the Golden Dawn, would have also been aware of its myriad possibilities, especially as it arises in Agrippa's work and implied at least in that of the Abbott Trithemius.

Of greatest interest is possibly from Agrippa pentalpha within a circle, having clear reference to far earlier usage.

Le Comte de Mellet was the first person to call the suit of Coins, talismans (for which Waite later used the term pantacle).

I've done a rough translation of the deGébelin text. Here's what le Comte de M*** (Mellet) wrote (the * = Mellet's own footnotes):
II. The Game applied to Divination.
When the Egyptians had forgotten the first interpretation of these Tableaux, and used them merely as simple letters for their sacred scriptures, it was natural that a people so superstitious would attach an occult virtue* to these respectable characters by their antiquity, and that the Priests, who alone had the knowledge of them, only employed them for religious purposes. [* also this science of numbers and the value of the letters has been well celebrated in olden times]
We likewise have invented new characters, and we see in the holy scripture, that the Magi, as well as those who were initiated into their secrets had a divination through the cup* [*the cup of Joseph].
That they worked marvels with their Baton/Wand* [*the wand of Moses, and the Magi of Pharaoh].
That they consulted TALISMANS* or engraved stones. [*the (household) Gods of Laban, the Theraphim, the Urim, and Thummin]
That they divined the future things with swords,* with arrows, with hatchets, finally with arms in general. [*they did more: they decided the fate of combats and if the King Joas had struck the earth seven times instead of three he would have destroyed Syria -- 2nd Kings, 13:19.]
These four Signs were introduced among the religious tableaux as soon as the establishment of the Kings brought about the differences between the estates/classes in Society.
The Sword marked Royalty and the Powers of the Earth.
The Priests made use of Canopys/Tent/Awning for sacrifices, and the Cup designated the Priesthood.
The Coins, the Commerce
The Baton, the Crozier, the Goad, represent Agriculture.