I think it was in the thread on VII - Le Chariot in which I mentioned that I would make a comment about the
Corpus Hermeticum or
Hermetica (which includes the
Asclepius) when reaching this card. Quite frankly, I had forgotten until discussions in the more recent
Difference between Wirth and Marseilles? thread somehow triggered some memory.
It should be remembered that the
Hermetica, or at least parts of it, was studied and in many ways revered even back in the tweflth century. But it probably is in the fifteenth that it became of prominence again. Earlier, St Augustine makes reference to (and even quotes parts of) it. Hermes was also reverred as a living figure predating possibly Moses. If I remember correctly, Ficino, in his
Pimander (circa late 15th C.) dates him so.
In 1488, Giovanni di Stefano, according to some, erected an image of Hermes in the Cathedral of Siena.
Earlier, the various 'heresies' of the Waldenses, the Cathars and the Bogomils were common enough - and even reigned and numerous regions - ranging from Germany, down to, significantly, Northern Italy, and of course the Langue d'Oc regions - amongst others.
Copernicus, who lived between the late 15th and early 16th century, is often claimed to be the first person to present a full Heliocentric universe (some ancient Greeks had postulated a
partial Heliocentric one).
But let us get to the
Hermetica:
XVI (2) [...] The very quality of the speech and the sound of Egyptian words have in themselves the energy of the objects they speak of.
In some ways, we need to go no further than this portion of the text to understand the significance placed on the search for ancient Egypt magic if the veracity of the text is assumed - which it was by many. But let us continue the text:
[...] For the Greeks have empty speeches, O king, that are energetic only in what they demonstrate, and this is the philosophy of the Greeks, an inane foolosophy of speeches. We, by contrast, use not speeches but sounds that are full of action.
Here again, the text suggests that though there is recognition of the Greek in its demonstration of Ancient wisdom, the very sounding of the
words, in Egyptian, contains a creative act. All this section deals with the Being of the Sun, to which at least some mediaeval Christians associated with the Christ, the divine Craftsman. The text, of course, does not mention Christ - that was for later interpreters:
[...] (5) In this way, the craftsman (I mean the sun) binds heaven to earth, sending essence below and raising matter above, attracting everything toward the sun and around it, offering everything from himself to everything, as he gives freely of the ungrudging light. For it is the sun whence good energies reach not only through sky and air but even to earth and down to the nethermost deep and abyss.
[...] (7) But a vision of the sun is not a matter of guesswork. Since it is the visual ray itself, the sun shines all around the cosmos with the utmost brilliance, on the part above and on the part below. For the sun is situated in the centre of the cosmos, wearing it like a crown.
Or was Copernicus the first to postulate the centrality of the Sun? Here, also, practical Kabbalists would have taken note, for where wisdom is mentioned, whether as
Sophia or not, cHokmah would have been understood, or at least linked. And now we continue with the very beneficiant effects of the Sun, first mentioned above, and which the card itself seems very much to contain:
[...] (8) [...], the sun enlivens and awakens, with becoming and change, the things that live in these regions [in water, on earth and in air] of the cosmos. (9) It brings transmutation and transformation among them, as in a spiral, when change turns one thing to another, from kind to kind, from form to form, crafting them just as it does the great bodies. For the permanence of every body is change: in an immortal body the change is without dissolution; in a mortal body there is dissolution. [...]
Such text would have, at the very least, both rendered the importance of the Ancient Egyptian, support for the concept the power of the word - indicated in St John's Gospel, and, unfortunately, the very real eventual heretical charges first implied by St Augustine.
If those who were viewed or in any way used Tarot were also even partially acquainted with this body of work, and attached to it the significance which many did, then how deeper suddenly becomes this image - and by association, all others!
It should also be considered, in my view, that, as we live in an over-abundant word-oriented society (we cannot go anywhere without 'meaningful' text being presented to our eyes), so did the late mediaevalists and renaissance dwellers live, on the whole, in meaningful image rich environments - the Tarot being only part of the rich tapestry.
