Marseilles Pips meanings?

kwaw

Squared circle and Tree of Life

kwaw said:
Being my usual perverse self I devised a different method I call 'squaring the circle':

divide a square into 9 cells:

7 8 9
4 5 6
1 2 3

Discard the fool and I goes in 1, II in 2, etc; discard X then return so XI goes in 9, XII in 8, etc and discard the last two [XX and XXI].

The two cards in each square hence add up to XX:

1 = I Bateleur and XVIIII Sun
2 = II Papesse and XVIII Moon
etc.

Each row and each column thus adds up to 60, and 6x60=360, hence 'squaring the circle'.

The ascending trumps you can use with the ascending suits, swords and staves; the returning trumps with the descending suits cups and coins [though you can obviously swap them around to your own preference]. The three discarded trumps and fool with the 4 X's [again, choose as you feel fits best].

Kwaw

Atttributions the tree of life

There are many ways in which the squared circle generated pairs can be applied to the tree of life. For example.

1 – Bateleur / Sun – The second sefirah Chokmah
2 – Popesse / Moon – Binah
3 – Empress / Star – Daath

4 – Emperor / House of God – Chesed
5 – Pope/ Devil – Geburah
6 – Lover / Temperance – Tifareth

7 – Chariot / Death – Netzach
8 – Justice / Hanged Man – Hod
9 – Hermit / Strength – Yesod

The four discarded cards:

0 – Fool / Judgement – The first sefirah Kether
10 – Wheel of Fortune / World – The last sefirah Malkuth

Numbers 1, 4 and 7 of the square of nine thus corresponds to the right hand pillar and the letter Yod in the divine name;
Numbers 2, 5 and 8 of the square of nine thus corresponds to the left hand pillar and the letter Heh in the divine name;
Numbers 3, 6 and 9 of the square of nine thus corresponds to the middle pillar and the letter Vau in the divine name.

On the principle that fire rises, water descends and air comes between them [SY] the numbers 1, 2 and 3 may correspond to the letter Shin, 4, 5 and 6 the letter Alef and 7, 8 and 9 to the letter Mem. Alternatively, according to the alchemical model the letters 7, 8 [the bottom horizontal] and 9 may refer to the fire and thus to the letter shin, 4, 5 and 6 to Mem and 7, 8 and 9 go Alef ([ShMA - listen to he whose [ShM] name is one [A] YHV [IAO]).

Kwaw

venicebard

kwaw said:
In Manichaean theology the ruler of light and the ruler of darkness each have five members…and the principle of light borders on the principle of darkness and "there is no keeping apart between them, for the light touches the darkness on its border…and out of this darkness Satan came into being.

The pleroma of light is triple, and each of the triadic parts has five attributes or limbs. The dark Pleroma is also triple, each with five attributes, as a mirror or inversion to the pleroma of light. Thus in Manichean theology there is the relationship between the Father of Light and King of Darkness, and the numbers 5 and 15 [the five limbs in the triple pleroma of light and the triple pleroma of darkness].

Interesting (I'm not thoroughly familiar with Manicheanism, being myself a non-dualist). I would look at it slightly differently: the triple aspect would be the three manifested signs (signs from the horizon down) on either side of the aries-libra center-post, those in external reality (forward, towards cancer the breasts) and those within (towards capricorn, back towards-or-into self). The latter is the realm of light to the Gnostic, the former being that of the diffused light or fog (relative darkness) of nature (at least in its present state, but mainly in the sense of sensation being a distraction from the inner light).

The five, then, would be the five signs altogether -- including the unmanifested -- on either side of the center-post or bodily axis. The manifested ones would thus be taken twice (being the realm of the 7 doubles), thus producing a total of 8, not 15, by my reckoning. But perhaps there is something explicit in the Manichean tradition of which I am unaware that precludes my interpretation: this is merely how what you describe appears to my viewpoint as-is.

The holy father and the king of darkness, a gnostic connection in the numbers V and XV?

As Paul says,

Paul said:
Indeed, Venicebard.

I have seen several number "combo platters," if you will, and it seems that there can be made a rationale for just about any of the combinations in most associations, like I-X or I-XXI or X-XI or I-XVIIII. In some combinations, ideas/symbols between cards are repeated but in variation, in others ideas/symbols are placed in duality, in others ideas/symbols are related.

. . . there are many number links that yield information. Certainly V and XV are linked in a very obvious way: the latter is fair-or-just combat (XX LeJugement) minus the hand (that which blesses, meaning V LePape) of one combatant, making it unfair (XV LeDiable).

But it is quite clear, from structural symmetry combined with Lurianic Kabbalah, that fifth (V) is originally opposite fifth-from-the-end (XVII), the mirror being XI, and that the 'breaking of the vessels' causes those from IIII on to slip down one in the reflection (when Narcissus falls in the pool and roils its waters, to put it in Gnostic terms), putting V even with XVI in fallen Adam (in the temporal, but not in the eternal). [Yet linguistically it is V and XVII -- beyt and vav, in bardic terms -- that interchange some in roots, not V and XVI (beyt and shin) or V and XV (beyt and reysh).]

Paul

kwaw said:
The hermit holds up the lamp of reason, in fortitude, reason 'tames' or is allied to force.
Kwaw

I re-read this explanation and I think I now understand how the 9 can be associated with perfection and completion and horizon. With wisdom allied with force we have the winning combination to accomplish something "perfectly" to its end, because effort is applied so wisely, just like Hercules' or Heracles' labors were such wise or clever application of force.

...makes we wonder about looking at the other doubled-up trumps as "allies" in order to derive the (say Pythagorean) meaning of the number and pip.

And, of course, I always ask myself whether the originators intended such a connection or if that's just a modern "clever" overlay.

kwaw

Fortitude is the integration of the spirited aspect of the soul [the lion] with the reasoning aspect [the human figure or angel] .

In Hebrew the reasoning aspect of the soul is called Neshamah and the spirited aspect of the soul is called Ruach and the integration of the two is designated by the initial letters of the two which together form the word NR, which means lamp.

Kwaw

kwaw

kwaw said:
Atttributions the tree of life

There are many ways in which the squared circle generated pairs can be applied to the tree of life. For example.

1 – Bateleur / Sun – The second sefirah Chokmah
2 – Popesse / Moon – Binah
3 – Empress / Star – Daath

4 – Emperor / House of God – Chesed
5 – Pope/ Devil – Geburah
6 – Lover / Temperance – Tifareth

7 – Chariot / Death – Netzach
8 – Justice / Hanged Man – Hod
9 – Hermit / Strength – Yesod

The four discarded cards:

0 – Fool / Judgement – The first sefirah Kether
10 – Wheel of Fortune / World – The last sefirah Malkuth

Numbers 1, 4 and 7 of the square of nine thus corresponds to the right hand pillar and the letter Yod in the divine name;
Numbers 2, 5 and 8 of the square of nine thus corresponds to the left hand pillar and the letter Heh in the divine name;
Numbers 3, 6 and 9 of the square of nine thus corresponds to the middle pillar and the letter Vau in the divine name.

On the principle that fire rises, water descends and air comes between them [SY] the numbers 1, 2 and 3 may correspond to the letter Shin, 4, 5 and 6 the letter Alef and 7, 8 and 9 to the letter Mem. Alternatively, according to the alchemical model the letters 7, 8 [the bottom horizontal] and 9 may refer to the fire and thus to the letter shin, 4, 5 and 6 to Mem and 7, 8 and 9 go Alef ([ShMA - listen to he whose [ShM] name is one [A] YHV [IAO]).

Kwaw

Kwaw

kwaw

kwaw said:
Fortitude is the integration of the spirited aspect of the soul [the lion] with the reasoning aspect [the human figure or angel] .

In Hebrew the reasoning aspect of the soul is called Neshamah and the spirited aspect of the soul is called Ruach and the integration of the two is designated by the initial letters of the two which together form the word NR, which means lamp.

Kwaw

Quote:

"The importance of bringing the neshamah and ruach into alignment is detected by the Zohar in the word for lamp NR, in reference to a verse from proverbs (20:27): 'The soul of man is the lamp of God.' The two letters of this word nr are the initial letters of neshamah and ruach. According to the Zohar, the word hints at the need to achieve an integration of the two levels of the neshamah and ruach. The implication is that the lamp can only shine forth when this integration is accomplished:

"The neshamah is above and the ruach is below and they join together as one, like male and female. When they are united they shine with a supernal light, and in this union they are together called nr (lamp). 'The soul of man is the nr of God (Proverbs 20:27). What is nr? Neshamah ruach. (Zohar 2:99b)"

End quote from The Essence of Kabbalah by Brian L. Lancaster (Arcturus 2006).

Kwaw

venicebard

kwaw said:
On the principle that fire rises, water descends and air comes between them [SY] . . .

. . . the fire-and-water part of this also being found in traditional interpretation of the 'Star of David', which identifies the triad pointing up with fire and that pointing down with water.

What I wish someone would explain to me is why people on seeing this fail to note the discrepancy between this and astrology's allocation of elements to triads? With the zodiac oriented as horoscope-drawers are wont to orient it, with aries on the eastern horizon and the first six 'houses' below ground, water points down but fire points east . . . whilst arranged according to the zodiac's traditional application to the human body, with aries being the head and thus pointing up, fire points up and water off towards the outer horizon somewhere (horizontally). Are we to interpret this as meaning that the fire triad is only the fire triad relative to the upright torso, while that of water is only that of water when casting horoscopes? Or that fire is fire when we are standing but not when we are lying down, whilst water is water only when we are lying on our stomachs like serpents?

[Should it not be apparent to more than just myself and Harold W. Percival that the primordial elemental triads were/are generated in natural order (fire-air-water-earth) by the first four signs, so that fire points up, at the head, water down, towards the loins, earth the direction one's earthly body faces (cancer the breasts), and air the direction of the wind in one's face when moving forward, i.e. back towards capricorn? Do people simply ignore the physiological aspect of the zodiac? Or do they replace it with the obvious blinds put there by SY (right/left hand/foot, gall bladder, etc.)? Three different ways of applying elements to the four quarters (cardinal signs) were known to those who arranged the letters in their alef-bet order (as I can easily but not briefly show), so why is it such a mystery to the supposedly more sophisticated minds of today (the key word here being supposedly)?]

kwaw said:
Kwaw

Something should be clarified about the Tree that this diagram misconstrues: Da'at is not 3, and the first Sefirah is not 0. The identification of Keter with ain ('nothing' or 'nought') on the one hand means nothing having yet differentiated itself from the One, while on the other hand (really the flip side of the same coin) the Tree itself is said to progress from ain (alef-yod-nun), 'nought', to ani (alef-nun-yod, by transposition of yod and nun), 'I', meaning it maps the differentiation of the individual, the Shekhinah being the Presence of the divine in the individual (or collectively, in individuals).

No, Da'at was originally 4, not 3, and lost that status (in fallen man's psyche) when the lower seven Sefirot underwent the 'breaking of the vessels', which pushed 4 on to the next station, on the male side, and the rest each forward one as well. This is easily understood once the Tree is seen in terms of its origin, as the first ten stations of the round from up to back (aries the head to capricorn or mid-spine, which becomes the knees in the broken-and-extended zodiac): that is, from up, that which is exalted (next to which I am 'nothing', ain), to back towards self (where I am 'I', ani). When the Sefirot are subjected to the maelstrom of time, they 'blur out' into the arcs leading from each of them to the next. In the unmanifest (above the horizon) each arc remains associated with the sign whence it springeth; but in the manifest (where the lower seven Sefirot are), each becomes associated with where it ends up. Since 3 is in the unmanifest and springeth from the 3rd station (gemini), and 4 is in the manifest and ends up in the 5th station (leo), the original 4th station (cancer) is still there but no longer associated (in fallen man's psyche, that is) with any Sefirah, yet we know it to be there and call it Da'at.

venicebard

venicebard said:
When the Sefirot are subjected to the maelstrom of time, they 'blur out' into the arcs leading from each of them to the next. In the unmanifest (above the horizon) each arc remains associated with the sign whence it springeth; but in the manifested half (where the lower seven Sefirot are), each becomes associated with where it ends up.

I forgot to point out how this leads to the diagram of the Tree.

The stations of the round fall into three tetrads (groups of four, as crosses or squares): the cardinal, the male, and the female. In astrology the male signs became labeled 'fixed' and the female 'movable', male and female then being applied by astrology to the macrocosmic and microcosmic hexads (groups of six signs). The macrocosmic hexad -- based on the vertical aries-libra (head-loins) axis, which extends indefinitely -- was labeled male (based perhaps on male chauvinism or perhaps on the womb's being considered the microcosm). The microcosmic hexad -- based on the horizontal axis, which cannot extend out from the torso for the simple reason that any distance at all away from the vertical axis of the body it has to either follow earth's curvature else no longer be horizontal, which by the way is why the body itself is extended along the vertical and not along the horizontal -- was labeled female. (Women being shorter, astrology assigns them the shorter axis, I guess.)

But in the original symbol, the straight-up-and-down tetrad is the cardinal one, naturally, whilst the one leaning forward is male and the one leaning back is female, this being the predominant pattern in human mating (where the male is usually the aggressor). Hence the alternation in the pattern of the Tree inclusive of Da'at: neutral-male-female-neutral-male-female, and so on. When the breaking of the vessels occurs, 4 shifts from neutral to male, pushing 5 over to female (where it becomes, in Asiyah, the martial ideal presented by a mother defending her young), and so on.

[The above can also be deduced from type or form, as it is the manifestation of Sefirot in the world Yetzirah or formation, not in all four worlds as the rabbis have come to mistakenly believe. The first form is sexless Adam Qadmon, the second and third the prototype male and female: if these do not lose awareness of their inate inner connexion, they are reabsorbed into a sexless form consisting of 4 elements. The Fall, however, involves losing that awareness, which leads to a uniting outwardly to procreate, which changes prototypes 2-3 into actual procreating 4 and 5, which produce offspring 6, which if it should change and become motivated not by procreation but by lust generates the sorry male and female types we are today, 7 and 8 ('endurance' and 'splendor' being jokes at our expense, meaning, "You call this endurance? you call this splendor?"), who no longer agree on the goal of cohabitation and thus produce divided offspring 9 and 10.]

[The above generates four 'earths' or layers of the tetractys: 1 is the earth of Adam Qadmon, 2-3 that of the prototype sexes (a test of balance), 4-5-6 that of the procreating sexes -- where there is death (from birth) but not suffering, and 7-8-9-10 that of lustful man -- where lust, being lack, generates suffering. Interestingly, Judaism and Catholicism both admonish man to lift himself up from the fourth 'earth' to the third, Catholicism by stating procreation to be the proper goal of cohabitation, and Judaism (unbeknownst, apparently, to most rabbis) by the commandment "Thou shalt not invoke the Name of the Lord thy God in vain." For the Name, yod-heh-vav-heh, is the creative power itself: in man, it has shrunk to just the loins (so to speak) to become mere procreation, but in Adam Qadmon, the divine Form, it pervaded (pervades) the entire being.]

[I could ammend the above by adding IMO or IMHO (and I gladly offer the 'H' part), but I draw a distinction between opinion and careful deduction, hence to do so would be somewhat disingenuous on my part. However, whoever reads this is certainly at liberty to think it merely my opinion.]

kwaw

venicebard said:
No, Da'at was originally 4, not 3,

10 not 9, 10 not 11; keter and daath are said to be mutually exclusively; that is when one is counted the other isn't. My representation is traditional, like it or not Chokmah from 13th century sources on is referenced as the beginning, with the second as the first.

Kwaw

venicebard

kwaw said:
My representation is traditional, like it or not Chokmah from 13th century sources on is referenced as the beginning, with the second as the first.

Yes, the 'beginning' in that it is the first differentiation from the One, just as beyt, Hebrew 2, begins creation.