Tarot and Kabbala

Huck

MikeH said:
I just discovered this thread yesterday and skimmed through it quickly. Fortunately I already had some familiarity with Huck and Ross’s arguments. I really admire Kapoore’s persistence in insisting that his questions haven’t been answered. I agree.

...

... Kapoore has a lot of questions. I agree, that I also would like, if world could have the button with the function "spoonfeeding", if I desire information.

I want to put my two bits in, if anyone is still reading this thread. Excuse me for covering a lot of ground. I also apologize for not knowing how to mark links or put titles in italics.

You have to use the brackets "[" and "]" and include an "i" for Italic and an "/i" for stopping Italic. For bold font you use b and /b, for images img and /img ... however, this works only in the history group.

First, Huck indeed hasn’t explained how the Michelino evolved into the Cary-Yale and beyond. The story is probably lost to history, but I have written, for my own amusement if nothing else, one way it could have happened. It’s at http://mtocy.blogspot.com/.

Indeed you've written a lot. I'll start a reading, thanks for your deep interest ... there are not much readers, who go so far.

Second, as to how there came to be 22 trumps. Ross wrote a post a while back (http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=28920) about how the Charles VI deck had little numbers written on some of them--done after the deck was made, but probably in the same century.

As you say it ... not necessarily written at the time of production. And if it was 15th century or 16th century, that would change much.

They show that there were 20 trumps ... etc.

I think, I should study your writings at your website first.

Next date: the summer of 1457. Galeazzo Sforza is visiting Ferrara, perhaps his first time away from home. He doesn’t stay at the d’Este palace, but instead at the Pico della Mirandola residence, where the Count has two sons around Galeazzo’s age. Their cousin, Matteo Boiardo, is around the same age (on the later version of his birth year: see http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Boairdo or http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&IUD=71. I would imagine Matteo’s father telling him that it never hurts to make friends with a future Duke of Milan.

I think, that they were at Belriguardo, the summer residence of the d'Este and near to Ferrara. It's true, that a Franceso Pico de Mirandola was there, probably ...

euweb.cz said:
FRANCESCO III, Co-signore della Mirandola e Concordia 1399, Conte di Concordia 1432, Signore di Scaldasole 1423, +1461; m.Pietra, dau.of Marco Pio, Lord of Carpi by Taddea de Roberti

..., so this would be a man of 58 years, a guiding "grand-father" in his personality.
As far I know, we've no confirmation of Boiardo's presence for this moment, who is in this time probably in Scandiano. Galeazzo's stay is about 6 weeks, so surely he met some other younger persons there.
Generally the "Ferrara-with-much- children" situation, which was definitely true for the situation of ca. 1440, when the Trionfi cards probably started, wasn't true for the court of Borso d'Este. "Bianca Maria d'Este" (* 1440), to whome Bianca Maria Visconti was godmother, was there as a 17-years-old girl, and she much later (1469) married Galeotto Pico de Mirandola ... and the Ferrarese court painter Tura painted pictures in a Mirandola studiolo ... so we've some evidence for a closer Mirandola/Ferrara connection at the Borso time. Also Niccolo da Correggio (8 years), son of Beatrice d'Este (who had married Tristano Sforza and went to Milan 1454/55), was there.
I've no access to Lubkin in the moment. You've to cite him, if you wish to correct me.

To while away the rainy days, as Galeazzo writes his father, they play Trionfi (letter of 2 August, in Gregory Lubkin, A Renaissance Court: Milan under Galeazzo Maria Sforza, p. 309). Perhaps the 5x14 decks ordered at that time were for them.

Of course, what else ...

Perhaps the d'Este deck in the Beinecke Library (viewable on-line) is one of them.

Isn't there somewhere Aragonese heraldic on this (Este) deck? There was no reason to have Aragonese heraldic on Este decks in Borso's time.

Galeazzo would have known the game in Milan, where they might have had a slightly different deck. At any rate, Galeazzo and the young Pico della Mirandolas (not including Giovanni, who wasn’t born yet) play cards with a proto-tarot. There is no mention of chess. Triumphs was a women’s and children’s game, chess a man’s game. Around this same time, Ferrara is accepting Jewish immigrants from Spain with open arms. Hebrew and the Jewish heritage are all the rage, despite those bigots in Rome. Boiardo and Giovanni, at least, go at it. (But I would appreciate knowing Huck’s reference for Boiardo’s facility in Hebrew.)

Mari Hoshizaki (alias Cerulean) contributed this, as far I remember. There were Jews at Scandiano also, already rather early in the 40's.

http://books.google.com/books?id=Ne...ig=0oJKKJQcpvUzQdYunGGP-ZNXkDg&hl=en#PPA28,M1

This report offers a date of 1445, but surprizingly not much of the following time. When our article was written, an Italian website about Scandiano reported Jews in Scandiano in the 1440's.
Possibly Mari took this from Gardner, Dukes and Poets in Ferrara: A Study in the Poetry, Religion and Politics ..., there is a passage, in which Boiardo defends against an attacker on the Jews (p. 279), which I only realize by a snippet view via amazon.com. Actually its surprizing to me, that Boiardo's Hebrew studies (which are not unlikely regarding Boiardo's intellectual life, even if they might have been only small) is difficult to confirm.

....

Trionfi proposes Jan. 1487 as the time of Boiardo's s poem, between 1 and 2 months after Pico's Theses came out. That is as good a date as any, although I do not understand why the Lucrezia of the poem had to be the Lucrezia who married then, as opposed to others, such as his cousin, Giovanni's sister, born 1463, or Ludovico Sforza's mistress, or Lorenzo de' Medici's mother or mistress. Perhaps Boiardo is jokingly implying that her getting married, whoever she is, is like the legendary Lucrezia’s suicide after rape. That might narrow the field.

Lucrezia's marriage had been a very monstruous activity. Two theatre evenings had been given in Ferrara alone, the number of the onlookers might have been 3000-5000, perhaps even more. The journey from Ferrara to Bologna was only short, but probably the wedding activities in Bologna surpassed those in Ferrara, a big triumphal march and others.

Generally the region had a longer period of wars, the period of 1482-84 had been especially troublesome for Ferrara. The oeconomic losses still were felt till ca. 1490. Generally the killing actions in December 1476 Milan (Galeazzo Maria Sforza) and in Florence 1478 (attack on the Medici brothers) had changed the Italian climate for a longer period - which means less festivities, less triumphal processions, more wars and fighting.
As a specific observation: the annual Giovanni festivities in midsummer, a long and traditional public happening with much visitors from other cities, were stopped between 1478-88.

The great festivity around Ercole's daughter Lucretia opened a new period between 1487 - 1493, in which Italy was mainly occupied with great marriages, the last of these made an Italian daughter (Bianca Maria Sforza) to the Empress of the Empire. Lucrezia's marriage was only the beginning of the series.
Funny enough, Lucrezia and her existence was partly completely overlooked by many researchers of the d'Este court. She was surpassed by the importance of her younger half-sisters.

But for 1487: Not only one, but many poets contributed to the festivity and admiration of Lucrezia at this moment ... it was a golden opportunity to return to festivity after a long pause with not much occupation for poets.

The structure of the Tarocchi poem has important and less important places. The Roman Lucrezia gets the top place (usually trump 21, world), although inside the many mentioned male and female heroes the figure of Lucrezia wouldn't get such a position - it's not really natural.

The card 0, normally Fool, notes two usual Tarot motifs, Fool and World, commonly in Tarot the cards 0 + 21. Then follow from 1-20 ten virtues + ten vices with the fine quality, that virtues are always presented by women and the vices always by men.
Then follows the 21st card and there is mentioned the only other usual Tarot card motif (Fortitudo or Strength, usually card Nr. 11) and - just Lucrezia.

If we assume a mathematical construction, we might suspect, that Boiardo took the begin and the end of the usual row (0 Fool + 21 World) for the first special card or first trump poem, and the usual middle cards (10, Fortune + 11, Strength) for the end of the sequence, so that Lucrezia presents "lucky Fortune" ...

Well, may this be, as it is, it's obvious by structural analysis, that Lucrezia is the most honoured person in the poem. This correlated with the time and known data from the d'Este court, it becomes obvious, that the poem was made for January 1487 and not at another opportunity.
We've got meanwhile confirmation for this thesis by the production of 3 paintings ordered by Leonora d'Este from Ercole Roberti around this time, all showing self-murdering women (all 3 regarded as signs of virtue) and the Roman Lucrzia is between them.
Further confirmation is given by a specific Ferrarese literature, in which "women are better than men" (as it also appears in the Boiardo poem), and the begin of this rather radical feministic literary perspective can be placed precisely on the time of 1487-90 (Bartholomeo Goggio, De laudibus mulierum) ... earlier representations of famous women, which existed as a follow-up to Boccaccio's "De mulieribus claris" failed to present this radical viewing point.

venicebard

kapoore said:
First I want to simply review what probably everyone already knows about Tarot and Kabbala. The Kabbala's relation to Tarot was synthesized by the Golden Dawn, which in turn got material through Eliphas Levi probably via Kenneth Mackensie. And Eliphas Levi got his material from Athanasius Kircher and Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim.

Here you make, at the outset, a statement I take strong issue with. Yes the Italianists (Huck et al) pooh-pooh any notion of Kabbalah's relationship to the original tarot. But except for the 5x14 theory Huck seems to place so much faith in (which dismisses the problem), no-one seems to be able to explain why the structure of the original tarot follows precisely that of Kabbalah: 22 letters/trumps, 10 Sefirot/pips in 4 worlds/suits, and the 4-letter Name (four court cards) reverberating through those same 4 worlds/suits. To be sure, as most of the experts here seem to be (amongst which I take Ross more seriously than I take Huck, who has an axe to grind), that the original cards bore no relation to Kab. is simply bad scholarship.

When I read Yygdrasilian's opening statement,

Yygdrasilian said:
Oh..... but didn’t you know? The origins of Tarot, particularly the Trumps, has nothing to do with Kabbala as it has been demonstrated quite conclusively that they were invented for the amusement of teenage girls - their familial ties with the 'architects' of the Renaissance is purely a matter of coincidence. There couldn’t possibly be any compelling reason for such learned men, whose intellectual and artistic pursuits challenged over 1000 years of Roman Orthodox hegemony, to conceal ‘forbidden knowledge’ in plain sight; nor is it feasible they’d have any motive for spreading a symbolic language throughout Europe under the guise of a simple card game. It’s not like they were interested in a rebirth of learning... and, even if they were, how could clandestinely injecting a mystic doctrine into the popular imagination serve that purpose?

. . . I honestly thought he was being facetious; yet it appears he was not.

The relation to Kab. is to be found only, I believe, in the Tarot de Marseille, as its trumps' symbolism down to the last detail has a quite unforced correspondence to the 22 letters if correlated thereto by the numbers Irish bards in the Middle Ages gave them (given by Robert Graves in The White Goddess), as opposed to simple letter-order in Hebrew or Greek. Indeed to even fully understand the symbolic meaning of each Hebrew letter requires (in most cases) taking into account which symbolically important tree it is in the Irish tree-alphabet. For example, the sound m ("mm") signifies sweetness or savoriness, but it is the fact that it is, in Irish, muin the vine (whose grape is the standard of sweetness and used still to sweeten other juices) tells us its deeper import is life's interconnectedness ("Heard it through the grapevine"), which is what its trump, VI The Lover, pictures.

If I am correct (and I believe I am), the relation to Kab. was not directly from being designed by Jewish Kabbalists (Kab. having originated in 12th-century Provence-Languedoc, not Spain as one contributor to this thread seems to think), nor through what we now know as 'Christian Kabbalah'. No, I believe it was a product of intercourse between the Judaic esotericism flourishing in the Languedoc of the Troubadours and Cathars and the 'matter of Britain', that is, the bringing to the Continent of the bardic lore of the Kelts of Britain, whose tradition has, provably, a common origin with that of the Jews. For example, the tree-alphabet has S the willow at early spring (near aries the head) and M the vine at the autumn equinox (libra the loins [what is opposite the head]), with A the silver fir midway between (at capricorn, the winter solstice), just as the (pre-Kabbalistic) Sefer Yetzirah has S or shin as the head, M or mem as the 'belly', and A or alef as the trunk connecting them (capricorn of the closed zodiac would be mid-spine, as opposed to the broken-and-extended one, where it is the knees).

There are too many details demonstrating the relationship to go into here (unless prompted), but you can see, for example, that pillars Jachin and Boaz are referenced by the King of Clubs having one pillar back of his throne but the Queen of Swords having two back of hers, since they are associated, respectively, with fire and wind, which in tarot means Clubs and Swords. We even see (though many here profess to be blind to it) a circumcised member in II LaPapesse (what clasps her cloak, part of the scene of lovemaking suggested by it in conjunction with the hangings above her), this because bardic 2 was E (eadhe, quivering aspen) and thus corresponds to Hebrew heh, the letter added to Abram to symbolize said covenant.

The gnosis whence arose tarot must be sought in the roots of the (later) Christian Kab., that is, in the initial marriage of Judaic and Keltic traditions that may indeed have generated Kab. (two decayed traditions with a common root 'filling each other's holes' when superimposed one upon the other). For the correspondence with Judaic Kab. goes much deeper than would be possible if Christian Kab. were its source. No, its makers were more properly Gnostics (though without the radical dualist bent of the Cathars and Manichaeans), adherents of the original British form of Christianity (later superceded by Rome) that believed in free will (opposing St. Augustine in this) and was essentially Gnostic in character (that is, preserving of earlier pagan wisdom, not destructive of it). I see Kab. itself as the immediate result of intermingling of Judaic and Keltic among Jews, tarot as the delayed result amongst holdouts of the superior British Christianity (the non-witchburning kind).

But of course the rest of you can go on thinking otherwise if you wish (my sadness thereat is not for myself but for scholarship in general).

MikeH

Since nobody has commented, let me add a few things.

First, a correction to my previous post: Pico died after, not before, his rehabilitation by the new pope. Alexander VI was installed in 1493; Pico died in 1494. Wikipedia says he was probably poisoned.

Now the additions: Here are two suggestions of Kabbalist influencing the development of tarot imagery between 1487 and 1781.

1. In the Noblet, mid-17th century, the crown on the Ace of Swords is put just where the sefira Kether, meaning Crown, would be on the Kabbalists’ image of the sefiroth. See

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/jean-noblet/index.shtml

If you look at the Cary-Yale,

http://tarot.com/tarot/decks/index.php?deckID=2&cardID=50

or the Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo,

http://tarot.com/tarot/decks/index.php?deckID=35&cardID=50

the crown is not there. If you look at the early decks in Kaplan, Vol. 2, p. 273ff, you will see that it is not in most of these decks either. It does appear in the deck pictured on p. 284, but lower down, not in the Kether position.

2. In the Noblet again, on the Magician’s table (to our left) are 3 coins connected by 2 lines.

http://www.tarot-history.com/Jean-Noblet/pages/ll-bateleur.html

Taken as an abstract design, as opposed to objects on a table, this is a Kabbalistic talisman, one of the “words of God.” (He was thought to speak geometrically and to smile favorably on those who repeated his words back to him.) Compare to the images at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sefer_Raziel_HaMalakh

and even closer, http://www.kabalatalisman.com/Talismans/.

The Sefer Raziel enjoyed much popularity during the 16th and 17th centuries in its Latin translation. But if you look at the later Magicians, by Dodal or Conver,

http://www.tarot-history.com/Symbolism/pages/bateleur.html

you will see that the coins have been altered. Perhaps the card makers bowed to Church pressure (which viewed the talismans as diabolical), or the Kabbalist association had faded from memory.

Two other additions. The Isrraeli book discussing the Zohar and Christianity is Yehuda Liebes, Studies in the Zohar. Some pages are available on Google books, although I don’t think the part on Eriugena/Erigena is. The copy I read is checked out from my local library. I gather that Scholem did see Eriugena’s influence on one version of the Book of Contemplation, c. 1200 (Mark Verman, The Books of Contemplation: Medieval Jewish Mystical Sources, p. 181). I don't think that's in the literature that came to Italy.

Finally, let me state in another way Pico’s and Boiardo’s impact on tarot. It is my tentative belief that tarot was invented so that people could play a trick-taking card game without incurring the wrath of the Church. Tarot was usually exempted from the Church’s condemnation of cards. I think the reason is that the Church saw the game as of educational value. Since the trumps didn’t have numbers on them, to play the game you had to know the sequence. To do that, without constantly looking at a list, the easiest way was to remember a story that linked all the images. The story was that of Christian salvation, and all the images showed aspects of that story in an easily memorized sequence. But after Pico, and Boiardo’s application of Pico to tarot, humanists had a green light and some pointers for finding there not only the keys to Christian salvation, but to salvation in many other traditions as well—all the traditions enumerated by Pico, at least. You just had to say what corresponded to the cards’ images, and maybe also their numbers, in the other traditions. Thereby you also had keys to using the cards for divination. The possibilities were limited only by the erudition and/or ingenuity of the interpreter. You could even invent new versions of traditions (calling them old but secret, perhaps). Once the Church (in its assorted varieties) was sufficiently weak, by the late 18th century, they could even be published. And of course card makers, from early on, modified the images to accommodate the new interpretations, although as long as the Church was a threat they had to keep the basic Christian orientation. In any case, endless new markets were opened up in which card makers, humanists, charlatans, and all those in between, could sell their wares. An industry was created that continues to this day. It is one, let me hasten to add, that can indeed be of great spiritual value.

Huck

MikeH said:
Since nobody has commented, let me add a few things.

??? I gave a comment, see above

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/jean-noblet/index.shtml

If you look at the Cary-Yale,

http://tarot.com/tarot/decks/index.php?deckID=2&cardID=50

or the Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo,

http://tarot.com/tarot/decks/index.php?deckID=35&cardID=50

the crown is not there. If you look at the early decks in Kaplan, Vol. 2, p. 273ff, you will see that it is not in most of these decks either. It does appear in the deck pictured on p. 284, but lower down, not in the Kether position.

"Sword with crown" appears in the heraldic of Jeanne d'arc

....
..
Finally, let me state in another way Pico’s and Boiardo’s impact on tarot. It is my tentative belief that tarot was invented so that people could play a trick-taking card game without incurring the wrath of the Church. Tarot was usually exempted from the Church’s condemnation of cards. I think the reason is that the Church saw the game as of educational value. Since the trumps didn’t have numbers on them, to play the game you had to know the sequence. To do that, without constantly looking at a list, the easiest way was to remember a story that linked all the images. The story was that of Christian salvation, and all the images showed aspects of that story in an easily memorized sequence.

The probable reason, why Trionfi cards weren't prohibited, was likely, that they were the toy of the upper class. In the one known case (the preaching of the Franciscan monk, actually not a real prohibition) ...

http://trionfi.com/0/p/17/

... it's possible, that it had been the work of Savonarola sympathisants around 1500, so not actually "from the church".

venicebard

kapoore said:
Both the Hebrew Kabbalah and the Occult Kabbalah are valid imaginary systems, but in the end very different. Occult Qabala comes directly out of the speculations of Kircher and Trithemius. Even Dion Fortuna admits that she is not basing her "pathworking" on the "Rabbis." Her system and Aleister Crowley's system are barely related to Hebrew Kabbalah other than the use of Hebrew letters (I am drawing on an article in the Dictionary of Gnosis Y Western Esotericism edited by Wouter j. Hanegraaff).

Crowley was a pure charlatan, in my view, but modern-day 'Hermetic Kabbalah' does preserve two key traditions I consider valid (other than the basic diagram of Sefirot as triplicities): correct assignment of planets to Sefirot (though seemingly missing the sun's association primarily with 2, rather than 6), and the paths' letter-assignment (though not that of trumps, having assigned them incorrectly to the letters). The former can be deduced from first principles (descending length of period in descending from 1, eternity, to 10, today) and cuts through the confusion of the lack of agreement in Jewish circles shown by A. Kaplan's commentary in Sefer Yetzirah.

The path-assignment's correctness I only suspect, yet the evidence is strong. For the letters on paths feeding into the central Sefirah (6-Tiferet) are in the order gimel-heh-zayin-yod-lamedh-nun-samekh-ayin. This begins with the letter at scorpio on the Cauldron (the half-round of the 7 doubles, phonetic order [starting at cancer] P-T-K-R-G-D-B but calendar-order the slightly altered D-T-K-M-G-P-B, with R banished to the center as it is the 13th month and thus has no sign of its own). This is followed by the signs scorpio through aries of the Egg (round of 12 simples, or zodiac) in their (by me) restored order (their order in the alef-bet being obviously jumbled, and provably so, since careful restoration based on inclusion of Keltic lore aligns the shapes of the letters properly with the parts of the body they picture, i.e. the physiological stations represented by those signs). And this is followed by the letter that in the Irish-preserved tree-alphabet is the vowel of aries's spring, O (ayin), though in Sefer Yetzirah terms (assignment of simples to Egg and doubles to Cauldron), it must rule spring from a seat at the hottest time of year, Egg's leo (vowel-equivalents occupy the bottom half of the Egg, skipping Q at virgo). This it does via the volatility of mercury when heated, that is, its tendency to rise up to occupy the upper half of the outer Egg or vessel (side towards cancer or straight out). This meaning embodied in O or ayin is also quite demonstrable (which I would be glad to do if anyone were interested, but I try never to get my hopes up).

So the paths feeding into 6 show (in descent of the Tree, oddly enough) the path up the spine to the head, started by gimel or desire (gimel as camels or gort the ivy wandering in search of something) and resulting in the flowering of one's creative force, symbolized by spring and its 'vapors'. [The trumps corresponding to them (as revealed by bardic numeration) go: Wheel-Papess-Empress-Sun-Temperance-(Death)-Justice-Emperor.]

And, I am inexperienced in magic so I can't comment on how the Hebrew alphabet works in that regard.

The magical aspect of the letters is mostly, I gather, centered in the physiological correspondences, though sources have these so jumbled currently as to make any real magic impossible (it was probably limited to a very small inner circle to begin with). However, over time I was able to restore, I think, the original scheme:

alef--sympathetic nerves
beyt--pineal body <also l. ear>
gimel--adrenals <also l. nostril>
dalet--lungs <also l. eye>
heh--organ of (sexual) pleasure [scorpio]
vav--breast (its old Semitic shape) [cancer]
zayin--lower spine or thigh [sagittary]
cheyt--shoulders [gemini]
teyt--loins, legs folded beneath one when meditating [libra]
yod--mid-spine or knee [capricorn]
kaf--kidneys <also r. ear>
lamedh--spine back of shoulders or ankles [aquarius]
mem--the blood
nun--spine back of neck or feet [pisces]
samekh--head [aries]
ayin--heart 'chakra'* [leo]
peh--pituitary body <also r. nostril>
tzaddi--throat or neck [taurus]
qof--womb (or prostate) [virgo]
reysh--gonads <also mouth>
shin--cerebrospinal nerves
tav--heart <also r. eye>

The sense openings of the head <enclosed in carrots> are a second attribution for each double: the Cauldron of the surroundings is centered atop the head, whose sense openings link us to the surroundings and can be seen as the initial attribution before radiating all the way out to the circumference, which encompasses the entire seated torso and thus yields the main physiological attributions (pineal, kidneys, etc.). The main significance of the sense-openings bit is that it explains why there is only one opening for taste yet two for each of the other three senses (smell being touch at its most focused): the water triad--primordially (as opposed to astrologically) the one pointing down--is the only one that has but one sign in the manifested half (the Cauldron).

How do I talk myself into these long explanations when no-one is probably even listening? I need therapy.

Shalom.

venicebard

Apologies to Huck and to Yggdrasil (or however he spells it)

venicebard said:
To be sure, as most of the experts here seem to be (amongst which I take Ross more seriously than I take Huck, who has an axe to grind), that the original cards bore no relation to Kab. is simply bad scholarship.

I should not have implied I have a low opinion of Huck: I consider him brilliant and generally accurate even if he appears to me somewhat misguided in his assumptions and approach. (His assimilation of I Ching hexagrams to the 3-mothers-7-doubles-12-simples structure is pure genius, and I have learned other things from him, though not always what he intended me to learn). Anyway, cheers, Huck.

venicebard said:
When I read Yygdrasilian's opening statement, I honestly thought he was being facetious; yet it appears he was not.

Upon having read further, I now cannot honestly say whether or not you were being facetiously satirical (in your first post on this thread), as I see you seem to discuss the subject with an open mind. Enlighten me, if you will, else I will at the very least suspend judgment till such time as I have read enough of your posts to sense more accurately where you are coming from.

Huck

venicebard said:
I should not have implied I have a low opinion of Huck: I consider him brilliant and generally accurate even if he appears to me somewhat misguided in his assumptions and approach. (His assimilation of I Ching hexagrams to the 3-mothers-7-doubles-12-simples structure is pure genius, and I have learned other things from him, though not always what he intended me to learn). Anyway, cheers, Huck.

...

... nice ... that you say that

and nice, that it seems, that you've understood something of the appearance of the structure ...

((1+6) + 3 + 12) + (1 + 3 + 6) = 32

in two different systems ...

... however ...

... I really don't know, what your strong developed tendency of syncretism might make out of it.

Anyway, I ask myself, what you will do out of this figure:

http://trionfi.com/001/ichingsphere.jpg

*******
It's recognizable in the SY, that the author interpreted the object 3-dimensional, so somehow a little nearer to the sphere/globe model as it could be recognized for the I-Ching in Chinese literature.

The big difference ... the SY has its focus on the 32 ways of wisdom , the I-Ching on the 64 hexagrams. As you probably know, the I-Ching has 3 major ways to generate pairs, so for instance hexagram 3 has hex. 4 (upside down), hex. 40 (trigram exchange) and hex. 50 (complementary structure) as partners. The SY uses the complementary structure only. The specific approach of the SY-author leads to a realization of the structure of I-Ching:

1 - 6 - (12 + 3) - (1 + 3 + 6)
... probably you understand it, it's just the structure of a half sphere or globe.

1-6 are in the SY recognized as "7 planets" ... or double lettters of the Hebrew alphabet
12 as the "zodiac" ... or simple letters
3 as "elements" ... or "mother letters"

1 - as a sort of very important reigning point
3 - as 3 other elements, somehow the 3 axis in a 3-dimensional space
6 - as the 6 directions of 3 dimensional space (six sides of a cube)

Planets and the zodiac are objects on circles and the object "3 dimensions" are given by the SY-text, the desribed object is "somehow" a globe. Naturally the author has only paper to describe his ideas, a complicated picture might have been a little bit too much for him.

...
I-Ching as an book with oracles describes in idealistic manner "all possible fates" ... there are 64 basic states.

The concept of Sepher Yetzirah is to describe "how God created the world with 32 ways of wisdom". And somehow it is told, that it is "wise" to unite opposites (which are inside 64 basic states) and to overcome the "normal logic" of "good-and-bad-patterns".

Merging both texts together transfers the SY to a commentary to the I-Ching and the I-Ching to a commentary of SY. Naturally the author of SY wrote in Aramean language and the author of I-Ching in old Chinese and also naturally the times of production and the places of production are parted by maybe more than 1000 years and 1000's of miles and - quite generally - by a totally different culture.

A comparition between I-Ching and SY has the result, that some elements are identical, but other elements are either typical "Chinese" and others typical "Jewish" or "Western tradition" ...

... so "blind syncretism" (in this analogy and also in others) naturally will walk into many stupids traps of wrong conclusions.

venicebard

Huck said:
... I really don't know, what your strong developed tendency of syncretism might make out of it.

What my theory proposes is not strictly speaking syncretism, which is defined as a 'reconciliation or union of conflicting beliefs' or a 'flagrant compromise in religion or philosophy' (2002 Merriam-Webster unabridged). Rather it is a reunion of two branches of the same tree; that is, a superimposing of two decayed versions of the same system so that they might fill each other’s holes (since they decayed by different routes).

It is understandable that one might think me syncretistic based on the fact that Hebrew and Keltic numbering is in conflict, and I suppose in that one regard there is something approaching syncretism in my approach, since I do find interplay between the two numbering systems. Yet I do not think of them as in conflict but rather as complementary, since the intent behind the letter-order of Hebrew (whence Hebrew numeration arises) is only fully comprehensible from a bardic perspective, to wit:

Preliminary: The simples’ original order about the round can only have been samekh-tzaddi-cheyt-vav-ayin-qof-teyt-heh-zayin-yod-lamedh-nun (as confirmed by their shapes), which is derived from the bardic calendar-sequence for the top half (aquarius through gemini, L-N-F-Ss-H) and phonetic vowel-sequence (and seasonal fit) for the bottom half (cancer through capricorn, U-O-A-Aa-E-I-Ii). For the A at virgo is replaced by Q (=Kk, virgo being K) when A moves to the center to act as mother-letter alef. And the F at aries is replaced by samekh in Hebrew because the round of the simples (the Egg) was conceived as the tongue in the mouth formed by the Cauldron (the twice-as-large half-round of 7 doubles in which the Egg rests), and F is not on the tongue, F being evidently conceived by pagans as sprouting out or up beyond the tongue to represent alder-god Vran or Bran (F=alder), the Corn Spirit.

So, in preparation, the 12 simples were carefully reordered such that: Signs capricorn through aries (upper rear quadrant) were moved so as to remain on the same triads. Signs aries through cancer (upper front quadrant) were moved to the astrological triads of their elements—from their original natural order, fire-air-water-earth (as in the Zohar), where water points down like rain, not out like earth. And signs leo through sagittary (the remaining signs, the underside of the round) carried their elements to where common lore puts them (fire/south, air/east, water/west, earth/north, up being north on average for man and out being west because it is where the round descends), the first three being considered the elements they are in manifestation, not as triads, since they are in manifested nature (quadrant from straight out to straight down, in other words, the ground). [Each of the original triads manifests in the element following: earth in cancer or fire (straight out = sight = light = fire), fire in leo or air (approach within earshot = sound = air [though it pervades water and earth as well]), air in virgo or water (what is within reach to be tasted = in solution = water), and water in libra or earth (straight down = contact with earth).] Having reordered the simples, they are now taken as their new signs, and we begin.

First: A-alef is numbered 1 in both systems.

Second: B-G-D copies the original signs (capricorn-scorpio-cancer) of yod-heh-vav (the letters of the Name) onto the Cauldron, ending with D, the direction straight out (horizon before or without), which is the direction one sets out in traversing the round or Egg nested in the Cauldron.

Third: So we begin traversing the Egg, heh through yod representing aries through virgo, its front half.

Fourth: K or kaf repeats (on the Cauldron) the sign of the preceding simple, virgo.

Fifth: libra is by itself, being straight down and thus standing for physical reality (all that is subject to gravitation).

Sixth: M or mem repeats this libra on the Cauldron, that being M’s position in the tree-calendar. [This is intermediate mem, as mem-sofit references the more exalted position associated with M as mother letter, namely the center of the Monad, the wheel that bears the other three wheels in its ‘belly’.]

Seventh: the three signs of the self—scorpio-sagittary-capricorn, or doer-thinker-knower—are next.

Eighth: with P or peh, Egg’s capricorn radius is extended beyond the Egg’s circumference to intersect the Cauldron at sagittary. [B and P are phonetically on the inner and outer rims or lips of the Cauldron or mouth, their order being P-T-K-R-G-D-B, but D and P are reversed in the calendar (and R replaced by M when it is moved to where it is rolled on the tip of the tongue), the flow of P between its two stations being P’s bardic number, 7 or nitrogen (4/5 of the air), moving in and out of the lungs via speech.]

Ninth: tzaddi-qof, the remaining two signs of the Egg, which are the two bardic doubled consonants, Ss and Kk(Q). [In their new stations, they are directly opposite the two doubled bardic vowels Graves hypothesized (and I confirmed) as being omitted from ogham out of secrecy, Aa and Ii, the former a dental consonant (teyt, theta, runic *dagaz, and probably thili, ‘planks’ or ‘partition’, in Nordic Tifinag) in every alphabet other than Keltic, and the latter yod the mistletoe, or more likely loranthus (only Hebrew letter rooted in air, not soil).]

Tenth: reysh here serves double duty, for when rolled on the tongue’s tip it is at the spot where the Egg as a round concludes (its tip, or top), whereas when rolled in the throat, as in Hebrew, it is libra or straight down and represents the fact that the second half of the broken-and-extended zodiac or round continues on down the legs to end at the feet.

Eleventh: shin, as the mother letter at the center of the Cauldron’s circle, stands atop the Egg and thus can substitute for R when R leaves that station to be rolled in the throat.

Twelfth: tav caps things off because it represents conscience, that is, one’s mark or word—one’s honor. It also represents a crossroads, being how commerce is made possible (i.e. by people keeping their word). [In addition to cross-shaped tav, south Semitic has a second T in the form of two small circles linked by a short vertical stroke: this stands for the chain of obligation binding two souls or individuals.] Hence tav is what we are left with when all is said and done. It is the choice every human must make: whether to follow conscience, or to follow the lusts that struggle against conscience.

You know, my explanations would not be nearly so long and involved if man had not lost so much of his esoteric lore of old and overlaid it with so much gobbledyguk. C’est la vie.

Cheers.

beanu

VeniceBard,

I think that if anyone (i.e. me) is going to follow your system, it will need to be presented in a much slower, more organised fashion, in a sequence of presentation based on conveying the ideas,
rather than responding to other people's posts, which tends to dump the reader into the middle of your network of concepts.

B

beanu

MikeH said:
Now, trumps and Kabbalah. It strikes me that 20 is just as “Kabbalist” a number as 22—it is the 10 sefiroth twice, and the progress of the soul, once going down and again going up, imitating its journey through the spheres before and after this life. But more people then knew that there were 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet than knew that there were 10 sefiroth. And anyway, there were 11 if you counted the Ein Sof. Since card makers were in the business of making money, 22 was a better number, for customers who wanted to imagine that the cards contained arcane secrets from the time before Moses. So the move to 22 caught on.

Dear Dear Mike,

you have almost supported my own pet theory.
I also work on the concept of the progress of the soul going down and back up again, going through the spheres.
I have a slightly different attribution of the cards however.
First, remove Birth Death and Love, aside for later.
Each sphere gets two cards, with the exception of Malkuth which has the World card alone.

IF we divide the tree into triads of spheres, then Lovers represents the topmost triad Atziluth, and in the descent Death represents Briah, and Judgement represents Yetzirah. (In the ascent, they must swap again)

My point is to provide an example of another way in which 22 cards can fit 10 spheres, through descent and ascent.

Drat - the tags aren't working, so I can't provide the picture.

And thank you for the Boiardo heads-up.

Tarot and Kabbala

Huck

venicebard

MikeH

Huck

venicebard

venicebard

Huck

venicebard

beanu

beanu