help! [which Hebrew letter correspondence?]

Aeon418

kwaw said:
But anyway I have no wish to 'diminish' aleph magician correspondences, it is one tradition and if people wish to explore it without having to go through these endless and pointless debates there are threads dedicated to it such as the one you started yourself
Well said Kwaw. :)
Also thank you for posting your thoughts on Aleph - Fool. Very interesting and thought provoking.
 

Fulgour

a high price to pay for a pretty fool

Opting to associate Aleph with The Fool is not a casual decision,
though we so often hear "I like Aleph for The Fool" as if it were.

Aleph makes a dandy Fool, but then you have made 22 decisions.
Every other card is changed as well... and something is truly lost.
 

kwaw

Fulgour said:
Opting to associate Aleph with The Fool is not a casual decision,
though we so often hear "I like Aleph for The Fool" as if it were.

Aleph makes a dandy Fool, but then you have made 22 decisions.
Every other card is changed as well... and something is truly lost.

Ordinal and cardinal, for as much lost there was a 10 fold [and more] gain, which goes back to at least the 15th century in popular terms and can be traced back to at least the 12th century [talking about western Europe, longer if one isn't so provincial], neo-platonic and atomist [thus anti-aristotle]. Zero was treated [after the 15th century] heresy and is inherent with philoshopy, science and theology of the 15th century, rejected by the Catholic church as part of the 16th 'counter reformation'. The Marseille tarot I think reflects protestant and reformist theology. Maybe and even probably there is a 'loss'... but what one considers a 'loss' is for others a 'gain'. 15th century literature, plays, science [including astrology and mathematics] all played upon the paradox of 'nothing' and 'infinity', and used the trope of the fool and vanity as allegories of such. We may note the Marseille pattern arose in regions protestant and reformist, but such may be detected earlier, upon eastern and arabic influences in Italy and Spain [And upon certain western concerns about the nature of celibacy and marriage, which may be seen reflected as early as in Chaucer and Boccaccio, it was not 'new' in 15/16. or 17th centuries, merely being at long last addressed, violently, after peaceful attempts at reform within the 'church' failed].

The whole 'anti-zero/fool' is totally historically anachronistic, and yes the change meant a loss, a loss of ignorance, and the begiinning of gain after a millenium of Aristotelian [Christian accepted and approved] tyranny.

Zero and and cognate concepts of follly and vanity were repressed in the 16th century catholic counter reformation, and consequently highlighted amongst their opponents in protestant and reformist circles. The Marseille arose in regions of the latter, and reflects such, and may be traced to reformist neo-platonic, atomist and 'anti-aristotle' philosphophy that takes root in the 12th century and flowers in 15th century Italian city states.

And what do we do now? Indulge in the same secular fundamentalism? Isn't it somewhat pathetic, do we learn nothing?

Kwaw
 

Fulgour

puff puff toot toot

Aeon418 said:
I thought I was flippant? ;) Make up your mind, if it isn't set already that is.;) The only person who has been rude so far is YOU. Oh please! LOL That is so laughable. Which "truth" are you refering to? Your's, mine or someone else's? I thought the notion of absolute truth went the same way as the dinosaurs.;)
Are you going to be alright? Sit down and rest your weary brains.
 

wgungfu

Aeon418 said:
The correlation between the hebrew alphabet and the Tarot happened a long time after the Tarot was originally created.

I wouldn't say that. Kabbalic viewpoints teach that the relationship between the hebrew alphabet and "tarot" type useage started during the Hellenistic period. The study of the Torah was banned, and a card game arose based upon the kabbalistic relationships taught/concealed in the torah. As is known, those kabbalistic relationships in the torah are based on the tree of life, the 22 letters, and the focus of the letters on the paths and relationships. It was during the period of the Zohar and the Talmud (following the second destruction of the temple) that the concepts went back in to written form via these, and resurfaced in the card/game format when such texts were again a problem leading up through (and during) the inquisition. This time around it also included various gestures to further obfuscate the contemplative method of studying the cards. This is not a statement on the modern imagery used in tarot sets. However, by "long time after the Tarot was originally created" I'm assuming you mean the Trionfi (http://trionfi.com/) cards from Ferrara. Here is an article which discusses the strong jewish community in Ferrara and explores its relation to the expansion of the Trionfi from the intial 14 cards to 22 major arcana shortly after its appearance: http://trionfi.com/0/d/28/index.php

Mordecai Shia
 

Ross G Caldwell

Hi Mordecai, welcome to the forum.

your historical claims in this post are rather extraordinary. I hope you don't mind if I ask questions and disagree.

wgungfu said:
I wouldn't say that. Kabbalic viewpoints teach

Which kabbal[ist]ic viewpoints are those?

that the relationship between the hebrew alphabet and "tarot" type useage started during the Hellenistic period.

What is "tarot type" usage? I'm also not aware of any tarots, or any kind of cards, from the Hellenistic period.

The study of the Torah was banned,

When was the study of the Torah banned? By who? I'm not aware that it was banned anywhere. It's part of the Christian Bible as well. Jerome finished his translation of the Hebrew Bible (TaNaKh) in the 5th century - well after the end of the Hellenistic, and even the Greco-Roman, periods.

Some Christian scholars studied Hebrew in every generation, right through the middle ages, often with Jews.

and a card game arose based upon the kabbalistic relationships taught/concealed in the torah.

When and where did this happen?

As is known, those kabbalistic relationships in the torah are based on the tree of life, the 22 letters, and the focus of the letters on the paths and relationships. It was during the period of the Zohar and the Talmud (following the second destruction of the temple) that the concepts went back in to written form via these, and resurfaced in the card/game format when such texts were again a problem leading up through (and during) the inquisition. This time around it also included various gestures to further obfuscate the contemplative method of studying the cards. This is not a statement on the modern imagery used in tarot sets.

This is a colourful story, but you must know there is no evidence for playing cards in Europe before the middle of the 14th century, and no evidence for tarot cards before the 15th century. Tarot trumps don't look very Jewish either. If they conceal Jewish kabbalistic teachings, they do so very well, since nobody noticed it before the 18th century.

However, by "long time after the Tarot was originally created" I'm assuming you mean the Trionfi (http://trionfi.com/) cards from Ferrara.

I would imagine Aeon is referring to those along with other tarot cards from northern Italy in the 15th century. They are the earliest known. Which ones are you referring to?

Here is an article which discusses the strong jewish community in Ferrara and explores its relation to the expansion of the Trionfi from the intial 14 cards to 22 major arcana shortly after its appearance: http://trionfi.com/0/d/28/index.php

It's true that Jews in the northern Italy in the 15th century enjoyed a great deal of freedom and peace, relative to other times and places. But a lot of things happened in that century. Why should tarot cards be related to Jews?
 

Fulgour

circa 10,000 B.C. ~give or take 5,000 years

Ross G Caldwell said:
Tarot trumps don't look very Jewish either. If they conceal Jewish kabbalistic teachings, they do so very well, since nobody noticed it before the 18th century.
Let's not confuse the Phoenician Alphabet with Kabbalah,
or Tarot cards with Jewish mysticism (if we can avoid it).

Tarot clearly reflects the Chaldean astrology contained in
the Phoenician alphabet~ with or without packs of cards.
 

venicebard

Wait, please don't jump off that cliff!

Lady Orchard said:
have just started reading 78 degrees and was interested in the idea of the majors relating to the hebrew alphabet.

however there seems to be some discrepancy on the internet as to what letters relate to what cards?
I have found one site that says aleph is the magician and the fool is tav; but another said the fool is aleph.

help! which is correct before I read further on this??
While your question is but a few weeks old, please consider one more possibility: there was a tradition in the British Isles that associated the tree-letters of the insular Keltic alphabet NOT with 1-9, 10-90 by tens, and 100-900 by hundreds, but with the numerical symbols ‘no-thing’ through 16—17-21 kept secret but readily recoverable both by logic and by leaning on the trumps. The whole system, with 17-21 filled in (two letters, AA and II, were not included in the twenty-letter ogham cipher) and the Hebrew equivalents carefully deduced, is this:

0-H-hawthorn-cheyt
1-A-fir-alef
2-E-aspen-heh
3-I-yew-zayin
4-O-furze-ayin
5-B-birch-beyt
6-M-vine-mem
7-P-whitten-peh
8-F-alder, but Hebrew samekh
9-K-hazel-kaf
10-G-ivy-gimel
11-T-holly-tav
12-D-oak-dalet
13-N-ash-nun
14-L-rowan-lamedh
15-R-elder-reysh
16-S-willow-shin
17-U-heather-vav
18-Q(KK)-apple-qof
19-Y(II)-mistletoe/loranthus-yod
20-St(SS)-blackthorn-tzaddi
21-(AA)-palm-teyt

The symbolic and calendrical meaning of these trees, supplemented (and corroborated) by study of the forms of several ancient primary alphabets (the Egyptian hieroglyphic, the Meroitic, tifinag, Libyan, runic, and the ‘semi-primary’ Greek alphabet) in addition to proto-Canaanite (old Semitic) and square Hebrew writing, shows clearly that these are the correlations that formed the basis for the trumps of the Tarot of Marseilles, which I take to be tarot’s original form however many older extant forms happen to still be around, centuries after the fact, the standard decks from early on being no doubt discarded and replaced.

This 'bardic' theory of tarot's origin—which has the advantage of symbolic clarity and of not being purely speculative, as the ‘interchangeable theories’ bandied about today are—is presented in succinct form at:

http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/index.php/Bardic_origin_of_Tarot,

http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/index.php/The_Trumps_of_the_Consonants,

and http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/index.php/The_Bardic_Vowels.
Thanks. I have decided in the 1st instance to take the Fool as Aleph.
But ask yourself: why would Semites have chosen foolishness as the place for letters to begin? Does the capacity for speech itself flow out of foolishness? or merely its manifestation at times? Alef is surely the levitator (Bateleur), for that is what speech is.
Take for example the Tower being Peh - mouth; to swallow and be full.
Peh seems to convey the mouth as organ of speech. The throat in breathing and in swallowing must, by careful reckoning, be tzaddi, and tzaddi-sofit (its final form), respectively. Interestingly, the rune for K shows the opened mouth of the poet both in the sense of emitting wisdom and in the sense of consuming protein, since K is the hazel, symbolizing whatever wisdom or protein happens to be contained ‘in a nutshell’.
I see how the Tower relates to this - if you were to fill your mouth with thoughts, actions and beliefs, eventually you would have to swallow them... And also the idea of swallowing being a quick downwards action, as is lightning or indeed people falling from a tower.

But we think of the tower as initially being a quite devastating force; and often out of our control.
Precisely: you can see how stretched ‘swallowing as lightning’ sounds.

Now, on to refuting our resident ‘nihilist’:
Aeon418 said:
So you are suggesting that the hebrew alphabet is the sole basis for Tarot symbolism? History would suggest otherwise. The correlation between the hebrew alphabet and the Tarot happened a long time after the Tarot was originally created.
Quite true, meaning ‘correlation’ in its present form. But the alphabet itself forms the framework of a very ancient tradition, and medieval lore linking it, in its insular Keltic form, to numbers corresponding to the trumps—quite distinct from the tabulative numbering of Hebrew and Greek alphabets, though one (unity, the unit) stays the same—has survived: this tradition must have reached the Continent riding on the coattails of the Arthurian cycle.
To suggest that there is one true order is the same as saying that the Tree of Life is the framework of the universe, which is absurd.
It is the framework of how every individual became an individual in the universe.
I thought the notion of absolute truth went the same way as the dinosaurs.
Oh really. So 1 + 1 could be, say, 3? And how dare we depend on the Pythagorean theorem!

(Fulgour, you were right when you reputedly said “but then you have made 22 decisions,” even if you do like to ‘cut and run’.)
 

venicebard

addendum

venicebard said:
Peh seems to convey the mouth as organ of speech.
Based partly on the fact that its oldest Semitic form is that of an ear, which by its spiral shape indicates initiation into the mysteries (by word of mouth). Didn’t want anyone to think I was being arbitrary.
 

venicebard

Ross G Caldwell said:
Tarot trumps don't look very Jewish either. If they conceal Jewish kabbalistic teachings, they do so very well, since nobody noticed it before the 18th century.
Quite right on the former point: they are at least Christian, though I would argue Keltic or Gnostic, not orthodox Roman. But anyone with an abacus would note that tarot parallels Kabbalah: 22 letters, plus 10 Sefirot and four letters of the Name in four distinct worlds.
Why should tarot cards be related to Jews?
Because of the antiquity of Jewish alphabet-tradition and its relation to insular Keltic alphabet-tradition (directly relating to trumps), and because the only surviving version of the doctrine of the Sefirot, or ten stages from Totality to individual, happens to be in a Jewish setting. This does not at all mean it has always been thus restricted. Bards in Wales spoke of an original ten principles the doctrine of which was kept secret (which they either did not reveal or did not know), as can be found in that uneven work Barddas.