Paracelsus deck symbolism
Hi there!
I just published this in another thread, but I think it belongs to this one better.
I just came across a Paracelsus deck recently, with no booklet, and I have been trying to make sense of it. I read in a forum that the 32 engravings at the top of the cards come from 32 illustrations of prophecies that, apparently, Paracelsus himself made. They can be found in this book from 1915, which is an English translation by JK (?). Here's the link:
http://selfdefinition.org/magic/Para...Paracelsus.pdf
As to historical references, in the epilogue, one can read " It is by no means improbable that the Latin version referred to by Eliphas Lévi may be only a translation. The German edition Of 1530, which is also found reprinted in the works of Paracelsus collected by Johann Huser and published at Strassburg in the year 1616, was taken as the original for the present translation. The Prophecies occur in vol. ii, pp. 594-608. The Plates have also been reproduced from the old woodcuts of that edition. The original Manuscript of Paracelsus is said to be in the Court Library of the Grand Duke of Baden at Karlsruhe."
I tried to check the contents of the Huser edition here, with no success, but the years don't match, so they might refer to a later edition.
http://www.paracelsus.uzh.ch/editions/huser.html
So, back to the deck, we have 32 pictures related to Paracelsus. Ok, how about the dotted geomancy figures and the names of the cards? Geomancy is based on 16 basic figures, so I guess whoever made the cards thought 16+16=32, this fits! so the cards can be used at the same time as a double geomancy oracle.
The names and shapes of these figures can be found in the Second Book of Occult Philosophy by Cornelius Agrippa. The meanings of the geomancy figures and the prophecy contents sometimes match and sometimes don't, so here's the first problem. Shall we use the prophesies or the geomantic figures? The correspondences don't make a lot of sense to me, but might do for someone else.
Second problem is the zodiacal signs assigned to the cards. 12+12 is not 32, so here the correspondences do not fit so nicely. The deck is divided in bright and dark cards. Each half has the 12 zodiacal signs in calendar order and then, the four remaining cards have been assigned to the north and south nodes of the moon, Leo and Cancer. The north and south nodes are also known as "caput draconis" and "cauda draconis" which is also the name for the geomantic signs in the corresponding card. I guess this is to be thought of as two pairs of contraries, being Leo and Cancer the signs associated to the Sun and Moon, respectively. This fits the binary light-darkness structure of the deck, so... good enough! However, most of the zodiacal correspondences in the deck are not the ones found in Agrippa's book.
Finally, the hardest part of the cards. The signs at the very bottom appear to be sigils of daimons or "spirits" like the ones used in Theurgia or Goetia, but after checking some books I was unable to identify any of the signs in the deck. I read somewhere that they might correspond to the 72 names of god. I counted the signs and, yes, there are 72. Although sometimes it's hard to tell where one symbol ends and the next begins. I used the criteria "a sign is anything united by lines", disregarding dots and encircling complements. I got 73 until I realised that the two first figures in card 16 touch each other, so they make one.
Anyway, I could'nt find the exact symbols in any of my books. Can anyone shed some light on this? Anyone concerned with the idea that most people using this deck would supposedly be summoning entities they know nothing about?
In conclusion, this deck contains a lot of information coming from different sources, it feels a little bit like four decks in one, with its advantages and disadvantages. Anyone there using it regularly?
As an afterthought, also the back of the cards deserves some attention. In it 14 of the 72 signs appear mirrored 4 times, giving 56 symbols. The symbols are the ones that appear on cards 22,23,24,30,31,19. No idea why. Some of these arrangements seem to me quite arbitrary, but I might be wrong. What do you think? Is there a clear purpose to this deck o is it rather that the creators will be laughing their asses off if they ever read about our efforts to decypher this puzzle?
