Bembine Tablet?

[Tzeenj]

Hello all!

Sorry for disappearing there- laptop went blooey on me.

Would like to know others' opinions on the connections made by some sources between the Tarot Trumps and the so-called Bembine Tablet. I personally see it as somewhat dubious, but I'd welcome any opportunity for someone to prove me either correct or incorrect.

Dua Djehuty,
Tzeenj

 

[Rosanne]

Hi Tzeenji!

The only place I have seen it discussed in regards to the esoteric is in Gerald Manly Hall's book The Secret Teachings of all Ages
He uses it showing it as a diagrammatic explanation of Platonic Philosophy, as an analogy about the Tree of Life, and a description by Abbe Banier that it is a votive table consecrated to Isis.

My Encyclopedia of Ancient Artifacts says it is a Roman artifact- to do with Metallurgy and possibly belonged to a cult in 1st Century CE and showed a cycle of sacrifice.

~Rosanne

 

[bradford]

In case there's someone out there without Hall's book who wants to see the image and try to find a connection, they can do a Google Image search for "Bembine Tablet" and then select extra large image size.

 

[kwaw]

Hall's chapter on the Bembine Tablet:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/sta13.htm


From the secret teaching of all ages

by Manley Hall

http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/

The Isiac Tablet of Cardinal Bembo
by W. Wynn Westcott

http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/isi/index.htm

(Users of modern spanish type tarots may note that Westcott here gives the hebrew letter attribution of the Gra - those used in several spanish decks).

 

[Tzeenj]

Hi Tzeenji!

The only place I have seen it discussed in regards to the esoteric is in Gerald Manly Hall's book The Secret Teachings of all Ages
He uses it showing it as a diagrammatic explanation of Platonic Philosophy, as an analogy about the Tree of Life, and a description by Abbe Banier that it is a votive table consecrated to Isis.

My Encyclopedia of Ancient Artifacts says it is a Roman artifact- to do with Metallurgy and possibly belonged to a cult in 1st Century CE and showed a cycle of sacrifice.

~Rosanne

Hello there!

yeah- the tablet's not Egyptian at all, nor does it actually consist of real hieroglyphs- just figures designed to resemble hieroglyphs.

I was wondering about more recent sources than Hall, Levi and Westcott, as they all seem to have written while under the impression that the Bembine Tablet was really Egyptian, and tended to have rather funny ideas about it (one of them, for example {can't recall which one right now} having claimed it was the altar before which Plato as Initiated or somesuch).

Io Phanes,
Tzeenj