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Bernice said:
I go along with Greg Stanton here. ["Historically, there is no evidence that the symbolism of the tarot sprang from the Kabbalah."] That's true, . . .
There may be no evidence
from historical documents, but internal evidence is evidence too, and how certain are you no such exists? (Careful, as I can point out a great deal of such evidence.)
. . . tarot and the Tree of Life developed separately. It was 19th century esoteric thinking that attempted to relate the two, . . .
You word this in such a way as to make it overstate your case: take out the "It was" and the "that" and you have a statement of fact. As is, your statement assumes no link existed between Kabbalah and tarot
when tarot first appeared.
A deck that has been designed to accord with the Qabalah - by whatever method - will correspond with the Spheres &/or Paths on the Tree of Life.
Tarot of Marseilles, because its pips are merely numbers and not pictures,
does correspond therein to the Tree of ten Sefirot as manifested in the four worlds (since these correspond to the elements, as do the suit symbols themselves -- and
please don't tell me Cups don't mean water and Swords don't split air and Staves don't burn and Coins don't purchase earthly goods). Indeed the entire design of TdM is quite consistent with Kabbalah and embodies it completely. Personally, I would not expect more modern 'reworkings' of tarot to have nearly as
deep a relationship to the Qabbalah, much of which was lost (though retrievable, if done with care) by the time any such were conceived.
If one take Tarot of Marseilles as the original design (or virtually so) -- which makes more sense than the idea that it originated on the
other side of the Alps, where no agreement existed even as to the order of the trumps! -- it is
quite apparent Kabbalah explains the structure and design of the whole deck. The reason this is not readily apparent to all is that the wrong numbering system is being used to try to correlate trumps with letters, as is obvious from the fact that moderns cannot even agree on
how to apply said numbering system to them. But the numbering system used in medieval Irish literature (and no doubt part of the same bardic tradition that yielded the 'Matter of Britain') matches letters to trumps perfectly,
including 'zero' or no-number (LeMat), which is bardic
H -- the breath by which we
express what is empty or vacuous -- and thus Hebrew cheyt (whence Latin H).
The symbolism in many cases is patently
obvious. For instance, vav is U-heather, which symbolized summer's
consummation, hence 'coming of age', which in ancient Ireland was at 17: trump XVII shows a nude, buxom woman mixing two fluids in her pond! (Even the scientific content is fairly obvious, since 17 is the atomic number of chlorine, which is evidently what she is, on the surface anyway, pouring into her swimming pool!)
D-oak: the oak-king traditionally has 12 merry men and was the sacrificed god of the waxing year, and indeed trump XII shows him being sacrificed. Indeed dalet means 'door', which also 'swings' and is made of oak more oft than not.
S-willow: this tree signifies the overflowing fount of spring and is associated biblically with Babylon, symbolized by the shaken tower (Babel) in its trump, XVI.
R-elder: English tradition has it that to burn elder is to admit the devil into the house, and R is XV LeDiable.
L-rowan: rowan shelters young of other species (runic L is shaped like the eaves of a roof) so they can learn the ropes and eventually displace their 'teacher', and lemedh (lamedh with different vocalization)
means teaching or learning, and sure enough it is XIIII Temperance.
N-ash: Aesop's fable has it that the forest offered up ash to be the woodsman's axe-handle, which then led to his becoming the Grim Reaper of the forest trees -- N is trump XIII (Death, the Grim Reaper).
M-vine: vine represents interconnectedness -- "I heard it through the grapevine" -- and is trump VI The Lover (as is carbon, atomic number 6, which gathers in chains and rings to form the basis of life!).
B-birch: birch represents the birth of the year (white bark, clean slate) and both the blessing of a clean slate and that of a hand raised in blessing, a hand's being of 5 fingers being the first thing we confirm
upon the birth of a baby, and V LePape shows his hand raised in blessing to two diminutive figures being presented by the arm of their mother or nurse.
In short,
every detail of the TdM trumps can be explained with similar coherent reasoning, but not in a vacuum; in other words, one has to dig a bit to
know what trees symbolize and so on, since we moderns no longer think in such terms as a habit.
The kinship of Keltic and Judaic traditions is quite provable, and the fact that TdM was spawned by people with knowledge of a tradition mirroring Kabbalah in every respect is demonstrable beyond any reasonable doubt. The problem is simply that it requires the listing-off of too many data points to be 'comfortable'; that is, most are too lazy, or else too skeptical, to care. But I am compelled, still, to speak up when I see overstatements such as yours above.
Cordially,
Venicebard