Tarot and Kabbala

Huck

hi, kapoore,

as I understood it (from Scholem), Reuchlin didn't take all from Azriel, but only passages. At least he also quoted the Sepher Yetzirah.
And this translation isn't complete in the English text, offered by books.google.com.
For my own biographical interest, the dedication was of interest. The kaballistic passages ... somehow boring.

Yes, Reuchlin wishes to combine Pythagorism with Kabbala ... .-) probably he has with right the opinion, that Kabbala isn't of much interest (on the side of his contemporary public), but Pythagorism is. So he makes the deal that the unknown mysteries about the Pythagorean group might besolved by Kabbala studies, promoting the idea, that in Kabbala some of these old mysteries might have survived.
The contemporary interest in Pythagoras probably was in harmony with the general great interest in music development of 15th century, which was great in 15th century Italy ... and which did lead at the end of 16th and begin of 17th century to the development of opera in Italy.

In 1516 Reuchlin is already caught by the conflict with Pfefferkorn and he wishes to influence pope Leo in his own direction ... finally in 1520 Leo judged against him.

Scholem mentioned, that Reuchlin refers to the Coincidentia Oppositorum, that Cusanus wrote ca. 1450, a philosophical text with some mathematical background, relatively long and of the kind, that one (or at least me) stops after 2-3 pages.
Probably from this text Scholem takes his idea, that there was a connection Erigena-Azriel-Cusanus-Reuchlin. As already told, I've my doubt, is these things are really comparable in the way, as Scholem presents it.

There's a funny detail ...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...g/430px-Portret_Macropedius_Philips_Galle.jpg

which is shown and commented at the German wiki article of the Deventer Fraternity
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brüder_vom_gemeinsamen_Leben

.. and there is said, that "Regional verbreitet waren die Bezeichnungen Kogel- oder Kugelherren beziehungsweise Kugelhaus für ihre Stiftsgebäude. Diese Bezeichnungen waren möglicherweise von ihrer „Gugel“ genannten Kopfbedeckung abgeleitet. " The head clothing was interpreted as "Kugel" (sphere, globe) ...

Cusanus last work was "De Ludo Globi" (ca. 1462) and it was written as a text of education. The art historian Brockhaus made out of it the "Mantegna Tarocchi", people, who read the text usually come to the assumption, that the topic is game with globes/spheres/balls similar to Petanque, Bocchia ... in German contemporary expression "Kugeln".

Anyway, the text is difficult and one isn't really sure what Cusanus is talking about. If one assumes, that the connection Cusanus and the Deventer orden was closer, one might suspect, that the text had a double function, perhaps the game was used as an allegory for the "teaching game" of the Deventer brothers.
 

kapoore

Hi Huck,
Gershom Scholem thinks that Azriel took material from Eriugena because his concepts are foreign to Judaism and very similar to Eriugena. On page 423 of Origin of Kabbalah, he writes "To be sure, many elements in the language of the kabbalists argue in favor of a dependence on Eriugena, especially Azriel's use of a Hebrew equivalent of the term "super being" of God. Azriel's hebrew term is more likely than not an awkward rendering of Eriugena's Latin superesse and cannot be explained on the basis of any Arabic terminology." I am not sure on what basis you disagree with Gershom Scholem on this point. But let's drop it because there is not much point in going over, and over the same argument.

I think it is worth mentioning that no Kabbalists that I am aware, and most definitely Gershom Scholem, felt the Kabbalah had anything to do with the Tarot. Stephen Hoeller (who is both into Tarot and Kabbalah and a Jungian) met Scholem and talked with him about Tarot. Gershom Scholem vigorously denied any connection. So, I am using Kabbalah as a vehicle to trace backwards as part of the tradition that became the Tarot. At some point the two systems got lumped together and I think that point was Reuchlin.

However, there is no evidence of the Tarot among those early synthesizers of Christian Platonism with other traditions--here I am referring to the triad of Reuchlin, Agrippa, and Trithemius. They were putting together all the elements (and this was possibly 70 years after the creation of Tarot or 100 years if we go with the 1420 date) that later became the occult tradition.

One other thing I discovered in this search was that Reuchlin, Agrippa, and Cusa all attended the University of Cologne where they were influenced by Lullism. Lullism has a specific graphic identity that is found in all the early predecessors of occultism. Kircher was a Lullist, Robert Fludd was a Lullist, and now I discover that Reuchlin was a Lullist. Of course, the most famous Lullist of the 15th Century was Nicholas of Cusa. And while Cusa's name was lost in the later occult tradition, Ramon Lull's name was not. Dion Fortune, A.E. Waite, and Eliphas Levi all mention Lull as a source of the material. So two trace ideas came out of this. Lullism is a factor throughout the entire tradition. The other common factor is Wisdom 11:21 or the phrase "number, weight, and measure" This is a direct reference to the Pythagorean tradition in the four mathematical arts: arithmetic (number), music (weight), and measure (geometry). The last mathematical art was astronomy.

Also, the Latin musical tradition is far older than the 15th Century. It goes back to Boethius who was born in 480. You see musical ratios throughout the symbolism of the Latin Middle Ages, and the Cathedrals are based on Pythagorean ratios. Plato's Timaeus that contains the formula for musical ratios was profoundly influencial throughout the period. Up through the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance both the geometric Greek math and the Indo/Arabic numbers existed side by side. I'm not much of a mathematician either but one cannot dismiss arithmetic in relation to the Tarot. Even bridge requires addition as well as holding a visual memory of the cards in mind.

In sum, then, we have probably exhausted Kabbalah. You will not accept the authority of the Kabbalah scholars and I don't know the field well enough to convince you. Somehow the elements that became the Tarot were formulated. I am not sure you even accept the influence of Agrippa in this whole thing. And I believe at this point our small audience has left us. Why don't we end our conversation here, and maybe in the future explore some of these other things that might be more fruitful, such as Lullism. Warm regards, Kapoore
 

kwaw

kapoore said:
Hi Huck,
I am not sure you even accept the influence of Agrippa in this whole thing. And I believe at this point our small audience has left us.
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Did you know Agrippa had a dog called 'Tarot'? When I posted this before I thought it was more likely to refer to Tarot as in Basoon, as the dog apparently had a notably deep bark; if i recall rightly though Huck felt it more likely it did indeed refer to the card game of Tarot?
 

kwaw

kwaw said:
Did you know Agrippa had a dog called 'Tarot'? When I posted this before I thought it was more likely to refer to Tarot as in Basoon, as the dog apparently had a notably deep bark; if i recall rightly though Huck felt it more likely it did indeed refer to the card game of Tarot?
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Found the thread, Huck thought the use of tarot as bassoon/fagot to late, not sure I agree...

http://www.google.co.uk/books?id=9qA0AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA254&dq=tarot&as_brr=1#PPA252,M1

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=88683&page=3&pp=10
 

kapoore

Hi Kwaw,
For what my opinion is worth, I say if he called his dog Tarot than it was Tarot. It's something. I was very touched by poor Agrippa's problems--the death of his wife, his poverty, his problems with his book on the occult sciences. And I liked your analysis of "rod" in Isaiah. Again, for what's it worth I say very interesting.

I think when I get around to it I will write some of these scholars that do research on Agrippa, and Trithemius to see if there is something on cards, Tarot, buried out there. I don't have a good lead on Reuchlin. Recently I wrote someone who was doing research on John Bussi to see if Bussi mentions any card games at the Council of Mantua. I was surprised that he said he would keep his eyes out for me.

Sometimes fortune smiles on us and all the pieces fall together. Good luck in your research. Kapoore
 

Huck

kwaw said:
Did you know Agrippa had a dog called 'Tarot'? When I posted this before I thought it was more likely to refer to Tarot as in Basoon, as the dog apparently had a notably deep bark; if i recall rightly though Huck felt it more likely it did indeed refer to the card game of Tarot?
Click to expand...

I didn't forget about this dog called "Tarot" ... also I would still assume, that the possibility exists, that it refered to the card game "Tarot". Agrippa had worked at the court of Louise de Savoy, mother of the French king Frances I., 1524-27 and had already earlier opportunity to learn about this word "Tarot" as a playing card deck. The card deck name Taraux and Tarocchi appeared 1505 in France and Ferrara and reappeared 1516 in Ferrara, when Francis regained the dukedom of Milan in the same year.

But assuming, that Agrippa might have called his dog "Tarot" dooesn't mean, that I assume, that Agrippa was involved in the complex Genesis of Trionfi and Tarot cards.
 

Huck

hi kapoore,

After Scotus Erigena had been lost and forgotten for many centuries, he was again discovered at Oxford and in 1681, thus four years after Spinoza's death, his work first saw the light in print.

– Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. I, "Sketch of a History of the Doctrine of the Ideal and the Real"
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I'm a little sceptic about the transfer of an idea from Erigena to Azriel (more than 300 years difference) to Cusanus and Reuchlin (another 250 years or so) ... that's all.

For Italian music ... contemporary Italians of 15th century said, that music in their century took radical changes, perceived by themselves as "progress" and "improvement". From the begin of the same century it's said, that Italy was undeveloped in matters of music. Better North European musicians were imported to the courts in Italy then ... Guillaume Dufay ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillaume_Dufay

... is the first great name, but there were many others and also at the end of the century. Dufay was "detected" at the council of Constance, which gave many Italians opportunitsy to compare the different cultures.

It seems, that Ficino had a greater interest in Pythagoras ... and in this context it's interesting to know, that Ficino himself was active musician, as it was also Lorenzo de Medici.
 

Huck

I captured this note:

"Tarot, Franza, Balassa, Ciccone, Musa, Mademoiselle and
Monsieur, were, in their long-vanished life-time, companions
to Agrippa, the astrologer and scholar. The knowing little
Monsieur was permitted, as special favorite, to sleep upon his
master's bed, eat from his plate, and lie upon the table beside
his papers, while he wrote. He may even have suggested to
Goethe the black poodle in Faust, since, like Rupert's hound
Boy, and Claver's battle-horse, he was commonly supposed to be
a fiend."

From other sources I've in my memory, that the dog "Monsieur" was suspected to be the devil ... somehow he was present, when Agrippa died.

"Before he died, Agrippa was seen everywhere with his large black dog, Monsieur. Because of his reputation among the people as a black magician, it was widely believed among the townsfolk of Grenoble that Monsieur was Agrippa's familiar. After Agrippa's death, the large dog seemed to vanish mysteriously, thereby convincing people that the magus had been in league with Satan all along. Although a friend testified that he had often walked Monsieur for the scholar and that the large black canine was simply a dog, the townspeople persisted in their belief that they had often witnessed the magus Agrippa in the company of his demonic familiar."

Somehow a strange idea, that Monsieur, the dog "at the writing table" was a "large" dog ... this source ...

http://www.google.co.uk/books?id=9qA0AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA254&dq=tarot&as_brr=1#PPA251,M1

... takes it as a "small black dog".

The story of the death is told here ...

http://www.google.co.uk/books?id=9qA0AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA254&dq=tarot&as_brr=1#PPA317,M1

... and the following pages.

Here the same story is given with some detailed aspects.
http://books.google.com/books?id=5Y...gMGeCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5

But the names ...

Tarot - ?
Franza - female form of Franz (German for Francois)
Balassa - Hungarian family name (?)
Ciccone - Italian form of Francesco as in Cicco Simonetta (secretary of Francesco Sforza)
Musa - "Muse"
Mademoiselle and Monsieur "cause Agrippa brought them from France"
 

Ross G Caldwell

Huck said:
http://www.google.co.uk/books?id=9qA0AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA254&dq=tarot&as_brr=1#PPA251,M1
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Your book here gives the source as the Epistolae, in his Opera, vol. 2. The letter is number 72.

I'm not sure of the edition of the Opera, since vol. I of your source isn't on Google Books, but one edition that used to be at gallica.bnf.fr doesn't appear to be there anymore (I don't know why they take things offline).

We should see from the Latin what form "Tarot" takes. The letter should date from around 1530, so it would be a very early occurence of this word, whatever the sense (e.g. the card game, the musical instrument, etc.)
 
The Science of Numerology - book from the 1930s? How do Venus and Netzach go together?