By Christine Payne-Towler
ArkLetter 42 -- August 30, 2008
In
my early ArkLetter articles I was focusing in on the overlaps between
esoteric disciplines in the milieu of Tarot's time of origin. The goal
was to highlight the vocabulary, imagery, and techniques of early
Renaissance magical activities, and show this worldview's close
proximity to the earliest Tarot designs. I was also anchoring our
definition of magic and magus, using concepts and testimony from the
esoteric theories animating Tarot's context and core assumptions.
Those articles were compilations of discussions that happened during
the early 2000's, while I was an active participant in the online Tarot
discussion groups. (See Open Secrets, Pointers to Esotericism, and Christian Cabbalist Alchemical Magic ).
The challenge I ran up against then, which is now slowly working itself out through academic channels, was the fact that Tarot historians were looking for a single, discreet, indisputable source for the sequence of the Trumps. Much like the search for the Holy Grail, this endeavor was fraught with risk and dead ends, because the criteria used to define the expected outcome were impossibly narrow and perfectionist.
Experts testify that the Trumps and the Queens were added to the early playing-card pack to create a trick-taking memory game. This is not so far-fetched an idea, and there's plenty of proof to back it up. However, Tarot historians have not been satisfied with this idea on its own, insisting that there should be a logic behind the ordering and flow of the Trump sequence, something that gives larger meaning to the cards than just their numbers, titles and suits. This is understandable, because in the writings we have from the century of Tarot's origin, we find people attempting to explain the Trumps in a moralistic and allegorical manner.
Judging from the sparse evidence left to us, pundits from Tarot's early centuries seem to have been of different opinions about whether the Tarot pack was a harmless game, an educational exposition, or a Trojan Horse bringing ancient demons closer to the daily life of simple Christian folk. Nevertheless, nearly everybody agrees that the packs that centered on the Marseilles catalogue of images seem to carry a larger body of significations than being merely "game chits". For example, it seems to have been common knowledge in the 1400's that the subjects of the Trumps, at least, referred to knowledge-categories and ideals that were, even then, historically linked with Wisdom Teachings from multiple cultures.
This much is obvious to even interested laypersons -- that the game-pieces of Tarot make allusions to social, moral and spiritual themes that have spanned the West's intellectual history, and that apply to human experience everywhere. Even before Christianity became the norm in Europe, people were working with the concepts pictured on the cards because the issues they symbolize are so ubiquitous. This is the same reason why the pack of Tarot has had such success around the world in the 20th and 21st centuries -- virtually anybody can identify with the face-cards and what they stand for, even if they know nothing about the cards as a game or a tool.
Game Design vs. Meaning Assignment
The official position of the International Playing Card Society is that Tarot originated as "only a game", hence having no larger significance for the culture of its times. For Tarot to be seen for its larger identity, game-only theorists have insisted that the Trump sequence "should" possess a demonstrable interior logic showing coherence card-to-card, a justification of the sequence from beginning to middle to end, and an ironclad link to some contemporary cultural product or body of teachings that makes it "fit" into Catholic northern Italy of the 1400's.
Never mind that a player is seldom expected to show awareness of a square-by-square philosophical schema for the individual placements on the Monopoly board (or the chess board either)! The core premise of Monopoly is to learn something about real estate, and how to go about amassing a fortune therein, plain and simple. There are property magnates who will swear that they learned their chops playing Monopoly as a child. Therefore I ask, why wouldn't the core premise of the Tarot be to learn about the special suite of concepts assembled for this pack, which were collected "to play with" in a time of great intellectual ferment and fertility?
For some, it is not enough that the face cards of Tarot are keyed to trans-cultural archetypes that explain themselves on contact. The fact that the cards are numbered (and/or named and suited) on their faces isn't perceived as sufficient explication of the internal coherence of their relationships -- we need a "logic" to point to, to justify their 1-2-3-4 order. Not only that, but we had to fight over which proposed logic was the logic, writing volumes of text to contend over something that the first three centuries of Tarot users felt was self-evident from the faces of the cards.
There has always been contention, even in the early centuries, about what the individual Tarot cards "mean". But contention about their meaning in a given situation is entirely different from contention about their existential significance. If we transfer our thinking over to the art of Astrology, this will be easy to understand. The Planets, Signs, and Elements (or Seasons) have huge long mythic pedigrees. Because of this, one does not have to "start from scratch" when one is trying to assemble an understanding of these energies or their symbols. One can learn about their constitutional temperaments and styles through a thousand channels, and all of those channels derive their bedrock understanding from a coherent body of time-tested ancient traditions that are shared across multiple cultures. Nevertheless, once a person wants to interpret what a *given* horoscope might mean, based on a unique moment in time and place, one is now facing a whole web of inferences, justifications and relationships that have to be digested and synthesized before any sense can be made of the chart in question. It is at the point of interpretation that there might be something to contend about, and the contention would likely be about what one person derives compared to another from the moment's presentation. Nothing happening at the "surface level" of individual use changes the existential nature of the signs, planets and elements, however. All of that astral architecture of celestial mechanics carries on unperturbed, entirely above and beyond the plane of contention.
Just so, the Tarot is sufficient unto itself as a tool for holding meaning, and that is largely a function of its outline: {22 + (10x4) + (4x4)}. This can also be stated as {((7x3)+1) + (4x10) + (4x4)}, or {(21+1) + (4x10) + (4x4)}. However one slices up the pie, the resulting "meaning chips" distribute amazingly well around the astronomical cosmos and across the Cabbala Tree, reflecting the givens of sacred geometry and elemental magic. One user might choose one method of assigning values to the cards, and another user might choose another method, but the values that get assigned to the individual cards tend to be dictated by the outline itself. As a tool for holding standard classical meanings, the 78-card pack of Trumps and suits seems to be uniquely designed to interface between several of the popular esotericisms of the day.
Please note the point I'm making here -- this is entirely separate from the individual titles and ranking of the cards within the pack. Just this breakdown: {22 + (10x4) + (4x4)}: is enough to tell a properly educated person where to look for values to assign to the "game chips" of Tarot. In light of the cultural milieu of the day, the references become visible quickly enough. Once those bedrock observations are noted, then one can add in the lore and correspondences that are rightfully bestowed by the titles, numbers and suits, leading to the assemblage of a very rich body of ultimate meanings.
The Multi-Disciplinary Maze of Tarot
Part of the challenge with following a multi-disciplinary approach to Tarot is that, in the pictured characters of Tarot's pantheon, we have a "snapshot" of much larger themes essentialized down to their minimum necessary ingredients for appearance on these flash-cards. But if we stand back and look outside the card format, those same characters can be seen to appear in a wide array of incremental guises, representing qualities and correspondences drawn from the arts of Sacred Geometry, Cabbala, Alchemy, astrology, music and magic, even the game of Chess. There have been some wonderful exponents of the interdisciplinary Tarot available in print since the 1980's, notably Fred Gettings and Richard Cavendish. These two are regularly overlooked nowadays, because they have anchored their presentations in the Marseilles-style Tarots and kept their expositions conservative in terms of "occult politics". However, one can have no finer a grounding in Tarot fundamentals than to start with these, supplemented by Robert O'Neill's book Tarot Symbolism and Meditations On The Tarot by Anonymous (Valentine Tomberg).
Retaining our conceptual boundaries in the presence of these shape-shifty archetypes is difficult, even when we are just trying to figure out the personae within the Trumps. One can never truly settle the question, for example, as to whether the Fool (a) represents a different character entirely from the Magus in an unfolding presentation of the "stations of Man" (as we see in the Mantegna icons), or whether the Fool (b) represents the individual lacking gnosis, that is, consciousness of and contact with its larger nature (being therefore a Zero), whereas the Magus is the same soul in conscious possession of its innate Light (therefore One, the Monad). The first approach has the Trump sequence referring to socio-cultural roles, actions and individuals external to the user; the second approach invites the reader to 'step inside' the cards and locate the corresponding aspect of him- or herself to which each card in the deck is referring. (The sophisticated user knows that most situations are best approached with an and/and spirit, leaving space for a dollop of mystery as a topper.)
In the first centuries of Tarot's use, the pack would be submitted to the givens of whichever conceptual framework the individual user was employing to attribute meaning to the cards. (For examples see Tarot Passages and also the "Stoicheion/Somata Tarot" ). But a modern user of the divinatory Tarot very seldom learns about the incredibly rich cultural matrix saturating the atmosphere at Tarot's inception. Modern Tarot users have learned instead to memorize lists of symptoms and "outcomes" which, frustratingly, seem to conflict from deck to deck. People use the cards without necessarily understanding the esoteric architecture providing the reasons why that card has that particular meaning within the overall set. Also, certain lists of Tarot standard values are held as sacred despite their quite recent imposition upon the pre-existing structure. Further, all the modern books are imbued with psychological, cultural and media-inflected concepts that our Tarot ancestors didn’t have the vocabulary to construct. After such an introduction, most people find the world of early Tarot so completely imponderable that they lose hope of ever understanding how the first users experienced the original pack.
Tarot Encapsulates the Magical Worldview
Matters become exponentially more complicated when we admit evidence and testimony from the parallel disciplines under consideration within the milieu of Tarot's inception. Endless arguments have been crafted to diffuse the impact of the obvious synchronicities between the dogma and symbolism of the Hermeticists, the Cabalists, the Alchemists, the Astronomers, the Theurgists and the Image magicians... but these arguments are all obstructionist in the end, no matter how well crafted. What has to be taken in, and finally "discovered" by the mainstream Tarot-involved world, is that the whole magical paradigm, the West's root beliefs about the nature of reality, are found in outline form in the Tarot. And when the images and symbols of the Tarot are carried out of the cards and into the esoteric art, literature and practice of the day, the pervasiveness of the multi-disciplinary conversation going on via the cards really hits home. Categorically, by definition, Tarot shines forth as an Art of Memory tool, a Cabinet of the Mysteries, if you will. Stored in the cabinet are values donated by and denominated by the various branches of the magical Tree, including contributions made by a long lineage of wise Masters.
The good news, after the work of Freud and Jung, is that moderns have become aware that human consciousness works through an interlocked set of transcendental inherited themes and tropes that exercise their power at the dreamtime level of sub-, super- and altered-consciousness. Cross-cultural study demonstrates that the myths and stories of every culture may show superficial differences, but they never lose their ties to the demonstrable spectrum of standard issues that every human has to contend with, wherever and whenever they live. This principle works from the individual psyche to the mass level of humanity as a whole. To cite a case in point, scholars of Western Esotericism have made it clear that the global so-called "New Age" (AKA 'alternative spiritual') culture is nothing new at all, but instead comprises a revival of older esotericisms re-awakening in new guises for our time. (See New Age Religion and Western Culture; Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought, by Wouter J. Hanegraaff.) This is clearly an arena in which the old adage rings true; there’s nothing new under the Sun! And because of this fundamental fact, if for no other reason, we can trust the Tarot to personify our psyches in emblematic form.
In the presence of a tool with such potential, a self-awakened mage receives the opportunity of a lifetime -- the chance to "swing from limb to limb" within the framework of the Mystery Tree. By this I mean to line up the grids (astrological, cabbalistic, geometric, angelic, musical, magical) that structure the various practices and worldviews pouring into the great sea of Western Mysteries. Those who take the time to pull their interdisciplinary correspondences together (which means, in some cases, deliberately choosing one possible approach over another) empowers one's Tarot to embody the point(s) where the chosen grids converge. With steady study and use, by an ongoing act of internalization, one can transform this under documented, bare-bones medieval outline into a multidimensional internal visualization-machine that guides and structures consciousness ~from within~. This is the path of self-initiation via the Image, for which Tarot is the ultimate "cheat sheet".
Cross-pollination Is The Norm, Not The Exception
Long study on the subject has shown me that one has to include the conversation between esoteric disciplines as a part of the original content of the Tarot cards. Alert readers might remember the remarks I made about how historians find themselves struggling with whether or not, and/or the degree to which, various simultaneous threads impacted each other as they individually saturated Southern France and the Iberian Peninsula in the 1200's: the Spanish Cabbalists, the Cathars, troubadour culture, the cult of Mary, and the intrusion of Christian apologists (such as Raymond Lull) into the Hebrews' psycho-spiritual inner sanctum. A certain kind of artificiality seems to pervade these discussions, polarized as they are around whether-or-not, as if esotericism were a zero-sum game fighting out these boundary issues "for good and for all". Yet, no matter how scrupulously a researcher tries to unknot and separate the tangled threads, a culture is like a weaving, in that the whole is always greater than the sum of the parts.
For the sake of clarity, it is expedient to investigate these various threads one at a time. But at ground level, in a given culture as lived, there will be situations in which vectors coincide, blend, inform each other, and then pass back into their respective spheres carrying the imprint at subtle, background levels. This is especially true in the case of "initiation by the image", during which an insight and its attendant realization can imprint themselves fully in a flash, in the blink of an eye literally speaking. There is no motive from an outside ego involved, and there is likely no teacher or orthodoxy present to either expedite or prevent this moment of awakening. From my own experience as a mystic and an occultist I ask: How can the random, lumbering process of cultural cross-pollination ever hold back the ‘AHA moment’ in an individual mind prepared to receive a vision of the Archetypes? No outer force has an impact at this most interior level of the psyche.
In time, the interpenetration of esoteric co-ordinates across the disciplines will appear obvious and incontrovertible to the pedigreed historians. Once the either/or arguments are stilled, those investigators possessing the greatest sensitivity to the conversations going on between the esoteric disciplines will achieve the best results in their research. This has to be true because so often we find our seminal magi of the 15th century seeking parallels across a diverse spectrum of disciplines. At first, it was the Chaldean Oracles, the Sefir Yetzira, the Platonic and Pythagorean philosophers, and the Corpus Hermeticum. Another century later and it was the Christian Cabbalists, the Alchemists, the musical Theurgists, the Paracelsian healers and the Masons. Another century further gives us the Rosicrucian Enlightenment, the Encyclopedists, the Protestant Sophianics and the charismatic personalities shaping pansophic Judaism. And in every century, there were the old grimoires, the magical compendia and Art of Memory constructs, goading each new generation of readers into spontaneous self-initiation with their images and suggestive commentaries.
My feeling is, the gnosis of Tarot in its full set and setting is presently roaring up from the collective unconscious because humanity is getting ready now to connect the dots and line up the keys to the ancestral Vault. That's precisely why there is now an academic discipline called Western Esotericism, for the first time in the University tradition! Mainstream thinking is discovering that generations of leaders have found Wisdom here, a font of deep counsel that gives it's host cultures orientation amidst the larger forces raining down upon humanity from all directions. Plus, once the horizontal connections between esoteric disciplines are allowed to grow back and forth, into and through the titles numbers and imagery of the cards, Tarot offers an unparalleled viewfinder on the Verities, the changeless Laws that all the Western esoteric disciplines have held in common. This is because all of the West's oracular tools center upon the Hermetic Cosmos, the astronomical model of the Solar System, which has guided humanity across the millennia.
A Telling Variation Of The Moon Card
Here's a tiny example of the ways Tarot images partake in the esoteric conversation of their day, mutating and morphing between modalities even as they migrate from Trump to Trump. Let's focus in for a minute on the popular old trope of "a woman with spindle, making thread under the Moon". This is not solely a Tarot image, but actually has a larger footprint in myth as well as the lore of magic and witchcraft. In his A Dictionary of Symbols, J. E. Cirlot says about the Spindle or Bobbin, and Spinning:
"The spindle and the distaff, and likewise the act of sewing, are symbols of life and the temporal; they are therefore related to the moon, a symbol expressing the transitoryness of life or all that goes in phases. Hence, deities incorporating the characteristics of the moon, the earth or vegetation usually have the spindle or the distaff as attributes; this is the case with Ishtar, Atargatis, etc. . . . Schneider supports this with his definition of the spindle as a symbol of the Magna Mater who is sewing with it inside a mountain of stone or on top of the Tree of the World. In shape, the spindle is a mandorla and so acquires the symbolism of two intersecting circles which stand for heaven and earth, that is of the sacrifice which renews the generating force of the universe. All spindle-shaped symbols signify the broad idea of mutual sacrifice and the power of inversion . . .. a host of figures of legend and folklore [are spinners]." (p. 290.)
In the Jacques Vieville Tarot from ~1644 (Trump 18), our foreground figure is apparently an older woman (hair tied up under a scarf and snood, seated instead of standing). She's perched upon a cubic block of stone, spinning thread from the hank of fiber on her distaff. Overhead, red white and gold rays and drops emanate from what looks like a lunar eclipse of the Sun. To see this card contrasted with a full spectrum of cognates, visit http://l-pollett.tripod.com/cards62.htm and scroll down to the Star-Moon-Sun section. (But in fact, this is a fascinating site overall so don't just dabble, jump!)
Solar Eclipse on Trump #18, The Moon
We can easily see the continuity between mythic tradition and this particular Moon card. But in fact, only a few of the early Moon cards bore this 'woman spinning' image. The strongest common denominator of early Moon cards seems to be the portrayal of the Moon superimposed over, or partially eclipsing, the Sun. Our Vieville variant appears several centuries after the Tarot first appears, but it is clear that the repeating theme of a darkening of the Sun by the Moon on this Trump has been with us from the beginning. Other early packs showing an eclipsed Sun on the Moon card are:
* Anonymous Parisian Tarot, circa ~1500 (the foreground shows a troubadour serenading a naked lady in a tower)
* Uncut Italian Tarocchi cards from the late 15th or early 16th century (Encyclopedia of Tarot, Vol. 2, p. 274), showing a diapered cherub holding the Moon up to cast a shadow onto the face of the Sun behind it (at left)
* Uncut Italian Tarocchi cards from the mid-16th century (Encyclopedia of Tarot, Vol. 2,
pl 286), including what we are now used to seeing as the "traditional"
crab crawling out of the high tide in a small bay at the foot of two
hills, each crowned with a tower (at right).
*Rosenwald Tarot, p. 130 of Encyclopedia of Tarot Vol. 1, p. 130, which is stripped down to just the Moon enwrapping a hapless looking Sun. (early 16th cen., at left)
*Rothschild Tarot or Minchiate, from Encyclopedia of Tarot Vol. 1, p. 129, showing astronomers viewing and measuring the eclipse happening above them (circa end of the 15th cen., beginning of the 16th., at right)
I think it is safe to say that the salient original detail of the Moon card, which doesn't change no matter what actions are pictured, going on at the earthly level of human events, is an eclipse of the Sun. This is where the face of the Sun is hemmed in and dimmed by the Moon. In other words, it's not just the Moon, and certainly not the FullMoon, that we are to think of when we see this card. It is very specifically a NewMoon solar eclipse, the darkening of the Sun from the shadow of the Moon crawling across it (as seen from the human perspective). This association of "obstruction of the Sun" with the Moon card (Trump 18) makes very good sense when we realize that the Renaissance astrologers were very tuned in to eclipse cycles, seeing in them the harbingers of mass events of great significance.
To confirm our suspicions, we consult the Wikipedia article titled "Eclipse", subset "Solar Eclipse", which ends with this quote: "A solar eclipse is actually a misnomer; the phenomenon is more correctly described as an occultation of the Sun by the Moon or an eclipse of the Earth by the Moon." Isn’t that delicious? An 'occultation of the Sun and an eclipse of the Earth by the Moon'! That is *exactly* what we are looking at in trump #18, whatever else is happening at ground level. (Tarot readers, remember this! It is not in vain that this card has been dubbed "the eclipse of reason".)
The Spinner of Fate in Myth, Astrology, and Literature
But back to our woman spinning under the eclipse -- we don't have far to look when we go searching for mythic similars in other esoteric presentations. The three Moirae or Fates -- Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, who are the Spinner, the Measurer, and the Cutter -- turned the Spindle of Fate in classical Greek mythology. These three goddesses defined the length and quality of every human life, therefore their collective name. A similar myth among the Norse people calls them the Three Norns. Together they were thought to apportion out each person's destiny on the third day after birth. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moirae) Therefore it is not amiss to note the 3 of Wands of the Estensi Tarot, which pictures forth a version of the first decanate (10 degree segment) of Aquarius. We take from these considerations the conviction that when an esoteric artist uses a spindle, or a woman spinning, one can assume that we are talking about "spinning out one's Fate". (And once we put the "occulted Sun" overhead and envision the Spinner working her magic under the shadow of the Eclipse, there's a tremendously evocative thought-form emerging!)
About half of the images from the Estensi pips pack were copied from the frescoes in the Hall of the Months at the Shifanoia Palace in Ferrara, Italy, created between 1469 and 1471. However, the Three of Wands is not one of them, as the frescoes do not extend to the sign of Aquarius. Giordano Berti, the modern Italian Tarot researcher and compiler of this pack <<http://www.giordanoberti.it/english/index.htm>>, says that he turned to the same sources as the "the creator of the frescoes, the scholarly humanist Pellegrino Prisciani, [who] made use of numerous magical and astrological treatises widespread between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. [But] Those references only partially influenced the design of this modern Estensi Tarot." (Quotes taken from Berti's Presentation at the front of the LWB of the Estensi Tarot.) Berti has to make this admission because he took these decanate images out of their natural zodiac order to associate them with the Tarot pips, a project that I don't feel he was very successful with. Nevertheless, these same images, with their astrological correspondences, were to be found in several popular grimoires of the time, so we don't have to wonder about the correspondence an astrologer would make to this image. We can get the gist of the traditional astral idea when we look at this comparison of ancient and Renaissance sources <<http://www.tarot.org.il/Decans/ >>
Investigating further afield, we find another version of the same idea opening Chapter 2 of Fred Gettings' Secret Symbolism in Occult Art, the chapter being entitled 'The Astral World: The Invisible Universe'. This image was taken from the 1537 Augsburg edition of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, a long-lived and ever-popular disquisition written in AD 524 by the most highly educated philosopher of his age. Boethius wrote his Consolation during the long imprisonment leading up to his horrific execution, which makes the lucidity of the work all the more amazing. The text is in the format of an inner-life conversation between Boethius and Lady Philosophy (which is another name for Sophia). <<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolation_of_Philosophy>> Here’s how Gettings explains the image we find in this edition of the Consolation:
"The casual observer might think that the old woman ... is a witch. However, this is not so -- she is actually one of the Fates of ancient mythology, spinning the thread from which the garment of life is made. In ancient times it was believed that there were three Fates, each one intimately involved in the life of man. What is of particular interest to our study of occult vision is that this old crone is portrayed in the midst of three worlds. She stands on a block of stone or rock shaped in the form of a cube. The solid cube (like rock itself) is one of the symbols of materiality, of the physical world.
The woman is surrounded by a luxuriant growth of flowers, brambles, creepers and ferns. Such an interweaving of plants is linked in occult symbolism with the etheric plane. The word 'etheric', which is derived from the Latin aether, has almost the same meaning as the word "Quintessence', the secret fifth element which the ancients believed to be the spiritual body of the stars, the life force on the earth. On reflection we see that it is entirely satisfactory that the life force should be symbolized by growing plants. In medieval times, when the artist wished to indicate events which were supposed to take place on the etheric plane (where time itself is different), he would fill the background area with swirling forms or plant-like growth....
Besides standing upon a stone in the midst of this symbolic growth, the old woman is carrying upon her shoulders a globe which reminds us of the cosmos held on the shoulders of Atlas... However, if we look more closely at this globe, we shall see that it is not a diagram of the cosmos at all: it is not meant to symbolize the heavens. In this semicircle there are a number of stars (each one in the now familiar Seal of Solomon form), as well as the humanized crescent Moon. To the extreme top right of the picture is a flash of flame, containing what might be hailstones or meteors, bursting in on the picture. This higher realm of fire and of the moon is called the astral. The word 'astral' is from the Latin aster, meaning 'star', which is almost certainly why the artist has portrayed a number of stars on the lunar globe. When the medieval artist wanted to suggest that the events he was depicting belong to the higher astral plane, he would set them against a background of pure gold, or against a background of stars, to indicate the 'astrality' of his subject." (P. 41-2).
The Spinner Of Fate On The Sun Card, Trump #19
This is the point where things get interesting! Because if we pick out the Sun card (Trump 19) of the Estensi pack, (the Trumps for which are modeled on the very early Charles VI Tarot Trumps from ~1460), we will see the very same spinning woman, younger now and golden-haired, standing against a golden filigree and spinning under The Sun! <<http://l-pollett.tripod.com/cards62.htm>> In case we think that this is an anomaly among Tarot images, check out the Sun card in the uncut sheet in the Bibliotheque de l'Eocle Nationale cards (Encyclopedia of Tarot Vol. 1, p. 128.) Here also we see the stylized background showing the abstract (non-vegetal), busy "upper" astral plane, the long fair hair of a younger woman, the spindle, and what could be a square plinth under her seat.
Our host at Andy's Playing Cards has gone out of his way to collect, compare, and account for the subtle shifts in imagery between the oldest packs. His astute remarks and conclusions are based on a comparison of the emblems, but he is not attempting to ~decode~ the variations beyond the level applicable to the game of cards. Even at that level, reviewing his comparisons of the earliest Trump patterns and variants is thrilling and mind-expanding! And yet our conversation here keeps transecting the historical facts with considerations stemming from the theory of magic. The reader can be forgiven for feeling rather dazzled at this point. This is unavoidable, part of the larger esoteric puzzle that Tarot was created to picture forth.
In the art of esotericism, there are no random details. Considering the amount of skill and labor required to carve the printing plates for the cards of Tarot, or to paint and gild a set of handmade cards, whimsy and meaninglessness are kept to a minimum. This makes it especially fascinating to find the Spinner of Fate migrating between the Moon and Sun trumps! But if this is possible without destroying the fabric of occult teaching running below and between the Trump sequences, what differentiates these images, making the same subject suitable for such divergent concepts on these seemingly diametrically opposed Trumps? The difference is, under the Lunar Eclipse the Spinner is old and stooped, showing her earthbound, time-trapped side, parallel to Sophia "fallen" into Matter. Meanwhile, standing on the Sun card, the Spinner is showing her angelic eternal ageless side, analogous to the "higher" Sophia, above the aether and fully astralized, identified with Sol at the level of the zodiacal Archetypes.
This makes perfect sense, because beyond the Judgment trump, we see Sophia as the Virgin of the World, the Goddess on the World card literally speaking. In this final view, after the Resurrection, she completes and comprises the bridge carrying fallen souls out of the sublunary (aethyric) realm of temporal imperfect material creation (Moon card), across the "higher astral" realm of the Sun and the Archetypes, and (once rebirthed out of time on the Judgment card) into the eternal perfection of the Father in Heaven (World). And, if we want to be complete about our analysis here, we can also count the lovely woman on the Star card as representing the same soul force, perhaps the first awakening of conscious divinity within the human individual, only made possible by the ruination of the ego's Tower in the Trump before her. It would not be amiss to say that the final 5 Trumps in the sequence are all happening at the "soul" level, due to the presence of these numinous and symbolically loaded female figures in each frame.
This is how the syncretic or multi-disciplinary approach works. We have to allow the "woman spinning under the sky" her plasticity, her polymorphous ambiguity, if we are going to be able to understand the shades of meaning and movement ~between~ the cards of a given pack, between the similarly named or -numbered cards of different packs, and between Tarot and the other esoteric disciplines. To the extent there is a larger paradigm that frames, links, and orders the cards to each other and through Tarot packs across time, the pattern is interwoven with clues and hints from parallel forms of esotericism popular with the educated classes at the time of Tarot's appearance. We have to include those influences when we are looking at our early Tarot decks, or else we will not be able to realize that the Woman Spinning, the NewMoon Eclipse, and the Radiant Sun (as well as the calculating astrologers, the troubadour, the Tower(s), the crab, the cherub, the luminous drops falling from Moon and Sun, the golden screen and the lovely ladies on the Star and in the mandorla of the World) are all related parts of a larger paradigm. To truly "see the forest for the trees", the student of these matters has to step outside the borders of the cards, and even outside the individual pack of cards, to encounter the larger worldview in which the characters of the Tarot pack live and move and have their being.
The Universal Language of Esotericism
Having outlined one tiny square inch of the vast living tapestry in which Tarot is embedded, it might now be easier to understand why a multidisciplinary approach is the only logical way to study the Tarot. But don't believe me just based on this single example! Now that we can have impeccable academic voices addressing issues in Western Esotericism, every season brings us fresh insights and new resources to work with. Let me quote from the concluding chapter of Arthur Versluis' excellent Restoring Paradise; Western Esotericism, Literature, Art and Consciousness (p. 137-8):
"Underlying all of these Western esoteric traditions is also a universalism in the myth of the fall and of restoration. This myth -- although it appears in numerous variants -- is always tied to the Ur-Mensch, Adam, and his fall from paradise. In brief, what transpired before history goes something like this: Primordial humanity, often seen as androgynous, was tempted to look outside itself for knowledge, and in this externalization was the separation or fall from paradise into the increasing objectivization of history. The aim of the esoteric practitioner, whether a kabbalist, an alchemist, a theosopher, or a pansoph is nothing less than the restoration of paradise, which is to say, the restoration of unity between humanity and nature by way of the divine.
Such a myth of universal fall and restoration also implies that behind the Babel of modern human languages lies a universal language that belongs to paradisal humanity. The myth of a primordial humanity entails a primordial language, the language of creation itself. In this perspective, the entire cosmos represents a kind of celestial writing, and within every living thing is its transcendent or archetypal signature or word. Primordial humanity knows this celestial language, but as humanity fell away from it in the long descent that is human history, language too became externalized and 'hardened' outside us into mutually incomprehensible 'tongues,' not the means of celestial union with all that surrounds us, but instead a further means for our separation from and objectification of the world.
We see this idea of a celestial or universal language appearing in various forms throughout Western esotericism. Jewish Kabbalah of course maintains a long tradition of Hebrew exegesis, and of intricate maneuvers with letters and numbers in gematria, temurah, and notarikon, drawing a virtually infinite range of connotations from a single verse, even from a single letter. Underlying these alphanumeric permutations is the understanding that in fact one is working with the very language of creation, and this view is found throughout other Western esoteric traditions, often with Hebrew as the celestial language of choice. Hence, for instance, one finds Hebrew letters inscribed in alchemical, theosophical, pansophic, magical, Rosicrucain, and Masonic illustrations, almost always denoting divinity."
This concept of a Universal Language, alternately comprised of letters, numbers, images, symbols, and ultimately all the 'things' of the world, points us back again to the stunning insight also promoted by Christopher Lehrich; that magic is intrinsic in the act of writing and reading, that matter itself is the 'writing' of God and the angels, and that the magus employs all the magical correspondences discovered throughout history (including sacred alphabets both historical and synthetic/symbolic) to "read and write back to God" in the inner sanctum of private consciousness.
A Christian Alchemical, Cabbalistic and Pansophic Altarpiece from 1673
By this time, many of my readers have one way or another become familiar with the concept of self-initiation. Whether through study of ancient religious rituals, through investigation of the shamanic and theurgic arts, or even through a study of the Christian sacraments, there are many paths into this sanctuary. Arrival at the interior work of self-initiation is confirmed when the individual's center of consciousness shifts, leaving behind its old point of view anchored to a stance exterior to the Mystery. Once having "flipped the mirror", the seeker discovers that now the Mystery is taking place within the Self. Some quantum of gnosis is acquired in the process, and repeated efforts continue this process of awakening-to-what-is.
Ponder, for example, the painting that forms the masthead for our website, dated 1673, and read the condensed account of what you are looking at written by Adam McLean <<http://www.alchemywebsite.com/bad_teinach.html>>
Notice that this is an interdisciplinary icon referencing Classical,
Hebrew, Christian and Gnostic themes demonstrated in architectural,
horticultural, biblical and mythic terms. The boiled-down equation for
this presentation is:
[Horizontal (3x12) +1] <= [vertical 4 Worlds {7 (steps) + 3 (triangles)}]
[For this part of the essay, please click on the image and it will open large in a new window -- position it so that you can reference the image as you read]
In the foreground we are looking at the Rose Garden of the Virgin, the enclosed domain wherein the soul can commune with Sophia, the guide of souls. Circular, in the form of a maze, the garden has three rings of 12 compartments, which signifies the zodiac's organizing principle manifest in the Three Worlds, alternately attributable to the 36 decans. Many different Orders of 12 are included here beyond the Signs of the Zodiac; we also see the 12 Tribes of the Hebrews, the 12 Apostles, and a set of 12-fold correspondences drawing in plants, trees, animals, colors and symbols. All these values are marshaled to elucidate the manifold variations of experience that the One Life enlivens as it spills into the realm of incarnated time/space. As McLean makes clear, the first challenge of the Soul at the gate to the maze is to find her way to the Center, the place where the Christos (AKA Adam Kadmon) harmonizes and unites Creation again into a seamless, single Life. We see Him elevated on a pedestal, standing on a mound of earth that could represent his empty tomb. This aspect of the scene is taking place on the horizontal axis, in the plane of Nature and the manifested world.
Above and behind the Christos, overlighting him visually is an unmistakable portrait of Sophia falling at the approximate center of the tableaux. She represents the astral base (Yesod) of a Hebrew Cabbala Tree, every Sephirot of which (above Christos) is female. The Tree rises vertically out of the plane of the garden, ascending as the eye takes in the decorated face of the temple. In a clever trick of perspective, the Christ/Sophia pair are equated horizontally yet hierarchalized vertically. By this I mean that both Christos and Sophia are elevated above the garden, he on his pedestal and rock mound in the center of the fountain, she on the top step of the temple's 7-step foundation. Yet we see her as if she's hovering over his head! The painter accomplished this by putting the point of perspective at some elevation off the ground, causing us to peer into the scene as if it were an open clam shell -- the garden as the lower half, the temple as the upper half, with the alter at the back of the central shrine serving as the hinge.
Once we have taken in the presentation of the garden, our awareness commences to rise through Yesod (the Lady on the Moon), who stands on the plinth of the Temple -- on the plane of the inner sanctum yet outside its pillars. Netzach and Hod, the ladies at the bases of the two Pillars flanking the central opening, mark the threshold, beyond which is shown a checkerboard floor and an inner altar also filled with esoteric references. On the facade of the building above the pillars we see Tiffaret at the pediment of the roof, holding two children. Ascending again through Chesed and Geburah (on the wings of the roof, either side of the highest throne), we reach the Supernal Triangle, portrayed as a Triple Goddess of sorts under the Dome of the Firmament. Backed by the apparent solidity of the stone temple, these feminine forms of the Sephirot draw our attention into higher realms of consciousness, realms which are no longer tied in with the natural world like the tribal heroes, trees, plants and animals on display below.
The more McLean describes it all, the more one realizes that only a mystical syncretist would have drawn all of these characters, symbols, and Archetypes together in a single artwork in the mid-1600's! And indeed, "This was a 'teaching painting' designed for Princess Antonia, who was of the family of Frederick I, Duke of Wurttemberg, alchemist and occultist", according to McLean. It is with great regret that I see that the book McLean is using for reference has not yet been translated into English. Only those who took better advantage than I of their years in school will be able to enjoy the fullness of this exquisite, profound, and initiatory painting.
How Can We Moderns Enter Into This Spirit?
As we can see from investigating these examples, there is an entire worldview, body of symbolism, set of assumptions and working style that stands between a person who plays with or studies Tarot cards themselves, versus a person who is using the cards as doorways into the holistic magical landscape of the early Renaissance. No wonder there is controversy and sharp exchanges in the forums! What seems obvious to one will strike another as the wildest stab in the dark. So how does "the average person" find their way into a deeper appreciation for the world of beliefs, values and esoteric art that brought us Tarot's evocative emblems?
The mentality of a person from the 21st century has a built-in handicap against making this cognitive leap. We have had so much indoctrination away from the realm of the imagination that we get tangled up in notions of "truth or falsity" right at the outset. We imagine ourselves possessing so much more "factual knowledge about how the world works" these days, that we can't manage to attribute the same capacity for consciousness to our ancestors as we do to ourselves. We are afflicted with a ponderous hubris about our superior grasp over materiality, while having not a clue about the profound interior, cultural and spiritual lives that our predecessors enjoyed.
One excellent path that a modern person can take towards accessing the attitudes of the Renaissance comes through the "suspended disbelief" we use while reading or witnessing works of fiction. We don't always know all the details shaping the world a writer puts in front of us, but even so, we willingly allow him or her to take hold of our consciousness and turn it this way and that, scripting us through a sequence of emotions and ideas in the course of the story. For the sake of the experience, we trust the author and lend ourselves into the plot, even to the point of identifying with the characters and the situations they get into. Similarly, we can bring willingly open minds to the art of esotericism -- Tarot cards, alchemical manuscripts, astrological manuals and the like -- looking at the patterns and correspondences with fresh eyes undimmed by our modernistic narcissism. All that is required is that we be conscious enough to adjust our settings in advance.
Word Within the World
For example, when we look at this Bad Teinach altarpiece, the first thing we need to take in is that we are entering a privileged world set away from the military camp on the one hand and the business of the city on the other. Like the magical island at the heart of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, we are entering into a tensionless world of sensitively balanced archetypes expressing a transcendental reality. This world is inhabited by divine exemplars whose aspect and accompanying symbols indicate the initiatory lessons embodied in their legends. We can drop our cynicism, our defensiveness, and our thoughts of competition or gain at the gate, because this realm stands aside from all of that. Tellingly, each soul that enters this garden is instantly transformed into its female expression. Facing the Central Mystery of this exalted garden, all of our superficiality and insensitivity drops away and we come back to our innermost awareness, becoming permeable to Truth, Hope and Faith again.
The three-tiered garden laid out before the lovely lady at the gate (the soul, complete with flaming heart and anchor-cross of faith), invites us to wander, to peruse, to study out all of the symbols that are gathered there for our consideration. We know by the division of the space by 12 that we are looking at a type of the Zodiac, the cycle or Wheel of the Year that carries us through the seasons and the calendar. However, because this space is laid out in the form of a labyrinth or maze within the Wheel, any sense of ordinary time is suspended, slowed and transformed by the bending and folding of the footpath around the growing plant beds. The contents of the beds, meanwhile, unfold a virtual encyclopedia of natural correspondences, representing the animal, vegetable and mineral world substanding the human incarnation and corresponding to one of the months of the year. Twelve statues with their sacred trees extend the metaphor into the realm of ancient culture-heroes, another cycle of the Zodiac. Everything here on the plane of Nature serves to demonstrate to the viewer the sacredness of human learning, the great inherited riches of our ancestors' efforts to understand the World as Divine Word. In this garden we are confronted with a lexicon of the 'language of Nature', expressed wordlessly through her many forms and lives.
Once we are sufficiently grounded in this revelation of Divine Nature, we are ready to face the Temple. Within the geography of the painting, the Christos (or Adam Kadmon) upon his pedestal has the same elevation as Sophia standing on her Moon at the top of the seven stairs at the base of the Temple. These two are thereby identified, equated, and made "as one". One might even say that, in order to switch between the horizontal and vertical planes of the painting, the soul has to exchange its hard-won masculine attributes (divinized in the Christos), attributes which became available once the 'feminized' soul works its way to the center of the maze. After merging with the Cristos-as-Malkuth, the soul re-assumes her feminine form, standing in the Moon at the portico of the Temple. Only this time she doesn't lapse into the masculine mode again, but climbs up the symbolic Tree of Sephiroth in ever-more-refined incarnations of the Goddess. This directly illustrates the ancient function of Sophia, who provides the spark of Divinity that awakens, leads and enlightens "her student", humanity. These syncretists of the 1600's, who seem to have received some Gnostic influence, are also allowing us to witness the redemptive Christ/Sophia partnership in action, bringing about the long-awaited Age of the Holy Spirit.
Following the ascending plane on the front of the Temple we are given this amazing suggestion: Once the soul arrives at the center of the terrestrial (horizontal) maze, identification with the Christos (the Prime Incarnation) allows access to an entirely new reality (the vertical plane), represented by the hierarchy of Goddesses installed at their stations on the facade of the stone Temple. From ancient usage the Temple is the divinized Body, proportioned in all of its parts to our heavenly origin. Therefore we are put on notice that a new body is awaiting the student of this Mystery, a body that is attuned to and shaped by the celestial Organs of God. Certainly the fact that all the Sephirot are pictured as female already gives us pause for thought, since canonical Christianity isn't particularly oriented towards female images of the Godhead. Similarly notable is the fact that this body is embedded into the fabric of the Temple, which is to say; it remains identified with the material creation, as Getting's remarks about the block of stone under The Spinner's feet remind us. This ascending spiritual body, which is functionally identified with the fullest expression of the divine in human potential, remains at every level in touch with the material creation, despite the fact that it is presented as extending into another reality entirely than the horizontal Creation.
Bringing Heaven Down To Earth
For those who take the visionary suggestion this painting gives literally, we are to understand that hidden in plain sight within the known world of time and space is an internal world of Divine Inspiration, and that on every level of matter and consciousness, Sophia (Goddess of this hidden world) is revealed as our ally, our educator, and our destination. When the Christed ego rises into the Sophianic empyrean of inner space, then the channel between God and Nature is entirely open. What is left then, but that humanity be espoused to God? Without dying and without leaving this world, the mystic whose attunement with this presentation grows into completion accomplishes the New Heavens and New Earth. As McLean says without exaggeration, "the whole painting is truly profound in its detailed encapsulation of esoteric wisdom in pictorial form". And from a specifically Tarot-based point of view, this painting is sophisticated enough (note the pun!) to give meaning to every card in a 78-card pack. A dedicated and sincere individual, with a clear, full-sized copy of this painting on their wall and unlimited time to follow out all the implications of the details, could receive a lifetime of inspiration for a full-bore spiritual practice just from this one presentation!
But notice what happens to the individual who attempts to emulate this spiritual prescription. First thing, the armor of the ego, the "maleness" we learn from our worldly and overstressed lives, has to be left behind at the gate. The Soul has to embrace vulnerability, be trusting, and become available to a new body of learning. Then s/he has to patiently work through the entire catalogue of living symbolism that is this outer world, until s/he can see transparently through the language of objects and understand the eternal Themes driving all manifested actions and reactions. As this process unfolds, the psychological, cultural and emotional life will acquire a new order according to the larger vision of this ancient and timeless master plan. The ego has to let of its attachment to personal peculiarities, preferences, and desensitizing habits. Make no mistake; this vista calls us out of our limited version of ourselves, to identify with a larger mission and a transfigured (reborn!) set of qualities. Nothing less than apotheosis will do.
Those who are resonant to my frequency here will discern a note of personal inspiration shining through this explanation. My education in the esoteric arts, their catalogue of disciplines and sciences, has been directly shaped by exercises like this one -- looking into the illustrations, graphs, diagrams and emblems that have studded the works of the Medieval and Renaissance magi, and letting the symbols explain themselves over the course of weeks, months or years while investigating every detail possible. It has proved to be an utterly entrancing, fulfilling labor of love to this very day!
In my early years it wasn't clear whether I was an astrologer or a Tarot reader primarily, but as time unfolded the two tools showed their value when worked in tandem. Indeed, they are "the gold and silver key" to the whole esoteric paradigm, just as the Brotherhood of Light had indicated in my earliest Tarot studies. Astrology links the Archetypes of myth and legend to the moving bodies in space, whose comings and goings over time mark out the significance of events "on the ground". All of the Mystery teachings resolve down to astronomical/astrological events, so that provides a powerful common denominator across esoteric paradigms.
Tarot, meanwhile, is the file folder that holds the rest of the catalogue -- all of the various bodies of correspondences that have accumulated around the signs, planets, degrees, and elements. No matter what particular mystery-inflected overlay one chooses for the details (Cabbala, Alchemy, classical myths, Dante's Inferno, Revelations, etc.) the classical Hermetic Cosmos can be neatly subdivided across the Tarot pack's various species of categories (Trumps, Royals, Pips) to enhance and inform the face values. The Tarot is endless to the degree that one's own curiosity and love of discovery can be brought into the mix. Once one has determined the fundamental attributions one wishes to make -- having settled on a basic set of AAN correspondences, for example, or something as comprehensive as the Bad Teinach altarpiece for one's outline -- then the 'Word within the World' begins to display itself to you.
All Roads Lead To Mysticism
Stepping back into the 21st century mindset brings certain things into extreme clarity. One obvious realization is that any form of discussion whatsoever that stands between the soul and the object of its contemplation is a distraction. Those who understand the expressions of Nature (animals, vegetables, minerals, ecosystems, weather, seasons) to be the direct speech of God soon realize that linguistic verbalizations are only a pale, one-dimensional attempt to quantify what is, in truth, unquantifiable. "Translation" of those essential values into letters, numbers, glyphs, symbols, words or emblems is never more than a partial thing, the finger pointing at the Moon, not the Moon itself. All attempts to argue with the is-ness of the manifested world are refuted by their paltriness, their unreality, as well as their inherent omissions and distortions.
This might seem a paradox, given how "loaded" the esoteric art of the West is with nature-symbols, classical references, esoteric glyphage, Cabbalistic inferences, alchemical processes and the rest -- all demanding to be linked up with their preceding historical myths, charismatic god forms, and astronomical cognates. We interact with all of this symbolism in a "wordy", literary and cognitive way. In a certain sense, all of the languaging that has been thrown around these Mysteries serves as a veil, servomg at least as well to distort and obscure as the disbelief of the masses has. One has to have a decent metaphysical education, including a well-appointed library, in order to realize that a given plant, animal, person, place or thing appearing in a work of art from our target time might be making a special reference.
Yet even if one were as richly equipped as a Renaissance magus, one cannot bring one's whole library into meditation, can one? There is a limit to how much benefit one is going to receive from memorized lists and catalogues when one is immersed in communion with archetypal objects of cognition! Preparation is essential, but the preparatory stage has to be well internalized and fully digested, built into one's psychic life over time and long experience, before the gnosis of the whole can be freely accessible in meditation. What type of person will take the time, and painstakingly gather the links, to be aware of the spectrum of values hidden inside such esoteric expositions as these?
Only a mystic will venture into these pathways, my friends; it has always and ever been so. Patrons and collectors might value the painting as a work of art, professors might chart the chains of cultural influence leading up to and away from it, and the rest of us peasants can gasp at the inventiveness, scope and nobility of sentiment infusing the work. But only the mystic will "read" it and realize the claim it puts upon his or her responsive soul due to the deep act of witnessing. Seeing the condition of the woman in green at the gate of the garden, we are put on notice that only a receptive "heart on fire" that is "anchored to the Cross" may enter.
The literature of esotericism in the West is regularly prefaced with admonitions that "disbelievers should not bother with these teachings; there is nothing here for the scoffer or the critic". This is not mentioned as a way of excluding anybody, only a fact that needs to be taken into consideration at the outset. A presentation of this magnitude does not come alive for the cynic, the disbeliever, or the smash-and-grab user. The integrated multi-disciplinary symbolism shaping this garden by its very nature prevents misapprehension of its message. For people who are only superficially interested, it will remain a closed book forever. Those who identify too closely with purist roots will be confused or repelled away, because the mix of references will make them feel as if they are in the presence of alien spiritual concepts. Those who are burdened by patriarchal entitlement will be put off by the plethora of Goddesses looking out from every angle. Those who are afflicted by misunderstanding of the magical worldview will fail to find anything here but a catalogue of fabulations. No wonder the Bad Teinach altarpiece is painted in the form of "a garden enclosed"! Like all esoteric presentations worthy of their salt, it refuses entry to all but the sincere.
ArkLetter 42
August 30, 2008
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