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Gnostic Tarot: Mandalas for Spiritual Transformation
Gnostic Tarot: Mandalas for Spiritual Transformation
Gnostic Tarot: Mandalas for Spiritual Transformation
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Gnostic Tarot: Mandalas for Spiritual Transformation

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Gnostic Tarot presents an exciting new path for people who want to use the tarot as a guide for spiritual development. Lee Irwin synthesizes the more traditional forms of interpretation with a new esoteric method based on the contemporary theories of Hermetic and Gnostic spirituality. He has developed ten Mandalas (akin to tarot spreads) for you to use as meditative structures for contemplating the interconnection between the natural elements and consciousness as reflected by the imagery of the cards. Irwin provides a detailed discussion of the esoteric history and structure of the tarot, and explores the symbolism of the Four Suits, The Inner (Minor) Court Cards, and the Major Arcana Cards as illustrated by the Ravenswood and Waite decks. His wellwritten and deeply insightful interpretations of tarot imagery will inspire you to see the sacred in everything surrounding you. By using Irvins Mandalas, mediations, and visualization exercises, you can learn to align your physical, mental, and emotional life with your spiritual growth, to affect an alchemical transformation through the realization of your souls purpose.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateOct 1, 1998
ISBN9781609256630
Gnostic Tarot: Mandalas for Spiritual Transformation

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    Gnostic Tarot - Lee Irwin

    1. THE GNOSTIC TAROT

    This book is based on a Gnostic interpretation of the tarot cards with a special emphasis on spiritual transformation and illumined states of awareness. Such an approach is part of a long history of development in tarot interpretation and esoteric theories of symbolic correspondences. The traditional tarot, by which I mean the inherited, classical Mediterranean Tarocci deck popularized in Europe since the Italian Renaissance, has long been associated with various strands of Western esoteric thought through both its imagery and its use in occult systems. Since the late 16th century, it has been allied with many different initiatic schools and societies that emphasized the illuminist aspect of the tarot imagery as a means to awaken the human capacity for true spiritual awareness and gnosis. Assimilated into magical practices and allied with other occult traditions such as Kabbalah, astrology, and Hermeticism, the tarot represents one of the richest sources of mythic imagery in the history of the Western psyche.

    As a repository of arcane and evocative imagery, the tarot has been frequently interpreted as a symbolic resource for personal transformation and spiritual awakening. Unfortunately, the techniques involving a path-work approach to the tarot as a set of psychic symbols resonant with Western esoteric spiritual meanings have long been associated with initiatic groups whose teachings have been generally unavailable for study by nonmembers of those societies. Subsequently, in the contemporary climate of interest in tarot and its various branches, the Gnostic approach has not been well developed or accessible to tarot practitioners. Further, as there is no such thing as a definitive interpretation of tarot, but only a wide variety of interpretive approaches whose emphasis varies according to the intentions and skills of the interpreters, we should not expect, given its rich and complex history, that any claim to recover the real or true teaching of tarot will actually be supported by other interpreters as final or complete. The essence of the tarot, from an esoteric perspective, lies in its rich evocative potential to call forth new variations on ancient themes, rather than in the creation of some artificial and definitive system whose components are inevitably subject to the critique of changing fashions in all things occult and obscure.

    The Gnostic Tarot is presented as a contribution to the rich heritage of spiritual transmutation made possible by reflection and meditation on the ways in which symbolic systems are used to evoke new insights and understanding. But an understanding of what? In this case, of the Mystery which surrounds us as a potential source of awakening to higher and more illumined states of heart and mind. To attain that goal requires a new organization and clarification of the tarot imagery and a reshaping of that imagery so as to evoke a deeper and more penetrating light in the depths of normally unseen human possibilities. The Gnostic Tarot creates a set of meaningful relationships which correspond with both the natural outer world (the macrocosm) and the inner developmental processes of spiritual awakening (the microcosm) and sees those processes as reflected in the use and imagery of the cards. It emphasizes the Hermetic aspects of psychic and symbolic transformation that lead to a more aware sensitivity in the interpretation of tarot imagery.

    To understand these relationships, you must avoid using the tarot in a simple diagnostic or oracular fashion. What is required in this Gnostic-Hermetic approach is a deep reflection on the tarot imagery as it relates to subjective experience and the correspondent structures of a personally expanded awareness congruent with objective, historical existence. This interplay between the impact of the image, the interiorization and externalization of the individual in daily life, and the larger context of social existence has its center in a desire for personal transformation that is more than merely a psychological search for attunement with the unconscious. Such psychological theories are only secondary to the Gnostic Tarot. What is called for here is a form of Hermetic or Gnostic philosophy revised and adapted to current spiritual needs and situations. It is not easy to grasp this philosophy in the context of meditation on tarot imagery and card-handling. It takes serious thought and effort, and a willingness not to simply use the interpretations in a conventional manner but rather to cultivate an attitude of meditative respect toward those images and an appreciation of the underlying metaphysical principles on which this interpretation is based. A brief history of the tarot will help to ground us in some sense of relationship to historical experience and past valuations.

    The Early Roots of Tarot

    The word tarot is French, a term derived from the Italian tarocco (pronounced ta-ro-cho), and refers to a deck of 78 cards. The term tarocco, also found articulated as taro, taroc, or tarok, and other variants, may come from an earlier term which referred to the triumph cards (Italian, cartes da trionfi) or trumps in use in late 16th-century Renaissance Italy. The origins of these trump cards is unclear, but they seem to have been in use in northern Italy after 1500 by both the general populace and the aristocracy. In 1480, the Italian writer Covelluzo wrote that in the year 1379 the game of cards was brought into Viterbo from the country of the Saracens where it is called Naib (in Spanish, naipes means cards, a usage most likely derived from the Islamic Moors). This occurred during the Great Schism or feud between the Italian pope, Urban VI, and the French pope, Clement VII. The Italian merchants hired Saracen (Muslim) mercenaries who may have brought cards with them into Italy.¹

    The Mamluks of Egypt were known to have had cards in the 13th century and may have introduced card playing to European knights, possibly during various periods of the middle Crusades. Another source of inspiration for these early cards may have been the game of chess, transmitted by the Saracens from the peoples of India (the original home of chess) to European knights like Godfrey of Bouillon, who brought the game back from the First Crusade (c. 1095-99). However much influence chess may have had on the Minor Arcana or the four suits, it seems to have had little or no influence on the Major Arcana. Cards in the Istanbul Museum show Mamluk suits of Scimitars, Cups, Coins, and Wands (or polo sticks) similar to early Italian suits with curved swords and flared wands.² In 1816, Samuel Weller Singer claimed an Arabic origin for cards, but pointed to the Saracen invasion of Sicily in 652 C.E. during the early spread of Islam as a possible origin.³ Even though this theory, one of the earliest on origins for the tarot, has been largely discredited, particularly with regard to the trump cards or Major Arcana, Arab cards may have had some significant influence on the development of the four suits. This theory, however, concerns only the physical appearance of cards in Europe and not the possibility of the Arab linguistic origins of the term tarot.

    Some authors have claimed that tarot derives from the Egyptian TaRosh, meaning the royal way, and others have suggested it is a Latin anagram for rota, referring to the wheel, an analogy for the Karmic rounds of birth, death, and rebirth as symbolized in the Major Arcana card, the Wheel of Fortune. If, however, you look into the standard Egyptian dictionaries (Budge, Gardiner, etc.), you quickly discover that there is no linguistic entry for ta rosh, except for a very late cartouch of the Persian King, Darius, which reads in Egyptian Ta Roosh, but which is an obvious transliteration of Darius from the Greek. The theory of the Egyptian origins of the term tarot appears to lead to a dead end. However, a quick check of the possible Arabic etymology (via Lane) reveals darsun (sg.) or darus (pl.), meaning hidden, or sought after. The Hebrew etymology for a Semitic equivalent yields the Hebrew darash (sg.) and darush (pl.) meaning, to ask or inquire, or an oracle. If taroc is thought of as a transliteration of the Semitic darus or darush, it yields a number of interesting linguistic possibilities.

    Following this line of inquiry, a tentative hypothesis may be put forward for the Semitic linguistic origins of the term tarot. If there are both Arabic and Hebrew equivalents for the term, it is likely an old Semitic root-word (as found in Phoenician or Ugaritic). We know that the contemporary term tarot is French and was acquired from the Italian Tarocco or Taroc, which is very close to the Semitic root-word for oracle. The transposition of the da to ta is quite common in languages crossing cultural boundaries, as is the transposition of sh to ch. Thus we can postulate that the Italian taroc may be a word derived from the Semitic-Arabic root-word darush, meaning to inquire, to seek after the hidden, to be oracular. The word may have been brought to Italy through contact with Arabic (or Iberian-Jewish) traditions whose roots may extend back into the Arab presence in Spain after the eighth century. This hypothesis, which may articulate nothing more than a fortuitous association, is set forth simply as a suggestive guideline for future inquiry into the linguistic origins of tarot. However, it does add some weight to the theory that the tarot is of Arab origin and carries some inherent oracular meaning.

    Regardless of its name or its origins, the tarot first appeared in Europe in hand-painted decks made by Italian artisans, beginning as early as 1299. These decks flourished among the great families of northern Italy, such as the Este, Visconti, and Sforza. As recorded in the Chambre des Comptes of 1392, Charles VI of France is said to have had cards painted, sixteen of which are presently on display in the Bibiothéque Nationale de Paris. There are scholars, however, who dispute whether these are really a source for the spread and development of the tarot trump or Major Arcana. Were the makers and painters of these cards possibly inspired by other (Arabic?) cards or perhaps by paper money brought back from China by the famous merchants of Venice? The northern Italian cards are called Venetian to distinguish them from the 97-card pack of the Florentines and the 62-card deck of the thrifty Bolognese.

    The theory of the Chinese origins for cards is interesting, but not a likely source of the tarot Major Arcana. According to the Ching-tze-tung dictionary (1678), playing cards were invented by the Chinese as entertainment for the Emperor's concubines. As noted by Douglas, paper money of the T'ang Dynasty (618-908) was printed using woodblocks in suits of strings of cash, or increasing units of a single suit of coins (much like our contemporary paper money). Gambling with this money may have led, by the 11th century, to games in which the printed paper money itself was treated as a type of card to be played.⁴ Traditionally, Chinese paper cards (chih p'ai) consisted of a 160-card deck, each card measuring roughly 2.5 by .75 inches and having black lacquer backs. Another influence may be found in the Chinese paper money with the image of the deity or spirit printed on it which was burned at the altars of various deities and spirits. This is vaguely reminiscent of Major Arcana imagery. Such woodblock-printed paper may have been brought back along with the idea of paper money by various Italian-Venetian merchants. There is no direct connection however, between either the images or the format of Chinese playing cards and the tarot deck. Chinese and Japanese images, however, are presently used on some tarot decks and these may harken back to this older theory of the Far Eastern origin of cards. The Chinese Tarot designed by Jui Guoliang consists of many images and correspondences from classical China, such as the Major Arcana card five, The Heavenly Master, or card twenty, Confucius. The beautiful Japanese Ukiyoe cards of Koji Furuta give an excellent impression of the 17th-and 18th-century Japanese floating world.

    If we briefly review the history of card playing, we find the following important dates in a general pattern of increasing dissemination and interest in tarot and the game of tarocci.

    1377: A monk in Brefeld, Switzerland collects information showing the pagan origins of cards and card games and, fascinated with games of all sorts, writes a description of card games. However, there is no mention of the trump cards of the Major Arcana.

    1378: The southern Germans, never slow to ban wasteful pleasures of any sort, ban card games in Regensburg, Germany. However, this ban suggests strongly that card playing was widespread and that stenciled decks may have been popular and accessible to the ordinary folk from an early date.

    1379: A Belgian aristocrat acquires an interest in the game and, ignoring the spread of the inexpensive, stenciled decks, orders a high-fashion deck that is all the rage in Italy, as recorded in the account books of the Dukedom of Brabant (Belgium).

    1380: The Nuremberg Germans, in a contrast to their Regensburg neighbors, realize that all their fellow nationals are using tarocco cards and the Code of Nuremberg, influenced no doubt by the local aristocracy who wish to be au courant, permits the making of such cards.

    1381: Meanwhile, an enraged notary in the town of Marseilles, France, who probably lost far too much money (and time!) playing a game as frivolous as Tarocco, makes an entry in his records condemning the game.

    1392: Charles VI of France finally gets his three decks of hand-painted cards after waiting almost two years, as recorded in his treasurer's account books. This deck, painted by Jacquemin Gringonneur, may mark the earliest historical record for an actual tarot deck, though many scholars dispute the theory. The deck is presently on display in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

    1397: On the streets of Paris, popular hand-stenciled decks become all the rage, particularly during long and leisurely French lunches, and frustrated employers petition the City Council to pass a law forbidding the playing of cards during work days.

    1415: The young Duke de Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti, indulges in a display of ill-temper and his mother, to save him from being exiled to Spain by his father, acquires a shiny, hand-painted deck of 78 cards for his amusement. This is the famous Visconti deck, which shows the trump cards as part of the Cary-Yale Visconti Tarocci (presently in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University). Symbols on these cards reflect Visconti heraldic devices, as well as life in Renaissance Milan. Doublets or hose are worn by men, the third crown is added to the papal tiara, as on the Heirophant card, the breastplate of the Charioteer is a 15th-century device, et.⁸ A unique feature of this deck is that it contains both male and female Pages and Knights, as well as the more traditional king and Queen (each suit has 16 rather than 14cards).

    1423: By now, the Catholic clerics are aroused and perhaps playing cards themselves. Speeches are heard condemning the cards in Siena. The renowned ascetic, St. Bernard rails against the wicked and pagan practices of card playing and fortune-telling, reminding his listeners of the fate of the Witch of Endor. The reference here to the pagan practice of card playing is interesting and may represent an intriguing connection to the non-Christian use of the cards (among the Muslims? the Celts?). Or it may simply reflect a rhetorical position that identifies card playing as a non-Christian practice.

    1423-77: Townbooks of Nuremberg, Germany name several women as card-painters. It is one of the little-known secrets of the arcane history of tarot that many decks may have been the meticulous work of skilled women painters. This also suggests that some of the imagery found on tarot decks may have been inspired by women artisans.

    1427: Two master card makers are registered in the Guild registers of Brabant, proving that the original French-Belgian decks were highly popular and created skilled employment within the craft guilds.

    1440: The first surviving deck printed from woodblock is made, a deck of French aristocratic court cards. Earlier examples of these printed decks were probably abundant, but, unlike the hand-painted decks of the aristocracy, they were not carefully preserved. Among the artisans, an anonymous engraver known as the Master of Playing Cards produces some remarkable examples of soft-ground engraving, 60 cards of which still remain.

    1442: In Venice, trade is dropping off, competition is too high for imported decks, the guilds have taken over. A law is passed—importing of foreign playing cards is no longer allowed. Francisco Sforza marries the now-mature Duke Filipo Visconti's illegitimate daughter, Bianca Marie Visconti, who receives a hand-painted deck known as the Visconti-Sforza Tarocci, perhaps as a wedding gift. These cards show the heraldic devices of both families. This deck and the earlier Yale-Cary Visconti deck may both have been painted by the same artist, Bonifacio Bembo from Cremona (post-1440) or, possibly, by the Zavattari brothers (c. 1420s). This deck illustrates the High Gothic style which used tempera pigments, rare ground substances, semiprecious stones, and gold leaf. Frescos of card players also survive from this period, as on the walls of the Room of Games in the Casa Borromeo in Milan.

    To these two famous decks must be added a third, the Magenta Tarocci deck, contemporary with the Visconti-Sforza deck, consisting of fifty engraved cards, in five classes of ten each. From this deck, twenty-two of the trump cards bear striking resemblance to sixteen of the traditional Major Arcana cards and three Minor Arcana cards.¹⁰ The trump cards of these early decks are the most likely historical prototypes for the Major Arcana cards in contemporary, traditional tarot history. Over fifteen Italian decks from this period still exist, totaling over 250 cards, mostly from the area of Bologna, Florence, Milan, and Urbino. From this period forward, the tarot deck appears to have been standardized.¹¹

    c.1460: A Catholic friar preaches against three classes of games-—dice, cards and trumps, as recorded in the Steele manuscript. This friar is clearly knowledgeable, because he makes a distinction between the cards of four suits and the twenty-two major trumps, listing them individually in a very early numbered sequence. Most decks of this period had neither numbers nor titles for each card. This distinction between the game of cards and trumps suggests that the two may have been independent and later combined into a single game or system. However, a different order of trumps is found, depending on the region of its development. This manuscript also contains some allegorical interpretation of the trumps, suggesting the early existence of symbolic interpretations for various cards.¹²

    1463: The English forbid the importation of foreign cards to protect their home manufacture which had become a thriving business. Card players and card-making workshops are found throughout England, Italy, France, Belgium, and Germany and, although Churchmen rail from the pulpits, the secular courts still protect local manufacturing.

    1527: In a play written by Merlini Cocai, cards are used in a way similar to fortune-telling.

    c.1550: An inspired poet of the court of that famed Renaissance lady, Isabella D'Este of Ferrara, compares the various ladies to the trumps, one triumphing by her greatness, like the Charioteer, and another with the beauty and craziness of the Fool. This clearly reveals the popularity of the Major Arcana and the Italian game of tarocchi appropriati, in which various individuals are given a poetic verse corresponding to a tarot image.¹³

    1557: The Catelin de Geofroy deck, the earliest known non-Italian deck based on a 1544 deck created by the famous engraver, Virgil Solis, is made. This deck, though fragmentary, is also numbered in a sequence similar to the standard followed in more contemporary decks. From this period forward, Tarocci and card-playing games are a popular pastime and France becomes the major producer of cards. The closest version to the Italian Tarocco in modern times, popular for several hundred years and based on the original Tarocci decks, is the French Tarot de Marseilles made from early woodblock prints.

    1631: The Marseilles card industry receives a royal imprimatur, making it the foremost center of card manufacturing in France, surpassing its rival cities, Lyons and Nancy. Marseilles' cards are imported throughout Europe (even into Italy), becoming a primary source of tarot imagery for all traditional decks.

    1659: The second edition of a famous guide to games and card playing is published, entitled La Maison Académique de Jeux, in which the game of tarot is described in detail.

    1718: The 1718 edition of La Maison Académique de Jeux, however, no longer carries a description of tarot. Apparently, by this time, the game was completely au passant and no longer popular. This is also the year from which the earliest surviving Marseilles deck dates.

    1726: La Maison Académique de Jeux describes the game of tarot as completely obsolete, even though in southern France, Germany, and Switzerland, the game continued to be popular.¹⁴

    Gertrude Moakley theorizes that the trump cards of early tarot decks were based on the popular Renaissance triumph, or festive procession, preceding Lent. These processions had large floats or images representing various virtues, personified and accompanied by attendants representing the contrary faults or vices over which the virtues triumphed.¹⁵ Cards like the Fool might be representations of the Carnival King, while virtues like Strength, Temperance, or Justice, as well as figures like the Hierophant, might reflect the Pope or the cardinal virtues. However, certain images are completely lacking, such as that of the Tower or Devil. Most likely, the triumphal procession was another source of imagery in a rich and complex milieu that mixed local environment with imported ideas and activities which were then integrated into a consistent set of traditional images toward the end of the 16th century. Also according to Moakley, cartomancy (the oracular use of cards) was not part of the methods of Renaissance divination. Francesco Marcolino da Forli in Il Giardino di Pensieri (1540), on the other hand, outlines a complex system of divination using cards, but the system is not dependant upon the tarot. Only after the mid-1700s is cartomancy practiced with the (Bolognese) tarot.¹⁶

    The Esoteric History

    By the mid-18th century, the Illuminist tradition of esoteric spirituality had become increasingly popular in both England and in Europe. These initiatory fraternities were both theosophical and mystical, with strong leanings toward theurgy and initiatic rites. Various associations consisting of degrees such as Apprentice, Fellow Craftsman, and Master were highly receptive to esoteric theories and magical practices.¹⁷ It is in this milieu that the esoteric theory of tarot finally appears in various illuminist writings.

    As is well known in tarot circles, in 1773 and 1784, Antoine Court de Gebelin (d. 1784), a Protestant theologian from Geneva and a member of the esoteric fraternity entitled the Order of Elect Cohens, published a nine volume work, Le Monde Primitif Analyseé et Compareé avec le Monde Moderne. The eighth volume of this work (c. 1781) included a section entitled Le Jeu des Tarot, where we find the statement that the tarot was the only work of ancient Egypt, one of their books which escaped malicious destruction. De Gebelin's association with the Elect Cohens, an order founded by the esotericist Martines de Pasqually, may be a primary source of his ideas on the golden age of the tarot in ancient Egypt. According to Court de Gebelin, the Egyptian priesthood created the symbols of the Major Arcana and then, to preserve them in the face of the decline of spiritual understanding generated by the Greek and then Roman conquest of Egypt, transmitted their secret wisdom in the form of esoteric images engraved on cards. From the Egyptians, it passed to esoteric circles in Rome (therefore Italy), to Avignon during the Great Schism, and then to the rest of Europe. De Gebelin also championed the theory that the tarot came with the Muslims through Spain and was carried to Germany by the soldiers of Charlemagne. Furthermore, he mentions the bands of Bohemians (Gypsies), which he considered to be descendants of the ancient Egyptians, as another source for the preservation and spread of the cards. His work is the source for the previously mentioned theory of the meaning of tarot as derived from ta-rosh, or Royal Way. De Gebelin was the first to write about the association between the twenty-two trumps and twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and he also inverted the Hanged Man (placed him upright) and called it the card of Prudence.¹⁸

    From 1781, the concept of an esoteric tarot began to flourish—a tarot aligned specifically with the archaic traditions of Egypt.¹⁹ The theory that the cards were indeed the emblems of the Book of Thoth arose, as recorded in an article written by an anonymous esotericist, and appended by Court de Gebelin to Le Monde Primitif. The article voiced romantic suppositions about the Egyptian origins of the tarot, even though contemporary linguistic and imagistic research suggests other, specifically Renaissance, sources and origins for the cards. This theory is tied to the Gypsy legend of the cards as the true bearers of the Egyptian esoteric traditions and their oracular and fortune-telling aspects. However, the Gypsies arrived in Germany around 1417, and in Rome around 1422, roughly fifty years after the first mention of cards and well after the creation of the famed Yale-Visconti deck of 1415, which clearly demonstrates an older Tarocci tradition, as well as an already developed genre of tarot images. Furthermore, no early manuscripts of the 15th and 16th centuries mention gypsies in connection with tarot.²⁰

    Alliette, a follower of Court de Gebelin and a renowned barber and wigmaker of Paris, wrote more books on Tarot in 1783 and 1787, and manufactured several tarot decks of his own design. He also claimed to have recovered the original Egyptian designs—designs no longer distorted or corrupted by time.²¹ According to Alliette, who used the esoteric name of Etteilla (or Alliette spelled backward), the tarot was conceived by seventeen magi and written down 171 years after the Great Flood, under the direction of Hermes Trismegistus. From this discovery came Alliette's own Tarot d'Etteila of Egyptian inspiration (also called the Book of Thoth, after Court de Gebelin), which is still available in published form. It was Alliette who emphasized the oracular nature of the tarot and popularized its use as a diagnostic and predictive tool. The discovery and translation of the Rosetta Stone (1799), however, revealed that the hieroglyphic language of Egypt had little affinity with the actual imagery of the traditional tarot.²²

    The infamous Sibylle du Faubourg Saint-Germain (Marie-Anne Adelaide Le Normand, d. 1843) was a contemporary of Alliette who attained her fame through mystic reading of the tarot to such clients as Czar Alexander I and Josephine, wife of Napoleon I. Such readings popularized the idea of the tarot as an oracular vehicle requiring the hand and eye of an illumined, occult reader.²³

    In 1816, the English esoteric Samuel Singer published, or rather republished, the theory of Covelluzo of Italy, suggesting that the origins of tarot were Arabic and that the tarot had entered the West through Arab mercenaries hired by Italian merchants. Singer also emphasized the possible Hindu origins of the cards, particularly for the Minor Arcana. Thus theories of the Egyptian or Arabic (Semitic) origins of the tarot dominated the late 18th and the first half of the 19th centuries.

    With Alphonse Louis Constant, better known through his pen name as Eliphas Levi Zahed (his name in Hebrew), the history of the tarot took a new turn. Educated in a Catholic seminary, Levi was ordained a deacon of the Church in 1835, after which he left the church and began a serious study of the occult. Studying the esoteric works of Postel, Ramon Lull, and Cornelius Agrippa, he published the Dogme de la Haute Magie (1855) and the Rituel de la Haute Magie (1856), each of which contained a section of twenty-two chapters based on the high cards or trumps of the tarot. It was Levi who linked the tarot with the Kabbalah and the Tree of Life and with the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Levi also came to believe the transmission of the tarot was linked to the Gypsies, following the research of J. A. Vaillant who published a major work on Romany (Gypsy) history in 1857. While emphasizing the similarities between the tarot and the famous Renaissance Bembine Tablet of Isis, Levi attributed the actual origins of the tarot, which he called the Book of Hermes, to the pre-Mosaic patriarch, Enoch, and the mysteries of the Jewish oracle tradition of the Ephod and Teraphim. According to Levi, this tradition was transmitted through the temple sages and, after the Jewish diaspora, these mysteries were written on gilt and silvered leather and afterwards simple cards by Jewish Kabbalists. This theory of the Hebrew origins of the tarot was picked up and re-emphasized by non-Jewish writers and Christian Kabbalists alike. However, few Jewish esotericists have shown interest in tarot symbolism, most of which has strong Catholic-Christian symbolism.²⁴

    Levi interpreted the court cards esoterically as stages in human life and linked the four suits to the elements as well as the holy letters of the divine tetragram, YHVH. Later, Oswald Wirth, an artist and student of Stanislav de Guaita (a great French occultist), and a Freemason and Theosophist as well as a follower of Levi, published a tarot deck based on Levi's ideas (1889). Later, de Guaita wrote on the symbolic meanings of the tarot in his esoteric two-volume work, Le Serpent de la Genèse (1902). Wirth's deck is strongly influenced by the Marseilles Tarot (favored by Levi) and a facsimile deck is still available.

    The third member of this occult tarot triumvirate was Gerard Encauss (writing under the name of Papus) who published a work titled Clef absolue de la science occult (English title: The Tarot of the Bohemian, 1896), and also founded L'Ordre des Silencieux Inconnus (Order of the Silent Unknowns). Encausse was the leader of the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Croix, founded by de Guaita in 1888, and the first European occultist to dedicate an entire, large volume to tarot.²⁵ Encausse supported the Egyptian origins theory, added more numerological symbolism to the Hebrew alphabet of the Major Arcana and established, with Levi, the general European esoteric, cartomancy tradition of tarot.²⁶

    Meanwhile, in England, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was founded on March 1, 1888 by three English Masons of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia. Inspired by a mysterious manuscript written in ciphers and dated to 1809, the order was open only to Master Masons. Its three founders, Rev. Woodford, and Drs. Woodman and Wescott, contacted the Scottish Freemason Samuel Liddell MacGregor (or S. L. Mathers and, later in Paris, Le Comte de Glenstrae) to help them to prepare the paperwork and to construct the rituals for the foundation of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. It was Mathers who linked the English esoteric tradition of tarot with the Kabbalistic Tree of Life and assigned a unique numbering system to the Major Arcana, starting with the Fool as 1 or Aleph. This was unlike the teachings of Levi or Papus, where one or Aleph is the Magician and the Fool is numbered zero.²⁷

    The Golden Dawn interpretation linked the Major Arcana with elements, signs of the Zodiac, and planets, as did Levi, who summarized his ideas in his master work, Histoire de la Magie: The absolute hieroglyphic science has for its basis an alphabet of which all the gods are letters, and all the letters ideas, all the ideas numbers and all the numbers, perfect signs. This goal reflected an ambition, avidly sought by the Golden Dawn, to link the knowledge and practices of every occult tradition into one vast all-encompassing system of esoteric throught.²⁸ I will pass over a detailed discussion of the Golden Dawn's use of the Tree of Life, based on the Jewish mystical systems of 12th-century Spain (see the section on the Sefiroth, chapter 3) and say only that the various Kabbalistic worlds of Creation, Origination, Sensation, and Formation were also borrowed from these traditions and linked with 19th-century tarot symbolism, implying an inner significance of the four divisions with corresponding processes of cosmic, spiritual evolution.

    The point of the union of tarot with Kabbalah in the Golden Dawn was to lead the initiate through a series of planes or stations to an increasingly profound awareness, with the images of the Major Arcana acting as a means for internal transformation and subsequent magical manifestation. Thus each of the Major Arcana was assigned correspondences in letters, numbers, planets (exemplum: The Fool, Aleph, 11, Air; The Magician, Beth, 12, Mercury, etc.). Each member was expected to make a personal, hand-crafted copy of a master deck following precise instructions. This resulted in many highly personalized decks, made by both men and women. Cards were used in rituals and initiations, depending on the grade or rank within the society.²⁹

    A work published in 1901 by the Comte de Saint-Germain, titled Practical Astrology, reinforces the theory of Egyptian tarot origins and the link with astrology. The cards consist of Egyptian designs taken from ancient Egyptian art and symbolism. These designs were later used by the Church of Light, founded by the American esotericist Elbert Benjamin, in the Brotherhood of Light Tarot Deck (1918).³⁰

    In 1903, Arthur Edward Waite, following the esoteric poet laureate, William Butler Yeats, took over leadership of the London Temple, a section of the splintering divisions of the Golden Dawn. He later changed its name to the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross (1916). This group was particularly dedicated to the esoteric study of tarot.

    The A.E. Waite deck, published in 1910 by Rider, reflects the esoteric symbolism of its Golden Dawn origins. These cards, drawn by American artist Pamela Colman Smith, included much esoteric symbolism from the Golden Dawn, as well as Waite's own involvement with continental esoteric spirituality. The court cards and the lesser suits were also assigned to positions on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, as hinted at in the Waite deck. Waite's book, The Pictorial key to the Tarot, also published in 1910, remains a classic denunciation and reconstruction of the theory of Egyptian origins. Waite accepted the 14th-century Italian origins of the deck, but emphasized the universal ideas embodied in the symbolic contents of the tarot. His theory of the secret doctrine of the tarot, transmitted over the ages by secret societies such as the Masons and Rosicrucians, is still popular today. Waite also emphasized the importance of alchemy in understanding the symbolism of tarot and encoded alchemical symbolism into his deck.³¹

    In the same year, another occultist, P. D. Ouspensky, the famous Russian disciple of the Greek dancing master and spiritual genius of the absurd, Gurdjieff, published a short but provocative work on tarot. By 1913, this work was translated into English under the title of The Symbolism of the Tarot: Philosophy of Occultism in Pictures and Numbers (still available today). Ouspensky, strongly influenced by Oswald Wirth, writes of the tarot as a method for developing the ‘sense of symbols’ in those who are striving to understand the hidden forces of Nature.³²

    In 1920, following the lead of A. E. Waite, Jessie L. Weston suggested a new symbolic resource as a possible origin for tarot suits: the legend of the Grail. In From Ritual to Romance, Weston claims that the four Grail Hallows—the cup (or sometimes dish) of the Last Supper, the lance that pierced the side of Jesus, the sword that beheaded John the Baptist, and the stone or platter (Coins)—were represented in the four tarot suits.³³ She also interprets this symbolism as part of a more ancient Celtic lore of the four treasures of Ireland—the cauldron of Dagda, the sword of Nuada, the spear of Lug, and the stone of Fal. Certain Major Arcana cards are also interpreted in the light of the Grail legends, like the Tower (when Sir Balin strikes King Pellam with the Grail spear and the tower falls), as well as the Sun, Moon, and Star cards. The medieval appearance of the Minor Arcana cards was also taken to reflect the Grail legends.³⁴

    Also published in this period are the works by Harriette and F. Homer Curtiss, the cofounders of The Order of Christian Mystics. Published in 1919 and 1923 respectively, The Key to the Universe and The Key of Destiny are two volumes that trace the relationship between numerology, Christian mysticism, and tarot (primarily the trumps).³⁵ This work clearly ties tarot to Christian and biblical occult thought and delves into many esoteric subjects, including a recasting of Christian metaphysics from an occult point of view.

    World War I had devastating effects on European occultism; many occultists and esotericists died in that terrible war. But in 1927, Oswald Wirth published a new tarot and an excellent book entitled Le Tarot des Imagiers du Moyen Age, signalling renewed interest in historical studies of tarot.³⁶ In 1930, the French esotericist, A. E. Thierens published further studies on tarot, reflecting a counterpoint to English interpretations such as those of Waite or mather.³⁷ In addition, P.D. Ouspensky published his A New Model of the Universe in 1931, which includes a long chapter of the esoteric aspects of tarot.³⁸

    In America, the tarot flourished under the influence of Manly Palmer Hall, who published a deck based on the Oswald Wirth-Levi deck. In 1930, J. A. Knapp, the artist who worked with Manly Hall, published the Knapp Hall deck with Hall's commentary ³⁹ American esoteric orders were developing their own theories of esoteric tarot. The founder of the Builders of the Adytum (BOTA), Paul Foster Case, supported a unique theory of Arabic origins. According to Case, who lived in Los Angeles, the tarot was created in 1200 c. E. in Fez, Morocco by a group of adepts who combined esoteric images with occult number theory. In 1927, Case published an esoteric book on tarot and, a few years later, a BOTA deck (1931).⁴⁰ Case also brought psychoanalytic ideas to the interpretation of tarot, using both Freudian and Jungian theory, and emphasized the importance of a more personal, individual response to each card, rather than a formulaic system of esoteric ideas.

    Other Golden Dawn tarot commentary was also being produced, such as that of Israel Regardie (1932), who had come to America after his split with Aleister Crowley of Golden Dawn fame. Regardie wrote four volumes on the later interpretations of the Golden Dawn (post-Waite), including extensive commentary on the symbolic meaning of the tarot.⁴¹ Aleister Crowley published his Book of Thoth (1944), a commentary on that infamous, dark deck of sexual magic, based on the complex imagery of the Thoth Tarot drawn by Freida Harris. Crowley emphasized the Hebrew origins of the tarot and stated that it was beyond doubt a deliberate attempt to represent in pictorial form, the doctrines of the Qabbalah. While Crowley died in 1947, both Manly Hall and Israel Regardie lived into the 1980s and continued to publish on tarot. In 1977, the artist Robert Wang produced a tarot deck that was based on Regardie's own handmade copy of the early Golden Dawn master deck which he claimed to be as close as possible to the original. This deck is still available.⁴²

    In the mid-1960s, a sudden burst of interest in occult phenomena of all types brought the tarot to the forefront of American esoteric history. Increasing esoteric studies, allied with popular occult interests produced an entirely new crop of tarot decks and books on a scale unprecedented in previous eras, similar perhaps to the period of its first discovery and popularity in Renaissance Italy. During this period, Gertrude Moakley published her now famous re-evaluation of the tarot based on the Renaissance triumph as mentioned above (1966). Impacted by visual arts from a psychedelic subculture, emergent interest in archetypal psychology and comparative mythology, and other Eastern traditions in comparative mysticism and world religions, American tarot expanded rapidly into a grass-roots, occult movement. In 1969, Corinne Heline wrote The Bible & the Tarot, a volume on esoteric Christianity, exploring the links between (Egyptian) tarot and Kabbalah, and furthering research and speculation in the area of Christian esotericism.

    In 1971, Eden Gray published her Complete Guide to the Tarot, a path working guidebook and an example of an intensifying female interest in tarot.⁴³ This work helped revive interest in the Waite deck, which finally became available on a mass scale in American bookstores, where it remains a staple among many other decks. An excellent example of alternative decks popularized during this period (and still popular) is the Aquarian Tarot deck, done in a semiclassic, art-nouveau style reminiscent of fin de siècle pre-Raphaelite art, but in a more stylized form. Many American books appeared on tarot interpretation of a less esoteric type influenced by popular psychology and self-help developmental therapies. Disconnected from its European history, tarot quickly became a preoccupation with personal response and individual meanings in a very charged and creative atmosphere of self-exploration and cultural experimentation. From this period on, many decks were created that had no esoteric tradition or history whatsoever beyond the subjective vision of their artists.

    In 1972, the British occultist Alfred Douglas published his excellent book on Jungian interpretation of the tarot, including an overview of tarot and its European esoteric history.⁴⁴ Kathleen Raine also published in 1972 her informative book showing the connections between Yeat's poetry and his use of the tarot as a leader of the Golden Dawn.⁴⁵ In 1973, Fred Gettings published his Tarot: How to Read the Future, a large, lavishly illustrated volume with esoteric commentary based in the interpretation of the original meaning of the cards as printed in the French Tarot de Marseilles. In 1974, John Blakeley wrote The Mystical Tower of the Tarot, in which he connects the tarot to the ancient mystery traditions, to Sufism and mystical Islam, and in particular to the explication of the famous Persian mystical poem, The Mystic Rose from the Garden of the King.⁴⁶ Stephan Hoeller published, with the Theosophical Society, an extensive work on relating the tarot to the Jewish Kabbalah (1975), as did William Gray in 1977.⁴⁷

    Richard Cavendish, another English author, published his own symbolic history of the tarot (1975), in conjunction with his larger project on the history of magic. In this work, Cavendish gives an extensive review of each figure in the Major Arcana, along with many historical references to the Western occult tradition.⁴⁸ In 1975, Bill Butler published his dictionary of the tarot, a card-by-card analysis of the Major Arcana of many classic decks, with their respective interpretations by occult authors like Papus, Mathers, Waite, Case, Crowley, and others.⁴⁹ In 1977, Micheline Stuart published another psychological (mostly Jungian) work oriented toward achieving psychic wholeness and integration through tarot.⁵⁰ And in 1978, Stuart Kaplan published his massive and outstanding Encyclopedia of Tarot in three large volumes, profusely illustrating the extensive symbolic history and development of tarot imagery.⁵¹ A popular Wiccan deck of this period is The Tarot of the Witches by Fergus Hall.⁵²

    In the 1980s, the tarot continued to flourish in America and many new decks were designed, along with new historical commentaries and a pronounced interest in ethnic roots, path-working, and feminism. Michael Dummett (1980) wrote a 200-page, exoteric introduction on the history of tarot.⁵³ Sallie Nichols published her Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey (1980), a still-popular volume relating Jungian archetypes to the Major Arcana and to Jung's theory of personality types, including many new card layouts and interpretations in relation to that psychology. Melita Denning and Osborn Phillips published, in 1983, The Llewellyn Practical Guide to the Magick of the Tarot, a popularized guidebook to path-working, in which cards are used, not only predictively, but to dynamically alter the future based on archetypal psychology and a variety of magical practices—visualization, movement, dance, and other types of dramatization. In 1985, David Le-Mieux published his book, The Ancient Tarot and Its Symbolism: A Guide to the Secret Keys of the Tarot Cards. In 1986, Gareth Knight published his The Treasure House of Images, a path-working guide to ritual use of the tarot, giving esoteric and archetypal interpretations for each of the tarot trumps. Also in 1986, Robert O'Niell published Tarot Symbolism, an excellent and serious work based on analyzing the many philosophical and spiritual strands that have contributed to tarot's symbolism, its historical development, and its Hermetic and Neoplatonic roots.

    In 1983, Vicki Noble published her very popular Motherpeace: A Way to the Goddess through Myth, Art, and Tarot as a complete reworking of the traditional tarot into a series of personally designed, woman-oriented cards based on her understanding of Goddess-consciousness and feminist visualization sensibilities. This work is complemented by Fiona Morgan's Daughter's of the Moon Tarot (1984), Jean Freer's The New Feminist Tarot (1985), which reinterprets the tarot in terms of insights into female Wiccan spirituality, and Carol Bridge's innovative mid-1980s Medicine Woman Tarot, which emphasizes shamanism, Earth-oriented spirituality, and feminist psychic transformations (her deck changes the suits into arrows, pipes, bowls, and stones, the Minor Arcana into Exemplars, Harvest Lodges, Totems, and Apprentices).⁵⁴

    The Bridge deck reflects the increasing interest in ethnic decks distinct from the traditional tarot, such as Peter Balin's Xultun Tarot based in complex and beautifully drawn, pre-Columbian Mayan imagery, and Magda Weck and J. A. Gonzalez's Tarot of Native American images and symbols.⁵⁵ Since this period, many more Native American decks have been produced, all with distinctive imagery, such as the Sacred Path Cards, by Linda Childers, with textual commentary by Jamie Sams. Other ethnic decks and transformations of the tarot abound—including the previously mentioned decks based on Chinese and Japanese imagery. Decks have been redrawn throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s based specifically on capturing the imagery and culture of distinctive, non-Western peoples. In 1988, Sergius Golowin published a Gypsy reading of tarot and Sergio Toppi's Tarocci Delle Origini (available in English as Tarots of the Origins) is a powerfully imaginative ethnic deck based in Australian, Pacific, and other First People indigenous culture.⁵⁶

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