Newbie Help: Kabalistic Deck and the Comet' Major Arcana

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 30 Apr 2004, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Kaiser Xavier	30 Apr 2004
Hi, I just suscribed to this forum and this is my first post, congratulations for such a interesting online-community. I just brought my first deck here in Caracas, Venezuela. It's named "Tarot Cabalístico" (Kabalistic Tarot) from "Naipes Heraclio Fournier" (that's the company who published them) and it's designed by J.A. Portela. I chose this deck because I'm interested (in the long term) to study the realtion between the tarot, the Kabalah and the Jungian Archetypes (yes, I know it's a long journey), although I know this is not the best choice for a begginer. For what I can tell, this deck is a JD (?) type of deck, with the Justice and the Strength Arcana places switched. Each card has the corresponding Marsella drawings, the Tree of Life paths, the hebrew letter, the arcana number, the planet/zodiacal sign/element-combination and the card name in spanish, english and french. Besides the Major Arcana switch, there's a 22th Major Arcana called "The Comet". It's Hebrew symbol it's the Spiral, Arcana 22, where it should be the planet/zodiac sign/elements combination it says "Cycles, non cycles", and it shows "the Invisible Paths" in the Tree of Life section. In the white book it reads: XXII. The Comet. Represents: Suprahuman intelligences, intra, extra or ultraterrestrials. Astrological relationship: The spiral, the wheel of the Cycles (manvantara and the cosmic pralaya), to be or not be the colour black. Cabalistic relationship: The invisible paths of the Tree of Life. Prophetic meaning: - Face up: The favourable intervention of suprahuman forces and intelligences. - Face down: The negative intervention of suprahuman forces and intelligences. That's all I get, there's any other (better, more ellaborate) meaning of this card?, why is this deck and this arcana so uncommon?. Thanks for any help on this matter, Kaiser Xavier

HOLMES	01 May 2004
could you post some scans or perhpas a link to a site with that deck in it ? then perhaps i can help you better. but for jung and qabbalah i would get robert wang book , the qabalistic tarot which get rereleased next year and the jungian tarot and its archtypes and that would help you out. and i think there is a book out there called jung and the qabbalah . or something like that.

jmd	01 May 2004
Welcome to Aeclectic, Kaiser Xavier... I am not sure as to the deck you refer to. Like many people here, there are many decks which are more difficult to obtain locally (for those of us living in Australia at least) - especially those published by non-English speaking publishers (except, it seems, Lo Scarabeo, who have done a marvelous job of making their decks more readily available). The deck you mention, the Tarot Cabalistico ('Kabalistic Tarot') has what you say are switched Justice and Strength numbering. From this, I presume you mean that Justice is, in the deck, numbered not VIII but follows the Golden Dawn ['gd'] switch to 11, and Strength is numbered not XI but rather the GD's numbering of 8. I also wonder whether the 22nd numbered card you mention (the 'Comet') replaces, or is in addition to, the Fool ? It's a deck I would certainly be interested in having a look at... I'm going to have to check Tarot Garden's database :)

Astraea	01 May 2004
This is the deck: Tarot Cabalistico I ordered it from Alida, but it's not here yet -- am not aware of its being sold in the US.

jmd	01 May 2004
Thankyou Astrae. I see that they basically use Golden Dawn letter and Tree of Life attributions, but upon a 'standard' Marseille deck... except that they number the Fool as zero, and call it 'Le Bateleur'!!! (the title reserved for card I - otherwise called, in the GD inspired cards, the 'Magician'). Strange indeed... And what is the 'Comet' card, then?

Astraea	01 May 2004
JMD, this thread is the first place I've seen the "comet card" referenced -- I found the deck while searching for kabbalistic tarots and took a chance on it in spite of some (shall we say) quirky attributions! Xavier, hopefully others out there have the deck already and can address some of these issues.

yaraluna	01 May 2004
Hola Xavier!! soy de venezuela pero vivo en canada. me atrae el tarot que compraste. escribeme PM si quieres yaraluna

Strange2	01 May 2004
Attached is a scan of The Comet card from Tarot Cabalistico. A Cupid-like child riding a 4-pointed star, with a circle and 5-pointed star at is center. Interesting side note: as jmd pointed out, the Fool card posted on the Mystic Eye site is labelled "Le Bateluer". However, the Fool card in my copy of the Tarot Cabalistico is labelled "Le Mat", as normal. So looks like an error that has been corrected.

Astraea	01 May 2004
Strange2, thank you so much for uploading that image and relating the information about the Le Mat/Bateleur switch. I am looking forward to receiving this deck. I'm curious to know if you read with it, and if so, how you like it.

Kaiser Xavier	02 May 2004
Thank you all for your help, although we still don't know more about this "comet" Arcana. Yaraluna, gracias por la confianza, estaremos en contacto. First, I confirm that the deck posted in the thread is indeed the deck I'm talking about, 0 - The Fool is called 'Le Mat' in french and the switched mayor arcana are Justice (appears as # VIII) and Strength (appears as # XI). What's interesting is that these arcana represent zodiacal symbols that are out of the general order of the rest of the cards: (List of cards associated only to zodiacal signs) IIII - The Emperor - Aries. V - The Hierophant - Taurus. VI - The Lovers - Gemini. VII - The Chariot - Cancer. VIII - Justice - Libra. *switched VIIII - The Hermit - Virgo. XI - Strength - Leo. *switched XIII - Death - Scorpio. XIIII - Teperance - Sagittarius. XV - The Devil - Capricorn. XVII - The Star - Aquarius. XVIII - The Moon - Pisces. I don't know yet if there are odds things about the associated hebrew letters or Tree of Life paths 'cause I'm just starting in this, but feel free to ask anything. Thanks for your help, Kaiser Xavier.

The Newbie Help: Kabalistic Deck and the Comet' Major Arcana thread was originally posted on 30 Apr 2004 in the Tarot Decks board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Tarot Decks, or read more archived threads.