The Legend of Thoth

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 18 Apr 2004, and now archived in the Forum Library.

closrapexa	18 Apr 2004
What do you think of the story of Nefrekepta and his theft of the book of wisdom of the Egyptiain god of wisdom, Thoth. I mean, its a fun story, but what do think of the belief that Tarot originated in Egypt. I mean, I'm not asking whether you beleive in the Ancient Egypian belief system, but where do you believe the origins are from? Dating Tarot in the 15th century makes it reltively new, but surely even that came from somewhere. Any thoughts?

Macavity	18 Apr 2004
I find it ironic that some Tarot authors and researchers accept so many possibilities as "truths", but come down so heavily against Tarot originating in Ancient Egypt. I think it must be obvious that our present Tarot system did not originate there, but many of the underlying concepts may well have? I guess one's acceptance of this must though depend on a whole host of concept definitions - notleast of the word "Tarot" itself? ;) I think (wo)mankind has e.g. the inate tendancy to use both divination and to enjoy creation, journey or alegorical myths? I guess the former started as soon as "we" invented the concept of (counting) one, two... many? Some of the latter is perhaps based in fact. So in THAT sense Ancient Egyptians would seem to be good candidates for inventing most things. They likely "got there first" anyway? For some reason a famous deck artist and Tarot scholar (among my favourites) insists on the Egyptian Origin idea? Quite WHY, I'll never know! But he also does make some valuable observations paralleling the Major arcana Fools's Journey with the "Isis and Orsiris" legend. For that matter also the "Holy Grail Stuff" too. But the fit to the data in both cases is indeed quite striking. OTOH, I did recently set myself the exercise of trying to fit a well-known story to the Majors too... in order! Eventually it worked rather well too. Perhaps this is (more) often (than not!) so? Amusingly I found retrospectively that the original Author of the stroy was in fact a Golden Dawn member, contemporary with many from the "big names" of tarot development... Overall, I don't think the Egyptians "invented the Tarot" per se.- At least not as in "on papyrus" or even scratched onto Emerald Tablets! I think too, being the comsumate bureaucrats they were, it would have been mentioned somewhere if they had done so? That they enjoyed many of the concepts underpinning Tarot seems obvious... those seem to be fundamental to human nature. Aside: Whereas I enjoy Occult/Hermetic thought and it's legacy very much, I do have my reservations about some of the ways in which e.g. Egyptian mythology has been "pressed into service" - particularly in name corruption and sheer invention! But Heck, I'm even (currently) finding Kenneth Grant an interesting read. I remain unconvinced of his notions of various "origins in Atlantis" and of praeter-intelligences from Sirian Star System visiting us (Well, Mr. Crowley anyway!) But that's just me... :D Macavity

The The Legend of Thoth thread was originally posted on 18 Apr 2004 in the Talking Tarot board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Talking Tarot, or read more archived threads.