astrology and tarot , revisted

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 03 Oct 2004, and now archived in the Forum Library.

HOLMES	03 Oct 2004
one who gets into astrology and tarot will sooner or later realize that there is no common agreeement about astrology and tarot , those who study golden dawn may say there is the best way,, but still perhaps they were wrong ,, and those that say that 3 new planets cant be added to the tarot cards that were before just the three elements in my opnion are adhering to an (inside the box ) view of a flexible system of qabbalah assocations with the tarot. (people have mixed astrology with qabbalah before tarot came about and so just added to the tarot ) let us explore the golden dawn as i know that system best mercuary magican mars tower venus -emperess, moon -high priestress saturn -earth uranus -fool neptune -water hanged man sun- sun pluto -judgement jupiter-wheel of fortune signs, emperor aries, hieorphant taurus lovers gemini cancer-chariot justice libra scorpio -death. sagittarus- temperance. capricorn-devil aquarius-star piscies-moon however an idea comes to the mind, the 12 signs are people in the major arcana and the ten planets are the influences such as wheel of fortune, but but i said to myself that doens't agree with the highpriestress being the moon, (which is what started me off in this way anyways for the moon should be the moon if the sun will be the sun dont' you agree ?) planets star moon sun tower wheel of fortune judgement world justice chariot stength signs magican high priestress emperess emperor hierophant hermit hanged man devil death lovers fool temperance i didnt' assocatie any planets or signs in this revised edition of my thoughts, just that the ideas, and ojbects rules the people ,, and in that sense i would name temperance , angel and strenght kundalini, in order to get them to fit , any ideas ?

Fulgour	03 Oct 2004
VII The Chariot - North Node in Gemini XV The Devil - South Node in Sagittarius These are shadow planets but, here are found the all important Solar and Lunar Eclipses, something very important in every era.

HOLMES	03 Oct 2004
VII The Chariot - North Node in Gemini XV The Devil - South Node in Sagittarius These are shadow planets but, here are found the all important Solar and Lunar Eclipses, something very important in every era. is this your own system or some advanced form of study of astrology ? for in the golden dawn system the devil was capricorn and not a planet while chariot was cancer,, and in this classifcation of my idea , chariot is a planet , while the devil is still a sign, can you explian a little further please

Fulgour	03 Oct 2004
A is for Aleph, the first letter and thus correspoding with the first card, One: The Magician. Mem and Shin align with Death and The World to represent the Cosmic Unity of the Triad... All the rest kind of follows naturally, plain as day.

isthmus nekoi	03 Oct 2004
Hi Holmes! Nice to see you again :) To address your query about the astro moon being The Moon and the astro sun being The Sun, yes, it does seem a little counterintuitive not to hold those associations! We had an interesting discussion about this awhile back here: http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14862&highlight=moon+pisces Thought it might interest you.

HOLMES	03 Oct 2004
"All the rest kind of follows naturally, plain as day." ok , fulgor it doesn't follow as plain as day , you have to put it into layman terms for me at least, see the whole idea here is, if one looks at the tower it is an place or even, while if one persons looks at the heirophant, and the devil they are people , and so i figure the planets should be the objects, and the signs be the people,, why not vice versa do we not control the objects, well ordinary yes,, but the objects are symbolic of a great influence that affects the people who are signs, and given the rulership of planets over signs that would back this up. i have a basic knowledge of qabbalah and astrolgoy but "Mem and Shin align with Death and The World to represent the Cosmic Unity of the Triad..." still doenst' tell me how you came up with the devil and the chariot as planets,

HOLMES	03 Oct 2004
isthmus nekoi hello perhpas that the answers lies in the qabbalah after skimming that link , more then astrology itself, which would be the fit it all in or make it fit mode,, what would of happend if the common numerals wasnt' a basis for the ordering of the assoctions of the golden dawn ? i am sure the moon would of been the moon, , at this point anyways , ehehe

Fulgour	03 Oct 2004
Whether you begin with Aleph= 0 or Aleph= 1 there will be the following correspondences between letters and signs: Aries - He (letter 5) Taurus - Waw (letter 6) Gemini - Zayin (letter 7) Cancer - Heth (letter 8) Leo - Teth (letter 9) Virgo - Yodh (letter 10) Libra- Lamed (letter 12 ) Scorpio - Nun (letter 14) Sagittarius - Samekh (letter 15) Capricorn - Ayin (letter 16) Aquarius - Tsade (letter 18) Pisces - Qoph (letter 19) Personally, I view the Tarot as corresponding to the Phoenician alphabet (parent of ancient Hebrew), leaving Kabbalah out of it. Phoenician Alphabet http://www.ancientscripts.com/phoenician.html

Fulgour	03 Oct 2004
[/font] Whether or not to begin with Aleph= 0 or Aleph= 1 depends on which of the cards you see as part of The Triad of Elements, The Unity of One in Three: The Fool The Hanged Man Judgement or The Magician Death The World

Rusty Neon	03 Oct 2004
Fulgour, Why does your assignment system between Hebrew letters and the 12 astrological signs start with the 5th letter rather than - starting with 1st letter, or - starting with the 8th letter after all 7 'old' planets have been assigned to Hebrew letters? As well, why are the 11th, 13th and 17th letters skipped over in the sequential assignment of letters to astrological signs?

Fulgour	03 Oct 2004
These then are the remaining seven letters, signifying planets: Beth (letter 2) Gimmel (letter 3) Daleth (letter 4) Kaph (letter 11) Pe (letter 17) Res (letter 20) Taw (letter 22) Seven items, any seven items, may be ordered in up to 5,040 different ways. There are belief systems, such as Kabbalah, that usually order the planets a certain way, but Tarot is not Kabbalah, and so one is free to choose. I order them, beginning with II The High Priestess, as: Moon Venus Mars Mercury Sun Jupiter Saturn This order is nothing more than their distance from the Earth.

Fulgour	03 Oct 2004
Quote: Originally posted by Rusty Neon Why does your assignment system between Hebrew letters and the 12 astrological signs start with the 5th letter rather than - starting with 1st letter, or - starting with the 8th letter after all 7 'old' planets have been assigned to Hebrew letters? As well, why are the 11th, 13th and 17th letters skipped over in the sequential assignment of letters to astrological signs? My advice: Ask JMD.

Rusty Neon	03 Oct 2004
Quote: Originally posted by HOLMES can you explian a little further please Quote: Originally posted by Fulgour All the rest kind of follows naturally, plain as day. Quote: Originally posted by Fulgour Whether you begin with Aleph= 0 or Aleph= 1 there will be the following correspondences between letters and signs: Quote: Originally posted by Rusty Neon Why does your assignment system between Hebrew letters and the 12 astrological signs start with the 5th letter rather than - starting with 1st letter, or - starting with the 8th letter after all 7 'old' planets have been assigned to Hebrew letters? As well, why are the 11th, 13th and 17th letters skipped over in the sequential assignment of letters to astrological signs? Quote: Originally posted by Fulgour My advice: Ask JMD. Query whether "All the rest kind of follows naturally, plain as day." And all the less plain and more puzzling since you indicate that the letter/sign associations would be the same whether one starts with Aleph = 0 or Aleph = 1 for the major arcana.

Fulgour	04 Oct 2004
Rusty... is this babbling mockery or do you really not get it?

jmd	04 Oct 2004
The letter <-> sign and letter <-> planet correlation reaches at least as far back as the circa 2nd century CE Sefer Yetzirah. The Golden Dawn's own allocations ultimately refer also to this text, except that of course no Tarot mention is made in that text. Rather, the 22 letters, in order, are allocated planets if they have a dual sound (plosive/fricative), and if not, apart from three Mother letters (Alef, Mem, and Shin) are allocated, in sequential order, the signs of the zodiac. The first to not be either Mother or double is the fifth letter, correlated with Aries - hence Fulgour's comment - which I note he made without assuming either the Alef=1 (which it does) or the Golden Dawn's version of correlating Alef with the Fool because of placing this card as first in the series (some of us place it last, and others place it as penultimate). Returning to Holmes's point about allocating planets to objects, and signs to people (as these are principally depicted on the cards), it is a fascinating idea. Of course, it will be dismissed quickly if one holds any (roughly sequential) correlations between Hebrew/Phoenician alphabet (or alefbeit) and Atouts. But let's not dismiss it too quickly, and rather allow it to be given its own possible correlations. Again to mention Holmes's post, the division between objects/planets and people/signs he gives as the following: planets with the following cards: XVII Star XVIII Moon XVIIII Sun XVI Tower X Wheel of fortune XX Judgement XXI World VIII Justice VII Chariot XI Strength signs with the following cards: I Bateleur (magician) II Papess (high priestress III Empress IIII Emperor V Pope (hierophant) VIII Hermit XII Hanged Man XV Devil XIII (death) VI Love/(ers) Fool XIIII Temperance So here we have the Atouts split into cards which appear, under one view, to principally (but not exclusively) focus on the non-humanoid (I mention this because of XIII, XIIII and XV in the second list), and the humanoid in the second. In what order, then, would Holmes suggest planetary and zodiacal correlations?

Fulgour	04 Oct 2004
Thoughtful readers will appreciate your beautifully concise article relating to this subject, for which I am most grateful: Kabalah and Tarot by Jean-Michel David It has now been well over two centuries in which implied connections between Tarot and the Kabalah has been made in writing - and perhaps longer than that if one considers the plausible Hebrew letter influence on the very design of Tarot’s Atouts (Major Arcana). Continued: Association for Tarot Studies Newsletter Online Archive Edition #22 October 2004

HOLMES	04 Oct 2004
"In what order, then, would Holmes suggest planetary and zodiacal correlations?" ah since there is some merit for the idea, i shall put away some time to relook at the planets and signs in my beginners astrology book. (which an intermediate astrologer may hiss hush you know how that goes eheh ) fulgor , i really don't get it,, it is not a mockery for myself, i think you have an advanded knowledge of astrology for i have heard of north nodes and south nodes but could't come up with no idea of putting two major arcana to the planet, what path are you saying the nodes are on in the qabala and why ? when i go by the order of planets i go by the modern astrology order sun moon and so forth .

Fulgour	04 Oct 2004
" Taurus ~ Leo ~ Scorpio ~ Aquarius " 1st mo. He: exaltation of the Sun 2nd mo. Waw: exaltation of the Moon 3rd mo. Zayin: exaltation of North Node 4th mo. Heth: exaltation of Jupiter 5th mo. Teth: (no exaltation) ~ 6th mo. Yod: exaltation of Mercury 7th mo. Lamedh: exaltation of Saturn 8th mo. Nun: (no exaltation) ~ 9th mo. Samekh: exaltation of South Node 10th mo. Ayin: exaltation of Mars 11th mo. Tsade: (no exaltation) ~ 12th mo. Qoph: exaltation of Venus I think the planets appear in the order of their distance from the Earth (looking out the window, or over the garden fence): Letters 2, 3, 4, 11, 17, 20, 22: 2 Beth: Moon 3 Gimmel: Venus 4 Daleth: Mars 11 Kaph: Mercury (as always, with Virgo) 17 Pe: Sun (between Capricorn and Aquarius, like Christmas) 20 Res: Jupiter 22 Taw: Saturn Letters 1, 13, 21: Aleph, Mem, Shin: Air, Water, Fire. * Aeclectic Tarot Forum - Very Unlike Kabbalah

The astrology and tarot , revisted thread was originally posted on 03 Oct 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.