Tarot and Kabbala

Hi Kabbalah/Tarot synthesizers:

I'm reading the threads but I don't have enough of a working mental structure of Kabbalah to participate in the discussion. I have reread Dion Fortune's The Mystical Qabalah, and I am rereading the Golden Dawn's Book T in Israel Regardie's The Golden Dawn. I realize that Kwaw and Beanu have broken from the Golden Dawn tradition of attributions; but I am assuming that they moved through the Golden Dawn system into a more contemporary version. The GD elemental system of attribution (the pip cards) makes more historical sense to me than the Trump attribution--perhaps that is why people feel free to experiment and re-arrange the Trumps on the Tree. Here is the description of the Hierophant from Book T.

"The High Priest is the counterpart of the High Priestess. As Aries is the house of Mars and the exaltation of the sun, so Taurus is the house of Venus and the exaltation of the Moon. He is the reflective mystical aspect of the masculine. He is the thinker as the Emperor is the doer."

I think A. E. Waite description of the Pope card in his 1910 guidebook comes closer to the historical roots. "He is the order and the head of the recognized hierarchy, which is the reflection of another and greater hierarchic order....He is not, as it has been thought, philosophy--except on the theological side; he is not inspriation; and he is not religion, although he is a mode of its expression."

Kwak picked up on the reflective element here and there is the connection with the High Priestess, who might be considered the "bright darkness" that is the dwelling place of divinity. Waite calls in the inner church, or the hidden garden, etc. All the best.. Kapoore

Beanu: Yes, of course you may use my argument, thanks for asking. A little footnote would be nice. How do I get you my full name? If I think of any more arguments, I'll let you know. And the philosopher who talked about the two halves searching for each other was Plato in the Symposium, the speech by Aristophanes (see Wikipedia). It's not clear if Plato is serious or not.

Kwaw: You bring in a Sufi interpretation of Plato's image of the sun to clarify your correlation of the sefira of the Sun to the Pope! You're making me work. I felt the need to read the thread on "Plato and Tarot," which turned out to be less on Plato than on Kabbalah, with a lot by Beanu and Kapoore relevant to the discussion here. Then I had to read Kwaw's links to other threads on Plato. Kwaw, I really like your posts. I only think you give in too easily (I for one still think the Cary-Yale is 1451 or so. If the coins were issued in 1447, all that shows is that the deck wasn't earlier than then. It still could be later. Sforza was making a huge propaganda effort to link himself with the former regime; since the cards have holes in them, they may have been on display for the nobility.) And then I had to brush up on my Plato.

I see plenty of Platonic thought in the Zohar but not imagery, which is mostly biblical. One reason Tiferet is associated with the Sun is that the Beloved in the Song of Songs has solar imagery, especially the sun at dawn or dusk. "My beloved is ruddy and white..his head is as fine gold." And: "My beloved spake and said...the winter is past, the flowers appear on the earth..." More indirectly: "he cometh leaping upon the mountain and skipping upon the hills..he looketh forth at the windows, showing himself through the lattice." And the Shulamite is the dark of the moon: "I am dark but comely."

The Sufis certainly did combine Platonic and Biblical imagery, even back then. But I doubt if the 15th-17th century tarot designers read them. It's possible, as France and Turkey were allies in the 16th century; I just haven't heard anything.

The tarot designers did know their Hebrew Bible and their Plato, from the beginning. Philippo Sforza's secretary Decembrio translated the Republic (Trionfi website). Other of Plato's works must have been well known. In the Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo Chariot card, you can see the wings on the horses, I think a reference to the myth in the Phaedrus.

So here's some Plato on the sun and beauty (Kapoore, you will perhaps be more at home here):

508b-c: "..it is the sun which I called the offspring of the Good, which the Good begot as analogous to itself. What the Good is in the world of thought in relation to the intelligence and things known, the sun is in the visible world, in relation to sight and things seen."

508e: "Both knowledge and truth are beautiful, but you will be right to think of the Good as other and more beautiful than they."

Then comes is the Allegory of the Cave. We live in a cave and mistake the shadows cast on the wall by cutouts between it and a fire for real things. If someone turned us around and dragged us out, we would see that the cut-outs were just imitations and the fire wasn't really the sun. The light of day would pain us, and we'd have to look first at reflections in the water, then the night sky, and finally the true sun. Then if we returned, the cave would seem like a prison to us. Thus:

517b: "...The realm of the visible should be compared to the prison dwelling, and the fire inside it to the power of the sun. If you interpret the upward journey and the contemplaton of things above as the upward journey of the soul to the intelligible realm, ..in the intelligible world the Form of the Good is the last to be seen, and with difficulty; when seen it must be reckoned to be for all the cause of all that is right and beautiful..."

I am quoting the Grube translation, but I give the standard page references so you can look it up on-line if you want.

Another famous place where beauty is discussed is in the Symposium. It distinguishes several levels of love for the Beautiful (in the speeches of Socrates and Alcibiades). Here are the main ones. There is carnal desire for beautiful bodies, e.g. Alcibiades. There is Alcibiades' desire to know the beautiful soul of Socrates (intellectual love). And there is Socrates' love for his own muse, Diomida, seen in an ecstatic vision. One is in the Cave, one is the process of going outside, the third is seeing reality, if only its reflection in the water.

It strikes me that these three objects of love also have three versions of the sun. One, beautiful bodies, corresponds to the pretend-sun, the fire in the cave. It is the "central sun" of the Pythagoreans and the "central fire" of the alchemists, deep in the heart of the earth. It is what lights the Devil card. Even though in the Zohar Satan orginates in the 5th sefira, it makes sense to put in him in the 6th, the center of his infernal Tree, surrounded by his minions, the vices (if I understand Kwaw correctly).

The process of enlightenment is something else. The Pope card is one candidate, pointing upwards.

Third, the reflection of the sun in the water, and its indirect perception as its light hits other things, like the Moon.

To these a fourth can be added: the sun itself.

Some of Plato's last words on beauty are in the Phaedrus. A charioteer leads two horses, one dark and undisplined, the other light and noble. The undisciplined one sees a figure off in the distance and is seized with a desire to possess it sexually, by force if necessary. The noble horse cannot restrain it until they get close enough for the rider to make out that it is Beauty, whom he recognize from a long time before, when the horses had wings and he'd seen it in the distance. The rider's words give extra strength to the noble horse, and between them they manage to halt the ignoble horse. They stand in awe, and the horses begin to regrow the wings they had lost in descending to earth.

It strikes me that the Noblet Chariot card captures very much the imagery of Plato's account. One is dark, the other light (see the original card, on Flornoy's website). There are no reins, so it must be by words that the rider communicates his wishes--and only the noble horse listens to them. Both horses look the same way, although their feet go in opposite directions (this feature occurs as early as the Cary Sheet). They are looking at Beauty. One horse is Reason, the discipline of dialectic, the other Desire. Both are needed for the three to behold Beauty. The rider himself is speech, the Word.

This rider seems to me a fit candidate for Tiferet. He is young and beautiful, like the Beloved of the Song of Songs. This Beloved, as Solomon, is also said to build a chariot (SofS 3:9). In the "supernal palaces" section of the Zohar, Tiferet is located at the lips, the place of speech. The Marseille chariot is not a war chariot; it is a parade chariot, displaying Beauty (like a parade float) or a victorious quest to behold it. The horses are, in one way of looking at them, Netzah and Hod. I tend to see Netzah as the noble horse, the Hermit, and Hod as the ignoble one, the Wheel, representing the instability of matter.

Netzah was known as Endurance and Eternity, both of which fit the Hermit. He carries the lantern of Diogenes, the philosopher who on the d'Este Sun card (see Beinecke Library website) is telling Alexander the Great to stop blocking his sun, i.e. trying to corrupt him by offering him the position of court-philosopher. The Conver card associates him with old Hermes Trismegistus, in that the spelling changes from "Ermite" to "Hermite." His planet would be Saturn, as described by Ficino in "Three Books on Life."

Fortune is the fickle "Aphrodite Pandemos" of the Symposium, the people's Venus. Hod was known as "Splendor" and "Majesty"--the allure of fame and fortune. It often results in a fall (as in the fall of Phaeton from his chariot on the "tarot of Mantegna" Sun card). Pico's quest for Truth ended in such a fall, clashing with the real-life Pope (at the top of the Wheel), who saw the threat to his hierarchy's power. Thus Pico had plenty of time for prayer and confession. (Kwaw, your epithets for these three sefiroth were really interesting; I just would like to know their source and if they were well enough known in the 15th-17th centuries. Mine come from Scholem, The Kabbalah.) We are in the descent, and the soul has now fallen to the level of Yesod.

In another way of seeing the Chariot, the horses are Gevurah and Chesed, strict Justice and lenient Love (violent Mars and noble Jupiter). The Charioteer, victorious not in war but in beauty, shows Mercy. Similarly, Francesco Sforza, husband of beloved Bianca, was elected duke of Milan without a battle.

The Chariot is at ground level: the horses don't have wings. If it is the sun, it is at dawn or dusk, when it is close to the earth. (You see, Kwaw, I like your attribution of "earth" after all.)

As for the Pope card, well, I see him up there with the noonday sun, in Pico's Empyrean, the place Dante put God (and I put the Upper Sun; similarly the Neopythagorean identified the Monad with the Sun, and Kwaw the Magician, although at the bottom). But the Pope does not see the sun itself, only a reflection of it. He and his hierachy the Church are the bridge between the planets and the upper world, where he might be Malkhut, the "supernal earth" (another earth-attribution). Real Popes sometimes even descend on the Central Pillar to the level of the Devil. It is easy to mistake images and fires for the genuine article.

So that's my thought, after reading Kwaw and Beanu. And I don't mean it in opposition to theirs, just as another version, which I like better.

MikeH said:

Kwaw: You bring in a Sufi interpretation of Plato's image of the sun to clarify your correlation of the sefira of the Sun to the Pope! ....The Sufis certainly did combine Platonic and Biblical imagery, even back then. But I doubt if the 15th-17th century tarot designers read them...

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While the quote is from a Sufi source the language, its platonic expression and source is a commonality of Islamic, Jewish and Christian mysticism - neoplatonic theology of love is a common theme too of 15th century poetry - these do not necessarily draw upon each other, the parallels derive from the commonality of the mystical experience and their shared neoplatonic and bibilical sources and commentaries. There was however direct contact between Christian, Islamic and Jewish mystics in medieval Spain and remnants of this may inform later traditions. The zoharic tradition in reference to its bridal imagery based upon the exegesis of the Song of Songs is very closely paralleled in the literature of Christian mystics - among the early Spanish kabbalists the mystical theology of love was also expressed in homoerotic terms that was more closely paralleled Sufi traditions of the time, and against which later there was some reaction by 15th century Christian priests and poets (who were thus obviously very much aware of it, in order that they may react against it).

Some of Plato's last words on beauty are in the Phaedrus. A charioteer leads two horses, one dark and undisplined, the other light and noble....This rider seems to me a fit candidate for Tiferet. He is young and beautiful, like the Beloved of the Song of Songs. This Beloved, as Solomon, is also said to build a chariot.

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As a representative of the worthy 'groom', as I have discussed elsewhere in relation the juggler and the two venuses, there is a fit with Tifareth.

There has also some discussion of Plato's symposium in other threads if anyone cares to search, probably already linked to these but example in the thread on number symbolism here:

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=45870

and on 'the garden of love' here:
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=46508

In the soul's 'union' with G-d the divine cannot be 'known' by reason, but is known by 'consumation', which is the pleasure driven urge of the nefesh or appetitive aspect of the soul, whose desire, being rooted in the love of G-d, is insatiable, and thus can only find sorrow in the transient, and true joy in the eternal. Thus 'knowledge' of God is not the knowledge born of reason, which seperates, but of consummation, which unites. The elevation and position of Temperance in the TdM sequence, the virtue corresponding to the 'appetitive' part of the soul, that seeks to 'consume', suggests the possibility of the influence of the neo-platonic doctrine of Love which had a huge influence both on philosophy and popular culture throughout the late 15th and 16th centuries along the lines as expressed in Ficino and Leo the Hebrew .

quote:
"The Dialoghi d'amore of Leone Ebreo, written almost contemporaneously with Bembo's Asolani, are praised by several later writers as an unsurpassed book of love doctrine. Not merely a treatise on love, they are also a detailed restatement of Neo-Platonic philosophy. Though broader than any commentary on Plato's Symposium, Leone's book has many themes in common with Ficino's Commentary.

"The upper and lower worlds join in man's soul, a microcosm of the world soul. By knowing beauty man purifies himself, rising in both knowledge and virtue. Bad desires, as for the Platonic Socrates if not for Ficino, derive from erroneous judgment rather than from corrupted will. Man's intellect, like the soul for Pico in his famous Oration on the dignity of man, is potentially all things. The ultimate wisdom is to know God—a goal not fully attainable in this life, where intimations of intuitive knowledge are achieved only briefly in a Platonic raptus or ecstasy, which Leone calls “copulation with highest God.”

End quote from PLATONISM IN THE RENAISSANCE:

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv3-64

Hi Mike and Kwaw,
We all seem to agree that the Tarot cards were influenced by Platonism and the Bible.
Mike, I think your interpretation of the Chariot card with the two colored horses sounds right. The Chariot also might be related to Parmenides Chariot ride. The idea is that the soul ascends through rising above the animal appetites--a kind of self conquest.


Kwaw, you say so many interesting things. There is a sense, almost like a gestalt, that in the Tarot we are touching something both universal and ancient--like Sufism. Occult Tarot writers have left hints scattered throughout the writing, and then there is the Temple imagery on the cards--like Solomon's Temple. Unfortunately, those who take the opposing position, that the Tarot is a card game first and something occult 200 years later want us to prove that these connections exist.

When we get to Pseudo-Dionysius Corpus (called the CD "Corpus Dionysius) we have a kind of bridge between the ancient world of the Middle East (Sufism like) and the Renaissance. John Scotus Eriugena (9th Century translator of the CD) synthesized the exotic East of Ps Dionysius with the Latin West of Augustine and Calcidius's commentary on Plato's Timaeus. Calcidius commentary has the four elements, the ratios, demonology, and the nature of Fortune. When this is mixed in with the Dionysius metaphysics--that is the Tarot. What I mean is that the Tarot is structured on the Platonic commentaries but the imagery and the inherent method is drawn from Dionysius. Dionysius wrote in the 5th Century Syria (probably), Eriugena in the 9th Century Ireland, and the Tarot is 15th Century. But there is a strong tradition that emerges in the 12th Century of this particular type of philsophy, usually called Neo-Platonism.
Here is a link:
http://www.the-orb.net/encyclop/culture/philos/coulter.html
If this link does not work you can search:
"Pseudo-Dionysius in the Twelth Century Latin West" by Dale Coulter

I would argue that the Tarot draws its structure and philosophy from here, rather than the later translations of the Renaissance. Warm regards..

Kwaw, I would like to read what you say about the "groom," the juggler and the two venuses. Do you have a link? Before I say anything about your most recent post, I have to study it and the links you provided.

Kapoore, I could not get to the link you provided. I am hopefully ready to study pseudo-Dionysus and Eriugena, whom I strongly suspect influenced the Zohar. If you have any suggestions on where to start, tell me.

Meanwhile, I have been trying to think of other arguments in support of Beanu's switching of Binah and Hokhma in the order. I mentioned pseudo-Iamblicus's "Theology of Arithmetic," from Alexandria, and its agreement with the Wisdom literature in the Bible about the second aspect of Yahweh's being a female personification. I was hoping to find a discussion of Sophia in Philo of Alexandria. So far no luck. But I did find, in his book "On the Creation" (in Vol. 1 of the Loeb Library edition of his works), a discussion of why God took 6 days for creation. He explains how 6 is a perfect number, in the Pythagorean way. And moreover, as the product of 2 and 3, it combines "the essential principle both of the male that sows and of the female that receives the seed" (p. 15). And

"For among things that are it is the odd that is male, and the even female. Now of odd numbers 3 is the starting point, and of evening numbers 2, and the product of these two is 6" (p. 13).

Philo applies Neopythagorean theory to Judaism here and many other places, for example, to why there are 10 commandments, why there are 7 appears often, and why circumcision is on the 8th day after birth. And this is just when Kabbalah is starting, as far as there is evidence. For example, there is an account of the Supernal Chariot in the Dead Sea Scrolls that reads very much like that in the Zohar, only much scaled down and without planets or sefiroth. This is in Barnstone, The Other Bible, p. 706.)

And I found something else that I never noticed before, that is really incredible to me. That is, when you look at Gnostic cosmologies, some of them start with a male (or an androgynous being), then a female, then another female and a male, just like the Tarot. In fact, the process of emanation for at least the first four Aeons in the Gnostic system of Ptolemaeus, as recounted by Irenaeus, is exactly the same as that described in the Zohar, except that the columns are reversed, the females being on the right and the males on the left. And some of the names are even similar.

Here is a passage from the Zohar (II, 175b, Wisdom of the Zohar p. 348):

"We have seen that Hokhmah is the sum of all [editor: Before they were separated from one another in the process of emanation, all the sefirot had a common existence in Hokhmah], that supernal Hesed emerges from Hokhmah, and that Gevurah, which is strict Judgment, emerges from Binah."

And now look at Irenaeus (Against All Heresies, Part I, Ch XII, Sect. 1, at
http://gnosis.org/library/adv1.htm):

"But the followers of Ptolemy say that he [Bythos] has two consorts, which they also name Diatheses (affections), viz., Ennoae and Thelesis. For, as they affirm, he first conceived the thought of producing something, and then willed to that effect. Wherefore, again, these two affections, or powers, Ennoea and Thelesis, having intercourse, as it were, between themselves, the production of Monogenes and Aletheia took place according to conjunction. These two came forth as types and images of the two affections of the Father,--visible representations of those that were invisible,--Nous (i.e., Monogenes) of Thelesis, and Aletheia of Ennoea, and accordingly the image resulting from Thelesis was masculine,(3) while that from Ennoea was feminine..."

This Ptolemy is not the astronomer. Bythos is Depth, the first Aeon (the Gnostic equivalent of a sefira). He emits Ennoae, Thought, and Thelesis, Will. Ennoae is emitted first, as thought comes before willing. "Thought" is rather like Binah, "Intelligence" or "Understanding." Then from these latter two come Monogenes/Nous, Alone-begotten/Mind, and Aletheia, Truth, the feminine one resembling Ennoea, and the masculine one resembling Thelesis. So Aletheia goes under Ennoae, Monogenes under Thelesis. "Will" on the masculine side is rather like Gevurah, "Power."

That's as far as I've got. Scholem has already noticed the Gnostic character of parts of the Zohar. But I never suspected it was that close. These Gnostic systems, 2nd century c.e., also stem from Alexandria and its Jewish-Christian-Greek milieu. I will keep reading. But I'm writing on my lunch break, and I have to get back to work.

Here I am again. In what I wrote above, notice that the third emenation, Will, is just how Beanu characterizes the Emperor. Not a bad parallel.

Another Gnostic cosmogeny is similar to Beanu's presentation in another way, in that the third emanation is the son of the first two (Irenaeus, same reference as above, Part I, Ch. 1, Sec. 1:

"THEY [unnamed followers of Valentinus] maintain, then, that in the invisible and ineffable heights above there exists a certain perfect, pre-existent AEon, whom they call Proarche, Propator, and Bythus, and describe as being invisible and incomprehensible. Eternal and unbegotten, he remained throughout innumerable cycles of ages in profound serenity and quiescence. There existed along with him Ennoea, whom they also call Charis [Grace] and Sige [Silence]. At last this Bythus determined to send forth from himself the beginning of all things, and deposited this production (which he had resolved to bring forth) in his contemporary Sige, even as seed is deposited in the womb. She then, having received this seed, and becoming pregnant, gave birth to Nous, who was both similar and equal to him who had produced him, and was alone capable of comprehending his father's greatness. This Nous they call also Monogenes, and Father, and the Beginning of all Things. Along with him was also produced Aletheia; and these four constituted the first and first-begotten Pythagorean Tetrad, which they also denominate the root of all things..."

Depth and Thought, like Beanu's Magician and Empress, have the third Aeon as their son. (Will is not there yet.) Notice also that another name for the second Aeon is Charis, i.e. Grace, close to the Zohar's "Love," which besides being the name of a sefira is the generic name for one side of the tree (the other is "Judgment".) This son, Nous, gets the distinction of being "all-father" of what comes after, just as Binah is "all mother." Irenaeus notices the smilarity to Pythagoreanism.

In this case, Irenaeus gives the rest of the story. Nous and Alethea give birth to two more, Logos and Zoe, and they give birth to two more, Anthropos and Ecclesia. Logos, it seems to me, is reminiscent of Tiferet ("scarlet lips"). Ecclesia is reminiscent of Malkhut, which is called "knesset Israel." Anthropos might be Yesod. Zoe, life, might be one of the others. That completes the first bunch, 8 in all. After that there is another group of 10 and below them a group of 12. These 3 groups are reminiscent of the 3 upper "worlds" of the Zohar.

Irenaeus was readily available in manuscript all through the Middle Ages, in Latin. After printing was invented, he went through many editions in the 16th centuries. I have an idea that the passages I have quoted may have influenced one episode in Dante's Divine Comedy, in a way reminiscent of the Zohar's Tree and also the Star card. More later.

Hi Mike,
I tried to correct that link with Dale Coulter, "Pseudo-Dionysius and the Latin West." If you get a chance to read it, you will see a reference to the chariot image as Prudence and the Seven Liberal Arts.

There does seem to be a relationship between early Christian writers and the roots of Jewish Kabbalah. The Israeli scholar of early Islam, Shlomo Pines, discovered a part of the Pseudo- Clementine Homilies that he believed had been incorporated into the Sefer Yesirah. Here is the quote, from Pseudo-Clementine: "He (God) is the Beginning and the End. For in Him the six infinite (ones, the Extensions) end, and from Him they take their extension toward the infinite." I got this quote and the reference to Pines on page 139 of Eliot Wolfson's book, Through a Speculum that Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medeival Jewish Mysticism. Pines article is titled "Points of Similarity."
Wolfson also has excellent research on the relationship between Eriugena and some of the Gerona Kabbalists. It seems that the Eriugena link is established fact, while Pines conclusions are debatable.

My favorite writer on these subjects is Steven Wasserstrom. He wrote an online essay on the origins of the Sefer Yesirah. He also wrote a fabulous book called, Religion after Religion: Gershom Scholem, Mircea Eliade, and Henry Corbin at Eranos. Here he shows how these three seminal writers were deeply involved in the occult as a primary source.

In terms of your reference to Gnosticism---I think the Gnostic imagery has similarities to imagery in the Tarot such as the male/female, etc.; it's hard to establish any connections between Gnostic writings and the early 15th Century of Tarot origins. ( And, yes, I did say EARLY 15th Century. I don't buy into the current trend that we can't talk about Game of Triumphs origins until after 1460 or even later. ) Most of the Gnostic texts (other than those that were in recorded by the Church Fathers) weren't known until dug up in Nag Hammadhi. So, though interesting, it's not relevant to Tarot origins. Good discussion, though. Thanks

Kapoore: The way the Gnostics might be relevant is if they influenced the people who influenced the tarot, or provided a way of seeing the tarot: such as pseudo-Dionysus or the early Kabbalists or pre-Kabbalists (I mean in 2nd to 4th century). And Irenaeus, the author I was quoting, was a Church Father, the main Church Father writing about the "Gnostics so-called."

And thanks for the reference to the Parmenedes. I haven't read much of that dialogue.

Kwaw: I read all the links. You certainly make me work. Now I have to read Agrippa on Pythagoreanism. I have only read the ancient Latin and Greek philosophers who followed the Neopythagorean tradition and were read during the Renaissance. He seems pretty confused, compared to them. But I am prejudging.

These links also serve to remind me that tarot enthusiasts are working with an erroneous and inapopropriate interpretation of the Phaedrus. Seeing the rider as the rational part of the soul and the two horses as the lower parts of the soul, as in the Republic, is not the way people in the 15th-17th centuries would have seen the Phaedrus myth; moreover, recent scholars have been more and more coming closer to their point of view. I will try to go to the library on Monday and get you some page numbers in recent books on the Phaedrus. The Republic is a middle dialogue, while the Phaedrus, like the Parmenides, is late. The categories of one do not fit the other.

By the time of the Phaedrus, Plato realized that "appetite" was not the right way to describe the desiring part of the soul, as desire is only on the lower level a desire to consume. The desire for consummation is something else. The word "consume" is from the Latin "sumere," meaning "to take." "Consummate" is from the Latin "summa," meaning "the highest." And the reason Temperance is where it is in the tarot is not that it reflects higher level appetite, but rather that temperance is the virtue that neutralizes the Boom-and-Bust Wheel of Conspicuous Consumption and allows desire to rise above it. It is, as I see it, the card paired with the Wheel, as that which allows the ascent past that sefira (Hod).

As for the Chariot-rider in the tarot, he is passively perceiving the Form of Beauty. He is the philosopher-duke (with his ducal crown) as art connoisseur, beholding Venus Urania or David the giant-slayer. He is the one who looks at the paint, or the hunk of marble, and sees there not a physical reality but another reality, with his mind's eye. Reason is only the tool or engine that enables him to get to that point; reason in itself is not a source of knowledge. In art, for Plato and the Renaissance, reason is primarily mathematical. It is the science of perspective, optics, and of solids in space. It is mathematics that teaches what is pleasing, for example the "Vetruvian man" in drawing, the golden section in architecture, and various harmonies in music. It is knowing this mathematics, in a practical form at least, that makes it possible for Michelangelo to switch so easily from sculpture to painting to architecture. But the reasoning involved is only the scaffolding. In the Meno, for example, Socrates goes through a simple geometric proof. But the proof is not what makes the result true, according to Plato--it is the seeing of an ideal and remembering it from before birth. After all the reasoning that goes into art, likewise, one can see the beauty of which the physical expression is only an approximation. The chariot's noble horse is the reasoning power, which educates Desire and allows the rider to catch a glimpse of true Beauty.

Despite Mike's enthiusiastic response,
I should now address some of the weaknesses I find in mapping my system to the astrology.

In the past, I had thought of Emperor as Mars, and Geburah as Saturn. However, the swap is easy to do, and having Saturn as Emperor prings in notions of an empire that will last for ever - of emperors that want their name and work to live on beyond theuir mortal lives. Willing to devour theiur children if they thought it would do any good.
Mars as Geburah is also a comfortable fit.

A larger problem was my conclusion that the Star card was the Star Goddess, Nuit, mother of all. And that the Empress wias Isis.
But with the astrological attributions, The Empress gets Nuit, and the Star is Venus. Not sure what to make of that yet.

Regardless, in my more detailed writings, I have already compared the nature of the two cards, saying that the "goddess" "(avoiding differentiation) belongs in Binah/Empress, and that the presence of the Star Goddess card is a lesson to us regarding the awareness of her divine love. The Goddessis not represented as being in Netzach. What is represented is our first awareness of her influence.

B

Hi Mike,
One of the great things about the occult is that there is room for so much speculation. I, too, love to read arcane material and take imaginative flights. But maybe it's time to ground ourselves in our dialogue around the Pope card as we planned a couple of pages back.

I'll start with my theory on why I believe that the Pope card in the Marseille tradition reflects the imagery in the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite corpus. For those who don't know, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite was a 5th Century Christian Neo-Platonist probably from Syria. Correct me if I am wrong, but I am not aware of anyone else who has written about Pseudo-Dionysius and the Pope card.

Ps Dionysius is a referenced writer thoughtout occult Tarot. He influenced Llull through Eriugena's translation. Kircher used the angelic hierachy of Ps Dionysius on his Tree of Life. A. E. Waite wrote a book on Ps Dionysius called the Way to Divine Union. Plus, Ps Dionysius coined words that have become commonplace in occult Tarot. These words are archetype, hierarchy, and supernatural. He was also the first to use the word "mystic," and he used it in much the same way as the word "occult" or that which is hidden.

Who is the Hierophant of the Tarot ? I will argue that the Hierophant is the "hierarch." According to Dionysius, the hierarch refers to "the arrangement of all sacred realities. Talk of hierarch and one is referrring to a holy and inspired man, someone who understands all sacred knowledge, someone in whom an entire hierarchy is completely perfected and known." (Ecclesiastic Hierarchy 373C) If you don't mind I'll abbreviate to EH

In the EH two initiates come before the hierarch. The initiates are different because one is "fired by love of transcendent reality" and the other is concerned about the "human condition." The initiates represent the two different paths, the esoteric path and the exoteric path.

Here is another reference to the two paths in Letter Nine 1105D.
"Theological tradition has a dual apsect, the ineffable and mysterious on the one hand, the open and more evident on the other. The one resorts to symbolism and involves initiation. The other is philosophic and employs the method of demonstration...The one uses persuasion and imposes the truthfulness of what is asserted. The other acts and, by a means of a mystery which cannot be taught, it puts souls firmly in the presence of God."

In all the Marseille style Pope cards, the initiates before the Pope (the hierarch) are distinct. This is most pronounced in the Waite deck where one initiate is wearing blue and the other red. I would argue that the red is for "passion" toward humanity, or the outer path; and the blue is for desire of the inner path. In the Noblet Tarot one initiate has a red hat and has open arms, and the other has closed hands with no hat. In the process of initiation as a sign of renouncing evil, the initiates face "westward and renounce with outstretched hands all dealings with evil."
(EH 401B)

At another point in the intiation, "The Hierarch begins the process...with a threefold sign of the cross." The Pope has his hands raised in the sign of the cross. Waite calls this the "ecclesiastical sign" perhaps here referencing Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. He writes, "with his right hand he gives the well-known ecclesiastical sign which is called that of esotericism, distinguishing between the manifest (outer) and concealed part of the doctrine."

So, to summarize my argument, I believe that the scene on the Pope card with the two cleric attendents is really the "hierarch" beginning the initiation of the two candidates--one who comes from the outer path and one from the inner. The inititates comes before the hierarch and "The hierarch is delighted with the two men." (EH 393C)

The initiation involves several experiences that could reference other cards as well such as the Death card, the Hang Man card, and maybe even the Tower card. But I think the most obvious reference is in the Pope card.

Your thoughts...