1912 The Protocols of the Elders of Zion editions has the Chariot

[Lord Adonia]

An occult order I might be interested in was unfairly accused of anti-semitism. I was doing some research on this and decided to learn the origin of the Protocols. I went to wikipedia and found a reproduction of 1912 Proctocols with a Chariot Tarot card. Can anyone identify where this version of the chariot card originated from? I would assume Eliphas Levi, since I recognize the pentagram star. It is strange my research led to me wondering why they would place a Tarot card on notorious piece of forged literature.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pro...Elders_of_Zion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:19...s_by_Nilus.jpg

[Debra]

I transliterated from Cyrillic to English--the caption under the Chariot is "Antichrist."

There's this: http://www.villarevak.org/bio/levi_2.html

I knew people in the 1970's who believed the Protocols were authentic and accurate.

[Abrac]

That Chariot seems to have been influenced by Levi but it's not exactly the same. There aren't any stars on the crown, the sphinxes look different and the wand is in a slightly different position. It could be a hand copy made for the Protocols. All those other symbols are from Levi.

There's a belief among Christian scholars that Nero Ceasar was the Antichrist; who, of course, would have ridden a chariot. Others believe the Antichrist is still future and will be a reincarnation of Nero. Nero Ceasar's name yields the numerical values 666 and 616, both numbers of the Beast in different manuscripts.

I couldn't find anything in Levi's Transcendental Magic that connects the Chariot with the Antichrist. The idea that Nero Ceasar is the future Antichrist has been around for a long time though. The author(s) of the Protocols surely intended to signify that the Jews are in league with Satan and the Antichrist. I don't think Alphonse Louis Constant was Jewish, but his use of the pen name "Levi," and his writings on Kabbalah probably led a lot of the ignorant to think he was.

[kapoore]

Chariot card on the old cover of Protocols--wow, what a find... Of course, Levi's devil is used all over the internet as the symbol of pure evil, and this is unfortunate because Levi was not pure evil, not even close to it. Christopher McIntosh wrote a book, Eliphas levi and the French Occult Revival, which is close to a biography of Levi. Levi was in conflict between his Catholic past and his fascinations with the occult and he never does sort it out. He was influenced by the Frankist, supposedly. I have never seen a thread on Frankism in the history forum and that might be a daring quest. I do believe there is a relationship between the Frankists and occult Tarot because Frankism does influence the secret societies. In a nutshell Frankism was a movement within Judaism that came out of a mixture of Turkish Sufism, Judaism, and Christianity that promoted redemption through sinning. It reminds me of winning the game by losing completely--as in the game of hearts where a player "shoots the moon," that is, gets all the points against him and thus reverses the points so that every player has to get the points against them... anyway, I can see that being discussed in secret societies and intriquing Levi. The Frankists used wild sexuality as a means of reversed redemption. On a global scale they believed they could hasten the return of the Messiah through sin, so the movement had political overtones.