kapoore
I am proposing a new thread on an aspect of Tarot history that has driven me nuts since my introduction to the Tarot over 15 years ago. I am referring to the relationship between the Tarot and the Hebrew Kabbala. Recent topics on the History Forum have revived this conundrum of all conundrums--Teheuti's blog on the Hebrew alphabet, and my interaction with Yygdrasilian on Renaissance philosopher Nichol as of Cusa's and Dionysius suppose reliance on Kabbala. I thought a sharing of sources around this topic might turn some lights on in the hall of mirrors.
I am not well versed in Kabbala. In fact, I have read only the Sefer Yesirah, but I have read some secondary sources: Gershom Scholem, Eliot Wolfson, and Steven M. Wasserstrom. I sense, though, that the contributors to the Forum are much better read in the primary sources and can contribute to the debate from that perspective. What I have to share are fragments from my readings over the years that have eventually formed a line of interconnections.
First I want to simply review what probably everyone already knows about Tarot and Kabbala. The Kabbala's relation to Tarot was synthesized by the Golden Dawn, which in turn got material through Eliphas Levi probably via Kenneth Mackensie. And Eliphas Levi got his material from Athanasius Kircher and Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim.
Paul Huson has an excellent summary in his Mystical Origins of the Tarot:
"During the course of his kabbalistic studies, Levi had come across a tradition reported in the sixteenth century by Agrippa...whereby each of the four letters of the tetragrammaton could be assigned to one of the four Pythagorean elements, thus J-Fire, H-Water, V-Air, and H-Earth."
Levi writes this all out in the History of Magic, and Huson has an excellent quote on pp62. Mathers in turn copies portions of Levi's history into the Greater Key of Solomon.
I'm assuming that most would accept the above summary as an historical basis to launch a further discussion. If this thread interests the Forum members I could further extend it into a disucssion of the connections to Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522) who perhaps is a key figure in that he knew Agrippa and Trithemius. And shared with Cusa the fraternity, the Brotherhood of the Common Life.
I am not well versed in Kabbala. In fact, I have read only the Sefer Yesirah, but I have read some secondary sources: Gershom Scholem, Eliot Wolfson, and Steven M. Wasserstrom. I sense, though, that the contributors to the Forum are much better read in the primary sources and can contribute to the debate from that perspective. What I have to share are fragments from my readings over the years that have eventually formed a line of interconnections.
First I want to simply review what probably everyone already knows about Tarot and Kabbala. The Kabbala's relation to Tarot was synthesized by the Golden Dawn, which in turn got material through Eliphas Levi probably via Kenneth Mackensie. And Eliphas Levi got his material from Athanasius Kircher and Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim.
Paul Huson has an excellent summary in his Mystical Origins of the Tarot:
"During the course of his kabbalistic studies, Levi had come across a tradition reported in the sixteenth century by Agrippa...whereby each of the four letters of the tetragrammaton could be assigned to one of the four Pythagorean elements, thus J-Fire, H-Water, V-Air, and H-Earth."
Levi writes this all out in the History of Magic, and Huson has an excellent quote on pp62. Mathers in turn copies portions of Levi's history into the Greater Key of Solomon.
I'm assuming that most would accept the above summary as an historical basis to launch a further discussion. If this thread interests the Forum members I could further extend it into a disucssion of the connections to Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522) who perhaps is a key figure in that he knew Agrippa and Trithemius. And shared with Cusa the fraternity, the Brotherhood of the Common Life.