The Tarot symbols origin

[Teheuti]

Originally Posted by Yygdrasilian

Tracing the iconography of the Triumphs back to documented sources in medieval religious art, the assumption is often made that their inspiration drew primarily from an orthodox conception of Christian symbolism, to the exclusion of alchemical, cabalistic or occult influences. The Fool suggests otherwise.
. . . Having worked so arduously to dispel the stigma of the Occult, these serious historians would rather abandon hope of finding a meaningfully coherent design behind the selection of the cards' iconography, going so far as to claim the attempt unnecessary for an understanding of their origin.

Actually, several "meaningfully coherent design" scenarios "behind the selection of the cards' iconography" have been proposed - by Bob O'Neill, Michael J. Hurst, Andrea Vitali and others, including historical writings on the subject translated by Ross Caldwell. I don't know why you ignore these and state that they don't exist. Admittedly, they are not Occult in the modern sense. But people are open to alchemical, cabalistic and occult influences. The problem is that, so far, no one has presented a set of 22 tarot-related images in these fields from the period of the creation of the tarot. If you know of a set of images that clearly show the tarot iconography being related to alchemy, Kabbalah (however spelled) and the occult - from before the 18th century - please share it with all of us. For historians, evidence, rather than just theory, is required.

[Yygdrasilian]

A point I try to illustrate with my brand of foolish banter concerns a common root of origin for both the selected iconography of Tarot and the use of symbolism & allegory in the ancient poetics of myth-making. A mathematical artifice underpinning the design of the early alphabets, well preserved in the arcane Judaic tradition of building mandalas with numbered letters.

Gaining a familiarity with this system’s architecture of symbolic continuities may not persuade many scholars of the influence played by Hebrew mysticism in the formulation of the Tarrochi, but it would at least provide an eye for recognizing how it came to bear upon the standardization of the Tarot. For, by the middle of the 17th century, the structure of the deck had been well adapted to the operations of this ancient mnemonic tool.

Did the market decide?

Long before the first Tarot card was ever painted, there were systems for partitioning and reassembling alphabets into a geometric mechanism for gaging the measure of time. The 22 letters of Hebrew function in this way to delineate a clockwork calendar and map of Earth wherein the Great “Mer” of Khnum-khufu serves as an axiomatic cornerstone for its’ construction. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_bdZH0rEVD...2BQuestion.jpg

Independent of any assessment whether or when this system influenced the development of Tarrochi, Triumph or Tarot, this hidden use of letters is an esoteric practice that has exerted noticeable influence upon the formulation of symbol & allegory within the sacred art, text, and ceremonial traditions of those literate civilizations making use of a “Phoenician” alphabet. If, having evaded the purges of late antiquity, this secret knowledge most likely survived outside orthodox channels precisely due to its keepers avoiding explicit documentation. At least until a more “enlightened” age.

While the most obvious feature shared between this alephbetical art of memory and the 22 iconic cards of Tarot may be their sequence of numbers counted zero through twenty-one, it is not the only parallel exhibited between them. “Kesil”, astride the celestial equator, does make an apt cipher for decrypting our confusion of tongues, and as Osiris, in the form of Sah, he shares an intimate union with Sopdet, the brightest Star at -17º declination - a position which had allowed her helical rise to be marked from the latitude of ancient Kemet every 365.25 days. It takes 19 such years for the all the lunar phases of our moon to re-synch with the days of The Sun.

And though The Moon might at first appear a glaring discrepancy with the eighteenth letter from a Fool signifying nothing, it does reveal an enigmatic means of resonating with our Moon’s 346-day eclipse year. Rather than pair with one of the 7 double letters usually attributed the 7 “planets” visible to the naked eye, the Tarot Moon is matched to the last of the 12 simple letters, qoph - commonly ascribed an affinity with the 12th zodiacal house, Pisces. Taken as a cue for reading “the measure of the Fish” at face value (2x √3 = 3.46), we find a link between systems meaningfully placing The Moon at a juncture allowing for the encryption of calendrical knowledge through the symbolic representation of a mathematical constant expressed with geometry.

Or, to try a different tack, we could explore the curious timing of the Roman orthodox feast for the Theban Martyrs, set on the 265th day of the year - a number indelibly wed to the vesica piscis (265/153 ≈ √3) and a legend curiously counted at 6,666 decimated soldiers with a notorious centurion’s spear. This reliquary talisman, binding a Nail with a Prop, bears an almost emblematic relationship to the ill-fated King of Burgandy, Sigismund - patron saint of a Dragon Emperor and the Wolf of Rimini. His church in Cremona still marks the wedding chapel “of Force” (Sforza) with a "Powerful Lance” (Visconti) upon a door of six heraldic devices, including 3 interlaced rings possessing a unique relationship to those numbers and the Great Pyramid of Khnum-khufu at Giza. But, to appreciate this point of view, one must first begin to recognize how a puzzle whose solution rests in higher dimensions can be posed as projections unto a plane.

A perspective perhaps best admired by The Fool.

צ
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0RgHwN_sXr...ovidence11.jpg

[kwaw]

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[Yygdrasilian]

Originally Posted by Teheuti

If you know of a set of images that clearly show the tarot iconography being related to alchemy, Kabbalah (however spelled) and the occult - from before the 18th century - please share it with all of us. For historians, evidence, rather than just theory, is required.

It would seem that some key evidence was deleted as Advertising -though nothing was being offered for sale. For what it's worth, I didn't author the silly book you're all going on about. However, I am attempting to discuss the Tarot symbols' origins, specifically with respect to an enigmatic puzzle embedded within the design of the Alephbet.

()
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3eKuFFHGH3.../s1600/MER.jpg

[Alta]

I have been in contact with Yygdrasilian, and he is going to return the links.

[Ross G Caldwell]

I guess we can get back to the original statement of this thread.

The tarot symbols originate in the human brain. The human brain originates in nature. Nature, as far as we know, is eternal.* So the tarot symbols originate in eternity.

Like everything else.

So - perhaps we can get back to more specific problems, like who first designed these symbols to be put on cards, precisely where, and precisely when, and precisely why these particular images for the trumps? That is the purpose of "historical research" anyway, unless we are talking about eternity, in which case we might as well talk physics or philosophy in general. Generally those subjects are not described as "historical research", however.

The current best answer to the where and when is, in my opinion, Florence in the late 1430s. The "who" is too specific a question to say - the only sure answer is that it was a very good game designer. The game has not gone unplayed, or unmade, in the 570 years or so since it was invented (if not in its home town (whether Florence or Milan), then at least next door in Bologna).

So for the symbols' origin, we should look at places like Florence and Milan in the 1430s and try to see what kind of symbols they were using then. A lot of this work has been done already, and it continues, on AT and elsewhere.

*Since "time" is a measure of some event (implying a measurer), time is itself natural, so it cannot be said that there was a time when there was no time. I.e., nature - the universe - is eternal. "For how long was there no time?" is a meaningless, absurd question.

[RLG]

Originally Posted by Yygdrasilian

While the most obvious feature shared between this alephbetical art of memory and the 22 iconic cards of Tarot may be their sequence of numbers counted zero through twenty-one, it is not the only parallel exhibited between them.

Dwtw

Unfortunately, your supposition does not take account of the fact that there is no zero in the Hebrew numerical system. The letters from Alef to Tav form a quasi-decimal system using values of single digits, tens and hundreds, but no use of zero.

AFAIK, early tarot cards had no numbers on them at all, and later numbered decks often did not have a zero or any number on the Fool. This seems to be superficial evidence that the position of the Fool was ambiguous, as further suggested by it's role in game play as the 'excuse', and not technically being one of the Trumps.

It is certainly possible that a later TdM style or other deck filled the trumps with pictures of things whose names all began with the same letter B or G or whatever, but the archetypal images on each card of the early decks was fairly austere - there are some human figures and a few objects, but nothing like the plethora of imagery that later blossomed on the cards. The origin of all that imagery is interesting as well, but is posterior to the origins of the main symbols. You would have to show some clear evidence that the trump sequence follows the alefbet sequence without ambiguity, and why various trumps equate with a certain letter. To date, I've yet to see any convincing evidence that this parallelism was in place at the outset of the Tarot. Saying that it was some oral tradition or memory game makes the evidence disappear, and the question unanswerable. That certainly undermines the historical method.

Anything attributed to the tarot after its origin does not contribute to an understanding of why those 22 specific symbols were originally used, and in that order. A related question is why were the trumps not numbered at first? How did anyone known what card trumped what other card(s)? Was the sequence initially so obvious that numbers were felt unnecessary? I don't know the answers, but those are the obvious questions.

Litlluw
RLG

[kwaw]

Originally Posted by RLG

Dwtw

Unfortunately, your supposition does not take account of the fact that there is no zero in the Hebrew numerical system. The letters from Alef to Tav form a quasi-decimal system using values of single digits, tens and hundreds, but no use of zero.

In twefth century Ibn Ezra in his book of numbers used the hebrew letters aleph to teth plus the galgal (wheel) as sfr (zero) -- based upon a system of hindu/arabic numbers he probably learnt as a student in Toledo. In another system dots were used (above the letters). So alternative symbols to the letters were used for zero. There is no symbol in the roman system either, so when the fool was number the arabic 0 was used on the cards though others used Roman (the letter 'n' for nulla was also used to represent a value of nothing).

Originally Posted by RLG

Dwtw

AFAIK, early tarot cards had no numbers on them at all, and later numbered decks often did not have a zero or any number on the Fool.
RLG

The sola busca (15th century) fool is numbered 0; also the matto in the steele sermon (15th century) while seperate from the XXI trumps ( numbered in roman letters), is numbered 0, and in brackets described as nulla (worth nothing), the Bishop of Fools name was Nullatensis.

Some of the choices for the images used I think may have been as visual puns - fools were emblematic of zero - the fool or worthless fellow in 13th century french was called a 'cipher', a nothing or zero. A worthless fellow is simply used for a card without worth - just as a trifler is used for a card worth a trifling amount (bagatelle) and the world for the biggest.