Attribution of Cards to the Kircher Tree

venicebard

Pelops said:
Venicebard, . . . I've been very interested in your bardic angle . . . 4 questions:

1) With the hebrew correspondence to the bardic, do you also challenge the hebrew numerical system also, or does the correspondence support it, or are there no numerical values to the bardic alphabet with which it could conflict?

There is definite interplay between the two numbering systems (which is even exploited in the order of the runic elder futhark, which displays also a knowledge of the three mothers), and my understanding of this aspect is in its embryonic stage. One very obvious instance of interplay is in the laying out of the pattern of valence-by-height, wherein Hebrew numeration can be substituted for 3 and 4—gimel-dalet—which are the polarity good (3) and evil (4) in Sefer Yetzirah. And Hebrew numbering is invaluable in interpreting the Name (not surpisingly): the hehs are the hands (5s) given in matrimony, vav (6) the space (6 directions) in the female (vav-heh) for the male (who is the divine name Yah or first half of the Name), and yod (10) the idea of conjoined hands (5+5=10) in the mind of the male (Yah). Yet at the same time, bardic numbering identifies the male and female roots yod and vav as yod-19-potassium and vav-17-chlorine, which form the salt that keeps fluids within cells (across the horizontal diameter of the round or Egg).

One would almost think the two number systems were devised as two parts of one whole, yet bardic takes precedence: it is the one connecting letter-symbols directly to atom-types in the periodic table—B-birch of the white bark as 5-boron (borax being a bleach), G-ivy’s (wandering) desire as 10-neon (think Las Vegas), R-elder, to burn which ‘brings the devil in the house’ (an English superstition), as 15-phosphorus (Phosphorus = Lucifer = Venus as morning star), and on and on. Evidently, the Hebrew numbering by 1s, 10s, and 100s was devised during or just after the Captivity, with the advent of square Hebrew, which surely sprang from Aramaic yet whose numbering is related somehow to Greek. But even Phoenician or proto-Canaanite (whence Phoenician) probably made use of ordinal 1-22 numbering (e.g. as chapter-heads in parts of the Bible), so the ‘spell’ or interplay of the two systems arises with the alef-bet order of letters in the first place, the older order evidently being calendar-order, B-L-N-F-S(SS)-H-D-T-K(KK)-M-G-Ng-R, A(AA)-O-U-E-I(II) [beyt-lamedh-nun-peh-shin(tzaddi)-cheyt-dalet-tav-kaf(qof)-mem-gimel-(samekh)-reysh, alef(teyt)-ayin-vav-heh-zayin(yod)].

2) With what deck or combination of decks does the symbolic correspondence between bardic and the trumps make itself most evident?

Tarot of Marseilles. The early alternate form of XXI LeMonde showing a hamlet through the porthole of a corporate jet fits its symbolism of location (old Semitic teyt is the heliport sign, alchemical symbol for the earth), but it lacks the taurus-leo-scorpio-aquarius (bull-lion-eagle-angel) symbolism, which points to its deeper meaning (as the fire breath, since the movable zodiac of a fire unit has its aries or ‘head’ pointed at cancer, the outer horizon, which is symbolically to our left). The Cary Sheet ‘Magician’ has a bridge-like table, for he is the bridge-builder alef (the doer); yet the Cary Sheet ‘Devil’ is just a boogeyman and lacks the subtlety of the Marseilles version linking it to the Junior Warden in the south (in the Masonic Lodge) and the ‘little devil’ or toddler chaining his parents to his needs. Most glaringly, consider the earliest painted form (Bembo) of XI Force: it shows Hercules with a club for slaying the lion, instead of the virtue herself manipulating its jaws: which do you think is more profound . . . or poetical?

3) Specifically, I consider lammedh and trump XII of the Marseilles deck to have an uncanny resemblence, and lammedh being attributed to trump XIV as you suggest has much less of one. So a third question: how is your case supported in this specific example?

Look at square-Hebrew lamedh: it is a child’s arms swinging while walking as seen from above—to symbolize learning (to walk), stretching beyond oneself (as the sign following capricorn or self), but also because it is the spine opposite the shoulders, that which converts the hanging shoulders-and-arms of cheyt into work or accomplishment. And that is where the mother (?) acting in the morality play has her angel’s wings strapped on in the Marseilles version of the trump, where you will note also the symbol for aquarius plainly visible in the two wavy lines linking the two vessels.

4) Do you have a centralized web page with this information?

Yes, it begins at:
http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/index.php/Bardic_origin_of_Tarot

I think my speculations there concerning actual geographical origin need refining a bit, but the rest is a fairly complete (if concise) layout of my current thinking concerning tarot, bardic tradition, and Qabbalah.

Appreciate your interest.

Pelops

Venicebard,

I have been trudging through the first page of the tarotpedia article you posted.

Being interested in your ideas, I am disappointed in how unreadable and poorly written this article is. The article is not cryptic in a beneficial way, but simply muddled and confused in it's communication so far.

First off, visuals are a must. It takes a great deal more effort for a reader to dissect a list of visual attributions than it does to have the visual actually there. I have no problem with putting in effort, but loathe it when unnecessary effort is put on the reader by the author.

Secondly, I have no problem with speculative theories which make sense (and I believe yours may), however I DO like to have references for the material which supports those speculations (especially when historical). There are no references at all in this document.

Also, today I read through the Ezekiel's Wheel portion of that initial page. After reading it over a few times, I see no convincing correlation between the paragraph about the wheels contained within one another and the actual graphic given of the wheel (the direct parallel is not drawn until 2 sections later, after traversing an obtuse distance, it would be better to start with the exact mapping and then explain). I do not see within the actual pictorial representation of the wheel the circles resting within one another exactly as described in the paragraph.

If your bardic root theory is so straightforward, why is this document so circumlocutious? I feel that, even if I end up gaining knowledge from it, that a large portion of my time is being unnecessarily wasted due to extremely poor presentation. And, frankly, this just pisses me off and leads me to believe the author doesn't value my time. And although I am a strong adherent to not dismissing an authors arguments for bad writing, this seriously affects my willingness to continue to learn what they propose, and also leads me to believe that the author does not take his/her ideas seriously enough to format them in an adequately communicable way.

You need pictorial representations for every visual you explain in more than one step, and you need to rewrite the document so that it is more coherent.

I still am really interested in your ideas, but I may or may not continue, depending on my ensuing frustration.

-pelops

venicebard

Pelops said:
Venicebard,

I have been trudging through the first page of the tarotpedia article you posted.

Being interested in your ideas, I am disappointed in how unreadable and poorly written this article is. The article is not cryptic in a beneficial way, but simply muddled and confused in it's communication so far.

My deepest apologies.

First off, visuals are a must. It takes a great deal more effort for a reader to dissect a list of visual attributions than it does to have the visual actually there. I have no problem with putting in effort, but loathe it when unnecessary effort is put on the reader by the author.

I regret I have not the computer-savvy (nor equipment) to provide visuals. But as for ‘unnecessary effort’, I had reasoned in the case of the 400-page book I just completed that it were better with few if any illustrations because it compels the reader to use the imagination, to think actively rather than passively... but there the descriptions are less 'clipped'. I will take your point under advisement.

There are no references at all in this document.

Not many, a flaw at present. It is just a matter of where does one begin to list sources: the endnotes to my book came to 20 pages, the bibliography to another 20. For Germanic myth I fall back primarily on Jacob Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology (4 vols.) and the New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology for mythology generally, and I have been exposed to the ideas of Georges Dumézil (through Littleton). For Keltic traditions, I rely largely on Graves but also on the Rees brothers, Lewis Spence, Markale, John Matthews, Peter Berresford Ellis’s The Druids, and others. For alphabets, I have (hand-copied) information from websites no-longer around but also from the works of Barry Fell, the 1952 Britannica, and Johanna Drucker’s The Alphabetic Labyrinth: The Letters in History and Imagination, as well as hieroglyphic-Phoenician equivalent lists in old Bibles and so on—alphabets are my thing. Also Gardiner’s Egyptian Grammar and Budge’s Egyptian Language. Trees, also, I read whatever I can get my hands on concerning, sources too numerous (and unrecorded) even for the bibliography. Also:

Lerner, Eric J., The Big Bang Never Happened, for plasma cosmology.

Long, Max Freedom, The Huna Code in Religions: The Influence of the Huna Tradition on Modern Faith, for the High Self’s name AUM-Akua (Au-makua).

Percival, Harold Waldwin, Thinking and Destiny: Being the Science of Man, for the inner workings of reality in general (and the zodiac in particular).

Eliade’s Forge and Crucible and Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy are indispensable, along with sources on alchemy by Jung, Silberer, Patai, Burckhardt, Dobbs (Betty Jo Teeter), Evola, Givry (Emile Grillot de), Holmyard, and Junius.

Much of my technical understanding of quantum physics comes from Wehr, M. Russell, and Richards, James A., Jr., Physics of the Atom, but I have also devoured many popularizations of its concepts over the decades, as well as other more technical materials.

For Kabbalah itself, I consult Scholem (Origins of the Kabbalah was the most helpful of the bunch), Dan (Joseph), Kaplan (esp. SY and the Bahir), Schaya, Bischoff, Drob... plus the first volume-and-a-half (as far as I’ve gotten so far) of the Soncino Zohar.

You will also find Cooper, J. C., An Illustrated Encyclopædia of Traditional Symbols most useful, and of course Æsop’s Fables.

Also, today I read through the Ezekiel's Wheel portion of that initial page. After reading it over a few times, I see no convincing correlation between the paragraph about the wheels contained within one another and the actual graphic given of the wheel...

The Egg (3rd wheel) sits in the Cauldron (bottom half of 2nd wheel): what could be clearer?

...(the direct parallel is not drawn until 2 sections later, after traversing an obtuse distance, it would be better to start with the exact mapping and then explain).

I’ll take this under advisement.

If your bardic root theory is so straightforward, why is this document so circumlocutious? I feel that, even if I end up gaining knowledge from it, that a large portion of my time is being unnecessarily wasted due to extremely poor presentation. And, frankly, this just pisses me off and leads me to believe the author doesn't value my time. And although I am a strong adherent to not dismissing an authors arguments for bad writing, this seriously affects my willingness to continue to learn what they propose, and also leads me to believe that the author does not take his/her ideas seriously enough to format them in an adequately communicable way.

Interesting: what you call ‘bad writing’ was really just the attempt to be concise and not waste the reader’s time. Ironic. Anyway, I assure you I take these matters ‘seriously’ in the intellectual sense (since I am no sorcerer) and could of course better communicate the ideas in person, where there could be give-and-take on what is unclear. Again, my apologies.

You need pictorial representations for every visual you explain in more than one step, and you need to rewrite the document so that it is more coherent.

I shall try my best at the latter (I’ll have some time available next week to attempt same, as well as to add a very important point to what I said earlier about the two numbering systems), but I have no power at present over the former.

Pelops

venicebard said:
I regret I have not the computer-savvy (nor equipment) to provide visuals. But as for ‘unnecessary effort’, I had reasoned in the case of the 400-page book I just completed that it were better with few if any illustrations because it compels the reader to use the imagination, to think actively rather than passively... but there the descriptions are less 'clipped'. I will take your point under advisement.

I believe you've reasoned this case precisely because of your inability to provide them, and not from a standpoint of quality in the communication. I assure you it will not be better if it is completed without visuals. It does not compel readers to use the imagination, it forces them. Fine in fiction, but when you are describing esoteric material that consists in diagrams and esoteric objects with attributions consisteng of many variables and at times detailed symbology, you are asking way too much...it will be less an exploration in imagination than a fight with frustration and vexation. Interested parties will not be passive in their thinking just because there are visuals (I would say that visuals, if compelling, would be even more likely to activate the cerebrum in the excited inquirer), and uninterested parties will not be drawn in by being forced to think out what they well know could just be drawn out.

I will private message you my contact information, and I mean this...if I believe in your proposed bardic system enough after I understand it, I would be glad to lend my hands (capable in the area in which you are lacking) to add that visual element to the site and/or book. But you may need to spend time with me so that I may understand your system clearly. Two warnings: If I care I'll be in your face about the text also (not that you'll need to listen, but I will be); and if I'm not compelled to belief, I won't give the time.

venicebard said:
Not many, a flaw at present. It is just a matter of where does one begin to list sources: the endnotes to my book came to 20 pages, the bibliography to another 20.

Is this book published and/or available?

venicebard said:
The Egg (3rd wheel) sits in the Cauldron (bottom half of 2nd wheel): what could be clearer?

The paragraph that begins "So the ‘wheel’ centered atop Adam Qadmon or Taliesin goes from up to out to down to in to up and constitutes two whole spheres..." is to what I was referring, is closest to the image, and one of the first visual statements of significance under "Ezekiel's Wheel". This paragraph's relationship to the image is lost on me. Again, the parallel is drawn more clearly later on, but still does not explain what appears to be a visual relationship you are trying to draw in this paragraph.

venicebard said:
Interesting: what you call ‘bad writing’ was really just the attempt to be concise and not waste the reader’s time. Ironic. Anyway, I assure you I take these matters ‘seriously’ in the intellectual sense (since I am no sorcerer) and could of course better communicate the ideas in person, where there could be give-and-take on what is unclear.

From my purview, the attempt is thusfar failing (although I'm assuming from what you say that it is still a work in progress). I can see you take the ideas seriously from what you've communicated in-forum and here-now and the years you seem to have spent. Of which if I hadn't known, I may not be typing right now.

I'll pm you my info. I haven't had time today to continue the article, but within the next month I will be reading through it and trying to get it clear in here, and would like to be able to talk it over with you, and lend a hand in visuals if you'd like (and if I end up believing in it).

-pelops

venicebard

Pelops said:
I believe you've reasoned this case precisely because of your inability to provide them, and not from a standpoint of quality in the communication.

In the website, yes. In the book, no, as I have illustrations but wish to save them for a second book, reasoning that a reader seeing immediately the full extent of variance from what is normally taught will alienate some before they have had a chance to see how logical the process of construction (a problem I have observed online, where brevity rather than ‘creeping up on things’ seemed paramount). Of course this conclusion of mine could very well be wrong.

...if I believe in your proposed bardic system enough after I understand it, I would be glad to lend my hands (capable in the area in which you are lacking) to add that visual element to the site and/or book. But you may need to spend time with me so that I may understand your system clearly. Two warnings: If I care I'll be in your face about the text also (not that you'll need to listen, but I will be); and if I'm not compelled to belief, I won't give the time.

I am gratified that you take the trouble to consider the theory in the first place. Help in illustrating the site would be welcomed, and I am quite open to criticism of the way I express things, which so far has proved inadequate to the task.

Is this book published and/or available?

No, first I have to buy a printer to print out the manuscript for submission. At least it is of conceivable size for a first-time author, the previous 750-page version (obsolete now anyway) having been too long (we’re talking double-spaced).

The paragraph that begins "So the ‘wheel’ centered atop Adam Qadmon or Taliesin goes from up to out to down to in to up and constitutes two whole spheres..." is to what I was referring...

You must have forgotten what I pointed out earlier, that “out” consists of a 360-degree horizon, “in” of the converse of this, so that “up-out-down” maketh one sphere (external reality), “down-in-up” another (internal reality). The density of the material requires it be read with extreme care (no offense), and I should perhaps reword it to say ‘two superimposed spheres’.

To visualize the whole round starting at aries without having to have an illustration, just think: 1-up, 2-departure (outward) from up, 3-approaching out, 4-out, 5-departure (downward) from out, 6-approaching down, 7-down, 8-departure (inward) from down, 9-approaching in, 10-in, (11)-departure (upward) from in, (12)-approaching up, and (13)-up (the return). These are the middot (divine attributes); the first ten are the Sefirot. And when thinking ‘out’, think of spinning around to face all four winds on the horizon. When thinking ‘in’, think of the being doing the spinning. (If this is not sufficiently clearly stated on the website, I shall correct things without delay.)