firemaiden said:
Can you explain the reason for your theory in words that an educated person such as myself can read without feeling the need to decry it as "crackpot"?
Forgive my previous brief answer to this (I was making a dry remark about the current state of education, not necessarily about what you have managed to take from it). I'll try to put it succinctly, beginning with your (former) query:
But nowhere here have I seen you address the question of the alphabet's relevance to tarot.
Two things initially pointed me to the alphabet's relevance to tarot.
First, of course, was the exact mimicking of the Kabbalist's universe in the structure of the deck: 4 + 10 (4-letter Name + 10 Sefirot) through 4 suits (the 4 worlds), the 4 being
titled but unnumbered, the 10 being
numbered but untitled, plus 22 cards (the 22 letters) that are numbered
and titled with the exception of one what lacks a number (LeMat) and one what lacks a title (XIII), but which if LePendu is right the titles
and numbers (i.e. ranking) were added later. My take is that this was because earlier both title and rank were so well known (and indicated by number of devices in the pips) as to need no further expression: this must
certainly have been true of rank, else how could the game have been played?
Second was the evidence gleaned from Graves's
TWG both that the insular Kelts had an alphabet closely related to Hebrew -- which I have since been able to demonstrate rather conclusively -- and that the trumps arose from
bardic numeration, not Hebrew-Greek as the occultists believed (unaware as they were
of the bardic, which is probably for the better, considering their motives). The latter, then, forms the basis of my thesis (for thesis it is, one I need to trim from 400 pgs. double-spaced down to 250).
Now in order to start from the original pointing arrow and build a foundation of understanding for others, I am at the moment (at Robert's behest) limiting my discussion to the bardic elements that set me on this course 3 1/2 decades ago (at which I am a bit rusty, especially since my notes on Graves the second time through
TWG were stolen from me). But the
overall argument -- without which I would not expect any truly educated person to even begin to accept it as an
historical argument -- involves comparative epigraphy, Teutonic mythology, Hebrew Kabbalah, and much more. I can
demonstrate, for example, the direct kinship between the Kabbalah and runes, though part (not all) of the argument involves correction of the Semitic alphabet's (and
Sefer Yetzirah's) careful jumbling of the order of letters about the round; but this original order arises quite easily from Keltic calendar order and is confirmed
quite clearly by the shapes of the letters involved.
In short, it is on the sum total of "all roads leading to Rome" (or in this case, Provence-Languedoc) that my argument is based, and when the sum-total is viewed, doubt withers (though I yet water it, hoping).
And thank you, by the way, for even asking.