Translator's Introduction to the Article
Golden Dawn and GD-inspired authors aside, there is little consensus on the analogies and connections between the Tarot and Astrology. Many of the attributions provided by various writers appear quite arbitrary, if not forced, at times, much like the cabbalistic correspondences, for that matter.
And yet, this is a very interesting topic, which has been sadly under-studied in its deeper implications: a thorough and coherent astronomical-astrological basis to the Tarot has not, to the best of my knowledge, yet been put forth, much less an examination of any calendrical correspondences.
One French author posed these questions one hundred years ago, and they still have not been satisfactorily answered. The article in question may be found here, for those who read French (Part V):
http://livres-mystiques.com/partieTEXTES/Rougier/tarot.html
This author, Antoine Rougier, a professor of law, like his contemporary Joseph Maxwell, was acquainted with many of the noted fin-de-siècle occultists, although he seems to have remained rather discrete and removed from the intestine quarrels which plagued that milieu, preferring to write articles pseudonymously for some of the occultist journals of the day, and occasionally giving lectures on various metaphysical topics. A selection of these wide-ranging articles was collected and published posthumously, and I note that this hard-to-find work is once again in print as of early 2017.
It is one of these articles, “The Major Arcana of the Tarot”, to which we now turn. In this prescient article, first published in 1920 in Le Voile d’Isis, a journal founded by Papus, Rougier examines and diplomatically debunks most of the occultist claims to the antiquity of the Tarot, as well as their fanciful interpretations. Although he was not the first to do so, he does so in a reasoned, systematic manner which leaves little room for dispute. Compare for example, with the manner in which Waite’s sober analysis is stymied by his own mystical bent and taste for supposedly initiatory secrecy…
Furthermore, Rougier makes a case for the astrological origins of the Tarot in a tentative manner, and one which is highly instructive: by proceeding in a way which employs analogical reasoning, the reader may observe many useful techniques by which a theory might be more closely examined. In this, Rougier was possibly one of the first to read the Tarot as an “optical language”, although he does so as a means, not an end in itself.
The article is divided into six parts, along with a brief introduction. The first part deals with the history of the Tarot such as was then known from the documentary evidence, the second deals with the occultist interpretations thereof, chiefly cabalistic, and the third presents the author’s conclusions as to the validity of this last. The final three parts deal with the connection between astrology and the Tarot, and these are the parts which I have translated below.
Incidentally, although the Voile d’Isis did publish a special issue devoted to the Tarot, and many of the occultist journals of the time also had articles on this theme, not one of these mentions Rougier’s article, nor do they, for that matter, even begin to address some of the historical and symbolic problems which he posed. Considering the fractious and often litigious nature of their usual exchanges, this is somewhat surprising at first, but perhaps not so surprising if we consider that a great many folk, then as now, prefer the realm of fantasy and speculation to research and reasoning, even were it inductive…
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