Tarot and Kabbala

Kapoore: As to my process in writing the poem: well, it was a typical summer day at the Oregon Coast, cloudy, a little misty, pleasantly cool. My wife and She was doing a watercolor, I was reading "On the Divine Names." When I finished, she was still painting, so I sat there with the waves. The few other people elsewhere on the beach had all left. Then the words started coming, and I wrote them down on the back of an old print-out in my pack.

Afterwards I did a little editing here and there. For example, the part about "the play of being and non-being" is something I added later, to put the illusionist in an explicitly Neoplatonic context.

And in the next line, I added "prophets" to make it less narrowly Christian. I was originally thinking of the Popess card in its typical interpretation in terms of Renaissance Annunciation paintings, where at the moment Gabriel appears, Mary is reading a line in Isaiah about the coming Messiah. "Word" was also in my initial take; it is of course the 2nd person of the Trinity, hence appropriate to Arcanum II. But it is also an epithet of Malkhut--in Pico, I think. (I will check.)

Hi Mike,
The Oregon coast on a misty day with few people on the beach sounds like an ideal place to write a poem. It sounds especially idealic to me since I'm sweltering through another So Cal heat wave.

In terms of the Popess image I would pick the Wisdom passages of Divine Names. However, I have noticed that Nicholas of Cusa uses the divine feminine as a metaphor for paradise--the divine garden. He consciously constructs a metaphor when he writes that he will use the womb of Mary as a symbol of the divine garden. I was really surprised to find that Waite seems to do likewise and has the Popess (High Priestess) decorated with garden imagery.

My pick for a matching passage with the Popess in Ps Dionysius would be the poem at the beginning of book Mystical Theology. Here the metaphor is not a locked up garden (the Virgin), but the silent, bright darkness.

"Lead us up beyond unknowing and light, up to the farthest, highest peak
of mystic scripture,
where the mysteries of God's Word lie simple, absolute and unchangeable
in the brilliant darkness of a hidden silence."

The metaphor of darkness as the divine dwelling place and the idea of the divine feminine as that dwelling place are worth noting, especially since Cusa (a 15th Century Neo-Platonist) and A.E. Waite (a turn of the century occultist) suggest the same. That is the dwelling place or habitation--a hidden space. Nicholas of Cusa describes ascending up to the wall of the garden (I think here of the Sun trump with its wall); but the brightness hides the true interior which is dim.

The Popess book is another intrigue. Waite suggests that it is the "second sense of the Word." Perhaps the insight that is beyond knowledge.

Someone might object that the order of the cards does not match the idea that the Popess is "up" when she inhabits the lowest rung of the ordering.
But if the cards are arranged in circular fashion then she surprisingly is up and occultist have often commented on her being number 2 in the order which is the classic feminine number.

Some early deck numberings, though, have the Popess as number 4. Consequently, it's risky making assumptions about meaning based on order.

Warm regards, Kapoore

Hi..
Oh how one thought leads to another and so one comment seems to create post comments...

Anyway, I went to Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot to check and see if I was correct. He writes about the scroll, "The scroll in her hands is inscribed with the word Tora, signifying the greater Law, the Secret Law and the second sense of the Word." Here one has to be able to read Waite "speak." Qualifiers are a key to deciphering Waite. Here the "signifying" is more important than the word Tora, which isn't really spelled tora anyway, but "Torah." He alludes to Solomon's Temple with the decorative palms and pomegrantes. He describes the Popess's "vestments" as "shimmering radiance." For me this recalls the Dionysius "bright darkness." Then he refers to the "Higher Garden of Eden" where the divine feminine is pictured as a garden--a common metaphor at least in the early Renaissance and late Medieval world. Finally he goes on to the idea of "co-habitating glory." The Greek word for God's glory or reflection is Sophia, and the comparable phrase in Judaism is Skekinah. Both draw scriptural authority from Genesis 1:26. "And he said: "Let US make man to our image and likeness." Somehow the US was never edited out, and so we have a remnent of the creator God having a consort or his "glory."

MikeH said:

Beanu: As I think I said around 15 pages back, yes, I think Alexandrian Neopythagoreanism, which focused on the first ten numbers, and the theory of the ten sefirot are connected back there somewhere.

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While they may be related historically, consider also the possibility that they are related even more intrinsically by the mere fact that both Kabbalah and the best of Neoplatonism (that is, that most indistinguishable from Plato himself), namely the Alexandrian (which I take it is also indistinguishable from Gnosticism proper), grasped reality with enough accuracy to arrive at the same conclusions. [I do see a Gnostic connection to Kabbalah, the indications I’ve seen being that Kabbalah (meaning its predecessor, Merkavah) influenced or even spawned Gnosticism, not the other way around.]

I don't see any mention of sefirot before the Sefer Bahir, 12th century Provence. I can't find them in the Sefer Yetsirah (although I do see the three mothers and the seven doubles).

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[Edited to add: Sorry, I didn't read your reply to Kwaw till after I posted this.] What? The first chapter is about nothing else! Unless you are thrown off by their being grouped differently: into pairs of opposites, not triads with offspring. This (though tragically not understood by today’s Kabbalistic rabbis) is because they are being described in the second of the four worlds, whereas the zoharic Tree is their configuration in the third world, that of forms. I do laud you, surely, if the reason you don’t see the Tree in SY is that you do not ‘buy’ the traditional rabbinic ‘explanation’ that the Sefirot are there being generated in a DIFFERENT ORDER, thus ignoring their most important aspect, the ordinal (being the first ten numbers).

Perhaps they developed out of the Merkabah descriptions--they typically only had seven levels, but the three higher levels could have been added.

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Here, knowledge of the source of the Sefirot themselves is most helpful. There are 12 spokes (which with the return to the first make 13 middot or divine attributes) on each of Ezekiel’s 4 wheels (which map the four worlds). The Sefirot originates (as can clearly be demonstrated) as the first ten of them, which lead from the One—Godhead, Unity, what is exalted or straight up—to the one, that is, the one individual ten-fingered being, which is the direction indicated by the tenth spoke or sign: straight back towards self. What it is straight back from is straight ahead or straight out, the fourth sign or spoke or Sefirah, and since this is the direction towards other, it is the one which both the Bahir and the zoharic Tree call Lovingkindness (Chesed).

Anyway, the second wheel, the wheel of one’s surroundings as they appear in thought (i.e. centered atop the head when seated), defines itself to the eye (by the division of the firmament mentioned in Genesis) as having an upper half that is unmanifested space, only its lower half being manifest to us (the ground), while anything that appears in space can also only show us its bottom half. The 7 signs on the manifested half of the second wheel were (by my careful analysis and confirmed by the scientific ramifications thereof) originally assigned to the 7 ‘doubles’, whilst the first 3 Sefirot—even in Lurianic (zoharic) Kabbalah—are the ‘supernals’. These last are analogous to the 3 ‘mothers’, for the mothers themselves are the first 3 wheels (each of which has another wheel in its ‘belly’) and correspond to the first 3 elements (fire-air-water), whose triads on any one wheel are generated by the first 3 signs. And this last refers to the primordial triads, where fire points up (at aries the head) and water points down (towards libra the loins)—as in the tradition concerning the interlaced triangles (the ‘Seal of Solomon’)—and earth points where earthly body points (the breast, the sign of the crab) and air blows back in one’s face (i.e. towards capricorn) when in motion. [Why astrology rotated the 2nd through 4th elements is another story for another day.]

And now that I see how long it took to explain, perhaps knowing how the Sefirot originated is not so helpful after all. (But I will leave it for any to whom it might be.)

The Renaissance theorists certainly saw the sefirot as Pythagorean.

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I fully concur with them, but again, leaving it open as to whether a direct connection exists or whether it was not more of a case of both arriving at an accurate view of the same reality. At any rate, the grouping of Sefirot in the zoharic Tree is, when fully understood, precisely that of the tetraktys: the ONE; whence the first male-female PAIR, who produce no offspring (being the chaste m/f aspects of the psyche); whence the second m/f pair who, with their one (agreed-upon) offspring (being the procreative m/f aspects of the psyche), form a TRIPLICITY; whence the third m/f pair who, with their two (i.e. ambiguous or not agreed-upon) offspring (being the lustful m/f aspects of the psyche) form a QUADRUPLICITY.

The trouble is that the Kabbalist structure got twisted over the centuries--male and female changing places, for example, and right and left--distorting the parallels.

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I’m curious where you got this. It certainly goes against everything I have read concerning them: for example, 2 is usually associated with the yod of the Name and 3 with the first heh. Seriously, what is your source for this (I’ve not read my Mathers yet: was it him?).

Hi Venicebard,
I'm not a Kabbalist so perhaps I should leave the field to the more informed. However, earlier in the thread I posted quotes from a book on Pythagoras by Kitty Ferguson, The Music of Pythagoras: How an Anceint Brotherhood Cracked the Code of the Universe and Lit the Path from Antiquity to Outer Space. From what I can gather from the jacket cover, Kitty is a professional musician and the author of several books on history of science.

She writes,
"Though a text of Merkava mysticism (a precursor of Cabala) had included a creation story with ten divine numbers, and one of the most important Cabalistic texts, the twelfth-century Sefer ha Bahir (Book of Brightness), introduced into Judaism the idea of the transmigration of souls, in neither case was there a known link with Pythagoras. But another man immersed himself in the Cabala and about the same time as Pico, insisted there was a connection. Johann Reuchlin, A German humanist, set out to combine the study of Hebrew, Greek, theology, philosophy, and the Cabala, and to link it all with the name of Pythagoras. He wrote to Pope LeoX that, just as Ficino had so admirably done for Plato in Italy, he would "complete the work with the rebirth of Pythagoras in Germany." He rationalized the connection with Cabala by drawing attention to the (questionable) fat that "the philosophy of Pythagoras was drawn from the teachings of the Chaldean science."

Earlier in the thread we discussed Reuchlin and particularly his influence on Agrippa. In fact, what I could gather from Gershom Scholem's book on the origins of the Kabbalah, Azriel of Gerona was influenced by Eriugena (the Christian Platonist and translator of Ps Dionysius). Maybe you disagree with Gershom Scholem on this?

To return to the Pythagorean influence on the Tarot deck; I doubt one can decipher that influence from reading Kabbalah--even Mathers Kabbalah (which I read, sort of).

Rather I would say that the Pythagorean influence on the Tarot comes from Calcidius commentary on the Timaeus, and Boethius. I refer to : Stephen Gersh's Concord in Discourse: Harmonic and Semiotics in late Classical and Early Medieval Platonism. Here Gersh lays out the complex relationship between Pythagorean harmony and Platonic philosophy. To snatch a quote out of the text, "concord is associated with the world soul described... by Calcidius and Macrobius, the spirit mentioned in Latin Hermetic writings, and the fate viewed as the unfolding of providence...Concord is the cause of matter's unification with form in producing physical elements, and the source of mathematical proportionalities."

The reason for using musical harmony to describe the soul is that the extreme opposites are united by musical ratios. "Plato interwove soul from these numbers: namely, because musical consonance is born from such numbers. So, in order to show that soul moves all things proportionately and concordantly, he said that those numbers which produce musical consonances are in the fabric of soul."

Plato's Timaeus was translated into Latin in late antiquity--Boethius and Calcidius. These texts survived into the medieval period where they were linked up with the translation of Ps Dionysius. The Platonism of the Latin Middle Ages is filled with number theory because of these early influences. Triangular numbers (21, 78, 231, 153) are key parts of the Tarot riddle. The ratio of the square root of 3 is present in the mandorla of the World Card.

I would be interested in having a dialogue around Pythagoras and the Tarot if you are interested. Or if you have some ideas of how Kabbalah influenced the Pythagorean elements in Tarot; that would be very interesting... Or if you have thoughts on Kitty Ferguson has to say...

I have no doubt that Pythagoreanism influenced the tarot, and from an early date. However to explore this complex theme would take us considerably outside the topic of this thread. If you want to have a historical thread on Pythagoreanism and the Tarot, I'd love to participate (although this one is taking up a lot of my time already).

The topic of Pythagoreanism in relation to Kabbalah is also a complicated one, and to my mind less interesting. Perhaps we should not pursue it here, as it requires a fairly detailed knowledge of both subjects, over a long course of history (much of which is obscure).

When I talked about how if the sefiroth came out of Pythagoreanism, then male and female got switched over the centuries, I was referring to an earlier discussion I had with Beanu. In Pythagoreanism, the Dyad is female, the Triad male. In Kabbalah, the second sefira is male and the third is female. Simlarly, Hokhmah in the "Wisdom" literature of the Hebrew Bible is God's female companion, there from the beginning. But in the Gospel of John, it is the Logos that was with God from the beginning. In general, much of what was attributed to the female Hokhmah is in Christianity attributed to the male Logos. There is a book about this, I've forgotten the name. A similar switch from female to male seems to be occuring in Jewish Kabbalah, but retaining the name Hokhmah rather than adopting the new name Logos.

In the Gnostic mythologies described by Irenaeus, the 2nd hypostasis is usually female, only this time getting the name "thought," which is similar to what the Kabbalists gave to their 3rd hypostasis, Binah meaning Understanding or Intelligence. And the third Gnostic hypostasis is male. These Gnostics are closer to the Pythagoreans.

It is possible that these Christian Gnostics (2nd-5th centuries) reflect a similar trend in Judaic mysticism at this time, and thus the missing centuries between Philo and the SY. However the Kabbalists, of the SY or later, could also have simply read Irenaeus's book.

Kapoore: I liked very much your reflections on the Popess, especially the quote from Ps-D. Wisdom, in the sense of the "Wisdom" literature in the Hebrew Bible, is certainly appropriate to the Popess as the female companion of the Creator/Magician. If she is Wisdom, then the book is the "book of Nature," as she is the soul of Nature. She also corresponds to the veiled goddess at Sais (Egypt) mentioned by Herodotus and Plutarch, the Egyptian equivalent of Athena: the veil, which occurs also in the Popess card behind her, hides the "secrets of nature," whom none can know. (There is a book on that, too.) It could also be the veil of the Temple, which was rent at the crucifixion.

Electric Apricot

The Book of Thoth is drawn from an ancient system of Hermetic metrology whose origins remain obscure. Egyptian mythology attributes its’ invention to the self-begotten One who invented and bestowed upon humanity all the arts & sciences of civilization: alchemy, architecture, music, medicine, astrology, writing & the calendar. Embedded within Tarot is a ciphertext preserving this knowledge; which is as much a method as it is an occult corpus of information.

The architecture of this system is founded upon the universal language of natural number sequences derived from the progression of pattern & form. Known as figurates, tradition attributes their introduction into Greek mathematics to Pythagoras, though all One really needs to obtain the same sequences is a stack of pebbles and Time to spare.

The Pythagorean tetraktys (4th triangular number) embodies principles of both additive persistence (10=1+0=1) and harmonic ratios (1:2:3:4) relevant to an understanding of acoustics. The sum of our Triumphs, 231, is the 22nd number in this sequence.

Being a more versatile example of a figurate number, 231 also assumes the forms of the 11th Hexagon, 8th Octahedron, and 6th Heptadecagon. Interested parties are encouraged to investigate further the properties of these particular patterns relating to this specific Number.

The traditional transposition of the 8th & 11th trump in Tarot stems from this relationship between the 11th Hexagon (sexigesimal Time) and 8th Octahedron (chromatic Scale). One may see a representation of their complementary matrices in the Reye’s configuration, though earlier examples may be found in Pappus’ theorem, Pascal’s mystic hexagram, the ‘Decad’, Qabala Tree, Metatron’s Cube, The Flower of Life, and/or simply by fitting the Star of David inside a hexagon. Put another way, One may fit square pyramids together to form an Octahedron (2) or a Cube (6): stacking cubes atop one another=a string of octahedrons. The central point of this Cube, where the apex of pyramidions meet, is simultaneously both end & beginning of the 8th Octahedron (11<------>8), where the Serpent bites its own Tail:

._____ ' ' ‘ ‘ ' ‘ ‘ ‘ ' _____
./ 6☉]............../ 6 ☽ ]
/ -cups-].....☉...../ disks ]
.[ ----- ] . . . . . . . [ ----- ]
.[ 6 ♃ ] . . .♃ . . . [ 6☿ ]
.[wands] . . . . . . .[swords]
.[ ----- ] . . . ☿ . . .[ ----- ] Realms&Exiles: ♃☿ =diagram obtaining golden apple
[ -VI - ] . . . . . .[ -XV- ]
. . . . . . . . . / \
. . . . . . . . ./ - \
. . . . . . . . / --- \
. . . . . . . ./ ----- \
. . . . . . ./ -- -- \
. . . . . . /[ -XIV-- ]\
. . . . . . .[ ------- ]
. . . . . . .[ 5 ☿ ]
. . . . . . .[ disks- ]
. . . . . . .[ ------- ]
. . . . . . .[ --5♄- ]
. . . . . . .[ wands ]
. . . . . . .[ ------- ]
. . . . . . .[ 5 ♂ ]
. . . . . . .[ -cups- ]
. . . . . . .[ ------- ]
. . . . . . .[ 5 ♀ ]
. . . . . . .[swords ]
. . . . . . .[ ------- ]
. . . . . . .[ --V - ]

As the matrix for comprehending a relationship between the Golden Ratio & the Octave, as well as a mnemonic for mapping the circle of Fifths &/or circle of Fourths onto the chromatic Scale, the 8th Octahedron (=231) is subdivided between its' 8th & 11th courses (Notes G & A, respectively) when unison is set at Note D. This conforms to the Pythagorean tuning of the chromatic scale that produces the Ionian mode. By placing the Perfect Fifth at Note A (Key pitch) and the Perfect Fourth at Note G, One subdivides the 13 courses of the 8th Octahedron in accord with the Fibonacci sequence both structurally and astronomically.

To illustrate:
Summing from the first course (or ‘layer’) of the 8th Octahedron, the Perfect Fourth (4:3) is set after the 8th course [176 = ∑ (courses 1-8)], while the Perfect Fifth (3:2) is set before the 11th [226 = ∑ (courses 1-11)].

01 = 1
----------0 : C
02 = 5
----------1 : C#
03 = 14
----------2 : D=unison
04 = 30
----------3 : D#
05 = 55
----------4 : E
06 = 91
----------5 : F
07 = 140
----------6 : F#
11 = 176 ☿
------------------------------------Note G = 4:3
09 = 201
----------8 : G#
10 = (216 +1) ♀
------------------------------------Note A = 3:2
08 = (225 +1) ♀
----------10 : A#
12 = 230
----------11 : B
13 = 231

Of special interest:
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=117979&page=2

176 = the number of days in Mercury’s 3:2 Spin-Orbit Resonance = 8x22
----------> (4:3) Perfect Fourth

217 = ]+1[ 216 = 6x6x6 = arc degrees between Earth-Venus conjunctions (5:8)
----------> (3:2) Perfect Fifth
226 = ]+1[ 225 = days of Venus orbit (13:8)

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13...

This Pythagorean Tuning of the Chromatic Scale is seen as a progression of 11 cycles of Perfect Fifths...

......................7 cups......>>...........
.............^^...........................7.......
.......7.................XVI ♂.........disks.....
.....swords....................7.......vv.........
........^^...................wands..............
............VII ...................................

...or 11 steps up the spiral to One's end/beginning.
Sort of like the way infinite 'directions' of positive & negative integers are connected to a single point in the Riemann sphere. [Note: the above SPIRAL of the 7th Root wraps around the 14th 'piece' =5th Root]

However, 11 Perfect Fifths do not fit perfectly into 7 octaves...


...but the Wolf interval will be rectified in due course.

Hi Mike and Yygdrasilian,

First of all Yygdrasilian, I agree with you. I am sure you are right (at least partly) about the Tarot being a very complex numeric puzzle based on Pythagorean musical cycles, which extend into cycles of the planets and so forth. I resonated with your paragraph.
"The Pythagorean tektractys embodies principles of both additive persistence and harmonic ratios relevant to understand acoustics. The sum of our Triumphs 231, is the 22nd number in the sequence."

Translated for those unitiated into this strange preoccupation (that of fiddling with numbers by the hour); Yydrasilian is referring to triangular numbers. The ancients were fascinated with numbers that created geometric shape. They were particularly fascinated with the triangular number formed from 10, and that is basically ten dots or pebbles in a triangular shape. The Tarot is based on these triangular numbers. One arrives at these numbers by adding the sequence, but they can also be formed from dots or pebbles (the ancients used pebbles): 21 is the triangular number of 6 (1+2+3+4+5+6=21); 78 is the triangular number of 12 ( 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12); and 231 is the triangular number of 21. But alas the complexity only compounds from there because Pythagoras discovered the musical ratios as well (as Yydrasilian notes) and these also have an approximate relation to actual cosmic cycles.

In other words, folks, it's all coming back to Pythagoras in the end--even, odd, irrational, rational, and wave patterns everywhere breaking apart in a tonal fashion. Our very personalities might just be electrical waves breaking up against each other, and so on it goes. There is a connection, for example, between Pascal's triangular sequences (which is plain old fashioned Pythagorean platitudes--also in Tarot) and that amazing new science of the rational and irrational called fractals, chaos theory, and most astonishing of all "strange attractors."

But, I agree with Mike, that embarking on that voyage is going to take us off the course of our journey on this thread, which is to compare two systems of thought based around our Trump sequence, particularly that of the icons of the Noblet Tarot. Plus, it's as easy to get lost in these numbers as it is in the cosmos in general, and I only understood about 1/4 of what Yygdrasilian was saying. I'd have to sit and fiddle with it for a week and read a few books on those Crowley codes as well. So, let us return to the earthy world of the pictures on the Trumps and continue to dialogue along that line.

Thanks, Mike, for the feedback on the feminine in the Tarot. We have two great female archetypes: The Popess and The Empress. We have Chokmah and the Word (Logos). We have the Wisdom books of the Catholic Bible and Proverbs and Song of Solomon from the Protestant/Hebrew Bible. Why do they keep switching genders on us? Well, I think that the consort of Yahweh was kicked off her mountain temple and she was furious.
Proverbs Chapter 8:22 The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways, before he made any thing from the beginning.
23: I was set up from eternity, and of old before the earth was made.
24 The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived: neither had the fountains of the waters as yet sprung out.
25 The mountains with their huge bulk had not yet been established... etc.
Chapter 9: Wisdom hath built herself a house: she hath hewn her out seven pillars...
She sits in that house and she cries out to the street. So, where does Wisdom belong. Is she on the mountain top inside her Temple or is she on the street crying out? Is she the Empress or the Popess. I say the Popess. I put her way up there next to 1 as number 2, and I can't justify it except that I think that is where she belongs. The Empress is the visible beauty of the world. The Empress is Beauty in the Divine Names. The Popess is more Wisdom or the dwelling place of the "hidden God." in Ps Dionysius. Where is Divine Providence then--probably both Wisdom and Beauty. In fact, the whole sequence may be "Divine Providence" and maybe that is what the numbers play reveals--the eye in the triangle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_Providence

I'll be leaving town again for the northern woods for three weeks, and won't be in internet contact. I look forward to catching up on the conversation when I return. Until later.. Kapoore

Hi,
I just wanted to ground the "divine feminine" in actual early 15th Century metaphoric passages. Nicholas of Cusa in sermon Repexit Humilitatem writes,
"Paradise is construed in many different ways. At one time it is construed as signifying the empyrean heaven; at another time, as signifiying the church triumphant; at another time, as signifying man; at another time, as signifying Christ. But in the present case it will be taken to stand for Christ's mother. For "my sister, my spouse, is a garden enclosed, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed up. Your plants are spikenard. Spikenard and saffron; sweet cane and cinnamon, with all the trees of Lebanon,. As cinnamon and balsam.. This paradise is a very temperate place... It extends into the lunar globe..etc.
This paradise was adorned with marvelous and amazing flowers, and trees, of aromatic scents and of virutes, so that man whom God was going to place there...would take delight, and would feed.. the Tree that is in the midst of Paradise--the Tree of Life signifies Christ Jesus, our Savior, who was carried in the womb of the Virgin."

In this contemplative system the imagination is enlarged and uses sensual images to arouse desire, even I believe sexual desire to be expended on furthering the contemplative heights. Using unconsumated desire is (I believe) a common contemplative technique across cultures.

In Sermon IX Complevitque Deus, Cusa uses the Virgin Mary as a metaphor for the six days of creation. After an exhaustive rendition of the work of the six days God rests in the Virgin Mary, as the symbol of the state of perfection. "Therefore, on the seventh day God ended the work that He had done, and He rested. For on the seventh day--He rested in His excellent work, in the Virgin Mary...Nevertheless, all six works were completed in the Virgin, in whom on the seventh day--after six emanating times--God rested..." The sexual overtones in the metaphor are astounishing to my modern sensibilities. I am taken back to a state of confusion because it almost seems as if God is emanating inside the Virgin womb.. But I do not believe this metaphor is uncommon. I think this is a meditative technique that uses the passageways of desire, love, and union to describe a spiritual path. So, I think this demonstrates a use of the feminine metaphor that is worth thinking about in terms of our Tarot feminine images, because the images came out of the same exact historic context.

Now I'm gone...

venicebard said:

I’m curious where you got this. It certainly goes against everything I have read concerning them: for example, 2 is usually associated with the yod of the Name and 3 with the first heh. Seriously, what is your source for this (I’ve not read my Mathers yet: was it him?).

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I think this is basically a theory developing here in this thread.
We are basically hypothesizing that
NeoPythagorism goes Neutral, female male,

whereas the lightning strike goes Neutral, Male, Female.

The hypothesis is that the kabala was derived from the numerology,
but someone reversed it when migrating to the kabala.