A look at Tarot as very Ancient, and subject to concerted mis-representation

A brief introduction to this thread

Sometimes, discussions, as they are wont to, make their meanderings into new territories outside of the thread into which they are embedded.

Most of the time, the multiple discussions remain within that one thread. Rarely, however, they develop in such ways that two quite distinct discussions are taking place. Given the quite disparate nature of each, and also given that each discussion is continuing independently, this discussion deserved its own being.

For the sake of context, his thread emerges from the thread entitled mythologically speaking....

If pan or others could suggest a better title, please PM me.

in order to answer this question, i think its best
to digress some.

Tarot seems to have been encoded by different tribal groups and to have evolved in different places in different ways. One very likely explanation for much of the amazing correspondences between Tarot and Qaballah (The most esoteric of the Judaic Scriptures...theres tanakh, talmud, mishna, and qaballah. Tanakh is what became the "old testament" of christianity)
Is that Qaballah derivated from Tarot and then
went on its own way. (interesting that the misinformation campaign seems to want to place the
origins of both systems in the 14th century.)

If we assume on the other hand that Qaballah is and was an ancient Judaic text predating Christianity (as most Jews who study the Qaballah seem to believe.) Then what we have is the most
esoteric text of judaism being roughly equal to Tarot. Now, the Jews after leaving egypt wandered
the sands for 40 years (or more) and not just in
one single group. They became amongst other things merchants and explorers, and some sub-groups didn't settle down. It seems possible that they encountered Europeans bearing Tarot Cards, saw the
correlation, and this is the clincher;
Qabballah is extremely verbose and difficult to grasp. Tarot on the other hand is basicly immediately graspable by most people on a subliminal level. So the question becomes, could
the Tarot have had an influence upon sects which were exploring what was then the equivalent of heretical cultist ideas?

The answer to this question for most people would
be "thats really stretching". But theres more. There are accounts of images at temple sites, there are references to things which sound like tarot cards, and tarot symbolisms that seem to hop
out of Gnosticism and Judaism here and there...I am sure that the articles referenced go into more
detail. So it seems possible that Tarot may have
been actually an influencing factor on early Christian Thought.

What do you mean by "seems to have", Pan? Do you have some historical knowledge, and sources to share which will support your views?

i have done a lot of reading but to be frank never
expected to have to reference it to other people.
Other than that, I have also what i feel are some fairly basic more or less unique insights.

I prefer to let those insights stand for themselves anyways...

So i suppose the short answer is
yes and no.

When i learned to speed read at the age of 8,
i had no idea i would end up thus blowing through
the wall of the holodeck and waking up from the
matrix.

the collective unconscious is a wonderful playground.

challenges such as these are the biggest reason
why i didn't hang time here in the first place.
everybody is so concerned with their proofs and
their scholarship etc and nobody wants to face the
awkward reality that history is written by the victorious bullies and fascists, and itself isn't
equal to truth.

the easiset way to find out what i am talking about is to simply fall out of phase from the
egoic sixth chakra and back into the shamans tunnel. Direct your traffic upward through the occipital lobes and then sharply upward into crown chakra. from crown chakra just select a life experience, load and upload, querry the halo, depart into the halo, find the file in the "ashkashic records" and then fall back down into
the occipital area and load the file on through
the dream apparatus.

Wait, i guess thats not so easy depending upon
what your personal limitations are.

Well, I think it is fun to share ideas that come from another plane of existence, but it is also important not to confuse that kind of knowing with what we call history, which refers to that which has been recorded on this plane. You were sounding very academic in another thread when you were talking about mamalian complexes. Now you are coming from an anti-academic point of view. I don't think you can have it both ways.

sure i can.
i love acedemia.
i can read a textbook in a single sitting.
I'm not going to pretend that i have back up
files or that i have memorized every little detail
of all i have read.

If i didn't have a fairly good acedmic background,
i'd expect people to toss my explanations into the
garbage. Theres an interesting limitation to being a channel; you can't get information from the cosmos if you don't have a firm grasp of ideas
in your chemical biological brain for the psychic information to cling to.

(or you can get such information but you better expect it to evaporate out of causual memory the moment your psyche lets go of focusing on it.)

Please excuse me for not fitting into your false dichotomy either or box.

I am both acedemic and a channel.
i hope we can both still eat bleu cheese.

Insights, and very deep ones, may occur to anyone, with of without academic background, and with or without academic skills. Some of the important archeological discoveries have been made by those pursuing their weird and wonderful ideas past what may have been considered reasonable by the vast majority.

On the other hand, one's insights also, with time and the benign influence of yet other insights, tends to modify and clarify one's position.

With regards to the Kabalah, there are two aspects to it which bear on this discussion. The first is the usage of the term. Prior to the tweflth century, it was probably more often referred to as Merkabah Mysticism. This of course doesn't imply that 'Kabalah', in its (connoted) sense of 'Esoteric Judaism', did not occur earlier - of course it did. And its most important text remains, of course, the first five books of the Bible - the Torah.

Some important key texts include some which were written just prior to the emergence of the Tarot in Europe. And there may be a deep connection between the imagery of the Marseille and the Hebrew letters, but this does not in any way imply that Kabalah arose from Tarot.

The two, independently, work themselves into their cultural milieus, influencing, and being influenced, by these.

Each of us may have insights quite deep. These, unfortunately but of necessity, become reflected upon the surface of our own background knowledge and abilities to apply our thinking - whether passively or actively. One of the difficulties includes, to my mind, to maintain the ability to apply to these reflections the humility of understanding and wisdom.

pan brings some interesting points. Personally, I just do not see any way that the Tarot, as described in those posts, was anterior to, certainly, the 10th century (to go further back than history warrants). Nonetheless, many of its individual images, its allegories, its inherent neo-platonism - and indeed other yet unidentified internal aspects contain far earlier impulses.

To see how these various earlier impulses, images and thoughts became incorporated in the magnificence of Tarot does not mean that Tarot, as Tarot - ie, as a deck of 78 cards as exemplified in the Marseilles deck, was either known or designed in more ancient times.

thank you for a very well thought out reply.
if theres one thing i am short on its humility.
i hope you folks can continue to make me feel it with your well thought out replies and thoughts.

the tarot correspondences to the tree of life include, but are not limited to
1. hebrew letters to major arcana cards.
(this would seem to be even more true of sanskrit)
2. sefirot number, and general properties to
numeric tarot cards
3. paths on the tree to tarot major arcana
4. properties of the paths and properties of the major arcana.

The only thing conspicuously missing from the
correspondence is the personality cards, which
some give attribute to certain sefirot, but i think thats a bit much for layering and trying to stretch.

The point that i am making is, if you have 1000 vectors in two systems and a 75 percent match of
coresspondence, the statistical likelihood of that
as a random event is frankly virtually nil.

This only makes the most logical arguement that there is in all probability some kind of connection but doesn't really tell us what the connection is. Perhaps you have an explanation that you would care to share with us?

You simply state that there is no reason to believe Qaballah or tarot go back further than the 10th century. Yet, you fail to specifically adress
my arguments regarding the reasonableness of making this assumption. You make no mention at all
and adress not even one bit the problem of the roman catholic influence or the world domination scheme or the world genocides that went on or the
book burnings that went on or the subsequent attempts to create revisionist histories that we
can now prove acedemically.

I challenge you or anyone to take the arguments i have made point for point, at their value.

anyone can have insights, that is true. (shrug)
however, most people do not have insights shall we say, of the calibre of Einstiens E=mc squared.

Insights of high calibre are most often accompanied by some very real amount of knowledge and information.

thank you once again for your time and energy.

merkabah mysticism is a branch of qaballah, in
which an aspirant mage attempts to use what we might modernly call astral projection to actually
enter the sefirot as other levels of reality.

In this my freind i am sure you have made an error, since most rabis who study Qaballah would
find that particular use of the Qaballah to be
profane.

Qaballah describes the creation of the universe
by god, and the assorted forces of nature at play
in the universe. The merkabah mystic attempts to
rejoin god and enter the sefirot of keter; an
action most Qaballists would describe as impossible while still owning a physical body.

The more original tarot deck was most likely composed as i have less than clearly stated of
probably no less than 80 cards. The marseilles deck is a perfect example of christianization.

"the devil" that should be "pan" and the assorted
"pope" images including one card and the "death"
card image, the use of kings and queens instead of the use of the families, the list could go on and on.

Yet, there are four elemental suits even in the marseilles deck.
the pagan symbolism shines through even the deliberate christianization.

I once read 13 different bibles and then found myself a tanakh. comparative readings demonstrated
what i had allready guessed rather well. The bibles were edited and changed for political purposes. In my opinion, if you can't see that written even more clearly in tarot, then you are choosing to look with your eyes closed....