Yygdrasilian
The gap between the occultist and the serious historian is unbridgeable, because anyone committed to preserving an esoteric system of hidden knowledge will have avoided the explicit documentation of any such tradition into which one had been initiated. Thus, the documentary evidence upon which the historian relies would, in theory, always remain elusive. This poses a distinct problem for the Tarot historian in particular as claims regarding the cards' origins can never fully dispel this paradoxical curse, no matter how much invective is hurled at the proponents of such an occultist theory.
This is not to say that Trionfi were not used by 15th-century Italians for playing card games – that amusement is indeed well documented. Rather, this well-established use cannot sufficiently exclude the possibility of a meaningfully coherent design in tune with esoteric tradition. Though the claim regarding the cycle of triumphs as derived from an ancient source has been rejected by contemporary historians as a kind of “propaganda campaign” launched by 18th-century Freemasons, it should be noted that the veracity of this claim has persisted due to a rationale based upon Cabalist understanding of the symbolic attributions of the Hebrew alephbet.
Being derived from the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt, these Letters are themselves the so-called Book of Thoth whose title is, by extension, conferred upon the Tarot. Whether this tradition was known to the architects of the Trionfi may be a matter of never-ending dispute between occultists and “serious historians”. Regardless, the rationale remains apparent to anyone versed in this application of Tarot as a cipher for revealing the hidden function of our Letters.
res ipsa loquitur
This is not to say that Trionfi were not used by 15th-century Italians for playing card games – that amusement is indeed well documented. Rather, this well-established use cannot sufficiently exclude the possibility of a meaningfully coherent design in tune with esoteric tradition. Though the claim regarding the cycle of triumphs as derived from an ancient source has been rejected by contemporary historians as a kind of “propaganda campaign” launched by 18th-century Freemasons, it should be noted that the veracity of this claim has persisted due to a rationale based upon Cabalist understanding of the symbolic attributions of the Hebrew alephbet.
Being derived from the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt, these Letters are themselves the so-called Book of Thoth whose title is, by extension, conferred upon the Tarot. Whether this tradition was known to the architects of the Trionfi may be a matter of never-ending dispute between occultists and “serious historians”. Regardless, the rationale remains apparent to anyone versed in this application of Tarot as a cipher for revealing the hidden function of our Letters.
res ipsa loquitur