Is Tarot explained in Revelations?

foolish

In 1998, Timothy Betts wrote the book, “Tarot and the Millennium,” in which he proposed to explain the origins of the tarot through the Bible’s Revelations. In my thread under Tarot History in this forum, I was earlier asked to comment on this theory. Although I had not read Betts’ book at the time, I have recently obtained a copy. Here are a few of my initial thoughts:

Like many tarot theories, Betts’ fits into the model of those which have to deal with cards or images that don’t fit within its context. That is, although Revelations seems to correspond to many of the cards, especially those at the end of the deck, it has difficulties with others. For example, both the books of Daniel and Ezekiel are brought in to handle a couple of cards (Strength and The Wheel of Fortune, respectively) which can’t be explained in Revelations. O.K., so these are also biblical references. Perhaps we can stretch a little on this. But then he introduces Frederick II to explain The Emperor and The Empress, and John of Rupescissa for The Hanged Man.

It seems a biblical theme was needed to explain the cards at the end of the deck, while historical events of the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries were needed to take care of some of the earlier cards. In the end, since The Fool doesn’t fit into either camp, it was designated (somewhat arbitrarily) as representing Francis of Assisi. However, St. Francis was not known as a traveling monk, and certainly didn’t resemble any of the images used to depict The Fool in the early tarot.

In order to make some of his connections work, Betts introduces us to a technique he calls “symbol substitution.” Examples include the substitution of the book held by the apostle John for the lamp or hourglass held by The Hermit, the Chariot pulled by horses rather than oxen, and the “beast” represented dogs in The Moon instead of man in Revelations. Although this opens up a wider net for proposing associations, it can also create a few problems. In the case of The Hermit, for example, why would we see a substitution of the symbol of a lamp for a book, which would identify John as the true Hermit, when it has already been established in The Popess card as an accepted symbol to represent an apostle?

I can bring up other problems with this theory, but it would make this thread too long. Betts himself admits that the book has discrepancies. Discovering a theory of the tarot is often like putting a very old puzzle together. On the one hand, you sometimes find that some of the pieces are missing. In this case, you can still hope to get a pretty clear picture of the whole puzzle, even without those “holes.” In other instances, however, you may find that some of the pieces you have just don’t fit. In this case, you have to either disregard them or try to squeeze them in to make them fit. I feel that Betts’ theory falls into the latter case of puzzle solving.

I would be interested in hearing from others as to how they feel about the theory of Revelations.
 

KariRoad

Thank you for the detailed review. My copy of this book has remained predominantly unread :D but I can add for others the note that Betts writes on page 86 "I'm going to take most of [Dummett's] findings as established fact. If you want to know more about why we believe what we do about Tarot [read his account]." No further references to Dummett appear.
 

foolish

i don't see betts taking everything dummett has to say as fact. in particular, dummett has said that the tarot was most likely added to the existing deck of playing cards as an additional suit of trumps, and may have no meaning beyond that. this would dismiss all attempts at coming up with an interpretation that explains the tarot in other contexts.
 

Yygdrasilian

Steradian in the Pyramid

Could the use of allegory within the iconography of Tarot & the Book of ‘Revelations' [from the Greek: Ἀποκάλυψις Apokálypsis; ‘Lifting of the Veil’] be derived from a common source? If you can entertain the idea that both are rooted in the mandalic use of the Hebrew alphabet, then there is indeed a rationale.

By applying the major arcana of the Marseilles pattern to the Letters, the Tarot functions as a cipher for assembling the attributions of each letter within the geometric lattice of the Qabalah Tree of Life [0=Fool (aleph)=22]. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3eKuFFHGH30/TB_XhrwVx6I/AAAAAAAAAKc/Q2s-6eI3osY/s1600/2:3+ciphertext.jpg

The deck partitions by digital root - a method of adding the digits of a number together until a single number is reached.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_3eKuFFHGH30/TBAYyiTCK5I/AAAAAAAAAD8/_iVe7SpCpko/s1600/1b.jpg

This groups the Letters' attributions together as component pieces of a puzzle articulated within a geometric lattice which preserves octahedral symmetry. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3eKuFFHGH30/THLg2-RmUBI/AAAAAAAAAOU/vfnnH5ULoCY/s1600/SolidAngleCUBE.jpg

To be more specific, this symbolic use of the Letters poses an alchemical scenario wherein the adept must still transmute Lead ♄ into ⊙ Gold in order to ‘solve’ the puzzle. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3eKuFFHGH30/TKhVq8PL5iI/AAAAAAAAAS8/hA9nYDFWCzg/s1600/VITRIOL.jpg
 

foolish

that's way beyond what my brain can handle. even if you could establish a connection between the cards and the hebrew alphabet, it doesn't begin to explain individual iconography within each card. i would be interested in how this theory explains the images used in the major arcana - all of which we must assume have specific intention and meaning, unless the rest of the symbolism is arbitrary.

also, if this numerology is a predominantly important feature of the tarot, then why weren't the cards numbered when they were first added to the deck of four suits? these numbers apparently didn't appear until the game was brought to france.
 

Yygdrasilian

"Nothing"

As with any puzzle, when in pieces it appears just that- pieces. Certainly, the numerological device of partitioning the deck by digital root can be applied to the Letters w/o the use of Tarot cards merely by replacing the numerical values usually given the sequence of Letters with the 0-21 provided by the Cypher (ṣifr). It is probable that the formulation of the early alphabets had such a use in mind when their architects drew their symbolic Letters from the hieroglyphics of ancient Kemet (Egypt) to form these distinct assemblages of sequenced attributions.

Once you attain to a comprehension of how all the pieces fit together as a unified whole, it becomes easier to recognize how the allegories employed within Gnostic texts such as the Sepher Yetzirah, the Gospels of Thomas, -John, -Mary, the Pistis Sophia or ‘Book of Revelations’ all utilize the same system. As did the 'authors' of the Old Testament. The iconography of the Marseilles pattern particularly demonstrates an understanding of this method.

Though appearing w/o Number in the Milan pattern, the earliest Tarot were devised in connection with a series of commissions that ‘painted’ this same alchemical scenario over the broader ‘canvas’ of Time by manipulating the use of heraldry, relics & saints. In this sense, the marriage of Bianca Maria Viscounti ♀& ♂ Francesco Sforza was a ritual ‘wedding’ of Lovers ♊ joined to the Holy Roman Emperor, Sigismund I, through his chivalric Order of the Dragon, and to the Crucifixion through their ritual use of talismans fashioned from the nails - the legitimacy of which rested upon the word of St. Ambrose of Milan via a popular medieval hagiography entitled ‘The Golden Legend’.

'Bloodline' descendent of the god Odin ☿ through the Norse epic, Volsungasaga, Emperor Sigismund was also the namesake of San Sigismondo, an ill-fated King of Burgundy thrown down a well after having endowed the Abbey of St. Maurice ex nihilio in honor of the legion of 6666 Martyrs from the Kemet funerary centre of Thebes. The Church of San Sigismondo is the religious complex commissioned by Bianca & Francesco to replace their wedding chapel and was built in accordance with their interpretation of the aforementioned alchemical scenario.
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=147731

Taken with the devices carved into the panels of its cloister door, the cards that would come to be known as Tarot, and the illuminated De Sphaera Estense on the essential dignities of astrology, these commissions wove the houses Viscounti, Sforza, and Luxemborg together and pinned them to the central ‘event’ in Christian folklore: piercing ‘The Sun’ upon the Cross of the World Tree.


A problem I have noticed with many queries in this forum on the influences that bear upon the emergence of Tarot is that appeals tend to be made to specific artifices or cultural movements that were likewise drawn from their mutual source, al-KEMy. The mandalic use of the Alphabet provided the initiates of this ‘craft’ with a codex for constructing allegories that were intelligible to its’ adepts, and usually never even occurred to the brains of non-initiates -except perhaps in their exoteric guise as the ‘outer mysteries’ of popularized myth. The mystic traditions of 'the ancestors', supposedly wiped out with the Theodosian decrees (at the behest of St. Ambrose), have been ‘hidden’ in plain sight all along. With respect to their form as preserved by the Hebrew alphabet, Tarot is the 'Cypher' - a Fool for those with Eyes to see.

Much as the current orthodoxy presiding over the accepted history of Tarot is loathe to hear it, this Knowledge of how the ancient glyphs harmonize as One constitutes a tradition that stretches back to the mysteries of ancient Kemet and their fabled progenitor of the al-KEM-ical arts, Thoth.

;)
Let we who hath Understanding reckon the number of the Cube...
 

KariRoad

I do have one thought, that all things considered the book of "Revelations" might make a more interesting game than Tarocchi. Why limit oneself to 78 cards when there could be this much fun:

Nineteenth-century agnostic Robert G. Ingersoll branded Revelation "the insanest of all books".

Thomas Jefferson considered it as "merely the ravings of a maniac".

George Bernard Shaw described it as "a peculiar record of the visions of a drug addict".

atu5.gif


Maybe something like MONO-THEOPOLY or exploding lawn darts blindfolded.
 

Bernice

foolish I would be interested in hearing from others as to how they feel about the theory of Revelations.
In relation to the book “Tarot and the Millennium" by Timothy Betts, I'm not sure that 'symbol substitution' is an adequate approach to explain a theory. It seems more like having a theory/belief and then attempting to 'fit' the cards to it. But it's an interesting idea.

Does Timothy Betts say what bible he used? In 1998 there were (and are) quite a number of varieties. What version would have been around in the 1400s in Italy I wonder.

Thank you for taking the time to post your thoughts, foolish. I found them lucid and informative.


Bee :)
 

foolish

i'm not sure which bible he was using, or where the pictures he is referring to as "ancient" comes from (perhaps i didn't read through carefully enough). but i think we should keep a couple of things in mind:

1) it's clear that the images used in the tarot (and in much of medieval art) were not new or unique, but were borrowed from earlier - and often religious - sources.

2) the enormous landscape of stories in the bible provides for an abundance of references to choose from, so it would not seem odd that some of them could be associated with some of the tarot cards. this in itself does not prove the intention of the creators of the tarot, nor make for a complete theory.

the fact that the tarot has similarities to other sources is obvious. one of the true tests of a theory of the tarot is whether it is all-inclusive - that is, wheter ALL of the cards fit into the mold - and whether all of the images in the cards can be easily explained within that context. i think betts has a real problem with the fact that some cards really don't fit into this theory.