Teheuti
Not only was Eliphas Lévi the first to create a viable correspondence system between Tarot and the Hebrew Letters but he was the first to link Le Mat with Shin, which, along with Aleph = The Magician, would define the whole Continent Tradition of Tarot & Kabbalah.
Le Comte de Mellet was the only earlier person to suggest a specific Tarot+Hebrew Alphabet link, but he began the sequence with Aleph = The World and continued backwards through the cards.
Lévi's system was followed, more or less, by Paul Christian, Papus, Wirth, Edmond/Bellini, Baldi, Guler, Dali, and, less precisely but still with Le Mat as Shin, by Falconnier-Wegener, Zain and the whole Egyptian Tarot contingent. The Golden Dawn, famously, broke with it.
So I think the first question is: Why did Eliphas Lévi link Le Mat with the next-to-last letter Shin?
Background: Shin is the last of the 3 Mother Letters (along with Aleph and Mem) that correspond with the elements (Air, Water, Fire). For those who don't know, the 7 letters that can take a second form—Double Letters—are correlated with the seven classical planets. The remaining 12 so-called Single Letters correspond to the 12 signs of the zodiac. These associations are spelled out in the seminal Kabbalistic document called the Sepher Yetzirah, which we know made no reference to Tarot.
I pose this as an historical question because I am curious about the historical evidence rather than trying to generate metaphysical speculation.
Also, who was the first to place the Tarot Trumps on the Paths of the Tree of Life?
Le Comte de Mellet was the only earlier person to suggest a specific Tarot+Hebrew Alphabet link, but he began the sequence with Aleph = The World and continued backwards through the cards.
Lévi's system was followed, more or less, by Paul Christian, Papus, Wirth, Edmond/Bellini, Baldi, Guler, Dali, and, less precisely but still with Le Mat as Shin, by Falconnier-Wegener, Zain and the whole Egyptian Tarot contingent. The Golden Dawn, famously, broke with it.
So I think the first question is: Why did Eliphas Lévi link Le Mat with the next-to-last letter Shin?
Background: Shin is the last of the 3 Mother Letters (along with Aleph and Mem) that correspond with the elements (Air, Water, Fire). For those who don't know, the 7 letters that can take a second form—Double Letters—are correlated with the seven classical planets. The remaining 12 so-called Single Letters correspond to the 12 signs of the zodiac. These associations are spelled out in the seminal Kabbalistic document called the Sepher Yetzirah, which we know made no reference to Tarot.
I pose this as an historical question because I am curious about the historical evidence rather than trying to generate metaphysical speculation.
Also, who was the first to place the Tarot Trumps on the Paths of the Tree of Life?