Tarot and Kabbala

[Huck]

But I for one do not conclude that cards did not get to Europe before the mid-14th century. How could such a useful invention not have been exported to Europe for 2 centuries? Pollet's website mentions European children's games with cards before then. It seems to me that all we can say for sure is that the use of numbered, suited cards for gambling and trick-taking games did not come to Europe til the mid-14th century. More later.

There is no "sure" evidence for the earlier appearance of cards in Europe ... this doesn't exclude, that cards had been occasionally imported or even produced before.
But it was at least not enough to give us "sure evidence". So possibly a larger distribution across Europe can be excluded.
Meister Ingold, who wrote 1432 and was then possibly a man of 50 years, reported, that playing cards had come to Germany in the year 1300. Actually he was against playing cards ... he had no reason to tell a fanciful story. Though ... he couldn't have known it by own experience, somebody must have told him.

"Er ist wohl mit Ingold Wild identisch, einem Dominikaner, der um 1380 geboren wurde. Dieser wird im Jahre 1400 vom Ulmer Provinzialkapitel zum Studium nach Mailand geschickt. 1405 und 1415 ist er in Basel bezeugt. 1416 immatrikuliert er sich an der Universität in Wien. 1427 wird er als «magister Ingoldus» im Basler Konvent erwähnt. Ab 1429 ist er wohl Schloßkaplan in Straßburg, 1432 Lesemeister. Zwischen 1440 und 1450 ist er in Straßburg gestorben."

He was a Dominican, he had been in Ulm, Milan, Basel, Vienna and finally in Strassburg. About the Dominicans it is known, that they were usually not stupid - especially not, if they were chosen to make long journeys and represent the order at important locations.
For a man of his time he should have had an excellent education. And generally he had a special interest in games, otherwise he hadn't written this book ... although he was not a fan of games and had to preach against them. For his job as preacher he had to know the object, so he studied it. Why should he lie?

I also wanted to clarify that I realize that Gikatilla et al were published too late to be involved in tarot origins.

Well, with that we are back at the question about the developments around 1486/87.

 

[kapoore]

Hi Mike,
Nicholas of Cusa is my candidate for creation of the Tarot. There are a number of reasons I think this. He lived in northern Italy during the time of Tarot's creation. He was a symbolist, perhaps the most famous intellectual of the 15th Century, a Platonist, and a polymath. He famously tried to square the circle. I have discovered in his writing the names for most of the Tarot cards--I am missing the Hang Man, the Chariot, and the Hermit. Cusa was a Llullist and I am among those who believe that Tarot fits into the tradition of the Llullian arts. Also, Cusa writes of a game he invented that incorporated the mathematical arts of arithmetic, geometry, and harmony. Most people believe that Cusa's game was not the Tarot, but a bowling game to be played outdoors. However, I don't think anyone has proved beyond a doubt that it wasn't the Tarot. Cusa was interested in art, and was a miniaturist. There is some evidence that he knew Jan Van Eyck, and I think there are strong parallels between Eyck's masterpiece of Altar of Ghent and the Tarot. In fact, one historian believes that Cusa's sister was married to Jan Van Eyck, and that Cusa is one of the men wearing a red turban. (Sometimes this painting is attributed to Campin) Cusa was interested in early printing, and in fact might have been instrumental in bringing the printing press to Italy. He introduced Flemish painters to the Italian courts. As mentioned earlier in this thread, Cusa's coat of arms has some striking similarities to the Marseille style Moon card with the crayfish crawling out of the water. Some of Cusa's drawings can be found throughout the occult tradition and can be traced from Kircher to Fludd to Yeats. His "coincidence of opposites" is a major theme in the works of Karl Jung.

The biggest contradiction against Cusa being a Tarot inventor is really his devout Catholicism, which seems to be an impossibility in relation to occult Tarot. Another contradiction is that the main translator of his work into English told me several years ago in an e-mail exchange that he doubted Cusa would either play cards or invent a card game. Therefore, I have concluded that if Cusa invented Tarot it would have been earlier rather than later--such as in the 1430s before he became a Cardinal.
What would have been the purpose of a Cusa Tarot? I believe it might have served the purpose of a type of philosohical machine using the "negative theology" of Ps Dionysius (here filtered through Eriugena) and concepts of the "one and the many" as in Neo-Platonist puzzle--how does the One become many?

I guess what I never considered, Mike, was the influence of his writing on the Italians. He was a famous intellectual and has been called the first modern thinker or the last medieval thinker or the bridge between the two.
But somehow I think he was more famous in 15th Century Italy than he is now. At some point he was forgotten. A. E. Waite mentions him once. So, that is about it for me here with Cusa.
Two paintings that might be portraits of Nicholas of Cusa.
Man in Prayer from the Workshop of Robert Campin (website won't list) and ...

http://www.abcgallery.com/C/campin/campin10.html

 

[Wizardiaoan]

I am admittedly under researched at present regarding the early history of the Tarot. However, it seems highly likely to me that the 22 trumps were inspired from the iconography of the Bible, alchemy, and the 22 Hebrew letters. It doesn't seem far-fetched to me to suppose that the courtly, intellectual inventors of the 22 keys were steeped in Hebrew alphabet symbolism, as it appears Numerology was popular at the time (thus Gematria perhaps also). I have done an acrophonic study using a Hebrew dictionary with Tarot symbolism in mind, and the evidence is definitely beyond coincidental. However, much of this is certainly due to the subtle changes in imagery which have occurred to bring the original imagery more in line with Hebrew alphabet symbolism.

One other point I would make is that even if the 22 Tarot keys were not originally inspired by Hebrew alphabet symbolism, there is no reason to not create this. In the last though, I think there is a near perfect codification of them now, and would not change too much. I concur with Mather's attributions, and believe everything is in great order. One aspect that does seem underplayed when considering the Tarot and the Tree of Life is the consideration of the Tarot's uniqueness as "The Fool's Journey to the New Jerusalem"—that it is a serial encoding of the initiation process, just as the climbing of the Tree is said to be.

My alignment of these 22 steps I posted here:

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=111487

I believe the end key of The Universe corresponds to the attainment of full Magister Templi above the abyss in Binah, and The Last Judgement card preceding denotes the resurrection of the individual microcosm into the macrocosmic consciousness of enlightenment (the crossing of the abyss). Likewise, I associate The Fool with the newly incarnated baby as the beginning of the life journey (in contrast to the Tarot's standard arrangement upon the Tree).

 

[MikeH]

Kwaw: My blog on accounts of the sefirot in Latin is at

http://latinsefiroth.blogspot.com.

When I checked just now, it was the 6th down on my profile, "The Latin Sefiroth, 1486-1533." Unfortunately I spelled it "sefiroth," when I usually spell it "sefirot." I would love to have someone more familiar with Latin look at it.

I wasn't aware of Meister Ingold. Thanks, Huck.

Kapoore: I will dig up the reference on Cusa in Italy during the 15th century.

 

[MikeH]

Kapoore: My reference on ignorance about Cusa in 15th century Italy is Appendix 1, "Cusanus in Italy," of Edgar Wind's "Pagan Mysteries of the Renaissance." He says that many people were interested in Cusa's work and knew it by hearsay, but could not access it until an edition in Milan came out in 1502. Cusa's philosophical writings were not in the holdings of the Laurentian Library in Florence, nor does the name appear in the inventory of Pico's library. Pico knew that Cusa was relevant to his own work (he developed some similar ideas) and told the Inquisitors that he planned a trip to Cusa's library in Germany, but he never went. One scholar in Milan, Filelfo, did order a copy of “Docta Ignorantia" from a colleague outside of Italy in 1460. And another scholar, Pietro Odi da Montapoli, "must surely have owned some of his works," says Wind. Ficino never quotes Cusa, although he did know his name as a Platonic author. Wind argues against Kiblansky, who apparently thought Ficino knew Cusa’s work (in a 1939 book that Yates [Giordano Bruno, p. 124] cites uncritically, saying that Ficino learned from Cusano as well as from Pseudo-Dionysius.

Cusa apparently spent little time in Italy. He lived there only during 1417-1421, at the University of Padua. He got his doctorate there (Canon Law) in 1423, but from the Council of Basel onwards he was working for the Church in German-speaking lands, with an occasional visit to Rome, until just before he died.

Kapoore, you might be interested to know what I have found so far regarding when Pseudo-Dionysus's angelic hierarchies became linked with the sefirot. Pico lists nine Jewish orders of angels in his Kabbalistic Theses, as though he meant to link them to the sefirot, but he does not do so explicitly. In the “Hephestus” there is a hint that he intended a link to Ps.-D, too (Yates, Bruno p. 123). Pico’s source apparently was the “Coronis Nominis,” in a Latin translation done for him by Flavius Mithridaites’ translation Here is the Mithraidates:

“hisim…; Malachim or tafsarim…; hirin or Tarsisim, Aralim, seraphim, ofannim; cherubim; aioth; chisse or asmallim; and a tenth [that] is holy.” (Farmer, Syncretism p. 346).

And the Pico:

“28.2 There are nine hierarchies of angels, whose names are the Cherubim, Serafim, Hasmalim, Haiot, Aralim, Tarsisim, Ofanim, Tefsarim, Isim.” (Farmer, Syncretism p. 347)

The first explicit linking of all three that I've found is by Ricci, in his introduction to the Portae Lucis, 1516 (as translated by Blau, 1944):

“The members of the archetypal man are the ten choirs of angels: those nine which the Hebrews call haios hacodes, offanim, erelim, hasmalim, seraphim, malachim, elohim, bene elohim, churbim, and which the sacred school of theologians call : seraphim, cherubim, thrones, powers, virtues, dominions, preeminences, archangels, angels. The tenth, which the cabalists and many of the saints and philosophers place in the animastic (sc. feminine) order, is usually called by its Hebrew name, iscim, that is, men…”

You will notice that Ricci has dropped “tafsarim” and added “elohim” and “ben elohim.” I am not sure what the basis for this change is. Reuchlin, 1517, copies Ricci's Jewish list but without mentioning parallels to Ps.-D.or the sefirot. But Agrippa follows Ricci exactly.

 

[Huck]

Cusa apparently spent little time in Italy. He lived there only during 1417-1421, at the University of Padua. He got his doctorate there (Canon Law) in 1423, but from the Council of Basel onwards he was working for the Church in German-speaking lands, with an occasional visit to Rome, until just before he died.

Cusanus journeys to Italy are beside his study in Padova at least ...

1427, as representant of Otto von Ziegenhain
1438, in Venice
1450, Rome (becomes cardinal)
since 1452 very often in Brixen, that's Tirol, which is somehow Italy
1458-59 also in Mantova
1464 dies in Italy

 

[kapoore]

Thanks Huck for that clarification. I do have a Cusanus timeline and I probably should post it if this thread continues. Cusanus was definitely a mover and shaker during the key years designated as Tarot origins. He was close friends with Cardinal Bessarion, and Albergati. He would somtimes play substitute Pope when the Pope was out of Rome--which seems to be fairly often. He worked under two Popes. He attended the Council of Mantua, but apparently not much of the Council of Ferrara. And, of course, his most famous role was to participate in the Greek delegation that culminated in the Council of Ferrara. While he may not have directly influenced Pico, he had a profound influence on Trithemius, Kircher, and apparently Reuchlin as well. His drawing of the two intersecting pyramids is in Kircher, Robert Fludd, Yeats, and maybe even hinted at in Eliphas Levi who morphed it into the Key of Solomon.

But I think Mike touches on a key point. Certain concepts of Cusanus such as his 'coincidence of opposites' echoed through the occult and philosophy for a long time without being attached to Cusanus. This creates a kind of problem because these concepts changed with use into something that no longer meshes with Cusanus. For example, Professor Steven Wasserstrom in his book, Religion after Religion: Gershom Scholem, Mirecea Eliade, and Henry Corbin at Eranos, shows how central the Cusanus concept of "coincidence of opposites" was to thinking at Eranos. However, for Cusanus the coincidence of opposites occurrs outside of time, but for the Eranos group it was a natural occurance in time.

I read on an internet article that Cusanus even influenced the Luriac school of Kabbalah, but again in a utilitarian way without reference to his actual work. One element that was lost in the followers of Cusanus was his devout Catholicism, especially as his ideas moved into Protestanism as in Robert Fludd. And eventually I have had to ask the question of whether the works of Cusanus coincide with the influence of Cusanus; and while there is a definite contingent relationship; I have to say probably not.

So, when I ask the translator of his works into English if he could have created the Tarot; the answer is quite emphatic NO.

Watershed events have separated the thinker from his ideas. For example, if I were to apply the thinking of Cusanus to the Tarot I would say something like this... The Tarot is both one thing and many things at the same time. Still, one hand or layout is only meaningful in its relationship to the cards that have not been laid out. Therefore the whole deck that is present in the mind of the player transcends the deck, and every separate layout. The player in conceptualizing the whole deck in every lay out has an experience of coincidence of opposites. Pretty abstract, but you can see how this type of thinking relates to a bridge game, and mixing in the archetypal patterns of Ps D with the inner journey to the heights of thought the archetypal Tarot images as well.

But, yes, Cusanus did seem to have a profound influence although few read his books. Kapoore...

 

[kapoore]

Here are two websites that might give a sense of his timeline and influence.
http://staff.kings.edu/bapavlac/fbf/cusa.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_of_Cusa

Note his emblem of the crayfish with out stretched claws. It is found on his cardinal hat but also between columns in his buildings. There is one building--not sure which one but it's on his web page of Kues--in which his crayfish emblem has two lions (or possibly dogs) between two columns and looks very similar to the Moon card.

 

[Huck]

Cusanus presided a synode in 1455, as far I remember. It was one of only 3 synodes in the relevant time 14th/15th century, which knew a playing card prohibition (in this manner noted by Schreiber, who researched this - published 1938).

There were many synodes.

 

[MikeH]

Kapoore and Huck: Thanks for filling me in on Cusa's sojourns in Italy. Blixen wasn't part of Italy then, but still, it's on the Italian side of the Brenner Pass.

Some thoughts on the coincidence of opposites. Here is one thesis in a section entitled "Paradoxical Conclusions Introducing New Doctrines in Philosophy." This is a section in which he is not claiming to be reflecting on others' thought, but presenting material of his own:

"3>15. Contradictions coincide in the unial nature."

By "unial," Farmer says, Pico means "God's" (Syncretism in the West, p. 23). Commenting on this thesis, Farmer says:

"Thesis 3>15 is regularly cited (originally by Cassirer and most recently by Wirszubski) as evidence of the influence on Pico of Nicholas of Cusa's coincidientia oppositorum. In fact, the idea expressed both by Pico and by Cusanus was a scholastic commonplace; its syncretic origins are discussed above, pp. 85-89." (Syncretism p. 403)

I don't know enough about scholasticism to confirm whether it was a commonplace or not. On pp. 85-89 Farmer discusses Iamblicus and Proclus. Proclus's henads, Farmer says, enabled him to "reconcile irrenconcilable texts." Farmer is quoting Dodds' notes to his translation of Proclus' "Elements of Theology," but without Dodds' irony. Reconciling the irreconcilable is what syncretism is all about, after all.

Henads, in Farmer's presentation, allows opposites to coexist on different levels of the hierarchy. As an example, he cites Pico in the Commento:

"...we find Pico harmonizing conflicts in pagan myths concerning Heaven (Uranos), Saturn, and Jove by claiming that all three stand "in some mode" for the soul, angelic mind, or God himself" (Syncretism p. 87f).

I am not sure that that is what Pico and Cusanus had in mind by the "coincidence of opposites"--or even all that is implied in the henad--but rather that the opposites coexist on the same level, and are resolved on a higher level (as in Hegel, who inserted the principle into temporal reality in a big way). That is how dialectic enables one to ascend the Platonic ladder, an idea dear to Pico.

Jung, in his discussion of coincidientia oppositorum, cites Cusa but adds that the principle was expressed by many others before him. He mentions Lao Tzu without giving a quote, but gives two from 2nd century Gnosticism (he calls it "apocryphal sayings of Jesus"), as embedded in patristic texts: "the two shall be one and the outside as the inside, and the male and the female neither male nor female" (Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis p. 166, quoting Clement of Rome); and "When ye have trampled on the garment of shame, and when the two become one and the male with the female is neither male nor female" (Jung p. 374, quoting Clement of Alexandria).

This principle is also in Neopythagoreanism, from the same milieu: the Monad as androgynous, containing both male and female in potentiality (Pseudo-Iamblicus, Theology of Arithmetic). Pico expresses this point in 3>1 and 3>36:

"3>1. Just as propertied existence is preceded by quidditative existence, so quidditative existence is preceded by unual existence.

3>36. For as the intellect multiplies the unity of God, so the soul quantifies and extends the multiplicity of the intellect."

3>1 is perhaps an example of how the coincidence of opposites was a "scholastic commonplace," as the language is totally Parisian-scholastic.
("Quidditative" means, roughly, "pertaining to whatness," from the Latin "quid," meaning "what.") 3>36 expresses the same point in Neopythagorean (i.e. numeric) terms.

Another example of the coincidence of opposites, perfectly orthodox as well as being in temporal reality, is the dogma that Jesus was both wholly God and wholly man.

In the tarot, an example of the coincidence of opposites is in the idea of reversals: one card can have opposite meanings, depending on whether it is right side up or upside down. I am a firm believer in this doctrine; it is one thing that raises tarot to the level of the symbolic (as opposed to a system of signifiers). I am not sure when attention to reversals entered tarot divination. Etteilla is the earliest I know of in print, but he seems to have had teachers. When contradictory meanings can be drawn from a single image, one has to have some way of choosing between them!

Kapoore, you refer to the idea that in looking at one card you have to keep in mind all the rest of the deck, including the cards not played. This aspect of the coincidence of opposites is expressed in another Neopythagorean/Middle Platonist/Late Neoplatonist formulation, emphasized by Pico and (I expect) Cusano, that "all things exist in all things in their own mode" (Syncretism p. 87, citing Dodds' notes on Proclus).