venicebard
THE TREE-LETTER BASIS OF THE TRUMPS (1)
Preface
A note on the term bardic: this does not mean just any poet’s notions, but rather a corpus of systematized understanding of the human condition and human psychology—mainly systematized according to human speech-sounds—passed down through certain currents of tradition from deep antiquity. It has at times been an oral tradition, since speech sounds are speech sounds whether one writes them down for the common people or not. Large vestiges of it can be found not only in Irish and Welsh bardic tradition but also in Jewish Gnosticism (Merkavah and Qabbalah), for Jewish prophetic tradition was evidently originally much the same thing. Yet its ‘glow’ can be felt (once one knows the landmarks) in Orphism, in Aesop’s fables, in most ancient alphabets (some of which appear to predate Phoenician), in short in many a scrap bequeathed us by disintegrating remnants of a previous civilization we barely glimpse in monumental stone architecture and in the advanced scientific knowledge contained in the number-symbolism of the Irish-Welsh bardic alphabet when organized according to what has survived of Qabbalah, which content I have outlined in depth on this site (in the last post of page 6 and first post of page 7 of the thread Tarot and Holy Grail). I shall mention this aspect of things only once herein (in connexion with straight up or oxygen), in order to spare the feelings of those who are disturbed by it.
What reconstruction of this ancient corpus I have managed was only possible by bringing together these two currents and letting them fill each other’s holes, which is what I claim happened in the 12th century to produce that flowering we call Qabbalah: it can only have been based on a combination of Merkavah (Jewish Gnosticism proper) and the British bardic current transferred to the Continent along with the Arthurian cycle and the Tristram legend and so on. Qabbalah (and its severely truncated modern remnant, which I call Kabbalah to distinguish it from its lost core) was the result on the Jewish side, while on the side of the Bardic school we have the Tarot de Marseille. One cannot imagine this would have preceded playing cards themselves, to which the bardic initiates—very likely connected in some way to Templars or at least to cathedral-builders (specifically ‘freemasons’)—added the letter-trumps, and cards evidently did not appear in Europe till the 1370s, at least in any numbers. But they certainly, in my estimation, appeared long before the earliest extant trionfi, since these last are clearly the distorted offshoot of the basic Tarot de Marseille pattern, whose manner of organization and detailed content had to have been the original—no other view makes sense once the coherent pattern is grasped. They would of course have been earlier renditions than any now extant. The logical point of origin would be Provence-Languedoc (where Jew met bard and Qabbalah sprang up), so the label ‘Marseille’ may actually be correct.
Here I shall keep Qabbalistic implications to a minimum, though Ezekiel’s wheels are relevant and Hebrew letters are brought in to show that it is not just a Keltic but a widespread ancient tradition. But in the main, we concentrate on tree symbolism. The tree-letter calendar itself, and many poetic considerations, are based on Graves’s The White Goddess, and information about pagan customs for weaning of girl-child or boy-child (relevant to vowels) is from Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology (in 4 vols.), page number upon request (I’d have to go find it).
Since I reference them below, here, briefly, are Ezekiel’s wheels (rabbis do not teach this, evidently because they do not know it). The 1st is centered atop the head of the standing Adam Qadmon or Anthropos (man writ large, prior to division of the sexes): this is the Atzilut world of archetype or emanation (all-encompassing Monad), meaning the eternal (realm of actual knowledge or the knower, by Plato’s analysis). The 2nd (half the height of the 1st) is centered atop the head of this being when seated in meditation (hence its being called ‘Throne world’): this is the B’riah world of creation (prototype, in thought, of the surroundings), containing all that has finite duration (realm of thought or the thinker). The 3rd (half the height of the 2nd) is centered at the heart of this torso seated in meditation: this is the Yetzirah world of formation (human form), being the closed or circular zodiac of the body (its prototype, that is). This represents the one who acts, the thing it acts on being the 4th wheel (half the height of the 3rd), which is centered in the womb and represents the womb of time, the fleeting present instant in which we act. It is the 4th wheel that represents the physical universe or present instant, for it is the womb of birth thereinto. The womb is dark—since (as Plato explains) we remain ever ignorant of that which has no duration (it vanisheth ere one can contemplate it)—and it bestows this quality upon the night sky (the stellar reaches of the physical universe).
Finally, the numbering of tree-letters is given by Graves only up through 16, so briefly, here is how the other five were determined. Bardic U is the same as Latin V, which is Roman numeral 5, hence U naturally falls fifth-to-last. Bardic I is 3, so Ii naturally falls third-to-last. Bardic A is 1, so Aa naturally falls first-counting-from-the-end. K is 9, so Kk (Q) naturally falls at twice 9 or 18. This leaves Ss at 20, which makes eminent sense since its poetic meaning is strife and 20 symbolizes the two 10-fingereds or humans ‘twixt which that strife occurs.
(Continued in the following 3 posts)
Preface
A note on the term bardic: this does not mean just any poet’s notions, but rather a corpus of systematized understanding of the human condition and human psychology—mainly systematized according to human speech-sounds—passed down through certain currents of tradition from deep antiquity. It has at times been an oral tradition, since speech sounds are speech sounds whether one writes them down for the common people or not. Large vestiges of it can be found not only in Irish and Welsh bardic tradition but also in Jewish Gnosticism (Merkavah and Qabbalah), for Jewish prophetic tradition was evidently originally much the same thing. Yet its ‘glow’ can be felt (once one knows the landmarks) in Orphism, in Aesop’s fables, in most ancient alphabets (some of which appear to predate Phoenician), in short in many a scrap bequeathed us by disintegrating remnants of a previous civilization we barely glimpse in monumental stone architecture and in the advanced scientific knowledge contained in the number-symbolism of the Irish-Welsh bardic alphabet when organized according to what has survived of Qabbalah, which content I have outlined in depth on this site (in the last post of page 6 and first post of page 7 of the thread Tarot and Holy Grail). I shall mention this aspect of things only once herein (in connexion with straight up or oxygen), in order to spare the feelings of those who are disturbed by it.
What reconstruction of this ancient corpus I have managed was only possible by bringing together these two currents and letting them fill each other’s holes, which is what I claim happened in the 12th century to produce that flowering we call Qabbalah: it can only have been based on a combination of Merkavah (Jewish Gnosticism proper) and the British bardic current transferred to the Continent along with the Arthurian cycle and the Tristram legend and so on. Qabbalah (and its severely truncated modern remnant, which I call Kabbalah to distinguish it from its lost core) was the result on the Jewish side, while on the side of the Bardic school we have the Tarot de Marseille. One cannot imagine this would have preceded playing cards themselves, to which the bardic initiates—very likely connected in some way to Templars or at least to cathedral-builders (specifically ‘freemasons’)—added the letter-trumps, and cards evidently did not appear in Europe till the 1370s, at least in any numbers. But they certainly, in my estimation, appeared long before the earliest extant trionfi, since these last are clearly the distorted offshoot of the basic Tarot de Marseille pattern, whose manner of organization and detailed content had to have been the original—no other view makes sense once the coherent pattern is grasped. They would of course have been earlier renditions than any now extant. The logical point of origin would be Provence-Languedoc (where Jew met bard and Qabbalah sprang up), so the label ‘Marseille’ may actually be correct.
Here I shall keep Qabbalistic implications to a minimum, though Ezekiel’s wheels are relevant and Hebrew letters are brought in to show that it is not just a Keltic but a widespread ancient tradition. But in the main, we concentrate on tree symbolism. The tree-letter calendar itself, and many poetic considerations, are based on Graves’s The White Goddess, and information about pagan customs for weaning of girl-child or boy-child (relevant to vowels) is from Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology (in 4 vols.), page number upon request (I’d have to go find it).
Since I reference them below, here, briefly, are Ezekiel’s wheels (rabbis do not teach this, evidently because they do not know it). The 1st is centered atop the head of the standing Adam Qadmon or Anthropos (man writ large, prior to division of the sexes): this is the Atzilut world of archetype or emanation (all-encompassing Monad), meaning the eternal (realm of actual knowledge or the knower, by Plato’s analysis). The 2nd (half the height of the 1st) is centered atop the head of this being when seated in meditation (hence its being called ‘Throne world’): this is the B’riah world of creation (prototype, in thought, of the surroundings), containing all that has finite duration (realm of thought or the thinker). The 3rd (half the height of the 2nd) is centered at the heart of this torso seated in meditation: this is the Yetzirah world of formation (human form), being the closed or circular zodiac of the body (its prototype, that is). This represents the one who acts, the thing it acts on being the 4th wheel (half the height of the 3rd), which is centered in the womb and represents the womb of time, the fleeting present instant in which we act. It is the 4th wheel that represents the physical universe or present instant, for it is the womb of birth thereinto. The womb is dark—since (as Plato explains) we remain ever ignorant of that which has no duration (it vanisheth ere one can contemplate it)—and it bestows this quality upon the night sky (the stellar reaches of the physical universe).
Finally, the numbering of tree-letters is given by Graves only up through 16, so briefly, here is how the other five were determined. Bardic U is the same as Latin V, which is Roman numeral 5, hence U naturally falls fifth-to-last. Bardic I is 3, so Ii naturally falls third-to-last. Bardic A is 1, so Aa naturally falls first-counting-from-the-end. K is 9, so Kk (Q) naturally falls at twice 9 or 18. This leaves Ss at 20, which makes eminent sense since its poetic meaning is strife and 20 symbolizes the two 10-fingereds or humans ‘twixt which that strife occurs.
(Continued in the following 3 posts)