Symbolon Deck - False Halo

I have no idea where is the right place for this thread.
I have scanned in a card from the Symbolon Deck. It is called False Halo.
The LWB book gives it the astrological signs of Scorpio/Pisces and the Planets Pluto and Neptune.
It says of it as a theme summary :Good and Evil/Conception of Heaven/Hypocrisy/The Fallen Angel/Impartiality.
I thought it might be the pre cosmic twin spirits of good/righteousness and evil.
They were called Ahura Mazda and Ahriman or Ahriman and Ormuzd. Ahura by being Good defines evil (so evil is not a being- it is in your head) Ahura says that one should have good thoughts,words and deeds to combat Ahriman/Ormuzd.

If you can see the image clearly there is an egg in the light half of the angel and purity of lilies on the ground. In the hand of what I think is Ahriman - is a plate? picture? Medallion? I would like to know if anyone has any idea what it is? I might have the wrong dualities and they are someone else, but if I am right, what is the plate thingy? Many thanks in advance. ~Rosanne

Rosanne, is there any way you could make this scan bigger? It's hard to see what the angel holds in its hand and I don't have my deck with me at the moment.

I have a majors only Tarot deck, the Ansata Tarot. the Temperance card in this deck looks similar to this one. It's also an angel with two faces, one dark and one fair. The lwb book calls it the two faces of Eve.

I will see if this is better. Thanks BrightEye! What ever is in the hand has a scene on it of the land and trees. ~Rosanne

All that comes to mind about the plate 'thingy' is a scrying mirror or crystal ball and the egg perhaps the Orphic egg? I don't have my notes with me now but you probably know all about the Orphic egg yourself. There is another card in the deck that shows a boy being born from an egg. If I remember rightly the egg is a symbol for the rebirth of the soul.

The Temperance card in the Ansata Tarot, which as I said shows a similar picture, is actually Eve and Lilith, not the two faces of Eve

Now that I'm at home and had a look at the card in my deck I think the mirror shows the landscape surrounding the figure as you say - but kind of inverted: the landscape in the mirror seems dry as opposed to the lush green of the actual landscape. I'd still say it's a scrying mirror. Aren't those mushrooms supposed to give you visions? Maybe the mirror stands for false visions... I'm rambling. I've no idea who the figure might be.

It definitely is a curious-looking thing. It looks like a plate or platter of some kind. If I didn't know better I would say it is a plate of rotten (or rotting) food.

I wonder if this might have been where the idea for this card came from? I was looking through the book Alchemy & Mysticism by Alexander Roob this evening and there it was. In the book it's called the Rebis. One source I found says it is the Hermaphrodite.

Here is what the caption in the book says:

"The Rebis, which appears here in the three main colours of the work, is the 'two bodies of the art, namely sun and moon, man and woman and they give birth to four children.' Those are the four elements that the androgynous being holds in his right hand. In the center is a mirror that presents the Opus or the prima materia in which, it is said, one can see the whole world."

In the Rebis, the Sun is on the right and the Moon on the left, while in the card they are reversed. But I can see how the Tarot artist might have drawn inspiration from this image.

Holy crap, Abrac. What a wonderful image.

Rebis translates to "double-thing" or "thing-again". It is an alchemical term for Mercury because of its dual nature incorporating the positive and negative or of the process Conjugation, i.e. the joining of opposites. Here is more on the the term.

Here are several alchemical articles & primary sources using the term Rebis: Rebis
Here are several pictures for Rebis: Rebis Image


The names Ahriman and Ormuzd refer to the Dyad deities of Zoroastrianism. Ahriman is the god of Good, while Ormuzd is the god of Evil.