The cabalists have always had a horror of the magic of Kasdeems.
Suares, Cipher, p.21
Hundreds of books have been written and countless authoritative statements have been made
based on the fabrications of 19th century Englishmen who forged their credentials,
played at being "magicians" and claimed to understand Hebrew tradition better than the Jews.
In an astonishingly successful act of intellectual and spiritual colonialism, the Order
of the Golden Dawn "improved" on a millennia-old Hebrew tradition and discovered the "true"
correspondances between the Hebrew letters and the astrological planets. The "supreme
mystical insight" of the Golden Dawn, which surpassed ancient and classical tradition,
both East and West, and was to have provided the "new light" for the coming age,
went nowhere in the 20th Century.
Instead, the "false meme" of the Golden Dawn Tarot has served as a shell which assured the survival
and proliferation of its contents: the 22 images of the Tarot in a myriad of forms and
interpretations and the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet in an encoded, unconscious form.
Much of the Tarot "establishment" has been built on what is essentially an imaginary system,
invented by Hebrew-challenged Victorians and disconnected from ancient and traditional
cosmological and astrological wisdom. Nothing new has come of their work in the last
century and it may be useful to take a fresh look at the assumed wisdom of these influential
"experts."
Perhaps none of this would matter -- the appropriation and exploitation of one obscure system of mystical
or religious thought by another -- except that the Hebrew alphabet, and the Tarot, when their relationship
is properly understood, is literally a key to encoded texts that can't be deciphered when a third of the letters
in the alphabet are misarranged.
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... the one pristine symbol set from which all Golden Dawn symbolism is derived is the Hebraic-Tarot
correspondences, which Mathers rediscovered (as demonstrated in the addendum to Key 12). The supreme
magickal formula, upon which is erected the complete Temple of Golden Dawn magick, equates zero with 1
as:
0 = The Fool (Tarot) = Aleph (Hebrew) = 1
so that
0 = 1
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David Hulse: The Key of it All, Vol 2, The Western Mysteries, Llewellyn, 2000, p.259
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This so-called "formula" is really a confusion of representational systems and is nonsensical
in at least two of them -- Hebrew and mathematics. It says that Aleph is "one" in the
semiotic system of Hebrew, but is "zero" in the semiotic system of the Tarot, although
they are actually identical, presumeably in the semiotic system of mathematical logic.
Qabalistic & Thelemic Proofs
of the Grand Binary Code 1 = A = 0
In 1642, Rittangel published the third Latin translation of the SEFER YETZIRAH, based on the 1562 Mantua edition.
This was the translation used by Westcott who made his English translation in 1887. Wescott's Hebrew was somewhat
less significant than Shakespeare small Latin and less Greek. He compared the Rittangel translation to a relatively
corrupt and late British Museum manuscript, adopted most of the erroneous variants and thereby set the Golden Dawn
and its followers on a misdirected adventure.
Two observations: the validity of mystical and magic[k]al systems derived from the Westcott translation depends on
their internal consistency. That a number of erroneous choices were made during the course of the translation
has meant that practitioners of the Hermetic Kabbalah have long recognized difficulties in the interpretation of
this work and have generally explained these or tried to explain them away as 'mysteries'. Although
MacGregor Mathers's wife, Moira, the sister of the French philosopher,
Henri Bergson, has a good command of Hebrew [and was responsible for most of the work for which her husband took
credit]
Neither Mathers himself nor Westcott nor Crowley, for that matter, had anything more than a smattering of
Hebrew, at best the equivalent today of four undergraduate semesters of Beginning Biblical Hebrew: adequate for
picking one's way through a text word for word but hardly sufficient for producing accurate translations.
Once again, the general xenophobia of the time in England, coupled with both anti-Judaism and antisemitism,
meant that the last people to be consulted about what their tradition actually meant were the Jews.
From The Sepher Yetsira by
Professor Bryan Griffith Dobbs
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Early Tarot sequences, from the 15th and 16th centuries, show significant
variation in their
orders, with the cards often unnumbered and sometimes untitled. The earliest list of the
Tarot trumps, from the late 15th century (from Stuart Kaplan, Encycolpedia of the Tarot, 1978, p.2)
(English translation of Italian titles):
| 1 | Juggler |
| 2 | Empress |
| 3 | Emperor |
| 4 | Popess |
| 5 | Pope |
| 6 | Temperance |
| 7 | Lovers |
| 8 | Chariot |
| 9 | Strength |
| 10 | Wheel |
| 11 | Hermit/Time |
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| Sermones de Ludo Cum Alis late 15th Century |
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| 12 | Hanged Man |
| 13 | Death |
| 14 | Devil |
| 15 | Arrow |
| 16 | Star |
| 17 | Moon |
| 18 | Sun |
| 19 | Angel |
| 20 | Justice |
| 21 | World |
| 22 | Fool |
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By the 18th and 19th centuries, however, the
familiar Tarot order had emerged via the Tarot de Marseilles adopted by Eliphas Levi and his followers, Papus and Wirth,
setting the stage for the Golden Dawn to canonify the
"standard" model from the only source
they knew.
The earlier sequence assigned Justice to Tayt (9) (Leo) and Strength to Lammed (30) (Libra) (Trumps 8 and 11
if one includes the erroneous "key 0"). As Western occult researchers began to understand the Hebrew Qabala
via the Sepher Yetsira as the source for the images, the obviousness of Lammed=Libra=Scales and Tayt=Leo=Lion
became too much to bear, and the swap was codified by Macgregor Mathers in the Golden Dawn Tarot.
Macgregor Mather's and the Golden Dawn's so-called "Secret Order of the Tarot Trumps" was simply
the received order with Justice and Strength switched and Aleph restored to the beginning of the alphabet,
resulting in the Mathers-Golden-Dawn-Rider-Waite deck.
But in order to preserve the placement of the rest of cards, it was necessary to change
Hebrew tradition to fit the requirements of the historical (we would say encoded)
Tarot sequence. This in turn meant that the Hebrew alphabet had to be re-numbered and
the classical planetary assignments changed because the Jews didn't know the truth about
their own ancient tradition and "the attributions of the Sepher Yetzirah were wrong."
Here is David Hulse's description of Mathers' "proof" of the Tarot":
- Permute Levi to place "0" at the head of the order
- Exchange Key Viii with Key XI
- Qualify the seven Tarot keys (I,II,III,X,XVI,XIX,XXI) to correspond to the seven planets
(Mercury, Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Saturn) by their Tarot images, thereby establishing
a new secret esoteric order
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| David Hulse, The Key of it All, Vol 2, Llewellyn, 2000 p.351 |
This "qualification," which was actually an attempt to tamper with the formative semantics of the
Hebrew alphabet, was said to have resolved all the "blinds" or intentionally mis-sequenced cards,
though Waite, at least, seems to voice grave doubts that this is true
("I may go further and say that the true nature of the Tarot
symbolism is perhaps a secret in the hands of a very few persons").
Apart from the placement and numbering of the Fool, the most significant change made by Mathers
to the trumps was the counterchange in the numbers and locations of the trumps Justice and Strength.
Traditionally, Justice is numbered eight and Strength eleven. Mathers numbered Justice eleven and
Strength eight, and exchanged the places of these cards in the sequence of the Major Arcana.
This change was adopted by many modern Tarot designers, some of whom probably did not even know why
the change was made. The rationale for the counterchange of these trumps lies in the zodiac signs
assigned to each in the system of occult associations used by the Golden Dawn. In that system,
which is too complex to explain here, the trump numbered eight is linked with the sign Leo and
the trump numbered eleven is linked with the sign Libra. Obviously Leo is a more appropriate sign
for the trump Strength, which illustrates a woman holding in her hands the jaws of a lion, and
Libra is a more appropriate sign for the trump Justice, which shows a woman holding a set of scales
(the symbol of Leo is the lion, the symbol of Libra is the scales).
--Coronzon
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This left, however, seven other cards whose astrological symbolism did not match their positions in relationship
to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. To address this problem, Mathers rewrote the traditional Hebrew Yetsiratic
assignments and claimed to have discovered "the true order." The rationalization for this was the claim
that the planetary correspondences in the Sepher Yetsira are ambiguous ("most blinded"). In fact only one
version varies from the standard
Hebrew and classical assignments (and they ignored that one too).
When the only zodiacal misplacement of the cards, Strength/Justice, is resolved, every single non-planetary
astrological Tarot correspondence is in accord with the consensus of versions of the Sepher Yetsira.
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The incorrect placing of Strength and Justice was obvious and so they were counterchanged quite
empirically. It was assumed that the numbering of the Tarot cards had become distorted.
Knight, Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism, 1972.
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Thus the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, because they are nouns, are actually twenty-two labels for mental pictures.
From the same stock of pictures, by association, are drawn the occult attributions of the letters, and the symbols
of the Tarot Keys. To make this clear, and to establish the correctness of this long-hidden attribution of the
major trumps to the letters, is one of the main purposes of this book. Case, Tarot, 1949.
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Upon being initiated into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley was surprised to find out
that the only secrets entrusted to him were the occult order and virtues of the Hebrew alphabet.
Hulse, Key of It All, 1996.
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Golden Dawn Planetary Attributions
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According to Hulse, (Key, 1996), the Golden Dawn attributions were "based on Macgregor Mathers' secret order."
Since this ordering ignored the source document, the Sepher Yetsira, in all of its translations,
classical understanding of the Hebrew attributions, the interpretations of every famous (Jewish) Qabalist
and the classical (Platonic and Ptolemaic) order of the celestial spheres, one may wonder where Macgregor Mathers
got his inspiration, which has completely dominated Tarot interpretation for over a century.
Why the system was accepted is another question.
| Planetary Double Letters |
Double Letter | Sepher Yetsira | Ptolemaic | Kircher & Meyer | Stenring & Week
| Indian Chakras | Mathers-GD |
| Bayt | Saturn | Saturn | Sun | Sun | Mercury | Mercury |
| Ghimmel | Jupiter | Jupiter | Venus | Moon | Moon | Moon |
| Dallet | Mars | Mars | Mercury | Mars | Venus | Venus |
| Kaf | Sun | Sun | Moon | Mercury | Sun | Jupiter |
| Pay | Venus | Venus | Saturn | Jupiter | Jupiter | Mars |
| Raysh | Mercury | Mercury | Jupiter | Venus | Mars | Sun |
| Tav | Moon | Moon | Mars | Saturn | Saturn | Saturn |
| Adapted from Hulse, Key of It All, 1996, p.130-131 |
It appears that Mathers may have imported four planetary attributions from a non-Western (Hindu) system into the
"secret" Golden Dawn attributions and then shuffled the remaining three (Sun, Jupiter and Mars) from the same
system.
Nineteenth Century western occult researchers realized that the Strength/Justice transposition is not the only
"obvious" symbolic problem in the Tarot Major Trumps. The Magician, with its Hermetic connections,
the High Priestess with the Moon at her feet, the Empress with Venus on her shield, the Sun and the Tower
all convey specific astrological connotations that presented problems equal to the scales and the lion.
When presented with the problem of changing the order of the cards or changing the meaning of the source
text, Mathers and the Golden Dawn followers chose the latter and re-assigned seven planets from their
actual positions (as specified in the Sepher Yetsira).
Hulse's and Heidrick's view, rationalizing changing the Hebrew and classical planetary assignments:
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The seven double letters, assigned to the seven planets, are analyzed next. This symbol set is the most
blinded of all attributes in the Sepher Yetsira. Mathers felt that the Tarot offered the pictorial key to
clarify which planet should be governed by each of the seven double letters.
Hulse, 1996, p.19 .
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"These applications of the planets to the double letters are the most highly corrupted matter
in existing manuscripts of the "Sepher Yetzirah", as is noted further below. No definitive text exists in this matter."
-- Heidrick
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This was true in the case of the Double letters, where one of several natural methods of assignment
in the "Yetzirah" was passed over to provide a better match between the Double Letters and the planets
to work with Tarot Trumps. The other methods do not work as well with the G.'. D.'. Tarot-Astrological
system, and they are therefore excluded from "Liber 777".
Heidrick
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Here we have the traditional Hebrew assignments of the Sepher Yetsira "passed over" in favor the
Golden-Dawn system because they "do not work as well" with the traditional tarot placements rationalized
by the "G.'. D.'. Tarot-Astrological system."
It is false that "no definitive texts exists in this matter." In fact, there is total agreement
on the planetary attributions of the seven doubles until the late Lurianic-influenced 18th century
"Gra" version.
The previous change, Strength/Justice, restored the Yetziratic attributions to the primary symbols,
scales/Libra, lion/Leo. Why decide now that it is the source, the Sepher Yetsira, that is blinded,
and not the Tarot cards, or their interpreters?
The only cards that don't iconically carry their astrological symbolism, the Fool, the World and the Wheel,
use equally obvious symbolism for their true numerical positions, one, two and three in the sequence
of initial structuration.
The Golden Dawn could have used Westcott's or Stenring's Gra translation, but they would have had to
move seven trumps, and apparently the challenge made them opt for telling the Jews their Sepher
Yetsira was incorrect about its own alphabetical/astrological correspondences.
These are, in fact, not "correspondences" in the Golden Dawn sense of the term, but rather linked categories
(formative Hebrew letter, planet and contrary qualities, zodiacal sign and formative, position in the
Cube of Space) with complex
semantic and structural relationships.
"The letter of the alphabet is the source of the planet,
and not a sign by which it is designated" ( Joseph Dan, Jewish Mysticism, Vol I, Aronson, 1998, p.151 ).
The so-called "blinded" planetary attributions are not arbitrary assignments to be corrected
with Eastern wisdom, but part of a symbolic system that interweaves and over-determines its
syntax and semantics on every level. Parts of the alphabet can't be re-assigned without
meaning deteriorating rapidly.
See Meadim for the intimate
relationship of Dallet and Mars.
See:
Semantic Drift in the Tarot |
Obscuring the Origins |
Tarot Unlocked |
The Fool
Classic BOTA Tarot Correspondences
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Bayt
Ghimel
Dallet
Kaf
Pay
Raysh
Tav