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(Browning)? One knows only that this was the conventional arrangement adopted by
whoever it was that devised the Tarot.
What is worse, it seems very confusing, very annoying; it shakes one's faith in these
great sages. But at least there is no doubt that this is so.
The letters of the Hebrew alphabet are twenty-two. There are three " Mother" Letters
for the Elements, seven "Double Letters" for the Planets, and twelve "Single" Letters
for the Signs of the Zodiac.
But there are four Elements, not three. Or, including the element of Spirit (an
important matter to initiates), there are five.
There are therefore two letters of the alphabet which have to do double duty. The
element of Fire is very close kin to the idea of Spirit; so the letter Shin, belonging to
Fire, may be taken to mean Spirit as well. There is a special reason why this should
be so, although it only applies in later ages, since the introduction of the dogma that
Spirit rules the four elements, and the formation of the "Pentagram of Salvation"
connected with the Hebrew word IHShVH, Yeheshuah.
With regard to Earth, it was considered adequate to make the letter Tau, belonging
to Saturn, correspond also to Earth.
These additions are clear evidence that the Tarot took definite and arbitrary steps to
assert the new discovery in Magick some two thousand years ago; for no system is
more rigid than a Hebrew system. And the system of the Sepher Yetzirah is the
deepest rooted of all the elements of the Hebrew system, the most dogmatic of them
all.
The Tarot is justified not by faith, but by works. The departures from the original
bone-dry Qabalah have been justified by experience. The point (raised above) about
the way in which the paths are selected to join certain numbers and not others, is
found to express important doctrines connected with the facts of initiation. It must
always be borne in mind that the Tarot is not only an atlas for recording facts, but a
guide-book showing one how to travel through these countries previously unknown.
Travellers in China are somewhat bewildered at first when they are told that it is 100
li from Yung Chang to Pu Peng, but only 40 li from Pu Peng to Yung Chang. The
answer is that the li is a measure of the time of marching, not of miles. The
difference of calculation informs one that Pu Peng is a long way up the hill.
It is very much the same with the Tarot. The 6 of Wands is referred to Jupiter in Leo,
and called the Lord of Victory. This dictates not only what victory is like, but also the
conditions to be fulfilled in order to obtain victory. There is need of the fiery energy
of the suit of Wands, the balance of the number 6, the stubborn courage of Leo, and
also the influence of Jupiter, the little bit of luck that tips the scale.
These considerations are particularly important in dealing with the Atu, or Trumps.
The Planets are already represented in the numbers or Sephiroth of the Tree of Life.
But they have also attributions to certain of the Paths.
Some etymologists of a singularly idle disposition have tried to derive the French
word "atout" from the ATU meaning House. It may seem simpler to suggest that
"atout" is short for "bon atout", meaning "good for anything", because a Trump will
take any card of any suit.
The Atu of Tahuti, who is the Lord of Wisdom, are also called Keys. They are guides
to conduct. They give you the map of the Kingdom of Heaven, and also the best way
to take it by force. A complete understanding of any magical problem is necessary
before it can be solved. Study from outside, and action from outside, are ways
abortive.
It is of the utmost importance to understand this extremely specialised character of
the Trumps.
To say that the Trump numbered III, called The Empress, represents Venus, means
something much less and also much more 'than appears if Venus be studied from a
strictly astrological standpoint. One abandons the contemplation of the whole in
order to take practical advantage of a part. Just so Tactics differs from Strategy. A
great general does not think of war in the abstract, but confines his attention to a
minute part of his perhaps vast knowledge of the subject by considering the
disposition of his forces at a given place and time, and how best to employ them
against his adversary. This is of course true not only of the Trumps, but of all the
other cards; and it must be true of any specialised studies. If one goes into a shop
and asks for a map of a certain country, one cannot get a complete map, because
any such map would necessarily merge into the Universe as it approached
completeness, for a country's character is modified by the adjacent countries, and so
on for ever. Nor would even any useful map be complete in the most vulgar practical
way without leading to confusion. The shopman would want to know whether his
customer wanted a geological map, an orographical map, a commercial map, a map
showing the distribution of population, or a strategic map; and so on for ever.
The student of the Tarot must not therefore expect to find anything beyond a careful
selection of the facts about any given card, a selection made for a quite definite
magical purpose.
However, the Tarot does try to resume, in a single pictorial symbol, as many as
possible of the useful aspects of the idea. In studying any card, one ought not to
neglect any of the attributions, because each class of attribution does modify the
form and colour of the card, and its use. This essay will endeavour, in the section
describing each card in turn, to include as many of the correspondences as possible.
THE ROMAN NUMBERS OF THE TRUMPS
[Some paragraphs of this section repeat, in slightly different phrases, statements
already made in earlier pages. This is intended.]
The Trumps are numbered in Roman figures in order to avoid confusion with the
Arabic numbers of the Sephiroth. It has puzzled the traditional writers on the Tarot
that these numbers should run from 0 to XXI. They seem to have thought that it
would be proper to assume that 0 was the Fool, because he was a cipher, a good-
for-nothing. They made this assumption simply because they did not know the secret
doctrine of the Qabalistic Zero. They did not know elementary Mathematics. They did
not know that mathematicians begin the decimal scale with Zero.
To make it quite clear to initiates that they did not understand the meaning of the
card called The Fool, they put him down between Atu cards XX and XXI, for what
reason it baffles the human imagination to conceive. They then attributed the card
number I, the Juggler, to the letter Aleph. In this simple yet ingenious manner they
the attribution of every card, except The Universe, XXI, wrong.
Meanwhile, the true attribution was well guarded in the Sanctuary; it only became
public when the secret lection issued to members of the Grade of Practicus of the
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