by Eliphas Levi
Etteilla or Alliette, preoccupied entirely by his system of divination and the material profit to be derived from it, Alliette, formerly barber, having never learned French or even orthography, pretended to reform and thus appropriate the Book of Thot. In the Tarot, now become very scarce, which he engraved, we find the following naive advertise ment on the twenty-eighth card—the eight of clubs: “Etteilla, professor of algebra and correctors (sic) of the modern blunders of the ancient Book of Thot, lives in the Rue de l'Oseille, No. 48, Paris.” Etteilla would have certainly done better not to have corrected the blunders of which he speaks; his books have degraded the ancient work discovered by Court de Gebelin into the domain of vulgar Magic and fortune-telling by cards. He proves nothing who tries to prove too much. Etteilla furnishes another example of this old logical axiom. At the same time, his efforts led him to a certain acquaintance with the Kabalah, as may be seen in some rare passages of his unreadable works. The true initiates who were Etteilla's contemporaries, the Rosicrucians for example and the Martinists, were in possession of the true Tarot, as a work of Saint-Martin proves, where the divisions are those of the Tarot, as also this quotation from an enemy of the Rosicrucians: “They pretend to the possession of a volume from which they can learn anything discoverable in other books which exist now or may be produced at any future period. This volume is their criterion, in which they find the prototype of everything that exists by the facility which it offers for analysing, making abstractions, forming a species of intellectual world and creating all possible things. See the philosophical, theosophical, microcosmic cards.” Conspiracy Against the Catholic Religion and Sovereigns, by the author of The Veil Raised for the Curious. Paris: Crapard. 1792.) The true initiates, we repeat, who held the secret of the Tarot among their greatest mysteries, refrained carefully from protesting against the errors of Etteilla and left him to reveil instead of reveal the arcana of the true Clavicles of Solomon. Hence it is not without profound astonishment that we have discovered intact and still unknown this key of all doctrines and all philosophies of the old world. I speak of it as a key, and such it is truly, having the circle of four decades as its ring, the scale of 22 characters for its trunk or body and the three degrees of the triad for its wards. As such it was represented by Postel in his Key of Things Kept Secret from the Foundation of the World1 He indicates as shown opposite the occult name of this key, which was known only to initiates.
The word may read Rota, thus signifying the wheel of Ezekiel, or TAROT, and then it is synonymous with the Azoth of Hermetic philosophers. It is a word which expresses kabalistically the dogmatic and natural absolute; it is formed of the characters of the Monogram of Christ, according to the Greeks and Hebrews. The Latin R or Greek P is found between the alpha and omega of the Apocalypse; the sacred TAU, image of the Cross, encloses the complete word, as represented previously in our “Ritual”. Without the Tarot the Magic of the ancients is a closed book, and it is impossible to penetrate any of the great mysteries of the Kabalah.1 The Tarot alone interprets the magic squares of Agrippa and Paracelsus, as we may satisfy ourselves by forming these same squares with the keys of the Tarot, and reading off the hieroglyphs thus collected. Hereinafter follow the seven magical squares of the planetary genii according to Paracelsus:
By casting up each column of these squares, you will obtain invariably the characteristic number of the planet, and, finding the explanation of this number by the hiero glyphs of the Tarot, you proceed to seek the sense of all figures, whether triangular, square or cruciform, which you find to be formed by the numbers. The result of this operation will be a complete and profound acquaintance with all allegories and mysteries concealed by the ancients under the symbol of each planet, or rather of each personi fication of influences, celestial or human, upon all events of life.
We have said that the twenty-two keys of the Tarot are the twenty-two letters of the primitive kabalistic alphabet, and here follows a table of the variants of this alphabet according to divers Hebrew Kabalists:
Being, mind, man, or God; the comprehensible object; unity mother of numbers, the first substance.
All these ideas are expressed hieroglyphically by the figure of the JUGGLER. His body and arms constitute the letter ALEPH; round his head there is a nimbus in the form of 00, emblem of life and the universal spirit; in front of him are swords, cups and pantacles; he uplifts the miraculous rod towards heaven. He has a youthful figure and curly hair, like Apollo or Mercury; the smile of confidence is on his lips and the look of intelligence in his eyes.
The House of God and man, the Sanctuary, the law, Gnosis, Kabalah, the Occult Church, the duad, wife, mother.
Hieroglyph of the Tarot: THE FEMALE POPE, a woman crowned with a tiara, wearing the horns of the Moon and Isis, her head enveloped in a mantle, the solar cross on her breast, and holding a book on her knees, which she conceals with her mantle. The protestant author of a pretended history of Pope Joan has met with, and used, for good or bad, in the interests of his thesis, two curious and ancient figures of the Female Pope or Sovereign Priestess of the Tarot. These figures ascribe to her all the attributes of Isis; in one she is carrying and caressing her son Horus; in the other she has long and unbound hair. She is seated between the two Pillars of the duad, has a sun with four rays on her breast, places one hand upon a book and makes the sign of sacerdotal esotericism with the other-—that is to say, she uplifts three fingers only, the two others being folded, to signify mystery. A veil is thrown behind her head, and on each side of her chair the flowers of the lotus bloom upon the sea. I commiserate sincerely the ill-starred scholar who has seen in this antique symbol nothing but a monumental portrait of his pretended Pope Joan.
The word, the triad, plenitude, fecundity, Nature, generation in the three worlds.
Symbol, THE EMPRESS, a woman, winged, crowned, seated and uplifting a sceptre with the orb of the world at its end: her sign is an eagle, image of the soul and of life. She is the Venus-Urania of the Greeks and was represented by St John in his Apocalypse as the Woman clothed with the Sun, crowned with twelve stars and having the moon beneath her feet. She is the mystical quintessence of the triad; she is spirituality, immortality, the Queen of Heaven.
The porte or government of the easterns, initiation, power, the Tetragram, the quaternary, the cubic stone, or its base.
Hieroglyph, THE EMPEROR, a sovereign whose body represents a right-angled triangle and his legs a cross— image of the Athanor of the philosophers.
Indication, demonstration, instruction, law, symbolism, philosophy, religion.
Hieroglyph, THE POPE, or grand hierophant. In more modern Tarots this sign is replaced by the image of Jupiter. The grand hierophant, seated between the two Pillars of Hermes and of Solomon, makes the sign of esotericism and leans upon a Cross with three crossbars of triangular form. Two inferior ministers kneel before him. Having above him the capitals of the two Pillars and below him the two heads of the assistants, he is thus the centre of the quinary and represents the divine Pentagram, giving its complete mean ing. As a fact, the Pillars are necessity or law, the heads liberty or action. A line may be drawn from each Pillar to each head and two lines from each Pillar to each of the two heads. This gives a square, divided by a cross into four triangles and in the middle of this cross is the grand hiero- phant, we might almost say like the garden spider in the centre of his web, were such a comparison becoming to the things of truth, glory and light.
Sequence, interlacement, lingam, entanglement, union, embrace, strife, antagonism, combination, equilibrium.
Hieroglyph, man between VICE AND VIRTUE. Above him shines the Sun of Truth, and in this Sun is Love, bending his bow and threatening Vice with his shaft. In the order of the ten Sephiroth, this symbol corresponds to TIPHERETH — that is, to idealism and beauty. The number six represents the antagonism of the two triads, that is, absolute negation and absolute affirmation. It is therefore the number of toil and liberty, and for this reason it connects also with mora
l beauty and glory.
Weapon, sword, cherubic sword of fire, the sacred septenary, triumph, royalty, priesthood.
Hieroglyph, a CUBIC CHARIOT, with four pillars and an azure and starry drapery. In the chariot, between the four pillars, a victor crowned with a circle adorned with three radiant golden pentagrams. Upon his breast are three super posed squares, on his shoulders the URIM and THUMMIM of the sovereign sacrificer, represented by the two crescents of the moon in GEDULAH and GEBURAH; in his hand is a sceptre surmounted by a globe, square and triangle: his attitude is proud and tranquil. A double sphinx or two sphinxes joined at the haunches are harnessed to the chariot; they are pulling in opposite directions, but are looking the same way. They are respectively black and white. On the square which forms the fore part of the chariot is the Indian lingam surmounted by the flying sphere of the Egyptians. This hieroglyph, which we reproduce exactly, is perhaps the most beautiful and complete of all those that are comprised in the Clavicle of the Tarot.
THE CHARIOT OF HERMES
Seventh Key of the Tarot
Balance, attraction and repulsion, life, terror, promise and threat.
Hieroglyph, JUSTICE with sword and balance.
Good, horror of evil, morality, wisdom.
Hieroglyph, a sage leaning on his staff, holding a lamp in front of him and enveloped completely in his cloak. The inscription is THE HERMIT or CAPUCHIN, on account of the hood of his oriental cloak. His true name, however, is Prudence, and he thus completes the four cardinal virtues which seemed imperfect to Court de Gebelin and Etteilla.1
Principle, manifestation, praise, manly honour, phallus, virile fecundity, paternal sceptre.
Hieroglyph, THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE, that is to say, the cosmogonical wheel of Ezekiel, with a Hermanubis ascend ing on the right, a Typhon descending on the left and a sphinx in equilibrium above, holding a sword between his lion's claws—an admirable symbol, disfigured by Etteilla, who replaced Typhon by a wolf, Hermanubis by a mouse, and the sphinx by an ape, an allegory characteristic of Etteilla's Kabalah.
The hand in the act of grasping and holding.
Hieroglyph, STRENGTH, a woman crowned with the vital ∞ closes, quietly and without effort, the jaws of a raging lion.
Example, instruction, public teaching.
Symbol, a man hanging by one foot, with his hands bound behind his back, so that his body makes a triangle, apex downwards, and his legs a cross above the triangle. The gallows is in the form of a Hebrew Tau, and the two uprights are trees, from each of which six branches have been lopped. We have explained already this symbol of sacrifice and the finished work.
The heaven of Jupiter and Mars, domination and force, new birth, creation and destruction.
Hieroglyph, DEATH, reaping crowned heads in a meadow where men are growing.
The heaven of the Sun, climates, seasons, motion, changes of life, which is ever new yet ever the same.
Hieroglyph, TEMPERANCE, an angel with the sign of the sun upon her forehead, and on the breast the square and triangle of the septenary, pours from one chalice into another the two essences which compose the Elixir of Life.
The heaven of Mercury, occult science, Magic, commerce, eloquence, mystery, moral force.
Hieroglyph, THE DEVIL, the Goat of Mendes, or the Baphomet of the Temple, with all his pantheistic attributes. This is the only hieroglyph which was properly understood and interpreted correctly by Etteilla.
The heaven of the Moon, alterations, subversions, changes, failings.
Hieroglyph, a TOWER struck by lightning, probably that of Babel. Two persons, doubtless Nimrod and his false prophet or minister, are precipitated from the summit of the ruins. One of the personages in his fall reproduces perfectly the letter Ayin.’
Heaven of the soul, outpourings of thought, moral influence of idea on form, immortality.
Hieroglyph, the BLAZING STAR and eternal youth. We have described this symbol previously.
The elements, the visible world, reflected light, material forms, symbolism.
Hieroglyph, the MOON, dew, a crab rising in the water towards land, a dog and wolf barking at the moon and chained to the base of two towers, a path lost in the horizon and sprinkled with blood.
Composites, the head, apex, prince of heaven.
Hieroglyph, a radiant SUN and two naked children, taking hands in a fortified enclosure. Other Tarots sub stitute a spinner unwinding destinies, and yet others a naked child mounted on a white horse and displaying a scarlet standard.
Vegetative principle, generative virtue of the earth, eternal life.
Hieroglyph, THE JUDGEMENT. A genius sounds his trumphet and the dead rise from their tombs. These persons, who are living and were dead, are a man, woman and child —the triad of human life.
The sensitive principle, the flesh, eternal life.
Hieroglyph, the FOOL. A man in the garb of a fool, wandering without aim, burdened with a wallet, which is doubtless full of his follies and vices; his disordered clothes discover his shame; he is being bitten by a tiger and does not know how to escape or defend himself.
The microcosm, the sum of all in all.
Hieroglyph, KETHER, or the Kabalistic Crown, between four mysterious animals. In the middle of the Crown is Truth holding a rod in each hand.
Such are the twenty-two Keys of the Tarot, which explain all its numbers.1 Thus, the Juggler, or Key of the unities, explains the four aces with their quadruple pro gressive signification in the three worlds and in the first principle. So also the ace of deniers or of the circle is the soul of the world; the ace of swords is militant intelligence; the ace of cups is loving intelligence; the ace of clubs is creative intelligence; they are further the principles of motion, progress, fecundity and power. Each number, multiplied by a Key, gives another number, which explained in turn by the Keys, completes the philosophical and religious revelation contained in each sign. Now, each of the fifty-six cards can be multiplied in turn by the twenty-two Keys; a series of combinations thus results, giving all the most astonishing conclusions of revelation and of light. It is a truly philosophical machine, which keeps the mind from wandering, while leaving its initiative and liberty; it is mathematics applied to the Absolute, the alliance of the positive and the ideal, a lottery of thoughts as exact as numbers, perhaps the simplest and grandest conception of human genius.
The mode of reading the hieroglyphs of the Tarot is to arrange them in a square or triangle, placing equal numbers in antagonism and conciliating them by the unequal. Four signs express invariably the absolute in a given order and are explained by a fifth. Hence the solution of all magical questions is the Pentagram, and all antinomies are explained by harmonious unity. So arranged, the Tarot is a veritable oracle and replies to all possible questions with more precision and infallibility than the Android of Albertus Magnus. An imprisoned person with no other book than the Tarot, if he knew how to use it, could in a few years acquire universal knowledge, and would be able to speak on all subjects with unequalled learning and inexhaustible eloquence. In fact, this wheel is the real key to the Oratori cal Art and the Grand Art of Raymund Lully; it is the true secret of the transmutation of shadows into light; it is the first and most important of all the arcana of the Great Work. By means of this universal key of symbolism, all allegories of India, Egypt and Judea are illuminated; the Apocalypse of St John is a kabalistic book the sense of which is indicated rigorously by the figures and numbers of the Urim, Thummim, Teraphim and Ephod, all resumed and completed by the Tarot. The old sanctuaries contain no further Mysteries, and the significance of the objects of the Hebrew cultus is comprehensible for the first time. Who does not perceive in the golden table, crowned and supported by Cherubim which covered the Ark of the Covenant, the same symbols as those of the twenty-first Tarot Key?1 The Ark was a hieroglyphical synthesis of the whole kabalistic dogma; it included the Jod or blossoming staff of Aaron, the He or cup, the gomor containing the manna, the two tables of the law—an analogous symbol to that of the
sword of justice—and the manna kept in the gomor, four objects which interpret wonderfully the letters of the Divine Tetragram. Gaffarel has proved learnedly that the Cheru bim of the Ark were in the likeness of bulls, but he did not know that instead of two there were four—two at each end, as the text expressly says—though it has been misconstrued for the most part by commentators. The eighteenth and nine teenth verses of the twenty-fifth chapter of Exodus should read thus: “And thou shalt make two calves or sphinxes of beaten gold on each side of the oracle. And thou shalt make the one looking this way and the second that way.”1 The Cherubim or sphinxes were, in fact, coupled by twos on each side of the Ark, and their heads were turned to the four corners of the Mercy-Seat, which they covered with their wings inclined archwise, thus overshadowing the crown of the golden table, which they sustained upon their shoulders, facing one another at the openings and looking at the Propitiatory, as shown in the figure above. The Ark, more over, had three parts or stages, representing ATZILUTH, YETZIRAH and BRIAH—the three worlds of the Kabalah:2 the base of the coffer, to which were fitted the four rings of two levers, analogous to the Pillars of the Temple, JAKIN and BOAZ; the body of the coffer, on which the sphinxes appeared in relief; and the cover, overshadowed by the wings. The base represented the kingdom of Salt, to use the terminology of the adepts of Hermes; the coffer, the realm of Mercury or AZOTH; and the cover, the realm of Sulphur or of fire. The other objects of the cultus were not less allegorical, but would require a special treatise to describe and explain them.