This commonality is seen in the similarity of their delicate and ethereal features, and in the fact that they both hold an infant, the baby Jesus in the case of the Madonna and Horus with Isis, etc.
Fig. 3
Isis nursing Horus
However, because of the first real assertion of Christianity during Roman dominion, under emperors such as Constantine and Theodosius, responsible for the persecution of members of other religions in Rome and the surrounding territories, various temples dedicated to Isis were readapted and consecrated as basilicas for the Virgin Mary and paintings and other works of art featuring the primitive goddess, modified. Apart from these aspects, it is known that, in sacred images the divinities, saints or great personages are represented with specific attributes, which allow them to be recognized. In our case, Isis, portrayed seated upon a throne, nursing an infant, is also characterized by several particular elements: veil, horns, book, and torches. What are their meanings and, above all, what are their connections with the High Priestess of the Tarot? Let us analyze them one by one.
The Book
This is a clear symbol of knowledge; it seems needless to examine it in depth now, far more complex matters regarding it, which will be analyzed in good time, given its self-evident value on this level.
Fig. 4
The book
The Veil
The veil, another of the attributes of the goddess, in esoteric tradition signifies that which prevents us from seeing the invisible world, that which veils it to our eyes. Expressed in another way, it is that which makes it impossible for us to know the mysteries of the symbolic and sacred Temple. The famous veil of the Priestess, well visible in the card, has much ink to flow, as researchers have always heard of the comparison with that of Isis. However, have they ever asked, what is behind this veil?
Fig. 5
The veil
If we observe with the gaze of a child, it should not be difficult to think of the Priestess as the companion of the Priest (Hierophant). The reasoning is the same that would be used when thinking of the Empress as consort to the Emperor; in both cases, they are couples slightly out of the ordinary.
Fig. 6
Couple Hierophant - High Priestess
Thus, if these two personages, as the perfect couple, are husband and wife, we would hypothesize that they live in the same house, where there are two pillars to be found also in the card of the Hierophant. We understand that this process of reasoning may seem somewhat “childish”, but the Codes function precisely in this manner...Therefore, behind the veil of the Priestess, who lives in the same dwelling as the Hierophant, there is the same decoration: the two pillars of the Temple.
Moreover, we can see part of them on the left side of the card, just under the veil. This is an affirmation: the Priestess’ veil hides the mysteries of the symbolic Temple, a fact that coincides precisely with the tradition of the goddess Isis.
Fig. 7
The pillar
The Horns
Another attribute of the Goddess Isis are the horns. Certainly, parts of the tiara of the Priestess do not develop normally, vertically, but laterally, and this is not casual... they resemble horns: evidently, this is to establish a relation with those of Isis. They metaphorically represent cornucopias, in relationship with fertility and abundance, of which the goddess, as many legends and numerous historical finds, was a symbol.
Fig. 8
The horns
The Torches
Fig. 9
The torches
The participants in certain rituals dedicated to the goddess carried two torches, called the torches of Isis. In the Arcanum of the Priestess, only these are lacking, to make everything coincide perfectly. Their existence, in fact, would reinforce the similarity of identity between the Priestess and Isis and at the same time would confirm the existence of the Codes. In order to find them, we note the fact that in this case as well, two elements were easier to discover, the book and the veil; the third was somewhat more hidden but in any case identifiable, the horns; the fourth is more difficult still... In fact, to find the torches, we must... turn the card upside down! And here they appear, hidden in the border of the veil, in the yellow and red, exactly like the flames...
Fig. 10
The egg
For another confirmation of the maternity of the Priestess, perhaps superfluous after the evidence already given, we also discover the presence of an egg on the right of the card. This symbol further proves a relationship with the cult of the Virgin Mother. In fact, in the tradition of the Easter egg, among other things originally an Egyptian tradition, the egg symbolized fecundity, maternity. For the Initiated, it represented the cosmic egg, the Myth of Origins par excellence, that of the creation of the Universe. Therefore, the egg in the card affirms that there is undoubtedly a true connection between the Mother and the Priestess. In order to avoid the slightest doubt it is well to note that we should not be surprised if certain concepts are not indicated by a more explicit symbolism. In this case, for example, it would not have been suitable to expect to find in the Priestess, the iconography of the Virgin Isis holding the baby. The reason is simple: if all had been so explicit, what need might we have had of the Codes? The Coded Structure, instead, has an essential role in the story of the Tarot because it has preserved the entirety and inalterability of the teaching contained in them. This last, in fact, even if dispersed in the form of scattered symbols in many different decks, has been neither cancelled nor altered, precisely thanks to the presence of the Codes, which have allowed its safeguarding over the course of the epochs.
To return to the Priestess, in conclusion, having demonstrated the correspondence with Isis, we may say that the female figure depicted is truly a Great Mother. This is why, at this point, we may use for this card, including its particularity, the keyword mother. It is through this analysis, using the concepts obtainable from the observation of the Arcana, that we build the great Lexicon of the Tarot. We must repeat an essential point of this reasoning: keywords are not applied only to esoterical or symbolical matters in interpretation, but may be used in any context. With respect to the example, the term “mother” is completely versatile and flexible and may be used for any subject, even the most concrete, simple and usual. Furthermore, this dictionary has great force and solidity. In fact, when meanings are deduced from observation, they are unmistakable; in the same way, when they are derived from the Codes, it is as if they were demonstrated through mathematical theorems, therefore proving to be perfectly logical, rational and objectifiable. The advantage of the Coded Structure and of the esoterical foundation consists above all in the certainty that it offers, to tarologist and consultant, with regard to the reading. During the consultation, the keywords are literally observable or extractable, so that when the tarologist makes certain affirmations, he is supported by a precise graphic. This also has the function to reconfirm that we are not dealing with a subjective interpretation but with an effective reply of the Tarot. This aspect is not at all without relevance. First of all, thanks to it, the tarologist is in a certain way “unburdened”, becoming a simple go-between, if possible objective (if he has studied well the language of the Arcana and has practiced for some time), of a message not his. Furthermore, the consultant is assured of the fact that this message, being non-subjective, is truly something that originates in a superior dimension. The Tarot speaks and expresses itself; it is truly a Language of Images. The combination of the rules, together with the keywords, allows the Tarot to construct the sentences that the tarologist, having studied this “foreign” language, can truly read and translate for the consultant:
Codes and Laws (Grammar) + key words (Lexicon) = (optical) Language.
Therefore, at a certain level of comprehension, the Arcana may be considered as letters of a slightly particular alphabet, which, through the presence of precise rules, “mixed” among themselves, crea
te actual statements. Sacred languages such as Sanskrit or Hebrew, and their relative essential alphabets, participate, according to their modality and on their level, in a primordial synthesis that is at the same time their reason for being and their supreme objective. The same principle is valid for the Tarot: it is a language whose purpose is to put man in communication with the world of the Spirit, with no intermediary. The tarologist, in carrying out his work with precision and sacredness, does nothing else than literally read the Tarot, offering the consultant that which he sees written, without subjectivity. Becoming transparent, invisible, in a great exercise of humility and awareness, he allows the dialogue to take place between the consultant and the Tarot, merely helping the consultant to understand the communication. His role is comparable to that of a talented translator, whose task is not to interpret that which he translates but simply to correctly refer the content.
6.2 The Archetypes
We must now research another aspect of great interest. What does it mean, when we affirm that the images of the Tarot are Archetypes? What is an Archetype? Etymologically the term comes from the Greek archètypon, composed of archè (archaic, primitive) and typos (type, model): the Archetype is thus a primitive model. In what sense? The ancient philosophers, such as Philo of Alexandria, Irenaeus, Dionysius the Areopagite, already spoke of Archetypes. Here, for example, is what Socrates said:
“Before being born on this earth, we contemplated the eternal Archetypes of thought, cultivating a latent memory of them, and it is that which allows us to find them once again. These Archetypes are the nourishment of creative thought, of the Spirit which lives in the eternal world, without time.82”
In the last century, with the development of psychology, new interest has been awakened in this subject. Jung in particular, taking up the theme again, wrote regarding it:
“The Archetype is at the foundation, not only of the psyche, but of Matter and the Spirit and symbolizes the mysterious conjunction of all three. These Archetypes are instinctual, indistinct, nebulous factors. We find them in the psychic field but also in non-psychic circumstances and they are rich with fascinating mystery and sacredness. We may say that distance has no effect on the phenomena of the Archetypes, thus they are not matter, nor force, nor energy (...). The structure of the collective unconscious is formed of Archetypes. We must suppose that in the unconscious exists something similar to a consciousness a priori, free from any causal base. We may speak of a “creatio ex nihilo”, a creative act inexplicable in causal terms. The objective fact coincides with the appearance of the Archetype; it does not follow it. This knowledge a priori, this unconscious pre-science, this representation by simulacra, by subjectless images, by Archetypes, gives the“ligamentum animae et corporis, la quinta essentia:” the Spirit which penetrates everything and puts everything in relation, in order to make of the machine of the whole world, a unity. Things of the Spirit have a tendency to create something similar to themselves, to bring to the light correspondences and meaningful coincidences. (...) Synchronicity consists of homogeneities, which seem casual. Its “tertium comparationis” is based on the Archetypes. I confess: the Archetype appears to me in a nebulous manner. It is matter without form; it is form without matter. The Archetype transmits nothing, but is. We might call the Archetypes spiritual forms or rather categories of forms, categories not of reason but of the imagination. The surprising parallelism of such forms and of the ideas which they express, causes me to think of a resemblance of human thought in all times and all places. The primitive structural components of the psyche have the same surprising uniformity as those of matter and bodies.83”
According to this description, the Archetypes are comparable to the “bricks” which form the collective unconscious: of that part of us whose contents are connected to the historical-cultural patrimony of the whole of humanity. This form of unconscious, which connects to our immediate consciousness of a personal nature, is, in fact, a common, shared and universal psychic system, identical in all men. It does not develop individually but is inherited and consists in pre-existent structures, the Archetypes, precisely, which may become conscious when they determine the profile of certain psychic contents.
Being a matter of a previous form with respect to the unconscious, their origin is not explicable by a principle of causal origin. It would regard primary complexes whose entireity would constitute in the individual an innate consciousness, an unconscious pre-science, which would be at the base of the harmonious unity and communication between man and his universe. We might describe the Archetypes as a connecting bridge between humanity, the world of matter, and that of the Soul; that is, the terrestrial and the celestial parts coexisting in each of us. For this reason Jung hypothesized that the Archetypes were spiritual forms or categories of forms which, being present in all individuals notwithstanding their epoch or location, go beyond space and time. Apart from the obvious differences, we notice a sort of parallelism between these primitive images and the eternal Ideas of Plato, which were for the philosopher, eternal and immutable structures reaching back to a period during which the consciousness could not yet think but only perceive.
Jung adds, “The Archetypes are pre-rational organs of the psyche, inherited and inheritable basic structures, at first without specific content, which appear at first in personal life where experiences through the senses are based precisely on these Archetypes. They are organs of thought which, as are organs of the body, are functional, quite numerous but able to be reduced in number to only a few by elimination of duplicates.84”
The theoretical and ideal content of the Archetype reveals itself in us through practical experience, that is, the Archetype acquires tangibility and concreteness when it is experienced, lived, in daily life. Thus, in order to truly understand an Archetype, which expresses a part of ourselves, we must live it, be permeated by it. On the whole, then, without entering into more specialistic considerations, suffice it that we understand that the Archetype is a manifestation of the collective unconscious, an ancient basic psychic structure, an organ of thought in which the consciousness participates through a process of physical, psycho-sensorial experience. In many of his works, Jung entered into the study and exposition of the various archetypical themes recurrent in different cultures of humanity. He referred to the onirical products of the single individual, describing the many images of this universe, fruit of the deposit of knowledge-generating experiences over time: the Divine Child, the Wise Old Man, the Great Mother, the Hero, the Rascal (the Joker), etc.
Returning to the world of the Tarot, the association with the Arcana is obvious: the Icons of the Tarot are, in fact, Archetypes!
On the strength of such clear evidence, many authors, such as Jung, became interested in their analysis, seeing them as primitive images, Archetypes, of our collective unconscious. The Tarot-Archetypes have been evaluated as living forces with which individuals must compare themselves in order to continue their own interior evolution. As man, for his physiological functions, is characterized by a model, a form that makes him specifically a man, at the same time the Archetypes represent the biological organization of our psychic mechanism. The more we understand them, the more we participate in their life and our life, comprehending the deepest aspects of ourselves and of our eternal and atemporal part, which they express. For this reason, to study a single Arcanum means to enter into its world but also to enter into ourselves. When we are attracted or repulsed by a particular image of the Tarot, regarding for that matter two opposite states which express, on a certain level, the same condition, it means that we must learn something of and from that Archetype/Arcanum, that is, of and from that part of ourselves which coincides with it.
Unfortunately, from this psychological and scientific research during the 1900’s, because of cartomancy, a gradually worsening second-rate use of the Tarot developed, with regard to this function. In fact, the style of this practice was set supposing that to interpret it meant a
bove all to use the Tarot as Archetypes. Consequently, all methods of interpretation adapted themselves to this logic, inserting and adding further divinatory techniques (an example is the common association Tarot-astrology). In order to understand in detail the sense of “what happened”, we should know, at least superficially, the functioning of the methods of reading used by cartomancers to “read the future.”
Methods of Interpretation
There are countless systems used for consultation of the Tarot85 but its in-depth analysis is certainly not the purpose of this text. We will limit ourselves then to the description of one example: the “Simple Cross”. Without describing the diverse varieties, we may say that, the 22 Arcana having been shuffled, the cards are laid out in the following manner:
1) The First symbolizes conditions favourable for the consultant.
2) The Second symbolizes adverse conditions.
3) The Third represents the situation at the moment of the question.
4) The Fourth is a prediction of the final result.
5) The Fifth represents the counsel of the Tarot.
The Tarot Code Page 16