Fig. 14
The Devil
Fig. 15
The 3 points in an Equilateral Triangle
Fig. 16
The House of God - Temple
Furthermore, when the two Fellowcrafts liberate themselves from the action of the Prince of the Earth, in the card of the Sun they transform into evolved and humanized beings. We are certain of this deduction because on the chest of the personage on the right there are the same three points present on the Devil. In this case, however, they are arranged in an isosceles triangle, to affirm the purification attained through Fire, precisely in the Arcanum which reveals the most evident relationship with Fire par excellence, that of the Sun.
Fig. 17
The Sun
Fig. 18
The 3 points in an Isosceles Triangle
The 33 Degrees
The Fool, the disciple along the spiritual Path, proceeds in the direction of the Hermit who, at a certain level, is the Master. Their relationship is confirmed by the presence of the red wand, which symbolizes their belonging to the same Order.106
Fig. 19
The Fool
Fig. 20
The Hermit
At the same time, the Fool holds another wand in an uncomfortable and unnatural manner. As his left hand, because of this position, rests on the right shoulder, we see a codified sign of recognition. The Tarot handed down by Conver in 1760, in fact, not only possesses a particular relationship with Freemasonry and the Order of the Temple, but is specifically connected to the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, the most elevated of the Masonic path. We are not affirming that it was created by the Freemasons of the Scottish degree; rather, that the transmitted message is shared. As the Scottish Rite is one of the Sovereign Initiatic Orders and is articulated in 33 degrees, let us investigate the symbolism more deeply in order to give solidity to our suppositions.
Let us look again at the Fool who, as we already know, has a special role because of the card’s lack of a number. The research begins with him; he is the guide who leads our Soul towards other firmaments and new planes of consciousness; he is the door into the world of the Tarot. Analyzing his staff more attentively, we note that, not only does it establish an angle of 30° with the vertical; moreover, it is not rigorously straight: it is made, in fact, of two straight sections, which create between each other an angle of 3 degrees, which, together, form 33...
Fig. 21
The wand of the Fool
There is no doubt: at the beginning of the Path of the Tarot, the symbolism of the 33 degrees, constituted by the 3 initial administrative degrees (Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft, and Master Mason) plus the successive 33, is already announced...
3° + 30° = Les 33 degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite
This example offers as well the opportunity to repeat that the teaching of the Tarot is harmoniously developed on various levels. The Codes express, simultaneously, diverse hidden meanings which allow us to reconstitute a Science (on an esoterical, philosophical, and theological level) containing the knowledge preserved by the Ancients. Remembering that the fundamental characteristic of this sort of multidimensionality is Coherence, it is possible to demonstrate the existence not only of Dualism, but also of Numerology, Astrology, esoterical Psychology, and many other complex disciplines, prerogative of higher levels of Initiation.
3) The Hermits of Egypt
Speaking of the Builders and Freemasons, we have mentioned a connection with Egypt, already an object of analysis in the description of the High Priestess and her rapport with the Goddess Isis. In order to analyze this relationship we must confront a new concept, that of the so-called “Codes of the dualistic symbols”. These are a mechanism of codification for discovering the presence of two distinct elements which, when united, generate a third and different element. Let us offer an example of clarification.
Wishing to connect Astrology and Tarot, many authors have attempted to associate every zodiacal sign to a single Major Arcanum. Fortunately, this correspondence is much richer and more complex while remaining, at the same time, paradoxically, quite simple. Let us attempt to observe attentively the following image.
Fig. 22
The astrological sign of Sagittarius
It is Sagittarius, the centaur with bow and arrow. Following the principle of codification just described, in the Tarot we obtain this zodiacal sign associating the bow and arrow in the Lover (element 1) with the man-horse in the Chariot (element 2):
Bow-Arrow (element 1) + Centaur (element 2) = Sagittarius (element 3)
Fig. 23
The 3x7 Diagram
Fig. 24
Particular of the Sagittarius
This example (we will elaborate on the astrological knowledge of the cards in another context) demonstrates that the above-mentioned rule, according to which certain symbols are hidden by a method of fragmentation into two separate factors, is simple but extremely well hidden. Returning to the subject of Egypt, let us try to apply the same procedure, keeping in mind that our field of research remains in the area of the sacred. Which are the two most important elements in the card of the Fool?
Fig. 25
The Fool
Reflecting, and considering that all that is illustrated (and it is not obvious...) is symbolic, we see the human and the dog. These, apart from any other consideration, are the most relevant because they are not inanimate but living. What representation may we reconstruct from these two factors? It is Anubis, the dog-headed God:
Fool ←→ Anubis
Fig. 26
Anubis
Although some will think of the jackal, actually they both belong to the same animal family and there is no contradiction, even in light of the fact that in the most ancient cult, the first representation of Anubis was with the head of a dog. Moreover, the surprisingly similar posture, and the presence of the two staffs, is remarkable. Between these subjects, in fact, there exists a close correlation which, for its importance and complexity, we will develop in more detail in the future. For the moment we will reveal in advance that in the Arcana are hidden the symbolisms of other Egyptian deities whose presence reinforces the hypothesis of a clear connection with this Tradition. As confirmation of our reasoning, we offer another example: the Strength card.
Let us observe the card in order to understand the two elements useful for the sort of codification proposed. With an eye already trained by the example of the Fool, it should not be difficult to individuate the woman and the lion. Which Egyptian deity will derive from the union of these two? For Egyptology enthusiasts the answer should appear obvious: it is Sekhmet, the lion-headed woman whose name means “She who is powerful”, precisely as in Strength. Sekhmet, represented with divine symbols such as the sun disk and the ureo, the corona, the representation of the serpent, was the terrible war goddess who, personifying the rays of the sun, of a deadly heat, incarnated the destructive power of that heavenly body. That is why, on the hat of the Arcanum XI, in a manner now more comprehensible and evident, we find scales (a reference to the skin of the reptile), but also the yellow rays of the sun.
Fig. 27
The Strenght
Fig. 28
Sekhmet
Fig. 29
Scales and Rays
These codes, therefore, confirm the close relationship between the Tarot and Egypt. Why is this connection so noteworthy? Describing the history of the Icons, we have remarked upon the existence of a connection with the monk John Cassian, he himself connected to the Holy Hermits of the desert, the Fathers of the Christian church. Let us examine further this relationship.
Officially, the first hermits date to the III century AD. Following the persecutions that they had undergone, authentic Christian practices were in danger and Saint Cassian, who had spent many years in their company in the desert, brought back to
the West the teaching so opposed by the authorities of the Roman Empire. Following his protracted Egyptian experience, he established himself in Provence, where he founded the Abbey of San Vittore, developed and diffused a re-elaborated monasticism on the Oriental model. As his knowledge would have been judged heretical, in order to transmit it he was obliged to utilize in his texts, codes similar in their mechanism to the dynamics of the Coded Structure of the Tarot. For example, in the preface of the “Cenobitic Institutions”, one of his more relevant works, in the first paragraph of the text he mentions, in the very first sentence of the book in fact, King Solomon, and establishes a connection with Hiram Abif, the Architect of the Temple, comparing himself directly to him:
“The Old Testament story narrates that the most wise Solomon (...) when he had the intention to build that famous and magnificent temple to the Lord, asked for counsel from a foreigner, the king of Tyre. And Hiram, son of a widow, (...) having been sent to him; with his help and council was able to fulfil all that beauty that divine wisdom suggested to him to prepare in the temple of the Lord or for the sacred furnishings. (...)
As you also, most blessed Pope Castor, have in mind to construct for the Lord a true and spiritual temple, not with inanimate stones but with a community of holy men, a temple non temporal or corruptible but eternal and impregnable and as you desire to consign to the Lord precious vessels (...) you then have deigned to call to participate in such a great work as this, myself, who am needful and poor from every point of view.107”
With this citation Saint Cassian manifests an explicit connection with the Freemasonry; as the Temple of Solomon, considered by the Judaic-Christian Tradition, the first Temple of Jerusalem, symbolically represents the Temple to which adhere the Freemasons who see in Hiram the figure par excellence of the Grand Master.108 With this comparison, therefore, he states his mission to integrate into the West, where monasticism at this point had become corrupt, the knowledge preserved for centuries in the Egyptian monasteries and to which Freemasonry itself was heir.
We could mention many other examples present in his texts, but that which is important now is to understand that Cassian, through coded messages, affirmed the transmission of an Egyptian-Christian matrix which from the Hermits (who according to him were present already in the I century AD and directly connected to the Apostle Mark from whom they had learned the Rule109) had to us. The scrolls found at Nag Hammadi in 1945, the so-called Gnostic Gospels, are considered a concrete demonstration of this truth and, for however strenuously contrasted by ecclesiastical authorities of the epoch and today considered apocryphal (in the sense of non-canonical), represent the proof of the intense activity of primitive Christian groups in the region. The Egyptian initiates welcomed the nascent Christianity and the ancient knowledge was integrated and renamed, clothed in the new doctrine. Official history calls them Kadosh, or Saints as, living in solitary and inhospitable regions, they were the perfect depositaries of the ancient Tradition directly descended from the Builders of the Temple of Solomon. For this reason, in Freemasonry the 30° degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, one of the highest one can reach along the Path, is called Kadosh.
Fig. 30
The book of the Hermit
In a context in which Egyptian Tradition, Christianity, Hermits, Builders of the Temple and Freemasons find themselves wholly interconnected and apparently with a same common root, the Icons of the Tarot, of which Cassian and his order were such excellent guardians. It is therefore coherent to find in the Tarot this mixture of Egyptian and Christian traditions (whose iconography is sufficiently explicit to not require particular decryption at this time)110, as well as the symbolism of the Builders and Freemasons. A relatively evident example follows. Which card would represent the anchorite? As the name itself suggests, it is the Hermit. This Arcanum, on the one hand symbolizes the Fathers of the Desert, as indicated by the presence of soil, yellow as the desert, at his feet; on the other, for his staff, to relate to the staff of the Fool (whose symbolism leads back to the 33 Masonic degrees), symbolizes the Kadosh, the 30th degree of the Scottish Rite. It is no coincidence that, in the folds at the bottom of his robe, he hides an open book, partly covered by the robe itself. This hidden symbol uncovers the close relationship with the arcane Knowledge that the Fathers of the Church, the ancient Egyptian hermits, secretly received and kept safe.111 On the whole, therefore, the Tarot is depositary of the teaching which leads directly back to the Builders of the Temple and which was perpetuated in Provence by men such as Cassian and Onorato (founder, upon the model of the oriental monasteries, of the monastery of Lèerins, and Bishop of Arles from 426 AD). For this reason, until the appearance of the Inquisition and of the Dominicans who flaunted their influence, it was the Cassianites (or Cassinites) first and the Benedictines later (Cassian was one of the spiritual teachers of Saint Benedict) who spread this knowledge, whose alchemical and occult symbolism is coded in the Tarot and in churches and cathedrals throughout the Western world.
8.4 A Path of Knowledge
Egypt being an essential key to the knowledge of the Icons, let us dedicate ourselves to one of the key aspects of its Tradition, the journey of the dead: a metaphorical representation of the Soul’s journey through the Afterworld. Is there a correspondence in the Tarot? We already know that the Fool, being without a number, is considered a card apart. As the creators of the Icons chose in this way to represent all of them, as a sort of iconographical-symbolical summary, let us attempt to understand what this signifies. The Fool is a pilgrim on a journey and the concept of a Way, the notion of a Path, in itself, thus assumes relevance. The Tarot, represented in its entirety by this card, becomes a Pilgrimage, a Research, a Path of 21 stations with the World, the circle of the Zodiac, the Heavens, the Micro- and Macrocosm, as its goal: for this reason, under the feet of the Fool we find the colour azure, representative of the heavenly Way. At the same time, this path, still thanks to the World, immaculate, affirms the sense of purity and of essentiality. In synthesis, we may say that the Tarot is a Path in the direction of the Heavens and Purity. What is the relationship with the journey of the dead? The Fool is a guide, precisely as Anubis who, in the Egyptian cult, is “he who conducts and guides the souls of the dead”. The term Mat (in Italian, matto=fool, insane person), because of a presumed and erroneous Italian origin of the Tarot, it has always been associated with a deranged personage, as indicated by the many decks of the past. In any case, as the Icons were not created in Italy, the word derives from the Persian language and recalls the expression “Shah Mat” which means the “King (Shah) is dead (Mat)”, an expression used also in chess at the moment of capture of the adversary’s king, in the word “Checkmate.”
The card, therefore, does not symbolize a fool but a dead person in the spiritual sense, somewhat more reassuring. Who would wish to follow a spiritual path indicated by an unbalanced individual? Where would the Arcanum of the Arthur Waite Tarot, denominated “The Fool”, lead us? To the edge of a precipice? Or to lose ourselves in some psychedelic meanderings of the consciousness? We would wonder at length regarding the curious opinions of many occultists of the past...
With the Fool representing the dead, the parallelism with Egyptian tradition becomes perfect: Anubis, in fact, conducts the candidate, the dead person, in a boat along a river towards the Chamber of Justice presided over by Osiris...
Fig. 31
Journey along the river in the direction of the Judgement of Osiris
Thus, the fact that the Judgement card expresses the concept of rebirth should not surprise us: who is the dead one, on the initiatic plane, if not he who is not yet awakened in the world of the Soul? Or from another perspective, has renounced the secular and is dead to the material world? For this reason, in the Egyptian initiatic journey and in the Tarot, as testimony to rebirth, we find the symbol of the sarcophagus. This was not used only as a coffin for the deposition of the body of the pharaoh, but was consider
ed the entranceway to another dimension, a sort of mechanism of rebirth. This is why, changing the depth of the field of observation, behind the personage of the Hanged Man, appears the form of a sarcophagus, precisely beside the Arcanum XIII, symbolizing death.
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