I am still editing this part.
The second half of the book is taken up with cartomancy, and in
particular with Etteilla and his followers. He sees divination with
cards as practiced on a very limited basis in the 15th-16th centuries,
with one card "sortilege" books, but also occasional five card "spreads"
that served as a way of delineating someone's character traits in their
current life-situations, as in Folengo's Triperuno.
That tarot divination suddenly appeared as elaborate systems at the end
of the 18th century, as if from nowhere, is a topic he covered, with
Dummett and Depaulis, in Wicked Pack of Cards. Since then, he has more information. I have given a summary of some additional facts about Etteilla's followers at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=827&p=14071&hilit=hugand#p14071,
Decker has also consulted one additional source since Wicked Pack about Etteilla and his system, a Course Theorique et Pratique
by Paul Hugand, aka "Jejalel". In it he finds both a 54 and a 66 card
spread that Papus had attributed to Etteilla. The 66 card spread is
actually substantiated in Etteilla himself, although Decker seems
unaware of that fact. Papus's account (p. 146 of Stockman's translation
of Divinatory Tarot) is an almost word for word transcription of Etteilla in the 3rd Cahier (see my translation of Corodil's transcription at http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php? ... stcount=23).
Decker notes that the reading involves taking the cards in pairs from
each of two rows of 11. From that he suggests that Etteilla's spreads
evolved from a form of divinatory solitaire that depended on taking
cards in pairs, as described in Vojtech Omasta's Patience: neue und alte Spiele,
Bratislava 1985. He notes that an old word for solitaire in French was
"la Cabale" (no source given). On the other hand, Etteilla's directions
often do not specify pairs.
Decker also cites "Jejalel" for his
account of the mentor that Etteilla had said taught him the ancient
Egyptians' system of tarot divination: he was a "descendant" of a famous
16th century writer who used the pseudonym "Alexis Piemontese". In fact, Etteilla himself wrote in the 2nd Cahier [notebook] that his mentor in 1757, also named
Alexis, was the grandson ("petit fils") of the 16th century author. See
my transcription and translation at http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php? ... tcount=130.
Perhaps after he published the 2nd Cahier Etteilla thought about the
time-span between the two Alexises and realized that there had to be
more than two generations from one to the other. Or else "Jejalel"
decided that for the sake of credibility, "descendant" was better than
"grandson".
In Etteilla, as opposed to Decker's account of him,
what is at least important as the array of cards in the spread is the
order in which the cards appear, which is from right to left. The cards have a
grammatical order which Etteilla thinks it is important not to disturb,
just as with the three words "John", "Richard" and "kills", it makes a
difference whether we combine them to say John kills Richard or Richard
kills John. Decker omits this point. In general, if one wants to learn
how to read the cards in Etteilla's manner, it is best to read Etteilla himself, now available at the
above links.
Decker devotes much effort to tracking down sources
of Etteilla's imagery and interpretations. The sources for Etteilla's
trumps, except six of them, are the Tarot de Marseille and its variant
the Tarot de Besancon. This is not new information. He does not mention
the source for card 1, it would seem to be card 1 of a French "Minchiate" that "Huck" called attention to on Tarot History Forum (at left below), called "Le Chaos." While "Chaos" was not included as a meaning of the card in his first explication of the card (In the Third Cahier), as opposed to "Questionnant", i.e. male querent (middle below), it was one of the "reversed meanings" in the lists of "synonyms or related meanings" drawn up by his followers, and does appear on a version of the same card as published in c. 1838 (below right). Perhaps the term "chaos" is meant to apply to the male querent, namely his mental state in coming to the card-reader.
Decker then faults Etteilla needlessly for his
"forced" identification of the French suit of diamonds with the Italian
suit of "sticks" (bastoni), and of clubs with coins (denari). It seems
to me that the diamond shape may well be from the pattern that
crisscrossing staves make on the cards; and the clover design of the
French clubs suit from that pattern on the depictions of coins in
the Italian cards; it is not forced at all. I have illustrated this point with cards of the time at the end of http://dummettsmondo.blogspot.com/2015/07/chapter-1-part-of-4.html. In any case, it is not Etteilla's innoation. De Mellet, in his companion essay to de Gebelin's, made the same identification, a conclusion he says he reached from looking at what fortune tellers said about the meanings of the French cards and the corresponding tarot cards. Of "our fortune-tellers" he says, giving the correspondences in parentheses (de Gebelin, Le Monde Primitif, vol. 8, p. 403, originally “Les Coeurs (les coupes), annoncent le bonheur.
/ Les Trèfles (les deniers), la fortune. /Les Piques, (les epées), le malheur.
/ Les Carreaux (les bâtons), l’indiffèrence & la campagne"):
Hearts, (cups), announce happiness.
Clubs, (coins), wealth.
Spades (swords), misfortune.
Diamonds (batons), indifference & the countryside.
A novel claim of Decker's is that the order of Etteilla's 2nd through 8th trump cards and the keywords on the number cards (Ace-Ten in each suit) come from "Cabala" (as it was spelled) as known by the early 18th century.
For the
trump cards, he first says, uncontroversially (it is on the cards
themselves), that the images correspond to the seven days of creation.
He then says the seven days of creation are the days of the week, which
since Babylonian times were associated with the seven planetary gods.
So
we have the Sun on card 2, the Moon on card 3. This much Etteilla
himself says (http://etteillastrumps.blogspot.com/2012/05/introduction.html). Then card 3, taken from the Besancon Star card, which
shows a maiden pouring liquid next to a butterfly, is also Mars,
because Mars was a god of spring (March); he is contradicting what
Etteilla says (above link), that it represents the Stars. Card
5, which he says is of Isis, taken from the Marseille/Becanson World
card, is also Mercury, representing Divine Mind (he is surely thinking
of Hermes Trismegistus in his godly form). Etteilla himself says it
represents the 6th day, when God created man in his own image, and shows
human physicality in its perfection. Card 6, which shows the seven
planets in the sky, is, according to Decker, Jupiter, the sky god.
Etteilla himself says that it represents the "two great lights" of
Genesis, i.e. Sun and Moon together, and that originally it represented
the Zodiac. (I don't know who is odder, Decker or Etteilla; perhaps
Etteilla meant the rulers of the Zodiac.) Card 7, showing sea and air
animals as well as a snake, Decker says represents Venus, for fertility;
Etteilla himself says it was supposed to represent sea and air animals
only, created on the fifth day. Finally card 8, showing Eve in a garden,
Decker says signifies Saturn, the Jewish creator god, on his day of
rest. Etteilla, discussing this image, does mention "repose" (it is on
the card, too) but mostly talks about the Pymander, the first text of
the Corpus Hermeticum, and quotes (without indicating a source) from the
Myth of Er in Plato's Republic (http://etteillastrumps.blogspot.com/2012/05/introduction.html).
No doubt Plato's demiurge is the same, minus reincarnation, as the
Jewish creator god.
All I can say is that if this is the pattern, Etteilla certainly hid his
intentions well, not only on the cards but also in his own analysis of
them.
If that were not enough, Decker goes on to say that these
seven gods, in order from Sol (Sunday) to Saturn (Saturday), correspond
to the seven lower sefirot in Cabala. I know of two correspondences
between sefirot and planets in Christian authors popular at that time, plus one more hinted at in a Jewish author.
One is Pico's in his 900 Theses of 1486 (thesis 11>48) and the other is Kircher's Tree in the tree of 1652 (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... f_Life.png).
Pico's order (from Chesed to Malkhut) is
Jupiter-Mars-Sun-Saturn-Venus--Mercury-Moon; Kircher's (also Chesed to Malkhut) goes
Jupiter-Saturn-Sun-Mars-Venus-Mercury-Moon. They are the same except for
interchanging Mars and Saturn, the two maleficent planets.
The third, which I say is hinted at, I get from Moshe Idel's account of Pico's Jewish colleague Yohannan Allemano, who apparently identified Saturn with the second sefira, that would make 6 of the lower sefirot planets and one the earth. The only difference in these three orders is in where Saturn goes, and whether there is a place for the earth. In none of these orders does the order of planets correspond to the order of the days of the
week.
The order that Decker suggests, moreover, does not fit the symbolism of the sefirot. The character of the Sun might correlate with Chesed, the 4th sefira, which means kindness or charity. But the Moon does not fit the characerizations of the 5th sefira, Gevurah, meaning Power, and Din, meaning Severity. Nor does Mars fit Tiferet, meaning Glory or Beauty. Mercury does not fit Netzah, meaning Victory. Jupiter, the most powerful of the gods, does not fit the lower administrator of Justice on the Tree, Hod. Venus does not fit Yesod, which is the Righteous and the Covenant of circumcision. The female Malkhut, the Shekinah, certainly does not fit Saturn, who mythologically is a god distant from humans; whereas the Shekinah is "God's presence" with Israel, which may be little or much.
The correspondences that are actually suggested by the evidence (in Pico, Kircher, Allemano), all have much more plausibility than Decker's. They all have Jupiter=Chesed, Mars=Gevurah/Din; and Sun=Tiferet. Saturn is plausible anywhere on the left side of the Tree, that of Judgment. For Pico Netzah meant Eternity and Hod meant Adornment (eternitas and dora) . That would give Pico a plausible motive for making Netzach=Saturn and Hod=Venus. But Venus could also be Netzah=Victory, the victory of love (or eternity of love), and Hod=Praise, can be Mercury. Either Mercury or the Moon is plausible at Yesod, as the mediator between heaven and earth, and either the Moon or the Earth as Malkhut. See my blog http://latinsefiroth.blogspot.com/ under the individual sefirot (the sections on the right of the page) for the justification of these assignments.
One might want to argue that the planets listed for the double letters in the Sefer Yetzirah correspond to the sefirot; but a comparison chart at http://www.psyche.com/psyche/yetsira/sy ... tions.html (which includes the Zohar somehow) shows no order corresponding to the planets that Decker associates with days of the week. The Sefer Yetzirah does assign planets to the days of the week, but in most versions uses the standard Ptolemaic order of the planets to do so, with Saturn as Saturday, Jupiter as Sunday, etc., down to the Moon as Friday (see Kaplan, Sefer Yetzirah, pp. 265, 275-6, 290). The order in all versions is the same as the alphabetical assignment (in Hebrew), none of which fits Decker's order. It is possible that some Kabbalist
somewhere associated the sefirot with the planets in days of the week order, but if so it needs to be shown, given
that all the evidence contradicts that supposition.
For the card
interpretations, Decker decides that the keywords and "synonyms and
related words" given by Etteilla come from a Kabbalist work of the 13th
century, Gikatilla's Gates of Light,
of which a "free" Latin translation (actually, an abridgement) was
published in 1515. Decker says that someone in the early 18th
century must have written down key words and phrases, translating them
into some European language, for each of the ten sefirot (discussed in
each of ten chapters) in the Hebrew edition of the book, establishing a
cartomantic tradition which Etteilla took over for the number cards of
his deck. Decker insists that the Hebrew edition would have been used
because in some cases the correspondences he finds are with modern
translations of biblical verses, at variance with how the relevant verses
were generally understood then, in the Vulgate and other translations.
So whoever was taking notes understood "the subtleties of the Hebrew".
He demonstrates his thesis by comparing the keywords that Etteilla gives
for the number cards with the text of the English translation of Gates of Light and finding correspondences between specific words in both, 100% of the time.
As
usual, there are are problems with Decker's thesis. The words he picks are typically
not those of Etteilla
but of the "synonyms and related words"--including homonyms and
antonyms--added later by his followers. Decker, who may have had access to rare copies of
Etteilla's followers' works, would have made a useful contribution if he
had given a source in one of the followers, but he does not do so. Most probably he used Papus in La Tarot Divinitoire of 1909, who credits Etteilla's one-time pupil d'Odoucet.Thanks to archive.org, we can now verify that Papus's list is indeed that of d'Odoucet of around 1800. So for the 4 of
Cups, Etteilla has "ennui", boredom. D'Odoucet, and Papus, however, also list
"concern". Decker decides
that when Gikatilla says that God "warns" humanity, that is a clear
correspondence to Etteilla. It is perhaps of little use to report that Etteilla himself called d'Odoucet a "dodo", and that the correspondence is rather loose.
Also, many of the words Decker links
the keywords to are not very key to the sefirot at all, but occur in
biblical quotes where the actual word identified has little relationship
to the chapter's main ideas; and they are typically biblical quotes
that Gikatella cites numerous times, in relation to other sefirot. In
fact, as I found by producing a searchable version of "Gates of Light"
on my computer, at least one of the "Etteilla" keywords for most of the
number cards can be found in almost every chapter of the book, and so
relating to almost every sefira. The "correspondences" are just too
numerous to be meaningful.
Occasionally none of the keywords occurs in the relevant chapter of Gates of Light,
for example Etteilla"s keyword "critique" (which Decker translates as
"crisis") for the 8 of Swords. In that case, Decker blithely substitutes
a vaguely related word that does occur in the right chapter of
Gikatilla, e.g. in this case "jealousy". These substitute words are
invariably common biblical words found in many chapters of Gikatilla's
book.
It may be possible to save Decker's thesis in some other
way by reference to Kabbalist works, or other esoteric writings available
in the 18th century . It is at this point only clear that his arguments
as they stand are quite inadequate.
ETTEILLA AND GIKATILLA, MORE THOROUGHLY
From my summary of Decker on the derivation of Etteilla from Gikatilla, I
left out something I want to comment on. Decker says that branches,
i.e. wands, represent duty and work in Gikatilla (corresponding to
"material challenges" in Etteilla); vessels are blessings ("spiritual
blessings" in Etteilla); swords are affliction ("spiritual challenges"
in Etteilla); and coins are blessings ("material blessings" in
Etteilla). Is this true?
Using my searchable version of Gates of Light
I looked at every occurrence there of "branch". Gikatilla speaks of the
sefirot as branches on a tree. He speaks of a palm branch that is
waved in a ritual. He speaks of someone being so angry he uproots a
tree, roots, branches, and all. I do not see duty and work. For "vessel"
Gikatilla speaks of a Babylonian priest pours the contents of vessels
into the mouth of an idol. Gikatilla also speaks of "sacred vessels" and
"vessels for every kind of use". For "cup", God gives a cup of
consolation and also one of poison, i.e. not just blessings but
punishments. I did not find "coin". Yes, swords are affliction. But in
general Decker's correspondences don't amount to much.
Now I want
to see if anything can be salvaged from Decker's herculean attempt to
correlate Etteilla's keywords with a Cabalist source. I have myself done
something similar to what Decker imagines some reader of Gates of Light
having done; that is, I once took notes on the main points of each
chapter in the form of key words, to see if I could find any
correspondences to trump cards (on the side at http://latinsefiroth.blogspot.com/searc ... results=13).
I used the same English translation that Decker used and also the Latin
edition of 1515; even though I don't know Latin, there is enough
similarity to English and what I can look up to find corresponding
phrases. Gikatilla himself seems to encourage such notes, or so it
appears in the Latin version, in which key words are presented in Hebrew
as well as Latin and capitalized.
Below, I have first put
Decker's characterization of Gikatilla. Then I put a summary of my notes
on Gikatilla (see the chapter headings at the side on my blog . Then
come the actual Etteilla keywords, taken from the 3rd Cahier and
Etteilla's first cards; sometimes they are different, in which case I
put both, separated by the sign //.
Malkuth:
Decker has "community (place and governance), kingdom". My notes have:
kingdom; rich when Israel is righteous, or meager when not; expelled and
returned; sphere that governs all creatures, gives life and death,
bequeaths and enriches, brings low and exalts, makes sick and heals;
tabernacle. merciful judgment; well; container.
...Swords................Batons
10
Pleurs (Tears)/Avantage//Evènement fâcheux, qui tournera à profit
(Unfortunate event that turns to advantage).........Trahison
(Betrayal)/Barres (Bars)//Obstacle
.....Cups.....................................................................................................Coins
La ville où l’on est/Pret à perdre (Prepared to lose)//Courroux (Anger).....La maison (House)/Loterie
Conclusion:
it is possible to relate all of these to Malkuth. as the ups and downs
of Israel. "Ville" and "House" relate to Decker's "community".
Yesod:
Decker has "individuality (self and circumstances); foundation". My
notes: foundation, covenant, circumcision, links Malkuth with upper
sefirot, redeeming angel, righteous one, giving justice or care which
Malkuth receives.
......Swords................................................................................................................Batons
9
Ecclesiastique/Se défier, ou Juste défiance (Be wary, or justifiable
wariness)......Retard (Delay)/Traverses (Crossings)//Obstacles
.....Cups.................................Coins
Victoire/Sincérité...................Effet (Appearance)/Duperie (Deception)
Conclusion:
I can see "Ecclesiastique" and "crossings/obstacles" but not the rest:
1/4. I do not see "individuality" in Gikatilla.
Hod:
Decker has "Place of Counsel; honor". My notes: honor, praise, majesty:
carries out decisions from Gevurah, agent of severity. Wages war,
destruction, accepts praise, prayers, submission, affords counsel with
higher powers; place of prophecy.
......Swords..............................................................................................................................Batons
8
Maladie dit de N. (Illness said of N.) Critique//Trahison passée (Past
betrayal)//Incident......Partie de Campagne (Party in the
Country)//Campagne (Country, Campaign)/Disputes Intestine (Internecine
disputes)
..Cups.........................,,,...................................Coins
Fille blonde (blond girl)/Fêtes, Gaieté.............Fille brune/Usure (Usury)//Plus (More)
Conclusion: about half fit, including "campagne" in the sense of military campaign, but that wasn't Etteilla's original thought.
Netzach:
Decker has "place of counsel; victory". My notes: victory; place to
direct prayers for mercy; place of counsel; unmerited benefits; positive
decrees; luck; nurturing of prophecy; grace of Abraham.
......Swords...............................................Batons
7 Esperance (Hope)/Sage(s) Avis..........Caquets (Prattle)//Pour Parler (for speaking, negotiations)/Indécision
.....Cups.....................................................Coins
La pensée (thought)/Projets (Plans)..........Argent (Money)/Inquiétudes (Anxieties)
Conclusion:
these, to the extent they are positive, fit in a vague sort of way.:
1/2 . Decker does not notice that for Gikatilla Hod is negative, Netzach
positive.
Tifereth.
Decker has "central to time and space". My notes: glory or beauty;
combines judgment and mercy; awesome and horrible; delivers positive and
negative decrees.
......Swords............................................Batons
6
Envoyé, Commissionaire (Envoy, Messenger)/Route/Déclaration
d’amour//Declaration..........................Domestique (servant)/Attente (waiting)
.....Cups...............................................Coins
Le passé/L'avenir (the future)............Le présent/Ambitions
Conclusion: swords and batons fit vaguely, so 1/4. Decker's "time and space" is not in Gikatilla at all.
Gevurah.
Decker has "heavenly court, judgment". My notes: judge; fear, severe
judgment, based on merit; informants and prosecutors; place of
destructive angels; emits flames of fire; destructive beasts.
......Swords..........................................Batons
5 Perte (Loss)/Deuil (Grief)...........Or (Gold)/Procès (Trial, Court Case)
.....Cups..................................................................................................Coins
Héritage (Inheritance)/Faux projets (Flawed or bogus plans)//Parent.....Amants ou Maitresse/Manque d'ordre (lack of order)
Conclusion: Gold, inheritance, and lovers don't fit. So about 5/8 appropriate.
Chesed.
Decker has "heavenly court; mercy". My notes: grace, mercy,
loving-kindness, positive commandments, magnificence, granting
exceptions, long-forebearing,
......Swords.......................................................Batons
4 Solitude/Economie (wise administration).....Société (Company, Organization)/ Fleurissement (Flourishing)//Prosperité
.....Cups.................................................................................................Coins
Ennui/Nouvelle
connaissance (New acquaintance or knowledge).........C’est un présent
(It's a gift)/Clôture (Closure, Closed, Enclosure, stuck)
Conclusion: Maybe 1/4 fits.
Binah.
Decker has "Path of Love; understanding." My notes: providence,
foresight, source of life, repentance and return, highest source of
justice, atonement, city of David, gate to upper triad.
.....Swords........................Batons
3
Religieuse (Nun)//Eloignement (Separation)/Effet égaré (Appearing lost
or confused)//Egarement (Misconduct, lost)) ..........Enterprises/ Peine
court à sa fin (Trouble shortly to end)
.....Cups.........................................................................................................Coins
Réussite (success)/Expédition d’affaires (expedition of business)...............Noblesse/Enfant (Child)
Conclusion: maybe 1/2.
Hochma.
Decker has "Path of Love; wisdom". My notes: wisdom, deep thoughts,
will, fear of unworthiness, pleasure, "whoever reaches this place will
be able to do or have whatever he desires", source of river that is
Binah
......Swords.......................................................Batons
2 Amitie
(Friendship)/Amis inutiles ou faux amis, ou parents peu utiles
(Unhelpful or False Friends or Relatives of Little Help)//Faux
(False)..............Chagrin (Sorrow)/Surprise
.....Cups...................................Coins
Amour/Désir ............................Embarrass (Embarrassment)/Lettre (letter, note, document)
Conclusion: 1/4.
Kether.
Decker has "supreme sefira; crown". My notes: source of sources,
beyond thought, joy and rejoicing, pure mercy, source of light.
......Swords......................................................................................................Batons
1
Amour Folle (Crazy Love)//Extrème/Grossesse (Pregnancy.
fecundity).....Naissance (Birth)/Se défier de la première victoire
(Distrust the first victory)//Chute (Fall)
.....Cups......................................................Coins
Table (as in Gastronomy)/Changement......Parfait contentemment/Bourse d'argent (purse of money)
Conclusion: about 3/4 .
Average:
About 5 out of 10. I have no idea whether this is higher than chance or
not. I think that the correlations are not just positive to positive
and negative to negative (for which the probability would indeed be one
half). But there may be influences that affected both Gikatilla and
Etteilla.
The high correspondences between Etteilla and Gikatilla
for the Tens and Aces, which skew the results in a positive way, might be explained as a result of a shared Judeo-Christian
monotheism in the context of an "ascent" narrative at different times
and places. The Aces reflect God, the One, on the descent, and the Tens
reflect the Decad on the ascent, the soul's union with that God.
In
addition, there may be influences from Pythagoreanism, which was very
much part of the Neoplatonic foundation of Kabbalah (according to what I
read in Moshe Idel, Kabbalah in Italy 1280-1510).
The
words on the cards and those added by Etteilla's followers fit slightly
better than Etteilla's in the 3rd Cahier. That suggests to me that he
and his followers might have tried to fit what was not originally Kabbalist into a Kabbalist framework later.
My contention is and
has been that the source for the cartomantic tradition which Etteilla is
reporting for the number cards is Neopythagorean. When Etteilla said at
one point that his source was a "Greek manuscript", he might have meant
the edition, in Greek, of the Theologumena Arithmeticae
printed in Paris in 1543; after all, he was a dealer in printed material acquired in bulk; but he would
have known its contents only vaguely and second or third hand. The
associations in this text seem to me reflected in the cards as early as
the pips of the Sola-Busca (which are only superficially alchemical). I
have worked this out at in the thread "Deciphering the Sola-Busca pips",
starting at viewtopic.php?f=12&t=530.
When I did it, I didn't have the information from the 3rd Cahier; nor
did I use other Pythagorean sources, such as the ones that Decker
applied--correctly in my view--to the trumps.
The odd thing is that while Gikatilla does
not fit the number cards as well as they should, his account of the
sefirot does seem to fit the Tarot de Marseille trumps--a view Decker
explicitly rejects. The Bagatella, as creator god, fits Kether. The
Popess, as wisdom, fits Hochmah. The Empress as understanding mother
fits Binah. The Emperor as pardoner, i.e. mercy over justice, fits
Chesed. The Pope as severe judgment, justice according to merit, fits
Gevurah. The Lover as beauty and glory, balancing severity and love,
fits Tifereth. The Chariot as Victory and all things positive fits
Netzach. Justice as submission to the sword of judgment fits Hod. The
Hermit as redeeming angel and commitment to God fits Yesod. The Wheel as
the bringer of good and evil to God's community fits Malkuth. Papus
made these observations in Tarot of the Bohemians, and he was right.
Papus
did not go any further. But Fortitude, as what is needed in the face of
adversity, also fits Malkuth as the community of Israel. The Hanged Man
as a betrayer does not fit Yesod; but it seems to me that it does fit Yesod as righteousness in the face of institutions, their betrayal to serve a higher good. The father of Francesco Sforza, who probably commissioned our earliest example of a deck with a Hanged Man, the PMB, was Muzio Attendola, whose switch from
the Roman anti-pope to the claimant in Avignon - an act that contributed to resolving the schism- occasioned the anti-pope to denounce him as a traitor and plaster Rome with posters of him hanged upside down, the traditional symbol for betrayal. (For the story see Moakley on the card at http://moakleyupdated.blogspot.com/2017/03/coins-hunchback-through-tower-g-moakley.html. Another example is
Christ's betrayal of institutionalized Judaism, the Sanhedrin, his blood sacrifice as an act of redemption substituting
for circumcision and a new covenant, so a kind of
Christianization of Kabbalah. Death is the destructive power of Hod.
Temperance/Fame is the positive antidote to Death, liberation from the
body into a new body that can ascend. The Devil card corresponds to the
demons of the air, which are both positive and negative, both bearing
the soul up and punishing. The Arrow is the purifying fire of Gevurah's
judgment. The Star (of Christ in the tarot) corresponds to Beatrice's
merciful love in the Purgatorio,
where Dante's soul is given the water of eternal life. The Moon is
where that water comes from (the lake on the card), and so Binah, the
river that flows below. The Sun is the higher destination, beyond the
Moon, where the spirit comes from. The Trumpet is the act of approaching
the goal, in ever increasing joy, and so corresponds to Kether. The
World is the oblivion of the individual spirit as it merges with the
spirit-substance beyond every particularity, the En Sof.
But of
course this has nothing to do with Etteilla, whose order of trumps is
altogether different. At present I have no one theory as to why the
correspondences to the Tarot de Marseille work. The particular order of that tradition may have been chosen with the sefirot in mind; but the two sets of subjects must have been at least close in meaning before that. Perhaps it is a matter of Christian and Jewish steps on the "mystical ladder" to salvation being roughly similar, and both similar to Greco-Roman mystical traditions.
A danger when making correspondences is of making them so loose that something will work no matter how you draw them. But I tried many other combinations, none of which worked, before I realized that the "tree of life" going first down and then up was what fit the TdM order best, even if some of it is strained. It is as though the order were tweaked so as to make it fit. A certain subjectivity
enters in no matter how hard you try to keep it out; so it would be
useful to know other people's impressions, especially for the last 11,
where I go where even Papus feared to tread.
The same seems to me true of the correspondences between the Neopythagorean meanings of the number cards from 1 to 10 and the Etteilla meanings. They, unlike Decker's use of the Gates of Light, fit all the sefirot, and at the same time it is not possible to draw similarly credible correspondences between Neopythagorean meanings for a particular number and the corresponding Etteilla meanings for some other set of four number cards (for each of the four suits). I noticed this while working out the parallels; occasionally they wouldn't work at all. When I investigated further, I invariably discovered that I had pulled one or another set of meanings from the wrong number.
Here I think we have to realize that cartomancy with the regular deck alone was practiced at least as often as with the allegorical cards. In that case, the majority of the cards were number cards, with very little to differentiate them except their number and suit. In this situation numerological associations become primary in a given suit. Numerological distinctions can also apply to the court cards, based on their order in most card games:Jack/Page, Knight, Queen, King. Then when numbers are put on the allegorical cards, in a place such as France where the order is the same everywhere, the same associations that worked for the number cards can work for the allegorical cards, at least up to 10. After 10, there are several possibilities: counting back down to 0, as I have found most natural, repeating the numbers from 1 to 10 over again, or using gematria, which has the effect of reducing 11 to 2, etc. In any case, it is the commonality of the numbers to every card that gives numerology such prominence.
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