THE GREAT SYMBOLS OF THE TAROT
BY ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE
ON the hypothesis that there is or may be a deeper meaning in the
chief Tarot Symbols than attaches thereto on the surface, it becomes
necessary to establish certain preliminary points as an initial
clearance of issues, and I will premise in the first place that by
chief Symbols I mean those only which I have been in the habit of
denominating Trumps Major in other writings on the subject. First
among the preliminary points there is the simple fact that we know
nothing certainly concerning the origin of Tarot cards. As usual,
however, in matters belonging to occult arts and so-called science,
the place of knowledge has been occupied by uncritical reveries and
invention which is not less fraudulent because the fraud may be
frequently unconscious. When the artist Gringonneur, in or about the
year 1393, is affirmed to have produced a set of picture-cards for the
amusement of King Charles VI of France, it has been affirmed that some
of their designs were identical with Tarot Trumps Major. The evidence
is the fact of certain beautiful and antique card-specimens- in all
about twenty-six- which are scattered through different continental
museums and were attributed in the past to Gringonneur. They are now
held to be of Italian origin, more or less in the early years of the
fifteenth century, and there are no extant examples prior to that
period. But to establish this point on expert authority at its value
is not to fix the origin of Tarot cards in respect of date or place.
It is idle, I mean, to affirm that Venetian, Bolognese and Florentine
vestiges of sets allocated to I400-1418 are the first that were ever
designed. In view, however, of the generations of nonsense which we
have heard testifying on the subject; it must be said that it is
equally idle and more mischievous to affirm that they are not. When,
towards the close of the eighteenth century, Court de Gebelin first
drew attention, as a man of learning and an antiquary, to the fact of
Tarot cards, he produced sketches of the Trumps Major in the eighth
volume of Le Monde Primitif. In the form that he had met with
they were not priceless works of art like those in the Bibliotheque
Nationale, but rough, primitive and barbarous, or precisely of that
kind which might be expected to circulate in country places, among
lower classes of players and gamblers, or among gipsies for purposes
of fortunetelling. Supposing that they had been designed and invented
originally about the period mentioned, nearly four centuries had
elapsed, which were more than ample time for them to get into general
circulation throughout the countries in which they were traced by
Court de Gebelin- namely, Southern France, Spain, Italy and Germany.
If the Trumps Major were originally distinct from the minor emblems,
there was also full opportunity for them to be joined together. But
alternatively the designs, perhaps even in several styles, may have
been old already in the year 1400- I am speaking of the Trumps Major-
in which case they were married much later to the fifteenth century
prototypes of our modern playing-cards. It will be seen that the field
is open, but that no one is entitled in reason to maintain either view
unless evidence should be found to warrant it in the designs
themselves, apart from the real or presumptive age of the oldest
extant copies.
Having done something in this summary manner to define the
historical position, the next point is to estimate the validity of
those speculations to which I have referred already. It is not
possible on this occasion, nor do I find that it would serve a
purpose, to do more than recapitulate my own previous decisions,
readied as the result of researches made prior to 1910. The first and
most favoured hypothesis concerning Tarot cards is that they are of
Egyptian origin, and it was put forward by him who to all intents and
purposes may be called their discoverer, namely, Court de Gebelin. It
has been set aside long since by authorities apart from
predispositions and ulterior purposes in view. De Gebelin was an
Egyptologist of his day, when Egyptology was in its cradle, if indeed
it can be said to have been born, and that which he did was to
excogitate impressions and formulate them in terms of certitude. They
have not been borne out, and their doom from the standpoint of sane
scholarship may be said to have been sealed when they fell into the
hands of French occult dreamers and were espoused zealously by them.
The most salient and amazing elaborations were those of Eliphas Levi
in 1856 and onward. The designs were for him not only Egyptian in the
sense of the earliest dynasties, but referable to the mythical Hermes
and to the prediluvian wisdom of Enoch. They formed otherwise the
traditional Book of Adam which was brought to him in Paradise by an
angel, was removed from him at the Fall, but was restored subsequently
in response to his earnest supplications. Eliphas Levi did more,
however, than theorize on the subject. He gave pictorial illustrations
of the cards restored to their proper primeval forms, in which they
appeared as pseudo-Egyptian designs, the work of an amateur hand. The
same practice prevailed after Levi had ceased to publish. It was
developed further by Christian, while long after him, under the
auspices of Oswald Wirth and others, the Trumps Major appear in all the
panoply of imitative Delta art. These things are to all intents and
purposes of dishonest device, but very characteristic unfortunately
after their own manner, for the marriage of speculative occultism and
intellectual sincerity has hardly ever been made in France and seldom
enough elsewhere.
These are the preliminary points which are placed here for
consideration- as I have said, to clear the issues. In the complete
absence of all evidence on the subject, we must be content to carry an
open mind as to where the Tarot originated, remembering that the
earliest designs with which we are acquainted do not connote
antiquity, unless possibly in one case, and unless the early fifteenth
century may be regarded as old enough in the absence of a partis-
pris. The statement obtains also respecting cards of any kind,
including the Baldini emblems, which are neither Tarots nor counters
for divination, or games of chance.
I satisfied myself some years ago, and do not stand alone, that
the Trumps Major existed originally independently of the other arcana
and that they were combined for gambling purposes at a date which it
is possible to fix roughly. I am concerned only on the present
occasion with what may be called the Great Symbols. They are twenty-
two in number, and there is no doubt that some of them correspond to
estates and types. The Emperor and Empress, the Pope and Juggler
belong obviously to this order, hut if we put them back speculatively
even to medieval times we cannot account in this manner for the
so-called Pope Joan or High Priestess. She must be allocated to
another sequence of conditions, under another scheme of of human
community at large. It is to be noted that though Venetian,
Florentine, and French packs differ somewhat clearly, between narrow
limits of course, Pope Joan has never been termed the Abbess in any,
nor can I recall that she has been so depiicted that such a
denomination could apply and thus include the design among
ecclesiastical estates in Christendom. She comes, therefore, as I have
intimated, from another region and another order of things. This is
the one Tarot Trump Major which suggests a derivation from antiquity,
not however in the sense of Court de Gebelin, who referred it to Isis,
but to an obscure perpetuation of pagan faith and rite in Italy which
the inquiries of Leland seem to have established as a matter of fact.
In this case, and at the value of his researches, on which I have
commented elsewhere, Pope Joan represents not improbably a vestige of
the old Astarte cultus. I do not pretend to be satisfied with the
explanation, but it may be accepted tentatively perhaps and does not
necessarily carry the question of antiquity behind mediaeval times. In
the midst of all the obscurity, one only point emerges in all
certainty: whatever the card may have stood for originally, it was not
the mythical female pope, an ascription which arose as a leap in the
dark of ignorance on the part of people- whether in France or Italy-
who knew the Pope Joan legend but had never heard of Astarte and much
less of Isis. I should regard it as a rather old leap.
I have spoken of classification under types, estates or classes,
but it obtains only in respect of a few designs, seeing that the
majority of the Trumps Major are occasionally allegorical and in
several cases can be understood only as belonging to a world of
symbols, while a few are doctrinal in character- in the sense of crude
Christian doctrine. The Resurrection card and the Devil belong to this
last class. Death, on the other hand, is a very simple allegorical
picture-emblem, like the Lovers, Justice and Strength. The symbolical
cards, which must be so termed because certainly they do not
correspond to the admitted notions of allegory, are the Hanged Man,
Chariot, the so-called card of Temperance, the Tower, the Star, the
Sun and Moon, and that which passes under several names, one of which
is the World. The Wheel of Fortune is seemingly of composite
character, partaking of both allegory and symbolism, while the Fool is
very difficult to class. On the surface he may be referable to that
estate which inhabits the lowlife deeps- the mendicant and vagabond
type. He suggests the Italian lazzaroni, except that he
carries a wallet, as if he were on his way through the world. He
recalls, therefore, the indescribable rabble which followed the
armies in crusading and later times. He is the antithesis of the
Juggler, who flourishes at the expense of others by following a
knavish trade, or who profits alternatively by the ]ower kind of
skill.
When Court de Gebelin described the Trumps Major in connection
with the rest of the Tarot pack, he gave an account of their use in
games of hazard, but he had heard also of their divinatory value and
was at some pains to ascertain the process by which they were adapted
to this purpose, in which way he is our first authority for the
traditional meanings of the cards as counters in the telling of
fortune. He represents in this manner another landmark in the obscure
history of the subject. It is to be assumed that his knowledge was
confined to the practice in France, and there are no means of knowing
whether Spain, Italy and Germany followed other methods at that time.
I believe that Alliette or Eteilla varied the divinatory meanings on
the threshold of the nineteenth century in accordance with his own
predilections, as he altered the Trumps Major themselves in respect of
their arrangement and changed the original names in certain cases. In
the year 1856, as we have seen, Eliphas Levi began to issue his occult
revelations, based largely on the Trumps Major, developing their
philosophical meanings in a most elaborate manner. They are at times
exceedingly suggestive and always curious, but it must be understood
that in occult matters he depended solely on personal intuitions and
invention. There was a time, over twenty years since, when I was led
to think otherwise, in view of evidence which has proved worthless on
further and fuller investigation. Levi said on his own part that he
owed his "initiation" only to God and his personal researches, but
some of his French admirers have not hesitated, this notwithstanding,
to alfirm his direct connection with Masonic Rites and Orders. The
question does not signify, for initiations of this kind would not have
communicated occult knowledge. It follows that his Tarot System- if
such it can be called- is at best a work of ingenuity but often a
medley of notions, and it owes, so far as can be ascertained, nothing
whatever to the past which extends behind Court de Gebelin. The point
is not without importance, because he speaks with an accent of great
authority and certitude. when P. Christian went still further in
L'HOMME ROUGE DES TUILERIES and in his HISTOIRE DE LA MAGIE, the same
criticism applies, as there is no need to say that it does in the
laboured excogitations of Papus, Stanislas de Guaita and others of the
French school.
Now, there are twenty-two Trumps Major arranged. more or less in a
sequence but subject to certain variations as the packs differ
respecting time and place of origin. There are also twenty-two letters
of the Hebrew alphabet, and it occurred to Eliphas Levi that it was
desirable to effect a marriage between the letters and cards. It seems
impossible to make a combination of this kind, however arbitrary, and
not find some accidents in its favour, and there is better authority
in Kabalism than Eliphas Levi ever produced in writing to connect the
Hebrew letter Beth with the so-called Pope Joan or Sovereign Priestess
of the Tarot. But he was concerned very little with any root in
analogy, or he might have redistributed the Trumps Major, seeing that
their sequence is- as I have said- subject to variation in different
sets and that there seems no particular reason to suppose that any
arrangement of the past had a conscious purpose in view. In this
manner he might have found some curious points by taking the old
Yetziratic classification of the Hebrew letters and placing those
cards against them which corresponded to their conventional
allocations. It was sufficient, however, for his purpose that there
are twenty-two letters and twenty-two palmary symbols, and if he
remembered, he cared nothing apparently for the fact that the
numerical significance of Hebrew letters belies his artificial
combination after the letter Yod. We can say if we choose that the
eleventh Trump is that which is called Strength, though it depends on
the arrangement adopted in the particular pack; but the letter Caph is
not eleven in the alphabet, for it corresponds to the number 20. Death
is the thirteenth card and seems placed well in the Tarot sequence
because thirteen is the number of mortality; but the letter Nun is 40
and has no such fatal connection. The folly of the whole comparison is
best illustrated by the card which is called the Fool and is not
numbered in the series, the cipher Nought being usually placed against
it. In Levi's arrangement it corresponds to the letter Shin, the
number of which is 300. But wherever it is placed in the series the
correspondence between Trumps Major and the Hebrew alphabet is ipso
facto destroyed.
It is to be noticed further that Levi allocated meanings to each
letter individually of the Hebrew alphabet, but they are his own
irresponsible invention, except in two or three very obvious cases-
e.g., that Beth, the second letter, corresponds to the duad,
Ghimel to the triad, and Daleth to the tetrad. It may be
interesting to note that his number 15, which answers to the Tarot
symbol of the Devil, is explained to be so-called occult science, an
eloquent tribute to his own fantastic claims in respect of the subject
which he followed. As an explanation unawares it is otherwise of some
value, for there is of course no ordered occult science, though there
are certain forms of practice which bring into operation those psychic
powers of which we know darkly in the way of their manifestation only,
and it is a matter of experience that they are more likely to open the
abyss rather than the Path to Heaven.
Levi's instituted connection between Tarot cards and the Hebrew
alphabet bas proved convincing to later occultism in France and
elsewhere. He is also the originator of another scheme which creates a
correspondence of an equally artificial kind between the four suits,
namely, Clubs, Cups, Swords and Pantacles; which make up the Lesser
Arcana of the Tarot, and the Ten Sephiroth of Kabalistic
theosophy. Because of the number four it was inevitable that in a mind
like his they should be referred to the four letters of the Sacred
Tetragram- Jod, He, Vau, He- which are commonly pronounced
Jehovah. It is the uttermost fantasy as usual, as exhibited by his
attempted identification of Jod with Clubs, while Cups and
Pantacles or Deniers are both coerced into correspondence with the
letter He. As regards the constituent cards of the four suits, even
his ingenuity failed to discover a ground of comparison between the
Sephiroth and the Court-cards, so he offers the following couplet as a
commentary on the King, Queen, Knight and Knave or Squire:
The married pair, the youth, the child, the race:
Thy path by these to unity retrace.
But this comes to nothing, for the Knight is not necessarily a youth,
nor does the ancient or modern Jack correspond to the idea of a child.
Had Levi understood Sephirotic Kabalism better, again he could have
done better by affiming- as it would have been easy for him- that the
French damoiseau had replaced a primitive damoislle,
the Squire Court-card being really feminine. He could then have
allocated correctly as follows: the King to Chokmah, the Queen
to Binah, the Knight to the six lower Sephiroth from
Chesed to Yesod inclusive, governed by the
semi-Sephira Daath, and the Damoiselle to
Malkuth. He would have found also this manner a complete
correspondence between these Trumps Minor and the four letters of the
Tetragram. Finally, he would have established the operation of the
Sacred Name in the four Kabalistic worlds and would have exhibited the
distinctions and analogies between Shekinah in transcendence and the
Shekinah manifested in life and time. But Levi was the magus of a
world of fancy and not of a world of knowledge.
He found his opportunity, however, with the so-called pips, points
or numbered cards, for he had the clear and talismanic fact that there
are ten numbered cards in each suit, while the Sephiroth are also ten.
But because there is no other correspondence in the nature of things
he did badly enough in the development and produced the following
nonsense rhymes, which are borrowed from the literal translation that
I have made elsewhere.
Four signs present the Name of eVery name.
Four brilliant beams adorn His crown of flame.
Four rivers ever from His wisdom flow.
Four proofs of His intel]igence we know.
Four benefactions from His mercy come.
Four times four sins avenged His justice sum.
Four rays unclouded make His beauty known.
Four times His conquest shall in song be shown.
Four times He triumphs on the timeless plane.
Foundations four His great white throne maintain.
One fourfold kingdom owns His endless sway,
As from His crown there streams a fourfold ray.
In this manner the four Aces correspond to Kether because
it is the first Sephira in the mystery of coming forth from
Ain Soph Aour, the Limitless Light; the four twos to
Chohmah, four threes to Binah and so forward till the
denary is completed. But what is to be understood by the four proofs
of Divine Understanding, the four Divine Benefactions and the sixteen
sins which are avenged by Geburah or Justice we know as little
as of the reason for believing that the Divine Victories shall be
celebrated only four times in song, or how in the philosophy of things
it is possible to triumph four times on a plane where no time exists.
If Eliphas Levi could have furnished the omitted explanations, it is
certain that Zoharic Kabalism knows nothing about them.
At the back of all these reveries is the well-known fact that the
Ten Sephitoth are inter-connected in the Kabalistic Tree of Life]
by means of twenty-two paths, to which the Hebrew letters are
attributed, Kether communicating with Chokmah by the
Path of Aleph, with Binah by that of Beth, and so
downward. A diagram showing these allocations was published by
Athanasius Kircher in OEDIPUS OEGYPTIACUS. The allocation of the Tarot
Trumps Major to the Paths of the Tree of Life is obviously the next
step, and attempts have been made in this direction by blundering
symbolists, but they have forgotten that in the Mystical Tree the
Sephiroth are also Paths, making thirty-two Paths of Wisdom,
from which it follows that in the logic of things there ought to be
thirty-two Trumps.
The study of the Tarot has been pursued since the days of Levi in
France, England and America, the developments being sometimes along
lines established by him and sometimes the result of an independent
departure. Speaking generally, he has been followed more or less. I
have shown that his allocations are for the most part without any
roots in the real things of analogy, while as to later students of the
subject all that they have to offer is ingenuities of their own
excogitation. We have to recognize, in a word, that there is no canon
of authority in the interpretation of Tarot symbolism. The field is
open therefore: it is indeed so open that any one of my readers is
free to produce an entirely new explanation, making no appeal to past
speculations: but the adventure will be at his and her own risk and
peril as to whether they can make it work and thus produce a harmony
of interpretation throughout. The sentence to be pronounced on
previous attempts is either that they do not work, because of their
false analogies, or that the scheme of evolved significance is of no
real consequence. There is an explanation of the Trumps Major which
obtains throughout the whole series and belongs to the highest order
of spiritual truth: it is not occult but mystical; it is not of public
communication and belongs to its own Sanctuary. I can say only
concerning it that some of the symbols have suffered a pregnant
change. Here is the only answer to the question whether there is a
deeper meaning in the Trumps Major than is found on their surface.
And this leads up to my final point. If anyone feels drawn in
these days to the consideration of Tarot symbolism they will do well
to select the Trumps Major produced under my supervision by Miss
Pamela Coleman Smith. I am at liberty to mention these as I have no
interest in their sale. If they seek to place upon each individually
the highest meaning that may dawn upon them in a mood of reflection,
then to combine the messages, modifying their formulation until the
whole series moves together in harmony, the result may be something of
living value to themselves and therefore true for them.
It should be understood in conclusion that I have been dealing
with pictured images; but the way of the mystics ultimately leaves
behind it the figured representations of the mind, for it is behind
the kaleidoscope of external things that the still light shines in and
from within the mind, in that state of pure being which is the life of
the soul in God.
---
Scanned from the periodical "The Occult Review", Vol. XLIII, No. 1;
Jan. 1926. Formatted and corrected by hand.