«The thing which immediately impress me, in the Tarots, is number 22, which is exactly the number of the letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Then is it possible to question whether this is not by chance that we owe our twenty-two Cabalistic figures to the Hebrews.»
The stream of thought arrives at its conclusion and sees in the tarots the representation of the Jewish Cabala’s wisdom.
These are interpreted in the tarots term an evident connection with rota (wheel), the ‘wheel’, from which ‘tarot’ and ‘Torŕ’.
The other works of Eliphas Lévi which have been of great interest up to the present time are : The key of Great Mysteries, The Knowledge of the Spirits, Paradoxes of the Supreme Science, of this last work we bring up some scraps:
CABALA
(Oswald Wirth, The Tarots)
The symbols contained in the iconography of some cards of tarots were found also in the prophecy of Ezekiel of St. John.
We can also make a hypothesis that the Tarots, in an archaic level, could be the medals from which, successively, fabricated talismans. In fact, the clavicles, or small keys of Solomon, they are thirty-six talismans which carry sixty-two seals analogous to the hieroglyphic figures of the tarots.
These seals, would take part, besides, of the book of twenty-two roads, and their explanation can be found in the text attributed to Abraham, or the Sepher Jézirah.
«The concepts expressed by means of numbers and letters are incontestable reality. They connect and agree like the very same numbers. They proceed logically from one to another. A man is a son of a woman, but the woman comes from a man like the number of the unity. The woman clarifies Nature, the nature reveal the authority, creating the religion which serves as a foundation of liberty and renders human the master of himself, of the universe, etc. Provide yourself a deck of tarots (but I believe that you already have one) and arrange it in two series of ten allegorical cards numbered from one to twenty-one. You will see all the figures which describe letters. As for the numbers from one to ten, you will find the explanation, repeated four times, with the symbols of wand, or a father’s sceptre, the cup of mother’s delight, the sword, or fight for love, and the pentacles, or fecundity. The Tarots are the hieroglyphic book of thirty-two roads, and their summary explanation can be found in the book attributed to Abraham, the patriot who is called Sepher Jézirah[…]
It is from this book from which our decks of cards derived. The Spanish cards bring with them the principle signs of primitive tarots, and they are served for playing the game of Phombre, that is to say, of Human, the vague reminiscence of the primitive use of a mysterious book containing the regulating stages of all human divinity.
The most antique tarots were of the medals of which, later, the talismans were made. The clavicles, or small keys of Solomon, consist of thirty-six talismans which carry sixty-two seals analogous to the hieroglyphic figures of the tarots. These figures, altered by copyistsi, found on the antique clavicles of which manuscripts can be studied in the libraries. One of these manuscripts can be found in National Library and the other in the Library of Arsenal. The only genuine manuscripts of the clavicles are those which contain the series of thirty-six talismans with thirty-six mysterious names; the others, although they are antique, belong to the fantasy of black magic and nothing but mystifications.
You can see, for the explanation of Tarots, my Dogma and ritual of white magic.»
These words were given by Alphonse Louis Constant, or Eliphas Lévi (see picture), born in Paris in1810. He studied in a school directed by ecclesiastics, the seminary of Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet, for being conducted later to follow a religious path.
He became a deacon, but a young female student, Adéle Allenbach, awoke sentiment and love in him, as much as making him marry her in cassock. As a consequence of such event his mother committed suicide and he fell into profound suffering. He was interested in precarious works and he also joined a socialist party, which brought him into prison for three times. In 1846 he married Noémi Cadiot, who abbandoned him in 1853, opening definitively the interest in the esoterism in him, also by means of the contacts with a socialist tendency group of the French Masonry.
He knew consequently the great Polish occultist, Hoëné Wronski, through whom he learned the mysteries of the Cabala and of numerology, and transformed his own name into Eliphas Levi Zahed. A channel of study and research, above all, was selected from a French ex-priest: the Cabala (mystical Hebrew technique).
The last years of his life in Paris were the most prolific from literary production viewpoint.
«Living is suffering; know how to live is being happy.
Love is obligate; know how to love is to dominate.
Speak is to make noise; know how to speak makes a melodious voice.
Search is tormenting; know how to search is finding.
Use is often abuse; know how to use is to be amused.
Practice magic is for imposter; learn magic is for the Thinker.
Believe without knowing is for the insane;know without believing is for the senseless; the true knowledge brings faith with it.
The one who knows has no motive to doubt; when the Spirit stops doubting the truth ceases hesitating then the human gets what he is longing».
Subsequently, Eliphas Lévi, in 1855, in the Dogma of the High Magic and in the Ritual of the High Magic, described the 22 Great Arcana as emanation of 22 letters of Hebrew alphabet, making a clear reference to the Cabala, creating a seal in the seal.
The Group known as Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Papus, as well as the Cabalistic group, confirmed in their book The Tarots of Gipsies that the tarots were characterized by a strong imprint derived from this mystical Hebrew technique.
Neither this theory has convinced the historians, and this has been pushing us to search for the other…
