Hello,

mmfilesi wrote:I don't believe the tarot is influenced by Kabbalah. The speech of the tarot is essentially Christian

Though I agree on the non-influence of Kabbalah on early Tarot, the Christian argument doesn't seem to work

Pico della Mirandola wrote:vidi in illis – testis est Deus – religionem non tam Mosaicam quam Christianam

So the reason why (christian) Kabbalah could not have influenced Tarot comes from the fact that Christian Kabbalah may have appeared a bit too late to influence Tarot, not because of Tarot's mainly Christian nature. Yet, even regarding the dates (very end of the XVth century) this argument is still arguable - as it may possibly have influenced some later developments of Tarot, even in a totally Christian context - although we face a nearly complete absence of evidence and facts.
This cabalistic influence nevertheless clearly happened several centuries later with the occultists at the end of XVIIIth and/or in the XIXth century - which is out of the scope of the current thread since the trumps had been fixed to 22 since a long time (and probably from the beginning, by which I not only mean that 22 trumps should be one of the parameters that define a Tarot deck - what a convenient though extremely lazy trick !)

Bertrand

the Christian argument doesn't seem to work

You think that St. Augustine, Boethius, Petrarch, the dances of death, madness as sin, virtue, millennialism, the devil, hell ... are not Christians? Why not, friend?

Marcos, melted by the heat, 48 hours before Spain's victory over Germany.

Aloha-

Perhaps you are familiar with the story of how Socrates became a philosopher?
We’ll have to take Plato’s word on the subject, but it goes something like this-

One day Socrates realized he knew Nothing.
So he sought out the ‘greatest’ philosophers of his Time
& they each told him a bunch of ‘stuff’
but none of them were aware that they knew nothing.

Thus, Socrates realized he was already a better philosopher than any of them could ever be.



Now, I’ve a suggestion-

Try the card trick outlined in this link: http://yzygy.blogspot.com/2010/06/borro ... gs-23.html
‘Solve’ the puzzle & ‘See’ for yourself. You may not agree with my conclusions, but you will at least have a basis for Understanding the nature of these Inquiries.

Who knows, you may even find Huck’s missing number...

-Mahalo

I reckon the reason there is no Cabbala in the tarot trumps, or any sort of deep philosophical (or political) message is that this game appears to be a product of popular culture based around already established themes and structures. The game seems to be in the form of a triptych (just like the church alter) and has all the usual suspects from the popular entertainments of the time. Even the trump's function as a moral allegory is surely because such moral allegories were popular, not because the designer was trying to give the people some moral guidance. Most probably the designer got the idea for the game from his mistress.

The rather unsophisticated nature of the trumps also suggests the game originated from the people, not the courts, with mass produced decks coming before the fancy court versions.

Good evening,

mmfilesi wrote:You think that St. Augustine, Boethius, Petrarch, the dances of death, madness as sin, virtue, millennialism, the devil, hell ... are not Christians? Why not, friend?

Sorry Marcos, I really didn't made myself clear - blame me writing a poor english ! I simply meant that the Christian origin is not opposed to Kabbalah, as proven by Pico - hence the Christian origin can't per se be discards a potential Kabbalah influence - hypothetical influence that I don't buy at all, since, just like you, I'm more inclined to believe the Tarot was based on 22 trumps before a Christian Kabbalah existed, so the conclusion is quite the same, "22" probably comes from elsewhere.

Let me try it in spanish as I have to rehearse before holidays :
Lo siento, Marco, no hice claro - mala Inglés que escribo ! Querío decir que el origen cristiano no se opone a la Cábala, como lo prueba Pico - de ahí, el origen cristiano tambien no puede oponerse a una posible influencia de la Cabalá - influencia que no creo posible, ya que creo que el Tarot fue creado con 22 triunfos antes que la Cábala cristiana existía, tal que tu. Entonces las conclusiónes son completamente iguales : no podemos encontrar origenes al 22 en la Kabbalah.

Bertrand

a) Perfect, sorry, Bertrand. Now I understand your position.

Well... I'm no expert in Kabbalah. But I think the influence in the Christianity in the early fifteenth century is very low.

In any case, its true that, in the late century, authors such as Pico della Mirandola combined Christianity with Kabbalah... [But pursued him for this reason. I find more influence of Neoplatonism that the Kabbalah (in the Christianity)]. Thats mind, if we accept the Huck hypothesis of 5x14 aka chess theory, then the hypothesis of 22 as a result of Kabbalah gaining strength. Arround 1480 is a good time to think about the influence of Kabbalah in northern Italy, especially in the courts of Ferrara, Florence and Pesaro.

**********

I have to rehearse before holiday

If you go to Madrid, here you have a friend Edit. I send you my mail for pm.

*********

Hi Hendley!

got the idea for the game from his mistress

Or for her [hypothetical] daughter

Marcos,
40 hours before Spain's victory over Germany ^^.

The symbolism of the number 22 as a number of completeness in Christian tradition is founded upon the 22 books of the OT in the Alexandrian canon, and 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet - this symbolism does not rest upon kabbalistic sources, though it may inform it, and can be found discussed in Christian fathers such as Jerome and Augustine and on. This symbolism of the number 22 representing completeness or 'fullness of wisdom' may well have played a role in the structuring of various texts, such as Augustine's 22 books of the City of God, or the late (14th/15th Century? Don't remember of hand) division of revelations into 22 parts. This does not necessitate a one to one correspondence between the parts of those various texts and individual letters however.


The twenty two signifies the fullness of wisdom, and so many are the Characters of the Hebrew letters, and so many Books doth the old Testament contain.

Cornelius Agrippa, Occult Phiosophy, Vol II, Chap. XV

Yngwë Yngweron wrote: One day Socrates realized he knew Nothing.
...
Try the card trick outlined in this link: http://yzygy.blogspot.com/2010/06/borro ... gs-23.html
‘Solve’ the puzzle & ‘See’ for yourself. You may not agree with my conclusions, but you will at least have a basis for Understanding the nature of these Inquiries.

Who knows, you may even find Huck’s missing number...

... .-) ... what's this? Resignation in the number riddle?

Yes, somehow the missing number is at your site, but I would say, in forms, in which it is too complex to see anything ... and the elegance, which simple things usually have, is missing.

Well, the author of SY spoke of 32 ways ... from which he gave 22 to the alphabet and 10 to the numbers from 1-10, in other words to the "10 Sephiroth".

You'd correctly analyzed, that 32 - 72 - 127 would be "interesting numbers", which the author (I mean the author which produced the version, which was used by Golden Dawn) intentionally constructed - reasons unknown (well, you seem to pretend, that you know there an answer).

With that you've used the 22 elements, and transformed them to a ...
231 = 32 + 72 + 127
... , but what about the numbers 1-10, which definitely also belong to the theme, which the author of SY definitely had?

You present the 22 elements with the number 231, which is just another way to show the sum of ...

0+1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14+15+16+17+18+19+20+21

... and now you have another group called "10 sephiroth" and you don't have any idea, what you have to do with them to get the hidden 4th number?

Well, there are two solutions and both might be right, but if you think a little longer, why one seems better than the other, you might detect the reason for the 72 and why one solution is really better than the other.

Well, it's interesting to observe in this question, that ...

1+2+3+4+5+6 = 21
and 1+2+3+4 = 10

Well, it's only a number game.

SteveM wrote:The symbolism of the number 22 as a number of completeness ...

Very interesting Steve. However, I don't find much 22 in Christian art. If the 22 had been present in Christian thought, should have appeared more times. (As it appears on 3, 9, 12 ...). No?

It appears more in literature, which makes sense if the designer was a poet, as many designers of games at the time were. This would also account for the literal punning some see in the imagery.