The Tower XV1 and the Devil XV - connection?

[robert]

Here's the opening post on the subject from Aeclectic, it has lots of sources connecting Beth-el and House of God and Meteorites.

They were my words, so I don't mind placing them here.


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I posted this in the thread on Tower, but thought I would start a new thread on it as I would really like feedback/insights/leads on it. Does the name "La Maison Dieu" refer to the circles in the sky found on the Tarot de Marseille and the Vieville? Is this card describing meteorites?

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Fundamentally, it's a connection between the words Bethel and Baetyl.

Definition of "Bethel" from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethel_(god)



and



So "Bethel" means "House of God" in Hebrew, seemingly translated as "Baetyl" and "Baitylos" or "Baitylus" or "Baitylia" or "Bætulia", and all indicate a type of magical stone.

From a page on the word Baetyl:
http://www.livius.org/ba-bd/baetyl/baetyl.html


We're beginning to see a pattern here of stone(s) that are worshiped, containing the essence of God. Now another connection:

First line of definition for "Baetylus" on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baetylus


From Wikipedia for "Meteorite"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteorite


From a site about meteorites:
http://www.haberer-meteorite.de/english/Culture%20and%20religion.htm


From the Theosophical Society's page:
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/etgloss/ba-be.htm


Quote from a odd website here:
http://www.quantavolution.org/vol_09/gods_fire_03.htm


If this is true, then we can bring "Thunderbolt" into the discussion as well.

From a site about prehistoric meteorites:
http://www.jjkent.com/articles/China-prehistoric-meteorites.htm


A little more about Sanchuniathon of Berytus mentioned in my first Wikipedia quote above on "Bethel", from this website:
http://phoenicia.org/theomythology.html


So I'm not sure what to make of all of this.. if anything.

Let's look at XVI from the Jacques Vieville and Jean Dodal tarots:



Is it possible that the name "La Maison Dieu" is a literal translation of "Bethel"?

If so, what is the Bethel being depicted? Is it perhaps a reference not to the actual tower itself, but a reference to meteorites?

And if meteorites, is it a reference to the large flaming object in the upper portion of the cards? Or is it to the circular objects along the side? Or Both?

And what of the "Animated Stones", are these just another name, or is there something extra-magical happening?

Is the image in the Vieville a picture of Jacob and his goats, and the Bethel shown as a way to signify Jacob?

And what of the tower? I can't find any connection between Bethel and a tower. So why show the tower at all?

Before starting this tread, I did a search to see if Bethel or Baetyl had been mentioned before.. I found this post earlier in the thread:
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?threadid=21550


I'm not sure what Marcel Picard says, so if anyone has any information on that I would appreciate learning about it.

best,
robert

[robert]

Ps //Anyone here could tell me why can attached images from my image bank computer in it s own size ?

Hi Eugim,

There are limits on the size of images uploaded to the server as attachments. Images can be up to 256k for file size, and maximum display is 500 pixels wide.

Instead of uploading an attachment, many of us use the tags instead. To do that the image must already exist on a webpage somewhere, and you insert the URL of the image between IMG tags like this:

Code: Select all

[img]http://www.tarothistory.com/images/noblet/16.jpg[/img]

.

which results in this:


I hope that helps, let me know if you need more help.

[EUGIM]

Many thanks Robert I will try...

Eugim

[EUGIM]

Once I promised to JMD and he remember me I owe to him,an alchemical point of view of the Tarot de Marseilles,so I copy here which I sent to Steve on Aeclectic....
(So here you get it JMD )

Hello kwaw ...
I think we must have in mind the iconographic differences of the decks.

1-Fire flames going out of the crown of the tower and clearly toward to the Sun: Noblet,Jean Pierre Payen and Dodal.

2-Fire flames coming from the Sun toward to the crown of the tower:Conver and Chosson.

-I think that both groups depicts different conceptual meaning but also crossed related between them.
Fire coming from the tower so returning to the Sun and fire toward the tower from the Sun setting fire to it.
Fire hidden in the Matter as a portion of the Sun being the Sun a depiction of God.Fire as sacred particle of God heritage.
The tower the body of God so the Universe on a macrocosmic sense and the body of the human being on a microcosmic sense.
The purpose is the enlightenment of the matter by the experience so becoming one with the divine intelligence,so then returning to its creator.
-For me XVI card depict the gradual rise of this process as its show to us in the Opus Alchemicum.
So the tower could depict the alchemic athanor,the furnace where the matter is transmutated. (Ours body and the Universe as God s body).

Igne Natura Renovatur Integra (Through fire, nature is reborn whole )

-So which Matter ? // XV LE DIABLE

-But this process begin earlier at XIII where death clean the field for the process of transmutation,continue at XIIII where the Angel balance the new elements resulting for create a new body of experience so the XV card.
-A new body for whom ? / For the recent death XII LE PENDV...
-Then after the alchemic work done at XVI,the women at XVII card LE STOILLE so the Soul (The agent of the transmutation of the matter,the envoy of the Spirit (the fire particle spirit of God ),return the result of this process so the duality of the matter (male/female) to the Primordial Waters for future universe to come after.
-LE BATELEVR have in his right hand the Philosopharum Lapis so the philosophical stone which is the end result of the alchemic work done by him,the Artifex (The Alchemist).

Eugim

[Bernice]

Hello people, connection still slow but I've got in!

First off I want to thank you all for those links (now able to get to them...). Some of those pics are really lovely, aside from the very pertinent historical info. It's confusing me even more now about the House of God . (I wish someone would do a marseille deck in that style.)

These falling stones/metorites, it's a puzzel 'cos there are too many similar images portraying a similar event. I'm guessing that there are currently two basic views, the religous camp, and the disaster camp. But now wondering if the two are one & and the same - it all depends on how one views 'acts of God'. Then and now.

I have a question about the Islamic peoples; did they have very similar beliefs as the Hewbrews? (They're all arabic, I belive ?). Thinking = two versions of same event due to different belif systems. PLUS, neither Hebrews or Islams are Catholic, and the card images were taken up by Catholics (Italy & Spain).

I'm also considering Eugim re. the flames coming from or to the Tower. It's very probable that one of the images is a graphic report of an/the event, and the other is guesswork by those who were not really sure what it was meant to portray. Trying to be logical here... please don't flame me.

Yes le pendu, in the Cary- sheet, it seems to be a cow (?), I've zoomed it up and I think there's two little heads peeping out of the gap where the top's snapped off. Not very clear at all. Frustrating!

Hoping this will post... running slow again.

Bee

[Bernice]

Back to say the link (http://www.quantavolution.org/vol_09/gods_fire_03.htm) is quite astounding. Certainly runs paralell with my conjectures.... But I suppose it will have to be verified.

Bee

[EUGIM]

Hello Bee...
Here there are people more qualified than me for replay to you the link between Hebrews,Christian and Muslim.

-What i really think and best,feel that there is finally a common source.
The prove of that is the best minds of these three cultures meet them together with the Greeks at the same place and time :Alexandria (Egypt ) at the very first centuries.

-With regard to my alchemical point of view of Tarot de Marseilles now comes to my mind the Epistle to the Hebrews Chapter 12 /28-29 :

28- Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:
29 -For our God is a consuming fire.

-The mention of fire as an element or agent of transmutation is widely present at the Bible.
This fire is of the Spirit,so I see the XVI card as an allegory of this.

Eugim

[R.A. Hendley]

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XVI and II (Ms. Pope) still elude me as to their specific historical meanings.

The intended pith of Ms. Pope remains cloaked in a nebulous haze since images of women in Papal crowns were used historically to represent a variety of things, ranging from the Church itself to heretics, to the Whore of Babylon. Her shifting position in the trump sequence amongst the various regional orderings only exacerbate the problem.

As for XVI - it's position in the trump sequence is constant in all the regional orderings, but the name and nature of the image changes greatly (I always liked the demon nabbing the violinist on the Geoffroy ).

The blatant Apocalyptic nature of the third 'tier' of the trump cycle indicates that Revelations or the popular eschatological representations in late medieval art and drama perhaps are the best places to explore. But which apocalyptic event is being shown?

With the possible exception of the Vieville, all the various designs could be simply showing us hell. A tower was certainly a common feature of hell in medieval art and drama. (The Hours of Catherine of Cleves, 1440., has a great image of hell, in which the tower is actually a giant furnace, and the top is a great caldron into which demons are boiling the mutilated bodies of sinners - "Mmm. Soups on boys!!")

This would also result in a nice balance of structure in the third tier -

Devil/Hell....Star/Moon/Sun....Angel/Heaven

or the Bolognese -

Devil/Hell....Star/Moon/Sun....Heaven/Angel



Cheers,

RaH


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[SteveM]

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This would also result in a nice balance of structure in the third tier -

Devil/Hell....Star/Moon/Sun....Angel/Heaven

or the Bolognese -

Devil/Hell....Star/Moon/Sun....Heaven/Angel

Hell or purgatory makes sense to me (purgation fits in with the idea of maison dieu as hospital, paul huson has shown similarity with the towers representing purgatory in medieval plays) - and it does give us the neat symmetry.

Symmetry also highlights the possible reference, not between angel / devil but between the house of God and Judgement:

For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? I Peter 4:17

Car il est temps que le jugement commence par la maison de Dieu; or premièrement par nous, quelle sera la fin de ceux qui n'obéissent point à l'Evangile de Dieu? 1 Pierre 4:17


Fall - the beginning of judgment --- the last judgment - Restoration



House of God = Domus Dei = Maison Dieu. There were varying spellings of Maison Dieu, such mesondieu (for example, the miracle of Theophilus, piers plowman) or maysondieu. For example, the hospital of St. John, Bury St. Edmunds:

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report ... maysondieu

[robert]

I really like the Bologna in this example.

I tend to think of the Angel and the Devil as a pair, and especially when the Angel is in such a large proportion that he seems to be the subject, rather than judgement day itself (to me at least).