PROPHETICAL, EDUCATIONAL
AND PLAYING CARDS
![[Larger Image]](#7106047633859301326_frontis.jpg.id-4953868870534928770.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
Atouts of an Early Italian Pack of Tarots
|
1 Il Bagattel 2 La Papessa 3 L’Imperatrice |
4 L’Imperatore 5 Il Papa 6 Gli Amanti |
Prophetical, Educational
and
Playing Cards
By
MRS. JOHN KING VAN RENSSELAER
Author of
“The Devil’s Picture Books,” Etc.
LONDON
HURST & BLACKETT, Ltd.
PATERNOSTER HOUSE
1912
PRINTED BY
THE GEORGE H BUCHANAN COMPANY
Philadelphia, U. S. A.
The Oracle of Ishtar and Nebo
Uttered by a Woman Baya (or Witch)
a Native of Arabela
|
“I proclaim it aloud—What Has Been Will Be— I am Nebo—The Lord of the Writing Tablet— Glorify Me.” |
CONTENTS
| [Chapter I]—Prophetical and Other Cards | [27-57] |
| Divining cards—Tablets of fate—Tarots—Gambling cards—Their difference—Persiancards—Oldest emblems—Standard packs of Tarots—German designs—French designs—Rougeet Noir—Persia and Sweden—Writers on cards—The three gods—Derivation of name—Mercury and his predecessors—Writerof E-Sigalia—Fortune-telling—The priest of Thoth—Speech—Italian Tarots—L’Ombre—From leaves to cards—Attributesof Mercury—Atouts—de Gebelin—From arrows to cards—Gambling sticks of King Qa—Rods—Devices—Argiphontes—Cylleniusor Agoneus—Caduceator—Chthonius—The study of cards—Rods—Many authorities—Papus—Temple at Baiæ—Bookof Thoth—Addha-Nari—Heraldry—Tradesmen’s signs—Lady Mary WortleyMontagu—Terminus—Cestus—Pigs and tongues—Gazelle—Number Thirteen—Joker. | |
| [Chapter II]—The Book of Thoth, Hermes, and Nebo | [58-71] |
| Its leaves—Mercury’s attributes—Il Matto—Nebo—Tablets of fate—The Atouts—Theirsignificance—de Gebelin—Egyptian deities—Parchment records—Thoth the framer of laws—Bible of the gypsies—Attributes ofMercury—Interpretation—Balaam—The “baru”—Tête-á-Têtemysteries—The pack—L’Ombre—Skus—Pagat—Austrian Taroks—The romance of a pack of Tarots—Austriangames—Austrian game books—A clergyman on cards. | |
| [Chapter III]—Mercurius | [72-93] |
| The rank of Mercury—His occupations—His statues—Cadueceus—The purse bearer—Thesword—The cup of Hermes—The four symbols—Nebo’s temple—E-Sigalia—Pozzuoli—Itsmerchants—The Serapeon—Serapis—Roman villas—The temple of Mercury at Baiæ—Mercurius—His work—His parentage—HisInfancy—Gifts from the gods—Golden-leaved rod—Wings—The planet—Differentcognomens—Representations—Thoth—Inventions—Priests—Sirius—Hermes introduced by the Pelasgi—Booksof Thoth—Inventor of games—Great teacher—Titles of books—Connection with cards—Their scientific arrangement. | |
| [Chapter IV]—Thoth | [94-108] |
| M. Maspero’s description of temple—Mr. Rawlinson’s account—Psammetchas—Neboand Thoth—Symbols—The month—Its device—Tablet of Khufu or Cheops—Hieroglyphicallydescribed—Names of gods—Qualities and titles of Thoth—At judgment seat—Sacrifices—Books—Colleges—Priestessof Thoth—Khufu—Thotmes—Cleopatra’s needles—Generations of priests—Gypsies—Hermeticbooks—The ghosts—Book of knowledge—Itsboxes—Magical texts—Amulets—Ritual of the dead—Hall of two truths—Osiris—Confession—ThreeWritings—King of Sais—The dumb children—Some of the books of Thoth—The temple—Wall pictures—Origin of Atouts. | |
| [Chapter V]—Nebo or Nabu | [109-123] |
| Chaldean god—Different names—Parent—Wife—Presides at birth and death—Swordas symbol—Assyrian gods—King’s temples—Protector—Hymn to Nebo—Borsippa—E-Zida—Greatlibrary—Invocations—Titles—Emblems—Stylus—God of Revelations—Nabi,Naypes or prophet—Mr. Chatto’s derivation—Early cards in Italy—Planet—Assyrian gods identical with Roman gods—TheMoon—The month—Dog star—Sacrifices—Card emblems—Boar—Temples—Cult—Nebuchadnezzar—Allwise—Asshurbanipal—Assyrian invasion—Mingling of cults—Highway of Egypt—Cuneiform inscriptions—Tablets—Texts—Hymnto Nabu—Origin of letters. | |
| [Chapter VI]—The Atouts of the Tarots | [124-174] |
| Consultation of the divinities—Wave offerings—Prayers—Priests and Priestess—Hermeticbooks—Ishtar—Rods—Jackstraws—Rites—Graven images—Divining arrows—L’Ombre—Egyptiangods on the cards—Number One—The Pagat—Quotation—Baton de Jacob—Meaning of Rod—Choice of theboy—Lottery Chart—Aleph—Meaning—Bohasand Jakin—Initiation of youth—Tablets of fate—Korean superstitions—Fringes of temple—Numbers or letters—NumberTwo—La Papesse—Isis—Emblems—Qualities—Eve—Derivation of name—deGebelin—Juno—Emerald Tablet—Mr. Willshire—Juno’s worshippers—Ritual ofdead—Beth—Number Three—The Empress—Maut—Attributes—Significances—Figure—Gimel—Dress—Girdle—Titles—NumberFour—Emperor—Ammon—Daleth—Persian cards—Titles—Invocation—Number Five—LePapa—Phthah—Attributes—Hands—Fatima—Number Five’s Meaning—NumberSix—Lovers—Cupid—Significance—Vau—Symbolism—Number Seven—Chariot—Mysticmeanings—Zain—Arrows—Marked Yes and No—Chinese sticks—Mercury—Pythagoras—Theoccult seven—Three ages of the world—Seven evil spirits—Hymn to them in Assyric—Seven in the Bible—Otherreferences to that number—Number Eight—Justice—Ma or Truth—The Judge—Attributes—Tiemei—Heth—Ceres—Cups—NumberNine—The Hermit—Aspect—Diogenes—Significance—Rod—Texts—Typicalof shelter—Teth—Number Eight—Rota, Wheel of Fortune—Osiris—Anubis—Typhon—TheCircle—Wheels of Ezekiel and Pythagoras—Yod—Termius—Use of Yod—Anubis called the Lord of Burying Ground—Asjackal—Number Eleven—Strength—Mystic hat—Una—Amazons—Kaph—Goddess Neith—Emblems—Inscription on hershrine—Brides—Number Twelve—Il Pendu—Hangedman—Freemason’s signals—Pagat—Lamed—Its meanings—Vulcan—NumberThirteen—Death—Skeleton—Proverb—Horse of Aurora—Bad luck—Its reasons—Memand its meanings—Number Fourteen—Temperance—Nut or Nepte—Titles and description—Nun—Oil—Oblations—NumberFifteen—Devil—Set or Sutech—Parents—Title of Hyksos kings—Ears—Zam—Significances—NumberSixteen—Tower—Lighting god—Castle of Plutus—Rameses II and the thieves—Bael—Enlil—SecondDynasty of Ur—Dr. Radau’s translations—Goddess Nin-Mar’s hymn—Ayin—Number Seventeen—The stars—Dog star—Nebo’smountain—Hebe—Oblations—Gazelle—Typification—Number Eighteen—La Lune—Attributes—Tzaddi—Diana—NumberNineteen—The sun—Zoph—Ra and Rameses—Number Twenty—Day of Judgment—Resh—Significance—Pluto—Ishtar—Epitaphof Lord de Ros—Number Twenty-one—Le Monde—Verity—Four Apostolic emblems—Their manifold meanings—Tau—Le Fou orthe Joker—Mat—Emblems—Shin—Gypsies—Early Tarots—Intention of Atouts—Bible of Gypsies. | |
| [Chapter VII]—Pips of the Tarot Pack | [175-195] |
| Suits—Court cards—German, Spanish, Italian and French cards—Emblems of Mercury—Fourcastes—Lucky devices—Addha—Nari—Phallus—Cteis—Vau—Jod-He-Vau-He—Diviningarrows—Golden rod—Numbers 17—Symbols of the Israelites—Indian—Typicalof families—Chinese fortune-telling—Zeichiku—Meisir games of Arabia—Naib or prophet—Trèfle—Coppas—Assyriancup—Cup-bearers—Saki-bearer—Jamshid—Omar Kayyam—Golden cup—Texts—Hallof Two Truths—Osiris—Ma—Thoth—Espadas or Piques—Argiphontes—Meaningof sword in Hebrew—Pitch-pot—Money suit—Collars—Zones—Meaning of suits—Numericalvalue—Court cards—Their meaning—Seventy-eight Tarots—Rods of Aaron. | |
| [Chapter VIII]—Some Old Italian Tarots | [196-207] |
| Mysteries—St. Paul—Osiris—Bewildered historians—“Portrayed on the walls”—Nebo theWriter—Gypsies—The crossed palm—Spanish cards—The Egyptian fleet—Essay of Count Emiliano di Parravicino—Professionalteachers of early days—Cards belonging to the Duke di Visconti—The Royal pack—The artist da Tortona—A wedding gift—OldTarots—The artist Cicognara—Historic cards—The proverb—Fibbias Tarocci—Museum at Bergamo—Victoria and AlbertMuseum—Beautiful Tarots. | |
| [Chapter IX]—Hearts and Diamonds. Spades and Clubs | [208-221] |
| Oldest French pack—The costumes—CharlesVI—The marriage fête—The fire—OriginalFrench Piquet pack—Invention of French pips—Vignoles and Chevalier—Jacques Cœur—The Palace at Bourges—Money or Carreaux—Swordsor piques—Sticks or Tréfles—The pun—Red and black—The startling inquiry—Tarots, Playing Cards or the Bookof Thoth—Ignorance of writers—French cards born three hundred years ago—Vignolles—Chevalierand Jacques Cœur—Piquet—Agnes Sorel—Black and red—de Gebelin’s history—Confusion—Discussion—Prejudice. | |
| [Chapter X]—Court Cards with French Pips | [222-244] |
| Paio—Stock—Widow—Bunch—Pips—Court cards—Their historic derivation—The numberof pip and court cards—The Joker—His origin in America—Cunning Mercury—Fantasticdesigns—Conservative court dresses—Double-headed and index cards—Costume of the Kings—Their attributes and headgear—Charlesof France—Old Tarots in Paris—French cards—The names on the French cards—La Hire—The dress of the knaves—Theirattributes—Patch the court fool—Nicknames—The Bowers—Skat—Le Valet—LeFante—Il Soto—Der Ober—Der Unter—The Queens—Elizabeth of York—Her husband’s picture—The history of Elizabeth ourQueen of Cards—Her birth, education, betrothal and costume—The jilting Dauphin—Louis XI—Marriage—The poem—Thecredulous queen—The elegy of Sir Thomas More—Elizabeth’s effigy in WestminsterAbbey—Card backs—Messages and invitations. | |
| [Chapter XI]—Point Cards with French Pips | [245-252] |
| The Pique—Its names—Dr. Stukley’s cards—A Picke—Clubs, the emblem of Agnes Sorel—Hearts—TheAce—The Earl of Cork—Le Borgne—Spanish nicknames—The Deuce—The curse of Scotland—Duke of Cumberland—Chinesecard and counter boxes—Pope Joan—Trey—Nicknames for the four and five spots—“Grace’s card”—Lady DorothyNevill—The origin of visiting cards—The backs—Derivation of the name of Tarot—The reverse designs—Dolls and their furniturefrom cards—Thackeray’s invitation—Sir Jeffry Amhurst’s bid to a ball—Luck at Piquet. | |
| [Chapter XII]—“According to Hoyle” | [253-276] |
| The original game played with cards—L’Ombre and its successors—Manilla—TheMatadores—Spadille—Nine of Money—The game described in “Cranford”—Punto—Primero—Philipof Spain—Piquet in England—Earl of Northumberland’s letters—Sidney papers—Sir Walter Raleigh—Theterms used in Primero—Its Italian rules—Rabelais—Shakespeare’s and other plays—Termsused in Primero—The games that succeeded it—Mawe—Noddy—Gleek—Termsand nicknames used—Ruff, Whisk or Whist—Piquet—Its inventors, Rules,Hands—Ballet—References—Piquet or Cent—Politicalsatire—Hamlet’s speech—“The age is grown so picked”—Euchre—“HeathenChinee”—American Hoyle—History of Euchre—Dialect—Bower or youngster—Euchre derived from Juch—The Germanwords—An unreliable derivation—Poker—Jack-pot—Widow and Kitty—Poker, Patience—Rulesof game—According to Hoyle—His birth and history—The story of Whist—Hoyle’s rules—Cavendish. | |
| [Chapter XIII]—Engraved Cards | [277-291] |
| Print lovers—Invention of Xylographic arts—Earliest wood cuts—Double purposes—Rareprints—Gregineur—Dr. Stuckley’s pack—Cologne engraved cards—Spanish pips—Germanemblems—Martin Schoengaur—Le Maître—His designs—E. S.—Augsburg—Itsguild of cardmakers—The cards of Nuremburg—Jost Ammon—His productions—Italian and Netherland cards. | |
| [Chapter XIV]—Playing Cards for Educational and other Purposes | [292-307] |
| Invectives from State and Church—Destruction in Nuremburg—Its Museum—“TheDevil’s Picture Books”—Bishop Latimer—The Text—German instructive cards—Thoseof China and Japan—The Friend’s cards—Dr. Muruer’s cards—Louis XIV’s cards—Historyof France—Heraldic cards—Political and other packs—Cards with Mercury’semblems—Harlequin cards—Musical packs—Japanesecards—Cards as Christian and Jewish Prayer Books—Grammatical cards—Plato’sadvice—A tract—Astronomical and religious packs—Historical cards of the United States—Proverbs. | |
| [Chapter XV]—European Playing Cards | [308-321] |
| Cards—Charles V—Proclamation in Paris—Red Book of Ulm—Palamedes and the siege of Troy—Egyptiangambling rods—Cards as postals—Evolution—M. Angelo—Prince of Pisa—Maffei Ringhierri Feliceano andMenesturier—Singer—Chatto, 1392—St. Cyprian—Nearsighted writers—The points of view—Concealed practices—Thegame of gold—Chinese legend—Connection with divination—Count de Gebelin—“The great dreamer”—Connection with magic—FirstFrench cards—Rouge et noir—Rapid spread through Europe—The sailorswith Columbus—Introduction of cards into America—Italian verses—Pictures—Literature. | |
| [Chapter XVI]—Asiatic Playing Cards | [322-340] |
| Discoveries of Messrs. Cushing and Culin—Arrows of Divination—The Magi beforePharaoh—The Rod of Moses at Horeb—The connection between arrows and cards—Koreancards—Alaskan rods—The game—Hida Island Indian rods—The next step—Htou-Tjyen or “Fighting arrows”—Chineselotteries and cards—Derivation of pips—Actor’scards—Jokers called Blessings—Educational cards—Japanese cards—Historical,gambling and divining arrows—Poetic cards—Cashmere cards—Persian cards—Their emblems. | |
| [Chapter XVII]—Chess and Other Games | [341-364] |
| Chess a battlefield—The Emperor Akbar and his queen—Lady Dufferin’s description of the Palace of Glass—LivingChess—Two Jokers—Derivation of Chess—Troy—Crete—Nig—Egyptian caricature—Korean Chess—Set in BritishMuseum—Chess from Brahmins—Ravan, king of Ceylon—Seffa’s trick—Persian words—Jussef’s escape—Mora—Draughts—ThePharaoh—Greek and Roman names—French games—Checkers—Korean “horses”—Dice—Germandice cards—Korean dice—Dominoes—Jackstones—Materials—Ball—Pieces—Kong-Keui—Chineseand Korean games—The sets—Muggins—Milking the cow—Grab—Peas in the pot—Horses in andout of the stable—Sweeping the floor—Spreading the table—Laying eggs—Settingeggs—Hatching eggs—Jackstraws—A set described—Their values. | |
| [Chapter XVIII]—Fortune-Telling Through the Cards | [365-383] |
| Methods—Etteila—Le Normand—Fortune-telling cards—Rules—Meanings of cardswith French pips—A fortune told—The hairdresser of Paris—TheFirst Napoleon—Les hautes sciences—Deductions of the fortune-teller—Papus—Definition of suits—Key tothe pip cards of the Tarots—Staves, Cups, Swords and Money—Rules for reading the cards. | |
| [Chapter XIX]—Reading the Book of Thoth | [384-392] |
| Rules—The first diagram—Directions for divination—The young man’s career—A secondgame with its rules—To establish fluidic sympathy—The fourth deal—Etteila’s method. |
ILLUSTRATIONS
| Atouts of an Early Italian Pack of Tarots, 1 to 6 | [Frontispiece] |
| Facing Page | |
| Atouts of an Early Italian Pack of Tarots, 7 to 12 | [30] |
| Atouts of an Early Italian Pack of Tarots, 13 to 18 | [54] |
| Atouts of an Early Italian Pack of Tarots, 19 to 22, with Two Court Cards | [74] |
| Early Italian Tarots, Court Cards | [98] |
| Early Italian Tarots, Pip Cards of the Cup Suit | [116] |
| Early Italian Tarots, Pip and Court Cards of the Cup Suit | [140] |
| Early Italian Tarots, Pip Cards of the Rod Suit | [166] |
| Early Italian Tarots, Pip and Court Cards of the Rod Suit | [190] |
| Early Italian Tarots, Pip Cards of the Sword Suit | [216] |
| Early Italian Tarots, Pip and Court Cards of the Sword Suit | [238] |
| Early Italian Tarots, Pip Cards of the Money Suit | [264] |
| Early Italian Tarots, Pip and Court Cards of the Money Suit | [288] |
| Swedish, Korean and Japanese Gambling and Educational Cards | [312] |
| English, German and Chinese Gambling Cards | [326] |
| Spanish, English, Dutch and American Gambling, Historical and Educational Cards | [354] |
FOREWORD
If an apology is needed for writing again on the subject of playing cards, the excuse may be offered that new lights have been turned on the subject, so that there is fresh information to lay before the public, derived from a close and exhaustive study of the European libraries and museums, as well as of the pictures on the Playing Cards themselves or prints found in those repositories, and also in the collection owned by the writer; for these speak their histories to those who regard their symbols with appreciative knowledge, since they had an immense significance when originally adopted.
It is twenty years since The Devil’s Picture Book was published and it is now out of print. The writer has been frequently called upon to furnish papers on the subject, so that it has been kept fresh in mind. At the time that the first book was issued it was the only one that had been printed in the United States devoted entirely to the history of cards not necessarily connected with games. Since then little has been published on the subject, and the information given in the present volume has been largely derived from the writer’s own observations and studies.
A collection of Playing Cards, begun at that time with a solitary pack brought as a curiosity by a traveler from Algiers, that bore the ancient pips of Swords, Staves, Money and Cups, has now grown to hundreds of specimens culled from many different countries. Comparing these with each other, and studying all obtainable histories on the subject, leads to the conclusion that the writers of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were correct when they stated that no historical record existed before the middle of the fourteenth century of games played with cards. But each and all of the writers on Playing Cards agree that there were cards and that they seem to have been used for fortune-telling before 1350, and also that there was a baffling resemblance between the traditions of the cards and what was recorded of the Egyptian mysteries connected with the worship of Thoth Hermes.
It therefore followed that the history and traditions peculiar to the ceremonies connected with that personage should be studied in order to trace Playing Cards to their birthplace and find for them an origin, without weakly stopping at the fourteenth century, and declaring that cards came out of space, as many authors have done.
The heraldic devices of Mercury, which are the emblems of what has always been called, by historians, “The Book of Thoth Hermes Trismegistus,” are in themselves mute proof of the connection of the Tarots (as they are now called) with the cult of Mercury. These cards are the oldest ones known, and the symbols are retained in Italian Tarots of to-day, so it may be allowed that when Playing Cards are studied as the leaves of the book of a cult, not as a game, their own pictures relate the story that has lain dormant for many hundreds of years. They only required to have a key in order to be intelligible to any one interested in the subject, and this has been furnished by recognizing the four attributes of Mercury in the card pips, which had escaped the notice of students until the present time, as well as the attributes of the picture part of the pack called the Atouts, which are those of Egyptian gods.
The popular notion that cards were invented for the amusement of a crazy French king is quite disproved by the historical records of the Tarots of the fourteenth century and the packs that survive. There are some beautiful specimens in Mr. Pierpont Morgan’s collection, the emblems and devices of which are identical with records of the ancient Tarots, and these cards are very much older than the French packs.
Although the gap between the old cards and the worship of Mercury in Etruria is still to be bridged through accurate historical data, the inferential connection is too strong to be ignored and the rules of the games played with the cards intended for prophesying or fortune-telling, as well as the tradition connected with the Tarots themselves offer connecting links with the cult of Mercury that cannot afford to be disregarded, as has been done hitherto.
Mr. Stuart Culin, in his introduction to “Korean Games,” says: “Investigation has been hitherto comparatively unproductive of results from the fact that most students have failed to perceive the true significance of games in primitive culture, regarding them primarily as pastimes.” But he traces many of the games which are common to all children all over the world to a “sacred and divinatory origin, a theory that finds confirmation in their traditional associations, such as the use of cards in fortune-telling.”
That Playing Cards are derived from the mysteries of ancient days will prove to be such a novel idea to many persons that the well-worn expression: “It can’t be true, I never heard it before,” will be hurled at the author. But such critics are begged to pause, to consider the subject carefully, and to marshal convincing proofs to the contrary before dipping caustic-tipped pens into the inkwells of ignorance, doubt and disbelief.
Court de Gebelin, over a hundred years ago, was scoffed at and called a dreamer by the writers who followed him and wrote on the subject of Playing Cards; yet these same gentlemen with strange accord, while failing to advance any proofs of de Gebelin’s inconsistencies or ignorant deductions, contradicted themselves by agreeing with his bold statement that the Tarots were the survival of the cult of Mercury or Thoth Hermes.
The nineteen-hundred-year-old crusade against cards, as wicked tools of wicked persons, dates from the struggle of the early Christians against idolatry, and this has been transmitted for generations, although there are few persons who can trace their prejudices to the true origin. Nor do they realize how often Divine commands to consult the occult were laid upon the Israelites without carefully perusing the books of Moses.
It may be as well to sum up in a few words the various proofs that the Playing Cards we now use are descended from the ancient mysteries. First, Arrows, and their successors, Straws, Sceptres or Rods. Cups, Swords and Money have always been used in connection with prophesying. Second, the emblems of Swords, Sceptres (or Stylus), Cups and Money have always represented Mercury, Thoth and Nebo as their emblems or attributes. Third, the worship of Thoth was introduced into Italy by the priests of that cult, as is proved historically by the remains of their Temple at Puozzoli, as well as the Temple there to Mercury, near which place the Tarots are still found in common use in their original form, displaying pictures of the Egyptian deities. Fourth, the Egyptians or Gypsies are the fortune-tellers of Europe and always use cards for the purpose. Fifth, the name given originally to the Tarots or prophetical cards that bear the ancient emblems was Nabi, Naypes or “Prophets,” which name is retained for playing cards in many parts of the world.
Thanks are due to the custodians of various museums who have displayed their collection of cards, and in particular to the artist, Mr. Burton Donnel Hughes, who kindly and skillfully designed the beautifully symbolic cover for this book.
M. K. Van Rensselaer.
New York, 1912.
CHAPTER I
PROPHETICAL AND OTHER CARDS
Playing cards may be classified under three distinct heads. First, are those intended for divining purposes; these have descended from an ancient religious cult that would be entirely forgotten were it not for the traditional ceremonies connected with consulting this oracle, or “The Tablets of Fate,” that are known as Tarots, and which are still used for fortune-telling in southern Europe, Asia and Africa.
The second division embraces cards used for gambling as well as for educational purposes, which have a short and easily studied history covering the time of their invention and the amusements for which they were intended. These date no further back than the end of the fourteenth century in northern Europe.
The third division includes the cards used for amusement or gambling, commonly known as playing cards, which are found in common use all over the world, although the designs on them vary with the location, and those familiar in France, England and the United States are unknown in Spain, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Persia, China or Japan, since each of these countries has playing cards peculiar to the nation and quite unknown to the others.
The French and German packs were invented solely for amusement or gambling purposes, while the Tarots, with their typical and heraldic designs, transmitted from early days, are now only to be found entire in Italy, other countries having adopted one portion or the other of the original set as more convenient for games. This separation renders the decks useless for divining purposes; whereas, when intact they are distinctly prophetical or fortune-telling cards, that are derived from ancient mysteries, not only bearing the emblems of the three prophetical gods, but also those of the chief divinities of ancient days.
In some countries, such as Persia, only the emblematic or picture part of the pack, called by the Italians Atouts, is used; but the greater part of the world ignores these entirely and is ignorant that such cards exist, recognising only the pip or suit part of the pack, but in almost every quarter of the globe four suits composing a pack are known, although the symbols on them vary widely.
The oldest emblems are those of the Tarots that are still those most commonly known. These are Swords, Rods, Money and Cups, which are the pips familiar in Italy as well as Spain, Algiers, South America, Cuba, Mexico, Porto Rico, the Philippine Islands and wherever the Spanish language is used, for the Spaniards, when conquering the world, carried their favorite toys with them, introducing them to the natives who accepted the novelty with avidity and used them for games, just as the Spaniards had adopted them from the Italians.
The standard pack has ten pip and four court cards, or fifty-six in all, which are headed by a King, a Queen, a Cavalier and a Knave, and these cards all have names given to them according to the country where they are used. Cards for all parts of the world are made in Paris and local preferences are closely followed, although most countries manufacture their own cards, and a considerable revenue is gained by taxing the product as well as the import of cards. But while the ancient emblems are now commonly used in the countries mentioned, the important part of the ancient pack has been discarded. This comprised twenty-one picture cards, which were a most necessary adjunct to the pip cards, for when the fortunes of the players were to be revealed by reading the prophecies of the gods it was imperative that the two sets should be used in connection with each other, but the complete pack that is still known as Tarots can only be found in Italy.
The German cards were never intended for fortune-telling, but entirely for gambling, and they have devices peculiarly their own. Hitherto no one has explained why or for what purpose these symbols were invented, since they had no particular significance when used in connection with the cards. They are Acorns, Bells, Hearts and Leaves, and are partly heraldic emblems connected with the game of Lansquenet. There are but three male court cards called King, Over Knave and Under Knave.
![[Larger Image]](#7106047633859301326_img01.jpg.id-3467511496475982019.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
Atouts of an Early Italian Pack of Tarots
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7 Il Carro 8 La Giustizia 9 L’Eremita |
10 Ruota della Fortuna 11 La Forza 12 L’Appeso |
France uses the gambling pack invented for Charles VI about the year 1395. This contains three court cards—namely, King, Queen and Knave, and the cards display Carreaux, Piques, Cœurs and Trifles, or as we know them Diamonds, Spades, Hearts and Clubs. This French pack is the only one confining itself to two simple dominant colours, while all other cards are extravagantly blazoned in variegated tints that are by no means as harmonious as the distinctive French Rouge et Noir, which commends itself so well to players for gambling purposes, that the packs of this nation are being now rapidly introduced and adopted all over the world to the exclusion of native designs, even although these symbols have been inherited from the prophetical cards of prehistoric times. This is due to the fact that the cards used for fortune-telling are not as convenient as those that were invented particularly for gambling.
In Persia, where only the Atout or figure part of the pack is used, while the pip part is omitted, the figures are painted in harmonious colours and it is left for the tints of the background to indicate the suits. In the Kile Kort or Cucu pack of Sweden (which also has figures) there are no colours whatever, but the designs are printed in black ink on white cardboard. This is also the case with old cards from the Netherlands, but none of these packs were ever intended for fortune-telling.
There have been many persons who have interested themselves in the history of playing cards, and some of them have pierced the veil surrounding their cradle; but, generally, since these students have only been interested in the cards as toys or gambling instruments or as rare specimens of painting, engraving or stencilling, the studies have not extended beyond the time when playing cards became common in Europe, or about the beginning of the fourteenth century. None of these students followed the clues that would have proved the original purport of the “tablets of fate.”
In “Les Etudes Historique sur les Cartes à Jouer,” by M. C. Leber (1842), the question is asked: “Where do cards come from, what are they and what do they say?” These queries the writer proceeds to answer only in part, for he fails to see the connection of the cards familiar to him, that have French or German pips, with the more ancient Tarots, which, in all probability, he had never seen. But Leber states positively that cards “are of ancient origin and Eastern invention, and primarily they constitute a symbolic and moral game.” He professes to be guided by the emblems on the cards themselves, but he fails to decipher or to understand the evidences shown by the heraldic devices peculiar to one of the ancient Greek gods, which would have answered his questions.
According to the Rev. Edward Taylor and other authorities, the emblematic and mystic cards called Tarots were “born long since in the East, from whence they were brought by the gypsies for thaumaturgic purposes.” Although it is declared that the gypsies always carried and consulted packs of cards ever since the wanderers were known in Europe, these people themselves have no history of their mystic book that they will disclose, so the positive historical record of playing cards as used for gambling games or fortune-telling does not commence before the second half of the fourteenth century.
These cards are the ones we call Tarots, which are still common in Italy, and the emblems on the cards themselves reveal their original connection with the worship of Mercury in Etruria, of Thoth in Egypt, and of Nebo in Babylonia. These three gods have the same attributes, and were worshipped for many generations in the then civilised portions of the world; yet the forms of their worship, that have been so strangely transmitted to us through the greatest of their books, the cards are now little understood and seldom consulted.
Indeed, the very name Tarot has been deemed by some authors as positive proof that the cards are the unbound leaves of one of the great books of the Temple of Thoth Hermes Trismegistus, since they derive the word Tarot from Thoth or else from Thror Tahar, which, says Wilkinson (Volume II, page 90), “were the parchment records kept in the Temple, which are mentioned in the time of the eighteenth dynasty that were written on skins.” The same author states (page 207) that “Thoth framed the laws.” In fact, his temple was the seat of all learning, where doctors, lawyers and scientists were able to study and to devote their knowledge to the god they worshipped.
It seems, therefore, that the name is in truth one of the links in the chain of evidence proving that what we use as playthings were once part of the great cult of Mercury and his African or Asian confrères, in whose time the pictures and the emblems were thoroughly understood and were regarded with awe or reverently consulted, since by their means alone could the wishes of the gods be made known to mortals, through the medium of the priests of Mercury, Thoth, or Nebo.
The intimate connection of the triple god is no fanciful suggestion, but is acknowledged by all students. Nebo, of the Babylonians (mentioned in the Bible), Thoth, of the Egyptians, and Hermes, of the Greeks, were all worshipped as gods of speech and inventors of transmitted ideas. It is not credible that in Asia or Africa, even as early as the twelfth dynasty, that voice language or speech was a gift newly granted to mankind, so there must have been some reason for the belief that “these gods gave speech to mankind.” This is one of the superstitions puzzling many modern students who have tried to investigate the mysteries of the Temple of Thoth.
It is now believed that one of the priests who was connected with the cult conceived the bright idea of communicating the wishes of the planets, of the vegetable and the animal kingdoms, as well as those of the patron gods, to mankind through a well-arranged system that had the Temple of Thoth for a centre and its priests as interpreters. The power that this system would give to the learned men congregated in the vast Temple of learning would be great, and would increase their prestige to a wonderful extent. Before that time the primitive people were content with simple means of consulting the wishes of the gods, or with the decrees written at the birth of each child on the tablet of fate by “the writer of Esigalia, who was called Nebü.” The means generally resorted to were those still common in Korea, Japan and China, where the oracle is consulted by throwing a handful of sticks before a shrine. Among the Arabs a sheaf of arrows is used. Gordon Cummings describes his negro servants using sticks which were marked and then thrown on the ground, when the natives desired to be told by their gods where the game lay and what direction to take when hunting.
The scientific arrangement devised by the priest of Thoth that earned for his god the reputation of giving speech to mankind was done through placing on the walls of the temple a series of pictures representative of the chief gods, such as Thoth, Isis, Maut, Phthah and Ammon, as well as various virtues, vices, etc., either pictorially or through heraldic and emblematic devices. These mural pictures could be consulted by the priests by casting on a central altar a handful of arrows, straws or rods, that were always connected with the magic of the Egyptians, as is mentioned in Exodus. As these rods fell they naturally pointed toward the pictures on the walls, and since these represented nearly every event in human life the “speech or commands” of the gods were readily interpreted by the priests, who thus proved that Thoth was the “God of speech” with themselves for his mouthpieces. This superstition was carried out even to the sacrifice of tongues, which was customary as late as the days of the Roman emperors, when tongues were used as one of the sacrifices to Mercury.
It can easily be seen that the primitive arrows were incomplete without the interpretation of the pictures on the walls used in their connection, just as the pip part of the Tarot pack is useless for fortune-telling without the Atouts, which are supposed to be crude Europeanized copies of the pictures on the walls of the Egyptian temples representing their deities. It will also be seen that the cards bearing the comparatively modern pips of Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs and Spades, or of Acorns, Bells, Hearts and Leaves have no power whatever of translating the wishes of the gods, since they were invented for another and widely different purpose.
Some old and beautifully painted Tarots have been found in Italy, so it is assumed that their use was common among the upper classes in that country, who could afford to buy the beautiful unbound leaves of the great book of Thoth, long before there is any historical record of cards either for gambling or for fortune-telling, and that these cards were probably used for the latter purpose whenever any wandering priest of the cult could be induced to interpret their meaning.
We find that these mediæval Italian Tarots are usually painted on cardboard by a skillful hand, and that when they were used for amusement the game was called “l’Ombre” (or The Man). The rules for playing it show plainly that it was not originally intended for amusement, but for a serious consultation of the wishes of the divine powers. In short, the game was identical with fortune-telling, since the most important rule determines that only two persons took part, the one to inquire the future, and the other to interpret the meaning of the cards that were dealt. Both the rules for laying out the pack and the value or significance of the cards point to the occult meaning of the game, which is still played with somewhat the same laws, although alterations and modifications have crept in that obscure the original intention, of consulting an oracle which is probably not even conjectured by modern players of Tarocci, as the game is now called.
The arrangement of the unbound leaves of the book of Thoth Hermes Trismegistus, that is regarded to-day as a mere pack of playing cards, enabled the priests (or initiates, as we may call them) of ancient days to carry a pack on their persons, so that the wishes of the gods might be consulted at any place. This rendered it needless to enter the Temple of Mercury for the purpose, which had been the custom before the Christian era. After this time secrecy was probably necessary, since the priests of the Roman Catholic Church naturally discouraged any consultation with the gods of ancient mythology, although the people might cling privately to the cult that they had enjoyed and had believed in since prehistoric ages. Through appealing to the prophets (or fortune-tellers, as the priests of Mercury would be deemed at present) the superstitious people believed that they were actually receiving divine guidance, and this belief is secretly held by many, even in the twentieth century; although few of those who consult diviners through playing cards realise that they are worshippers at the shrine of Nebo, of the Babylonians; the great god Thoth, of the Egyptians, or their successor, Mercury, of the Romans.
Many links in the chain connecting playing cards with the ancient mysteries can be separately taken up and studied. In the first place, the histories of Mercury show him as being worshipped under several distinct attributes, combined with that of being the Interpreter or Messenger of the gods, and the students who were of his cult learned twenty or more of the arts and sciences which Thoth or Mercury was supposed to have invented, such as speech, music, painting, agriculture and astronomy, all of which were under his protection. Virtue, vice, death, temperance, health, joy and sorrow each had an emblematic figure peculiar to and connected with it, such as a hanged man or a skeleton. Each of these figures, if displayed on the walls of a temple could be recognised even by an unlettered congregation, so the people would have been accustomed to these representations, even after they were removed from the walls to the flat surface of the cards and no longer displayed in their exalted positions.
The emblematic figures found on the Tarots and called the Atouts are still known by the names given to them when the Egyptians introduced them to Europe, and are as familiar in Italy to-day as when worshipped under the protection of Mercury. After a little study the attributes displayed on the modern Tarots show most plainly their Egyptian origin, and mutely declare their pedigree—the image, value and position of each card, unchanged for ages, all silently pointing to this. Yet, while strangely conforming to all the attributes, decorations and posture of the gods as represented in the Egyptian temples, the designs have been so modernised as to be at first difficult to recognise.
It is supposed by several authors, notably by Court de Gebelin, as early as 1773, when he published “The Primitive World,” that originally the twenty-two figures of the Atout or emblem part of the Tarots were painted on the walls of the temples, a fashion inherited from Biblical times, to enable the worshippers to recognise gods, sciences, arts or conditions represented by the figures and their attributes when it was wished to consult them. Discoveries in Babylonia and Egypt since De Gebelin’s time have confirmed his suppositions.
These figures in themselves were insufficient for communicating with the gods, for they were speechless, so for the purpose of transacting business with them the second volume of the book of Thoth was adopted by taking from the peasants their ancient fashion of consulting the gods through the throw of arrows or rods. These were marked with figures representing a father, a mother, a child and a servant, and four tokens or heraldic devices were also scratched on the rods, dividing them into the suits that have been so universally retained. These symbols were always connected with the worship of the gods, and ivory rods bearing these devices have been found in the tomb of King Qa, who is supposed to have lived about 4000 B. C.
Thus, the ancient divining arrows became the pip cards now in general use, while the pictures on the walls, or the Atout part of the pack, is unknown except in Italy, where the complete book of two volumes with twenty-two Atouts and fifty-six pip leaves is still found.
Originally what we call the suits or pip cards were probably simply rods inherited from Moses and Aaron, or perhaps only a quiver full of arrows, or a bundle of straws, which we know were used at the Delphic oracle; and out of these primitive articles the cards were evolved. On them were placed the four heraldic emblems of Mercury by which any statue or painting of him may be readily recognised. These emblems are convincing proof that cards were part of the worship of Mercury, since the four suits of the Tarots represented the four chief attributes of the god, those symbols by which he is universally recognised, which are Espadas (Swords), Denari (Money), Bastoni (Rods), and Coppas (Cups).
Any one familiar with the many beautiful statues of Mercury that are scattered through the great museums of Europe, or the funeral urns or sarcophagi on which Mercury is represented, is aware of this. First, he appears as Argiphontes, with the harpé or sword at his side, given him by his father, Jupiter. Second, he is shown as Cyllenius, or Agoneus, holding a purse, through the meshes of which round coins can be seen, signifying the protector and representative of merchants. Third, he appears as Caduceator, or the messenger of the gods, bearing aloft the caduceus, or magician’s rod. Fourth, he is represented as Chthonius, presiding at birth or leading the soul to the unknown regions, when his emblem is the Cup of Fortune.
This emblem inspired the shape of the beautiful Etruscan funeral vase, which is in itself symbolical and derived from the worship of the Assyrians. He is frequently represented by a cup or chalice, since Mercury was also the cup bearer of the gods, like the butler of the Pharaoh (Genesis xl), who protected his master from poison. When he was the messenger he held to the lips of mortals the seven-ringed cup of sorrow or joy, and the many significances of this cup, although now nearly forgotten, were realised by the ancient worshippers as an important emblem of the functions of the god.
If the Tarots are the direct descendants of the occult images in the Temple of Thoth, as is conceded, it must also be acknowledged that then these cards each has a meaning or intention worth studying, if only to discover their secret; and that if they are connected with the ancient mysteries they represent human life in all its phases. To wrest their secret from them has been the endeavor of many writers, some of whom have learned their portent traditionally, others through careful historical investigation, while some confess to inspiration without authority or support, but not one of these authors discovered the important connection between the emblems on the cards and those representing Mercury heraldically under his chief guises, although such a discovery would have been conclusive proof that their surmises were correct and that cards were the survival of the cult of Mercury and his predecessors.
Nevertheless, a thorough examination of all these writers shows that through different channels they all come to the same conclusions, and by comparing their writings with that of the original rules for the game of l’Ombre (or The Man) quite a definite idea of the value and meaning attached to each card by the initiates or priests of Mercury may be reached.
Raymond Lulle (1235-1315) gives an historical account of Tarots in his “Ars Magna.” Jerome Cardeau (1501-1576) writes of the historic pack in his work “Subtility.” An English writer named Mathers has written exhaustively about the great book of Thoth Hermes Trismegistus, chiefly with the view of explaining fortune-telling through a correct reading of the mysterious leaves.
Court de Gebelin, although sneered at by the authors who followed him, who found his learning too deep for their understanding, has given a lucid account of Tarots and their connection with divination, while Boiteau, in his “Les Cartes à Jouer et la Cartomancie”; Merlin, in his “Origin des Cartes”; Chatto, in his “Facts and Speculations About Cards,” and Taylor, in his “History of Playing Cards,” agree that cards appeared suddenly in Europe early in the fourteenth century, that the cards of that day were the Tarots, or the fortune-telling cards, that they were altered to suit Dutch, Swedish or German tastes, or the fancies of a French king, following also the desires of each nation that adopted them for gambling purposes, with no thought of the ancient cult to which they had belonged. Not one of them, however, pointed out the connecting link with the emblems of Mercury, or explained the reason for this sudden appearance in civilised nations of these fortune-telling packs, except De Gebelin, while even he failed to connect the attributes of Mercury with the pips on the cards or the emblematic figures on the Atouts that still show the attributes of the chief gods of Egyptian mythology, that would have been such convincing proofs of their origin.
We are indebted to Papus, in his “Tarots of the Bohemians,” for clearly pointing out that the cards are derived from the book of Thoth and for explaining the meaning of each leaf. But even Papus, shrewd and far-seeing as he is, does not bridge the chasm lying between the temples of the Egyptian deities and the introduction of cards into Europe, although he recognises the paramount importance of the emblem of Rods, which he wisely calls Sceptres, since he sees the value that such a symbol of power was to the ancients, and he never condescends to call the pip by its vulgar name of Club.
It is the more strange that the surviving signs connecting the ancient worship of Mercury with the emblems on the pip cards remained unnoticed, for the old Temple of Mercury at Baiæ remains with its vaulted roof in a fairly good state of preservation; and on the ceiling of this temple can still be seen traces of pictures resembling those on the Atouts. Almost obliterated and difficult to see, since the place is dark and there is no means of lighting, they can yet be discerned, even though it would be impossible to reproduce the emblems.
They are in the shape of the old Atouts, that is to say, the figures are enclosed in a well-defined line the shape of a card, and the same size if considered in reference to that of the emblematic pictures. Two of them are distinct enough to show a figure, although which one of the Atouts is intended it is now impossible to say. Traces of other Atouts may be discerned all along the roof of the building, although they are being rapidly destroyed by the weather.
Enough evidence exists now to show that, in this house erected to Mercury by the rich merchants of Rome, the emblematic figures were displayed as ornaments on the ceiling and were not concealed in alcoves or curtained niches, which some writers have supposed was done in the more ancient temples of Egypt where pictures have been discovered that have puzzled the savants who have not connected them with the worship of Thoth or Serapis.
Why the emblems of Mercury did not receive recognition from the authorities on playing cards of the past three centuries, or from others, remains a mystery, since it seems to be quite evident that, while the Atouts show the various virtues, vices, arts and crafts, which were under his protection, the pip cards display his four chief attributes, and that these were evidently placed in the book to represent the god when it was necessary to call on his good offices to protect or guide merchants, to direct love affairs, to encourage warriors or to inspire scientists. No other derivation for these devices has even been suggested, and these self-evident links in the chain of evidence connecting playing cards with the worship of Mercury have been totally ignored. Many students have, however, pointed out that the Tarots are the survivors of his cult and were originally the Book of Thoth Hermes Trismegistus.
In the “Catalogue of Playing and Other Cards in the British Museum,” by William Hughes Willshire, M. D. (1876, page 52), he shows a picture of Addha-Nari, saying, “she is the Isis of the Hindus, a pantheistic emblem typifying Nature, Truth and Religion.” In this Hindu emblematic figure the four symbols of the ancient Tarots (now the suit marks of the numeral playing cards of the Tarots and of Italy and Spain) are placed in the four hands of the figure that has the crescent or emblem of prophetic power on her head—namely, the Cup, the Circle (or Money), the Sword and the Magician’s Rod. “These are recognised,” says Mr. Willshire (page 62), “as being the symbols of the four chief castes into which men were divided on the banks of the Ganges and of the Nile. Accordingly, the Cup denotes the sacerdotal rank or priesthood; the Sword implies the king, a soldier or military type; the Circle or ring of eternity (that in the hands of the protector of commerce became Money) typifies the world or commercial community, and the Staff is emblematic of agriculture or the tiller of the soil.” This connection between these symbols with those on the Tarots has been copied slavishly by many authors as the only explanation for the adoption of these devices. That there were in early days these principal caste divisions is unquestionable, and men of the different professions selected their heraldic emblems when consulting the oracle to worship or consult Mercury as Chthoneus, Argiphontes, Cyllenius or Caduceator.
The bridge connecting the great goddess of India with Mercury has not yet been built, although the foundations have been laid and will soon be given to the world. It is sufficient to say at present that the mythologies of Babylonia and Egypt have mingled mysteriously, and that the mother of Thoth is connected with the Indian deity so that symbols and rites common to one country are often found in the sister continent.
Before the era of printing men crystalised their ideas by making pictures to portray the thing or person that it was desired to represent. Thus the heraldry of to-day is simply this crude idea scientifically treated and classified, and a coat-of-arms is the name of a family pictorially represented. The totem of the North American Indian displays his family cognomen in this way, as do the various symbols of uneducated people all over the world who are unable to express their ideas in written characters.
Signs over the doors of tradesmen carry out the same plan, as the barber’s basin or pole (the latter being really the caduceus of Mercury, that was inherited from the doctors who studied at the Temple of Thoth). The bunch of grapes or bush of a wine dealer shows an inn, and a well-known saying of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu recalls this, for she remarked, “How should we know where the wine was sold if we did not see the bush?”
Thus, also, at a cross-road where directions from the god Terminus (Mercury) were required, his pointing finger
(which was also the Yod found on the Tarots) was a pictured sign that all could comprehend. It is the same with all the other emblems connected with this ubiquitous deity, and the ancients understood these devices far more easily than we of to-day, as the lapse of time has caused the intention of many of them to be forgotten, and none more so than those of Mercury on the pip cards of the Tarots. That their meaning is forgotten is not the fault of those who credited transmitted knowledge through pictures instead of written words, as the devices remain as a simple key to the origin of cards that originally were intended only as a means of communicating with occult powers. (See Numbers xvii.)
In order to come closely to the meanings attributed to the devices as well as to the figures on the Atout part of the Tarots, each one must be studied separately, and close attention must be given to the other connections with the cult of Mercury that have not been dropped from the cards in the course of ages, but which remain to enlighten us.
Thus, the girdle or cestus that Mercury stole from Venus encircles the deuce of Money, and all the oldest cards retain this symbol as well as those manufactured now. This card plays an important part in the soothsayer’s pack. Under some conditions it signifies thieving, which probably refers to the theft of the girdle. A pig is always displayed on the two of bells of the German pack that was evidently derived from the Tarots, since it was sacred to Nebo. Pigs and tongues (representing speech) were always part of the sacrifice to Hermes at his annual festival, and both were sacred to Proserpene, whose descent to hell was celebrated on the day she was dragged from her mother, Ceres, and conducted by Mercury Chthoneus, to the arms of Pluto.
A gazelle under a palm tree is placed on the knave of Money, which recalls the worship of Osiris, in which Thoth plays such an important part. According to a legend, the gazelle gives notice of the rising of the waters of the river Nile by fleeing from its wonted feeding grounds on the banks to the recesses of the desert, long before the first signs of the coming flood are noticed by mankind. The gazelle acts in this way as a lieutenant to Hermes, or as a messenger from the gods to humans, and it is sacred to Thoth, who was afterwards, by the Romans, merged into Mercury. Thoth is also represented on the Fool or Joker.
![[Larger Image]](#7106047633859301326_img02.jpg.id-4558457388992069695.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
Atouts of an Early Italian Pack of Tarots
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13 La Morte 14 La Temperan 15 Il Diavolo |
16 La Torre 17 Le Stelle 18 La Luna |
The number thirteen has always received mystic reverence, and the reason for this has been sought by many. Among the Atouts that number is on the card representing Death. Mercury’s festival falls on the thirteenth of the fifth month, so the thirteenth card has more than one significance to the believers in the old pictured symbols, particularly when connected with the Tarots.
The card known to us as the Joker combines in itself all the versatile qualities attributed to the god Hermes himself, and it is small wonder that it was so regarded, as he was supposed to represent in his own person so many and such different things. Among the Atouts it is called Le Fou (the Fool). It has no number in the pack and was not one of the pictures that were placed on the walls, but was probably a statue occupying the centre of the temple, where it might be separately approached. Among the cards it outranks all others, and is as volatile and as little to be depended upon as the god of Quicksilver himself. It controls and dominates every card in both the pip and Atout parts of the pack. It represents the unforeseen, the unexpected, uncertainty or uncontrollable fate, and the destiny that presides over every walk in life. It stands for Destiny, whether it be called Kismet, Luck, Chance, Fate or Mercury, who alone could tell to mortals what he had foretold at their birth, when as “the Writer” he inscribed on his “tablets” all the events of life.
Through studying the Joker and the value bestowed on him in the old as well as in the modern packs the similarity of the powers that he wields with those that were attributed to the Hermes of the Greeks may be recognised, and this representation of irresponsibility, of chance or of luck, is found in every part of the world where divining cards are used. It marks the difference between the Tarots and the French, German and Swiss packs that were invented for gambling only, and were never intended for fortune-telling. That packs in the United States, with French pips, have a Joker, does not prove that in France the gentleman is known, for he made his appearance here after 1850, as will be related later.
The way that the Joker is represented varies most strangely. Sometimes the card shows a group of huddled imps. Sometimes it is a blank like that of Korea and Japan, or it may show the figure of a clown or a jester like that of Austria. It would be interesting to follow the history of jesters through the troubadours from Mercury himself. But each and all representations have the same value when luck rules, and the Joker takes every card in the pack.
CHAPTER II.
THE TAROT PACK OF CARDS
The complete pack of Tarots (sometimes called “the book of Thoth”) contains seventy-eight leaves, and, of these, fifty-six bear pips, with four court cards to each suit, which show the attributes of Mercury, namely: Swords, Staves, Money, and Cups. Besides these, there are twenty-two cards with emblematic figures, that were also connected with the worship of Mercury or some of the ancient mysteries; and they, as a whole, represent the chief moral or spiritual characteristics of mankind, the cardinal virtues, marriage, death, creation, and resurrection, closely following the attributes of the Egyptian deities. They are presided over and controlled by Mercury himself, the card being named in Italy “il Matto,” or “le Fou”; and we know it as the Joker. This figure was also originally intended for Thoth or Nebo and is often presented as a vagabond or tramp, who typifies irresponsibility, the elements of uncertainty, chance, or luck, that pervade all the concerns of life, and which must be acknowledged and provided for under all circumstances, and in all social conditions from the emperor to the beggar.
The close resemblance of this Matto, in all the attributes bestowed upon him in the card world, to the Greek god Hermes should not be overlooked, for he was so rapid in his movements as to have quicksilver named after him, the mineral that has so many qualifications and is so uncertain. The name was probably given to the metal by the scientists who belonged to the Egyptian temple of learning. Then, too, its healing qualities were recognised by the medical world of ancient days, and, as these wise men were under the protection of the god Hermes, that also may have contributed to its having been named after him. Mercury also was the unexpected and versatile god who attended the dying, although he did not cause the death. He was the inventor and patron of games, although he was no gamester himself, but he personified luck and chance; so, with these and many other characteristics, Mercury was, indeed, the Joker of the pack, “the Trump that captures all other cards.”
The twenty-two Atout cards, as they are called, present allegorical figures in which the attitude, the costume, the accessories, and the attributes each have a significance that may be traced back to their origin, and although some of these symbols are still unidentified, the greater part are recognised, so the value of the figure itself is understood. Some of them were connected with one or the other of the arts, crafts, or sciences that were taught by the priests of Thoth, and by them transmitted to their successors in Italy; twelve of them represent the gods of Olympus; the others are connected with Egyptian gods or can be traced to even earlier ceremonies connected with divination.
Before describing each one of the Atouts and their meanings, it must be mentioned that, while many authors have written of different packs of cards, there are but two authors who have made a study of the Tarots, and that neither of these regards the packs as toys or gamblers’ instruments, but as the outcome of a great mystery or religious cult. Court de Gebelin, as early as 1773, declared: “The complete pack of Tarots, with pip and emblem cards together, were part of the Egyptian mysteries, and particularly of the worship of Thoth,” and he traces the resemblance of the figures and the quality or value attributed to them to Isis, Maut, Anubis, or other personages in the Egyptian cosmogony, which theory is confirmed by Papus in his “Tarots of the Bohemians.” A careful study of Sir Gardiner Wilkinson’s “Ancient Egyptians,” and Mr. Rawlinson’s “Ancient Egypt,” shows how accurate these surmises were, for the origin of many of the figures on the Tarots can be traced in these works, although in the days of de Gebelin, Egypt was a sealed book to students.
Sir G. Wilkinson stated in “Ancient Egyptians” (Vol. II, page 207): “Parchment was used for the records kept in the temples and is mentioned in the time of the eighteenth dynasty, when there were histories written on skins called Thr, or Tahar, and Thoth (Hermes) framed the laws.” This proves that the rules governing mankind emanated from the temple of Thoth (as the name is indifferently spelled), and that, if it were necessary to give publicity to the mandates, it could be done outside of the temple with written characters, or ideographically. Probably letters were not used at the time, although Thoth was the god of letters and the inventor of the alphabet; but symbols and emblems were adopted, since they could be more easily understood by illiterate people. This, then, might well have accounted for the figures of the Atouts, even if there were no other reasons for them.
We are indebted to M. de Gebelin for connecting the Tarots with this cult, as well as to Papus, for the latter, in his “Tarots of the Bohemians,” not only accepts the statements made by the other writer, but tries to prove that the Tarot pack was “the Bible of the Gypsies” and states that “it was also the book of Thoth Hermes Trismegistus of ancient civilization.”
Other writers who have studied the cards believe that they “are the key to forgotten mysteries”; but none of them have pointed out the significant facts connecting the emblems of the suit cards with the heraldic attributes of Mercury, and none have noted the value and connection between the different figures of the Atouts with those of the gods of Babylonia mentioned in the Bible, yet they are so remarkable that it seems incredible that they should have been so long overlooked by those who were searching for the origin of Playing Cards.
It is quite evident in the first place that the Staff, or magic wand, must have been inspired by the caduceus, or, perhaps, by the stylus, which is also emblematical of Thoth and was used by the Babylonian god Nebo to write on his tablets of fate. The Sword was derived from the Harpé presented by Jupiter to his son, Mercury, and was also used by Nebo. The purse of Money, and the Chalice, have from the earliest times been connected with spiritual uses and the mysteries of the three prophetical gods. Any one of the four denoted Mercury, while not one of the other gods of Olympus, Babylonia, or Egypt was ever so marked, and none of them combined all the sciences and arts that were practised by his priests and dedicated to the honour of the god who was worshipped as the prophet and messenger from gods to men.
The connection of the Tarot cards with astronomy and astrology is a study by itself, but, since these sciences were part of the course of studies pursued by the priests of Thoth, many emblems connected with them are found on the Atouts. These had meaning for those learned enough to read the signs. But each Atout, be it connected with kabbalism, demonology, Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek or Roman mythology, is written in a language now partly forgotten, but once widely known and revered.
At first the book of Thoth, or prophetic cards, was only in the hands of the priests; but as the meaning of these detached leaves was from time to time revealed to the educated classes, these persons learned to consult the Tarots for themselves when desiring to know the wishes of the gods. A systematic arrangement of the cards could be made by a couple of players, and this tête-a-tête method of asking for divine guidance is a very ancient custom, and must receive due recognition when studying the cult of Mercury, for it must be particularly noted that all the earliest known games with cards are invariably for two persons and two only, so that when more players were added to the game its name was altered.
It will be recalled how many times magical performances are mentioned in the Bible, one of the most notable being in Numbers xxii, when Balak consulted Balaam. The whole ceremony is there graphically described, but these two men were the only ones who took active part in the ceremony, although Balak sent “the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian to Balaam with the rewards of divination in their hands.” By some people it might be supposed that Balak intended to bribe Balaam for a favorable report from his god, but “When Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, he went not, as at other times, to seek for enchantments” (Numbers xxiv:1). The whole history of the occult transaction shows that these two men alone took part, although others stood aloof and watched from afar.
Prof. Samuel Daiches, in his essay, “Balaam a Baru,” declares that “Balaam was a sorcerer pure and simple,” quoting from certain Babylonian tablets written in cuneiform characters, to prove his resemblance to the “baru” of the ancient ritual who would be deemed a magician in these days. Professor Daiches also states that, in the Babylonian Ritual Tablets lately deciphered, is found the statement that “the diviner and the inquirer in the ceremony have both to be engaged and present when the wishes of the gods are to be consulted,” and that “this was followed in religious ceremonies in many other countries.” This custom is adhered to at present in the Roman Catholic Church when the penitent confesses to the priest, the two people being alone and shielded from observation.
All the early games for the Tarots were arranged for two persons. The modifications that crept in after 1400 allowed other players to join, when different names were given to the newly invented games. The main rules were but little altered and the play was only changed in order that others might take part, which is one of the clearly defined marks indicating the period when the Tarots were discarded by initiated persons and adopted by people in general, who accepted the cards for amusement, leaving the prophetic mysteries to the superstitious. The complete pack of Tarots, as it came from the ancients, consists of two parts, twenty-two Atouts and fifty-six suit cards, or seventy-eight in all; but these are used only in Italy.
A pack called Tarok or Taroc is a favorite in Austria and Hungary, though unknown elsewhere, a fact of which the Viennese are inordinately proud, for they declare, and with truth, that their game is scientific and requires keen intellects to play it successfully. But their handbooks on the game do not recognise the fact that their cards are copied from the ancient Book of Thoth, and that their game is almost identical with the original one of divination called “L’Ombre.” The Austrian Taroks have the same numbers as the originals, and retain twenty-two Atouts, but only “le Fou” or “Mercury” has an emblem resembling those on the old leaves. The designs have within fifty years changed from the German or Italian pips to the French devices of Cœurs, Carreaux, Trifle and Piques.
“Le Fou,” or the Joker, is called Skus, Skis, Skys, or Stüs. The Juggler of the old pack is named Pagat, and although the lowest in number it has peculiar values that recall the fact that when used for fortune-telling it represented the inquirer into the wishes of the gods. The card of highest value in the Austrian Taroks is the World, and is called after its predecessor, retaining the name, as well as its position in the pack, with the value of its namesake, but the picture on the card does not resemble the original, and it requires the inspection of an expert to connect these two packs, since the Austrians have strayed so far from the old designs as to make the emblems hardly recognisable.
The pictures on the rest of the Atouts are not even copies of those that formerly were used in Vienna. One of these packs is now in the writer’s collection, bearing the date 1780; and showing some faint resemblance to the Italian Tarots, proves its descent, for in it the figures of Death and other characters are retained, while the card makers of the twentieth century adorn the Austrian Taroks with pastoral views, which mislead students who have not older packs with which to compare them, so the book describing the Wiener Tarok games claims that these cards and games originated in that city and are peculiar to that locality.
The Austrian Taroks, given to the writer in 1890 by an old lady in New York, were wrapped with a faded green ribbon and accompanied with a note describing how they had come into her possession. It seems that her father left Vienna when a young man, having got into some scrape through playing cards. Before leaving he bade farewell to his betrothed and begged for her garter and her miniature. These he placed with the fatal pack of cards and kept in his desk. After several years the young man, having made a fortune in America, wrote to his ladylove, begging her to cross the ocean to marry him. The answer was that, not having heard from him since he had left, she had married. Her lover consoled himself with an American wife, and had many children, the descendants of whom are now well-known people in New York.
There are several complicated and interesting games played with the Austrian Taroks derived from “l’Ombre,” or “the man,” and originally intended for two players only. One is called the “Great Tarok,” another retains the old name “Tarok l’Ombre,” while a third game (a modification of the last and arranged for more players), is called “Tarok for Four.” The game called “Tapp Tarok” requires but fifty-four cards; it is only a variant of the others and is most popular. “Styrean Tarok,” like the Tapp game, requires three players, the fourth one being a silent partner or dummy. These games are so intricate, and have so many rules, that none but Austrians play with these adapted cards.
In the “Illustrirtes Wiener Tarokbuch,” by Ulman, we find this statement: “Two centuries had not passed after cards were introduced into Europe, when Francis Fibbia, Prince of Pisa, Italy, arranged from the oldest of all games, called Tappola, a new one called Tarok, which is found in Bologna as a favorite game during the fifteenth century. This was played with Trappola or Trappelin cards, when the original suits were retained, which were Cups, Money, Swords, and Staves, but after wood engraving was invented, the French pips were adopted and are now the only ones used in the Austrian Tarok pack.”
It is noteworthy that the Rev. Edward Taylor, in his “History of Playing Cards” (pages 209 and 457), mentions an interesting pack of cards, “the imprint of which states them to be sold by John Lenthall, stationer at the Talbot over against St. Dunstan’s Church, London, who carried on business there from 1665 to 1685, so the cards were probably issued immediately after the Restoration.” They were prophetical or fortune-telling cards, and their use was described in directions published with them. The pips were French; the emblematical figures were imitations of the Atouts and evidently had been copied from part of a pack of Tarots, but the figures had names applied to them that were not exactly like the originals. The Ace of Hearts had a figure that was named Hermes Trismagus, which leads to the supposition that the original connection of Mercury with the Tarots was not entirely forgotten in the seventeenth century, but was known in connection with fortune-telling. As a prophet he was still an important personage. The other figures on the cards represented Roman Catholic saints or modern heroes, so that of Mercury was entirely out of place, unless in connection with his cult.
CHAPTER III
MERCURY
Although treated by modern writers as one of the minor of the twelve gods of Olympus, Mercury was by no means so looked upon by the ancients, who revered, feared, consulted and obeyed him as they did no other deity, so he wielded more influence over the lives of mankind than did all the other gods put together. Jove was dreaded because a bolt from the blue might destroy the unwary at any moment; even though Mercury was the lightning conductor, the latter was not blamed for the catastrophe. Juno commanded admiration by her beauty, but her cold self-esteem drew few followers; still, as presiding over maternity, she delivered, through Mercury, the newly born to its parents. Diana had, perhaps, the largest number of worshippers, since she had a plurality of attractions, and had under her protection many and various walks of life, when Mercury acted as her lieutenant. It was Mercury who lured Proserpine from the side of Ceres, to reconduct the former to earth when spring followed winter, and it is under this form, as Chthonius, that Mercury is allegorically represented as the messenger conducting the soul at death to the future state.
Mercury was the peacemaker, or adjuster of difficulties, as well as the councillor and intercessor, for he could be appealed to with the certainty that his orders could be received by mankind, and by them could be comprehended through a sign language interpreted by his priests. He was in reality more powerful than any of the other gods taken separately, for, although they might be lavishly propitiated, they could not reply to invocations except through their messenger, Mercury. He was also the inventor of emblems, pictorial art, and language, through which he could be directly approached and his wishes communicated in response to invocations by means of the Atouts and the pip cards. Any profanation of his mysteries was rapidly revenged by his worshippers, so it is little wonder that they were not placed in town records or in early histories. Nor, if they were, would these mysteries have been mentioned as Playing Cards, for the ancient Book of Thoth was not classified as a game, and until the Temple of Toth, as well as the Serapeon, near Naples, were destroyed, compelling the exiled priests to carry on their person the emblems taken from the walls, there was absolutely nothing like a card to mention in the official records. Students, therefore, must search for descriptions of wanderers, of soothsayers, of astrologers, of fortune-tellers, of prophets or of gypsies, if they wish to discover traces of the cult of Mercury, since it was gradually and imperceptibly merged into the Playing Cards as we understand them.
There were few of the homes of the rich Romans that were not adorned with a statue of this god under one of his four great attributes. The best known is, perhaps, one by John of Bologna, showing him as Caduceator, or the messenger, under which guise Mercury carries the caduceus and points with his right hand to heaven. When represented in this way, he is the bearer of news, of life, and of health. It was his wand, or caduceus, that, up to the middle of the eighteenth century, was the emblem of the medical man, who always carried his stick or staff into the sick chamber. It is still used by barbers, who display his staff, apparently wound with bloody rags, before their shops, a survival of a custom dating from the time when barbers were the dentist surgeons and “blood-letters.” His wand was also representative of the stylus which was used to write on the “Tablet of Fate,” for Mercury was also the god Nebo of the Babylonians, who is mentioned under this name in the Bible. He is credited with being “the writer in the Book of Fate” and, says a Cuneiform inscription, “had foretold the destiny of mankind since eternity.” The stylus was also the emblem of Thoth, who wrote in the “Book of Good Works” after death.
![[Larger Image]](#7106047633859301326_img03.jpg.id-1290133278059353468.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
Atouts of an Early Italian Pack of Tarots with Two Court Cards
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19 Il Sole 20 Il Giudizio 21 Il Mondo |
22 Il Matto 23 Queen of Cups 24 King of Cups |
As the protector and foreteller of events, Mercury was represented as benign or benevolent, but the second attribute as reproduced in his statues was purely mercantile. These statues are frequently found holding a purse in the right hand, the coins inside being seen through its meshes, emblematic of the Money pip on the cards. When represented in this way the face is no longer joyous or serene as it is when depicted as the messenger; it is stern, cold and calculating, perhaps rather shrewd, yet still self-reliant, and with an air of concentration, but always youthful. As the god could foresee and foretell business probabilities, since they were already written in his Book of Fate, or could give counsel in mercantile transactions, Mercury was always consulted and obeyed. It was due to this that his image bearing aloft the money bag was a favorite decoration in the homes of successful merchants, who credited the counsels of Mercury with having caused the riches of Plutus to fall into their coffers.
The beautiful statue of Mercury seated idly with a sword girded at his side, but trailing on the ground, is well known. Here another and most powerful attribute of the god was silently displayed for worship in all that concerned enterprises other than commerce, since the sword denoted warlike expeditions, explorations, and voyages, and was the symbol of rulers, of soldiers, and of men of a class superior to rich merchants. Besides, under the attribute of “the sword,” Mercury was the patron of books, and of arts and crafts, as well as the encourager of learning. Girded with the ever-ready sword, presented to him for his wit and understanding by his father, Jupiter, Mercury was alert to point out in the Book of Fate the initiative that should be taken, if success was desired, and also to adjust quarrels, smooth away strife, or heal differences. Under the emblem of the sword, Mercury was an often-consulted oracle. The sword (or lightning) was also emblematic of Nebo.
The fourth guise of Mercury was usually kept for serious or sacred periods of life, and was seldom seen in the home, as it was reserved for more grave positions. After Mercury gave up being the cupbearer of Olympus to the beautiful Hebe he retained the badge of office, and “the cup of Hermes” remained as one of his attributes as a reminder of this position. To-day it is used at Christmas in Italy, when presents are placed in Mercury’s cup for distribution instead of being hung on a tree, as is the more northern custom. The seven-ringed cup was sacred to Nebo as well as to Toth, and this votive cup entwined with two serpents—now in the Louvre—proved that the Chalice and the Caduceus were always typical of Nebo.
As Chthonius, Mercury was always the useful helper of mankind. He presided at birth, when he recorded the future events of a child’s life on “the tablet of fate,” as had been done by his predecessor, the god of the Babylonians, Nebo. He also attended the dead, when the tablet was broken, (which was Thoth’s perogative), so he is allegorically represented on funeral urns, where he is seen leading Proserpine to Hell. The vase has been converted into one of Mercury’s emblems on the cards, as the Cup or Chalice. Many of the beautiful Etruscan vases in the Vatican show Mercury with Pluto’s reluctant wife. Perhaps the most graceful of stone pictures on this subject is in the British Museum, where a female figure reclines on a couch, surrounded by a group of mourners, and behind the dying woman stands Mercury, patient and alert, ready to show the soul to its bourn. The cup of sacrifice is overturned, the tablet is broken, and Mercury’s task is to guide her spirit carefully and gently to another sphere.
Here, then, are the four attributes of Mercury through whose aid he speaks to men: the Caduceus, stylus or magic wand; the Coin or ring, emblem of eternity; the Sword, and the Cup or chalice.
Always depicted as a youthful or, perhaps, irresponsible man, sometimes described as inconsequent, volatile and light-hearted, still Mercury was the most affording and helpful of all the gods of Olympus, and it was he who interceded for men, who presided over births and deaths, as well as over love affairs, business, and the arts. He was, therefore, consulted at every turn of life—small wonder that his image was a prized ornament of their homes, under one of his three attributes, or else near their tombs under the fourth.
Temples to Mercury, to Thoth, and Nebo, were the principal and most ornate ones that were built. The great one at Babylon to Nebo was called E-Sigalia. He was worshipped as the “tablet writer” who foretold fate. There is one to Mercury that is still in a fairly good state of preservation and is first of the group to the other gods of Olympus, at Baiæ, a town ten miles north of Naples in Italy. This temple was probably erected by the rich merchants of Rome, near their own beautiful villas, that have rendered the place historical. The other temples are little more than charming ruins, but that of Mercury survives to remind us that mutilated rites are still held in his honour in all parts of the world, although by persons who have lost their clue to the original intention of the cult that they follow.
It is probable that the adjoining town of Pozzuoli was the cradle of Playing Cards in Europe, for it was here that the mysteries of the Egyptian god Thoth were taught by the priests of that cult. Close to the edge of the water are the ruins of the vast temple of Osiris, or Serapis, called the Serapeon. Here the strangers worshipped, who landed there yearly from the Nile, from a vast fleet which was sheltered in the bay of Baiæ. Its arrival was heralded by a number of swift yachts that could be recognized as they passed through the narrow straits between Capri and the mainland with topsails flying, a privilege that was accorded to none but the visitors from Alexandria, who were too powerful to offend and too desirable not to conciliate.
The exports of corn from Alexandria were of such importance to Italy that the trade enjoyed the peculiar protection of the State, and “the Alexandrian corn fleet,” says Merivale (“Roman Empire,” Volume IV, page 392), “enjoyed the protection of a convoy of war galleys that was met by a deputation of senators.”
The visitors landed at Pozzuoli, at the spot where St. Paul disembarked from the Castor and Pollox, in a bay that sheltered mariners from Spain, Sardinia, Elba, Cyprus and all the great trading ports of Asia Minor, the isles of the Ægean Sea and, above all, Greece. This great centre received merchandise, iron and fine tools from the clever workmen of Elba, and gorgeous carpets from Phœnicia, as well as Egyptian goods and cults; so it was natural that what was presented at this port should also be exported from there. Thus it was with the learning and the arts of Egypt that were taught by her priests or initiates in the temple erected by them at this spot, which points to the probability that their great book was from this centre scattered over Europe.
What is now called the Serapeon is one of the most remarkable ruins in Italy, for through some volcanic action it was buried beneath the sea in the twelfth century during the last eruption of the Solfatara, reappearing after another volcanic outburst in 1538. It had been forgotten for centuries, but when the fresh movement of that ever-swaying shore made the waters recede, the temple again appeared above the surface. Some of its marble columns are still erect, although they are honeycombed with holes made by a little bivalve that is still found in the bay of Baiæ, and in these perforations countless of their shells can be seen. Enough of the temple remains to record the fact that the Egyptians were numerous and prosperous on the foreign shore, and it is probable that it was built 211 B. C., although many students think its erection was even earlier.
Serapis, or Osiris, was worshipped as Hermes, or Mercury, by the Romans, which worship was introduced into the neighbouring city of Rome by the Emperor Antoninus Pius, in A. D. 146, which may indicate the date of the Temple of Serapis (Mercury).
Serapis was the god of commerce, so his shrine was enriched by the merchants who thronged to the ever-busy port. It was probably after this temple (the original home of Mercury) was submerged, that the smaller one was erected to him at Baiæ. The latter was a famous marine watering place of ancient Italy, perched on an indentation of the western shore of the Bay of Naples. It is celebrated for the softness of its climate, and the abundance of its hot springs, so it became fashionable about the era of Lucullus, the ruins of whose magnificent villa, as well as those of Cæsar, Pompey and Augustus, still remain. It was a favourite resort until the invasion of the barbarians under Theodoric the Goth.
Horace alludes to the palaces and temples overhanging the sea, but most of these have now fallen into the water, where beautiful columns may be seen beneath the waves.
Besides these luxurious homes, and the vast temple of Serapis that was so near, there remain ruins of a temple to Jupiter, another to Venus, and others that are unidentified. But the one that remains in the best condition and state of preservation is Mercury’s, as the domed roof protected it when the others were destroyed by the ashes from the neighbouring volcano. The façade of the temple has been removed, but one long vaulted hall remains. It is not pierced with windows, and was probably intended to be dark, for the better perpetration of mysteries. On the ceiling may be traced oblong shaped paintings, “men portrayed upon the wall,” that are too much defaced to identify, but they recall the shape and approximate size of the Atouts of the Tarots. These may be seen at stated intervals, and, when originally placed there, would have accommodated the twenty-two Atout cards ranged in the order in which they are now numbered. It was supposed that the emblematic figures representing Osiris, Maut, Isis and other deities with the virtues, vices, love, marriage, death, etc., were placed in recesses or alcoves in the Egyptian temples, but if these half-obliterated figures in the temple at Baiæ were intended to represent the Atouts, a different plan was followed, more like that mentioned in Ezekiel xxiii:14. It may have been that the priests followed the idea of putting the figures on the ceiling, so that they might teach their followers the significance of the emblems when it was no longer worth while to make mysteries of them and to conceal them.
Beside the temple, and opening from it, is an inner room that was probably once covered by a roof, but that has fallen, and now the space is only an enclosed court. In the centre remains what might have been a platform or altar where the sacrifices of pigs or tongues, and of other things immolated to Mercury, were made yearly at the time of his festival, on the thirteenth of May.
Prof. Charles Anthon, in his “Classical Dictionary,” when describing Mercury, says:
“Mercurius was a celebrated god of antiquity, called Hermes by the Greeks. He was the messenger of the gods and of Jupiter in particular. He was the god of speech, of eloquence, the patron of orators, of merchants, and of all dishonest persons, particularly thieves, of travellers, and of shepherds. He also presided over highways and crossways, and conducted the souls of the dead to the world below, and it would be nearly impossible to discover anything about which this versatile god could not be consulted through his learned priests, who had been taught the gift of speech from him that they transmitted to their followers. The Egyptians ascribed to Hermes the invention of letters, and the Greeks accredited him with many other important improvements that made men’s lives happier or better, such as the invention of the lyre, as well as the regulation of commerce, and the improvement of gymnastic exercises, while, by a strange perversion the Greeks made Hermes the protector of thieves, when, in Egypt, he was the god of merchants, so that it may be possible that the crafty god favoured the person who first propitiated him or, perhaps, the highest bidder.”
Mercury was the son of Jupiter by the brightest of the Pleiades, Maia, herself the daughter of Atlas, King of Mauritania, and Pleione, one of the Oceanides, or ocean nymphs whose mother was Tethys, and father, Oceanus. Such distinguished ancestry may well have placed the ever-youthful Mercury among the presiding deities of Olympus, even if he had not inherited the mantle of the Egyptian god Thoth, and with it the ægis of the god of the Babylonians, Nebo, who was the arbiter of the fate of mankind.
His infancy was intrusted to the Seasons, who could not prevent his stealing the trident of Neptune, the girdle of Venus, the sword of Mars, and the sceptre of Jupiter, all of which are displayed on the old pip cards, the sword and sceptre being two of the pips, while the girdle of Venus encircles the Deuce of Money.
The ingenious god presented the lyre that he invented to Apollo, receiving in exchange the “golden three-leaved rod,” called by the poets Aurea virga. It was represented as a wand of laurel, or olive, with two dainty wings on one end, and entwined with two serpents, the whole emblematical of many things besides peace, or a flag of truce, for which it was generally used. This rod entwined with serpents is one of the most ancient symbols and is found on a vase discovered in Babylonia that is supposed to have been used 2350 B. C. Another device showed the staff wound with ropes tied after a peculiar fashion, and when so depicted the caduceus represented commerce and merchants, since the rope tied after a certain fashion was the token of the Phœnician traders. This is retained on the Ace of Sticks in the Tarot pack. When the caduceus was wound with stripes of red and white it represented surgeons, or the healing arts; and, as has been mentioned, is so displayed on barbers’ poles to-day. The stick wound in this way also represented birth, and, set before the door, was a token of Mercury’s recent visit carrying a babe from Juno to its parents. The caduceus served Mercury as a herald’s staff, and this name was sometimes applied to the white wand or rod that in time of war was regarded as a signal for peace.
The wings of Mercury typify the planet named for him, that is so fast that it completes its revolution around the sun in a little less than three months. He is connected with the old Israelitish legend, referred to in Ezekiel ix:2, where Nebo is one of the seven planets.
The important place given to the rod in the Bible must not be overlooked. It is closely connected with the arrow of primitive peoples, that was used not only for war or the chase, but serving also to ascertain the wishes of the gods, for when a bundle of arrows was cast to the ground from a quiver or the hand, according to certain well-known laws, they indicated the wishes of the divine power by the direction in which they fell. This is recalled in Jeremiah, in the story of Jonathan and David, besides in many other instances.
It was a natural sequence that Mercury, who had inherited the “tablet of fate” from Nebo of the Babylonians, should also have received the “wand of the magi” that, when cast before the Pharaoh by his wise men, was able to swallow the serpents that sprang from the rod of Moses. The rod, when used as a sceptre, has other and important significances, and is one of the chief signs of a ruler’s position and power.
Mercury was the most active and useful of all the gods, owing to his temperament, and no event or ceremony was undertaken without seeking his advice. He had many names under which his good offices were invoked, such as Argiphontes, or the slayer of Argus, when he represented warriors. Then he was called Chthonius, or “he who guides the dead”; when thus represented he is generally seated and is without sword, caduceus, or purse. Another name for him was Agoneus, the patron of gymnastic exercises, of commerce, and of executive ability.
Sometimes Mercury is represented in his birthday suit, at others with a chlamys or cloak enveloping him, the petasus or winged cap on his head, the talaria, or winged sandals, on his heels, bearing the caduceus aloft. Ancient representations of Mercury were simple wooden posts, the terminals carved with a rude head wearing a beard, which were the original signposts.
Professor Anthon says: “Hermes may in some degree be regarded as a personification of the Egyptian priesthood. It is in this sense, therefore, that he is regarded as the confidant of the gods, their messenger, the interpreter of their decrees, the genius who presides over science, the conductor of souls to the realms of bliss.”
One of the Egyptian names for Mercury, when he combined many attributes of Osiris and other deities, was Thoth, which, according to Jablonski’s “Pantheon Ægypt,” signifies “an assembly composed of sages and educated persons, the sacerdotal college of a city or temple.” Professor Anthon says: “Thus the collective priesthood of Egypt, personified and considered as a unity, was represented by an imaginary being to whom was ascribed the invention of languages and writing, hence the sacrifice of tongues to Mercury. He was also credited with the origin of geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, medicine, music, rhythm, the institution of religion and sacred processions, the introduction of gymnastic or health-giving exercises, and, finally, the less indispensable, though not less valuable, arts of architecture, sculpture and painting. So many volumes were attributed to him that no human being could possibly have composed them.
“For many years it was customary for the priests devoted to his service to present the results of their labours to Thoth, receiving no reward or glory for the individual work, which was turned to the advantage of the whole sacerdotal association in being ascribed to its presiding genius, who, by his double figure, indicated the necessity for a plural doctrine, of which the interpretation was confined entirely to his initiates, or priests, who translated the occult signs of the gods or the learning entrusted to their care to the inquirers, who frequented the temples to receive knowledge or directions in the material walks of life which they were taught to believe was transmitted by the oracle to ordinary mortals by the priests of Thoth, who alone understood the painted or written signs.”
Besides the arts and crafts before mentioned as being under the protection of the Egyptian god, was the important one of commerce. “This in like manner,” says Professor Anthon, “was intended to express the influence of the priesthood on commercial enterprises.”
“The identity of Hermes with the Dog Star, Sirius, that serves as precursor of the inundation of the Nile, the emblem of which,” says the same authority, “was the gazelle that flies to the desert on the rising of the waters, his rank in demonology as the father of spirits and guide of the dead, his quality of incarnate godhead, and his cosmogonical alliance with the generative fire, the light, the source of all knowledge, and with water, the principle of fecundity. It is surprising, however, to observe how strangely the Grecian spirit modified the Egyptian Hermes, who was transformed by the Greeks into the messenger or interpreter of the wishes of others who were more powerful than himself, but not omnipotent, as the Egyptian mythology regarded him.”
This is seen in the mystic portions of the early Orphic or Homeric hymns, where Hermes is treated quite differently than is done in the Iliad or the Odyssey. The earliest records of Hermes recall all the peculiar qualities of the Egyptian Hermes, and sometimes even the strange legends of the Hindoo Avatars, as well as the Babylonian Nebo. One of the Hindoo gods bears the same emblems that are devoted to Mercury, namely: the Cup, the Sword, the Staff, and the Ring, Coin, or Circle; but a striking difference is noted when Hermes is adopted by the Romans, who even changed his name as well as his characteristics, although retaining his distinguishing marks or emblems.
“The Romans,” says Professor Anthon, “first received the sacerdotal Hermes, whose worship had been brought into Etruria by the Pelasgi, previous to the time of Homer, and, as the earlier Hermes had been represented by a column, he became with them the god Terminus. When, however, the Romans became acquainted with the twelve great deities of the Athenians, they adopted the Grecian Hermes under the name of Mercury, preserving at the same time the remembrance of their previous traditions and jumbling the attributes of the Egyptian god Thoth with that of the Grecian Hermes.”
But, in order to make this favourite god of use, it was necessary to approach him through his own priests, the only persons who were initiated into his mysteries and who could interpret them. Since these priests were already established and had been for some time in Italy, in the great temple of Serapeon, it is easy to see how the cult engaged the attention of the people, and how readily it absorbed the new-fashioned god who strayed there from so many different quarters.
CHAPTER IV
THOTH
The great authority on modern Egyptian discoveries, M. Gaston Maspero, says in his book, “Ancient Sites and Modern Scenes”: “On the outskirts of Thebes there are ruins that lie to the north of the Valley of Kings. The temple was built or restored in the last years of the seventh, or in the first years of the sixth, century B. C. to Thoth, the master of magic and letters; the god who was the scribe and the magician of the gods.”
This mysterious but powerful god ranked high in the Egyptian cosmogony and the remains of his worship flourish to-day among the votaries of the card table, who, however, no longer consult him as the oracle, but use his book for their amusement or pleasure.
“During the Roman period, from 527 B. C. to 332 B. C., that was called the Egyptian renaissance,” says Mr. Rawlinson in his “History of Ancient Egypt” (Volume II, page 502), “Asia poured the fetid stream of her wonderful superstitions into Africa. The exorcisms of Thoth and the powers of witchcraft in league with him are the favorite themes which cover the polished surfaces of the monuments at this remarkable time.” And on page 465, “Asiatic Greeks became in the reign of Psammetchas (about 610 B. C.) close to the throne. Consequently, free communication and commercial intercourse between Egypt and Europe were opened.” This ruler was devoted to art, architecture and adventure, and one of the inventions of his reign was the enchorial or demotic writing which superseded the hieratic. This was attributed to the priests of Thoth, those wise men who sought no personal glory, but who contented themselves with placing their works at the feet of their presiding genius and attributing their own discoveries to him.
Without discussing whether the Assyrian god Nebo absorbed the Egyptian Thoth, or the reverse, we may concede that such strong similarities exist between them that they are virtually the same. With similar heraldic symbols and functions, they were the inventors of many useful arts, that of writing always being attributed to both. Besides, both gods were supposed to have the power of recording the fate of mankind at birth, and both presided at the judgment of souls after death.
The ibis-headed Thoth was also symbolized by a stylus and inkstand, and was often termed “the Scribe,” just as Nebo was called “the Writer,” and had for his device a stylus and inkstand. A month was dedicated to each, that of Thoth being the first in the Egyptian calendar, or our September. Its symbol was a reversed crescent with three lotus flowers, under which were two aspects of the moon, as full and as a crescent. One cannot but wonder if the artistic Egyptians, while adopting the cuneiform characters which resemble long shafts with reversed triangles on top, did not alter the lines and convert the “arrow head” of Nebo’s invention into the graceful flower, thus retaining the original conception of the symbol of the Assyrian god, while stamping it with their own love of the beautiful.
The tablet of Khufu at Wady Magarah shows Thoth bearing in his right hand a sceptre (one of the designs of the Tarot pack). This rod has three triangles on it that resemble the cuneiform characters, which is certainly not accidental.
The name of Thoth is written heraldically as “an ibis standing on a perch (which in shape again recalls the cuneiform) followed by a crescent and the two oblique lines commonly used to express the number one.”
The principal likenesses of the great gods of Egypt seem to be represented in the Atouts of the Tarot pack of cards, called “The Book of Thoth Hermes Trismegistus,” for the sun, moon, seven stars, etc., are all among the Atouts. Mr. Rawlinson (“History of Ancient Egypt,” page 315) gives the names of the gods, and the qualities for which they were worshipped, revered or dreaded, as follows:
Num or Kneph—the creative mind.
Phthah—the creative hand.
Maut—matter.
Ra—the sun.
Khons—the moon.
Seb—the earth.
Khem—the generative power in nature.
Nut—the upper hemisphere in heaven.
Thoth—divine wisdom.
Ammon—divine mysteriousness.
Osiris—divine goodness.
All knew that there was but one god, but these were the interceders.
On page 370 of his book, Mr. Rawlinson says: “Thoth was the oracle or the clerk (recorder) of the wishes of the divine circle, who bears as insignia a palm branch or a stylus, and often a tablet. Sometimes he carries the Crook Headed Sceptre. His titles were Lord of Sesennu and Lord of Truth. He is called one of the chief gods—the Great God—the God Twice Great—the Great Chief in the paths of the dead—the Self-created or Neverborn—the Lord of Divine Words—and the Scribe of Truth.”
Thoth was often represented under two different forms, earthly and infernal, or as Thoth in the House of Selection, and Thoth at the Balance of Souls. As the god who took part in the judgment of the dead Thoth was revered throughout Egypt and it is written of him: “All Eyes are open on thee and all men worship thee as a god.”
![[Larger Image]](#7106047633859301326_img04.jpg.id-5374482171673840164.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
Early Italian Tarots
Court Cards of the Pip Part of the Pack
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25 Queen of Rods 26 Queen of Swords 27 Queen of Money |
28 King of Rods 29 King of Swords 30 King of Money |
Oxen, cows and geese were sacrificed in his honour and the ibis with the cynocephalous ape were sacred to him. Very many images of him are found that show him in attendance on different kings, either purifying them or inscribing their names on the sacred tree. His spiritual office was to be present in Amenti when souls were to be judged, to see their deeds weighed in the balance and record the results. This is recalled in the Atout of the Tarot pack, named Justice. Thoth also reveals to men the will of the gods. He composes the Ritual for the Dead, that great work that is so frequently found bound in the shrouds of mummies, to instruct the soul how to conduct itself in the world of spirits. It is also Thoth who, in the realms below, writes for good souls with his own fingers the Book of Respirations, which protects, sustains, and enlightens them, causing them to “breathe with the souls of the gods for ever and ever.”
Thoth had three great colleges, at Thebes, at Memphis, and at Heliopolis, where he was worshipped by priestesses as well as by priests, and there are many records of the prognostications of the former. If the supposition is correct that the gypsies are descended from the outcasts of the temple of Thoth, near Naples (the Serapeon), when that building was overthrown by an earthquake, it may be noted that in the tribe the women are the principal soothsayers, while the men generally pursue other occupations.
King Shafra, who built the Second Pyramid, married the daughter of Meri-Aukhs. Her tomb at Saccarah bears an inscription stating that she was a “Priestess of Thoth,” and her son was called “a sacred scribe.” From the time of Shafra, scribes are frequently represented as seated or squatting at work, with a pen or brush in the right hand and one or two tucked behind the ear, while the left hand holds the paper or a palette.
“The first and greatest of the builders of the pyramids,” says Mr. Rawlinson, “was Khufu or Cheops. He composed a religious work called the Sacred Book. He was a great admirer and worshipper of Thoth, who is represented with him on the rock pictures.”
Closely copying the Assyrian kings, who placed themselves under the protection of their gods, notably that of Nebo, by adopting their names, several of the Pharaohs called themselves Thothmes, meaning child of Thoth. The third ruler of that name, who has been called the Alexander of Egyptian history, raided the heart of Western Asia, going as far as Nineveh. He was wise as well as valiant, and noted all novelties in the lands through which he passed, which he afterwards sought to introduce into his own country. The two obelisks known as Cleopatra’s Needles were originally set up at Heliopolis, one of the temples of Thoth, by Thothmes III. They were transported to Alexandria and afterwards carried to London and New York, so the genius of playing cards still presides at the two great world centres, where cards are a favourite amusement.
The priests of Thoth were said to have descended in a direct line from father to son for three hundred and forty-five generations. This habit is another one common to gypsies, who rarely marry any but their own people. To the priests of the temple of Thoth many books called Hermetic were ascribed that were so dedicated to the honour of the god that the name of the writer is merged into his. M. Maspero mentions “an Egyptian romance that describes the adventures of a family of ghosts who were living with their mummies in a tomb lighted by a wonderful talisman, which was an incantation written on papyrus by Thoth himself.” Another work was particularly full of wisdom and science, containing in it everything relating to the fowls of the air, the fishes of the sea, and the four-footed beasts of the mountains. “The man who knew a single page of the book could charm Heaven, Earth, the great Abyss, Mountains and Seas. This marvellous composition Thoth enclosed in a box of gold, which he placed within a box of silver, within a box of ivory and ebony, and that again within a box of bronze, within a box of brass, within a box of iron; and the book thus guarded he threw into the Nile at Coptos. The act became known, and the box was searched for and found. It gave its possessor vast knowledge and magical power, but always brought misfortune on him.” One of the books of Thoth consists of magical texts, and Mr. Rawlinson says: “The belief in magic was widely spread among the Egyptians, and the behests of the priests were obeyed with confidence that, whether they turned out well or badly for the inquirer, they had been foretold at birth. The fatalism of the North Africans is too well known to be disputed, for they accept misfortune bowing the head and saying: ‘It is the will of Allah.’ This is the inheritance of ages.”
The priests explained to the inquirer into the divine wishes the commands of the god, and then inscribed them on parchment or some convenient material. These records were either hung around the neck or bound on the arm. The ignorant folk considered that these amulets would preserve them from all evil. This practice is observed to the present day by members of different religious cults. One amulet has been translated: “Thou art protected against the accidents of life. Thou art protected against a violent death. Thou art protected against fire. Thou escapest in Heaven and thou art not ruined upon Earth.” Such a valuable insurance against every evil during life or death must have been well worth a handsome fee to the priest who issued it.
Lenormant, in his “Manual” (Volume I, page 516), says: “It is remarkable that the Ritual of the Dead (the Egyptian name for which was Manifestation of Light, or the Book Revealing Light to the Soul) is accompanied by pictures which form the essential portion of it.” So the Book of Thoth Hermes Trismegistus, or the Tarots, is composed of pictures that can only be deciphered by initiates. The Ritual of the Dead claimed to be a revelation from Thoth Hermes, who through it declared the will of the gods and the mysterious nature of divine things to mankind. Portions of it are expressly stated to have been written by the finger of Thoth, and other parts to have been the composition of the god himself. It was held in such high esteem that portions of it were placed in coffins. The Ritual has been divided into three sections. There are prayers for the dead, and a long chapter that has been said to “contain the Egyptian Faith.” This creed is followed by a series of prayers, and spells, and famous chapter (cxxv) describing the seat of judgment known as the “Hall of Two Truths.” Here the deceased is brought before Osiris as supreme judge. The latter is seated on a lofty throne, surrounded by forty-two Assessors, each of whom addresses the dead person in turn, and to each he declares his innocence of crime or sin, saying, “I have not blasphemed. I have not deceived. I have not stolen. I have not slain any one. I have not been cruel. I have not caused disturbance. I have not been idle. I have not been drunken. I have not been indiscreetly curious. I have not multiplied words in speaking. I have struck no one. I have caused fear to no one. I have slandered no one. I have not eaten my heart through envy. I have not reviled the face of the king nor the face of my father. I have not made false accusations. I have not kept milk from the mouths of sucklings. I have not caused abortion. I have not ill-used my slaves. I have not killed sacred beasts. I have not defiled the river. I have not polluted myself. I have not taken the clothes of the dead.” A dead person is always spoken of as “An Osiris,” or “He sleeps in Osiris.”
Egyptian writing was of three distinct kinds, known as Hieroglyphic, Hieratic and Demotic or Enchorial. There is but little difference between the Hieratic and the Demotic. The former is the earlier of the two, but was nearly lost in the Demotic, which, according to Lenormant, was introduced about the seventh century B. C., and rapidly superseded the Hieratic, being simpler. Both were written from left to right.
It was about this time that the worship of Nebo, in Babylonia, and of Thoth, in Egypt, was most important, so it is probable that the priests, who were the learned and scientific men of the day, then reconstructed the art of writing and so earned for their patrons the honour of being gods of writing, although the stylus and the title of “the Writer” had been born for many centuries.
Pasmmetichas, king of Sais, who, as has been already mentioned, fought the Assyrians, must have been a most intelligent person, for during his reign, says Mr. Rawlinson (page 465), “a question was raised as to the relative antiquity of different races of mankind. Therefore the Pharaoh had two children isolated from their species and brought up by a herdsman who was dumb, and suckled by a goat, in order to see what language they would speak, presuming that they would revert to the primitive type of speech. The result of his experiment was thought to prove the Phrygians to be the most ancient nation, and the Egyptians, we are told by Herodotus, accepted it as an established fact.”
Thoth was revered as a great teacher, since his works treated of all things, such as the creation of the world, of divine power, of wisdom, of the art of presaging the issue of maladies by means of the planets. The work treating on this was dedicated to Ammon. Then there were the Aphorisms of Hermes, which consisted of astronomical propositions translated from the Arabic about the time of Manfred, king of Sicily. “The Cyranides of Trismegistus” treats of magic power and the medicinal virtues of precious stones, of plants, and of animals. Many of the other books of Thoth are treatises on chemistry or alchemy. One is called “The Seven Seals of Hermes Trismegistus,” another, “Chemical Tinctures,” and a third, “The Emerald Tablet,” describing the art of making gold. It is said that Sara, the wife of Abraham, found the Emerald in the tomb of Hermes, on Mount Hebron. One essay is to Tat or Esculapius, another is entitled “The Virgin of the World,” as Isis is sometimes called, and is a dialogue between her and her son Horus.
Many small statues were found in a well in the temple of the Sphinx, that may have originally represented the gods now found among the Atouts. This would be a most valuable confirmation of the theory of their original position in the temple when the priests and initiates wished to consult the occult.
In an age when letters were only used by the learned, and pictured emblems or symbols took the place of an alphabet, it was natural that the priests of Thoth, when pressed to divine the fate of men, should place sketches of the great gods on the walls of their temples, so that, by combining them with the rods of divination, the wishes of the supreme beings could be easily conveyed. The custom of adorning the walls of the temple is referred to in Ezekiel xxiii:14. “She saw men pourtrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans (or Nebo and his confrères) pourtrayed with vermilion, girdled with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads, all of them princes to look to, after the manner of the Babylonians of Chaldea.” This was possibly the origin of the Tarots, or the Atout volume of the Book of Thoth.
CHAPTER V
NEBO, OR NABU
A great Chaldean god was Nebo, mentioned in Isaiah xlvi:1, “Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth,” and he had an immense influence over the lives of the Assyrians and Babylonians, extending over centuries. In primitive times nothing was undertaken without an attempt to consult the wishes of the superior gods, and it is interesting to trace through the tablets on which are inscribed the wonderful cuneiform inscriptions, discovered and deciphered during the past fifty years, how the people were taught by their prophets or priests to consult the predestinations of Nebo, who inscribed at birth what would befall each person during life. Nebo had many names or designations. He was called Laghlaghghi-Gar, or illuminator; Gishdar, or god of the sceptre; Ilu-tashmit, or god of revelations; and the spouse of Tashmit; his name signifies Proclaimer Herald in Assyrian, and Height in Hebrew.
Nebo, called Nabu by the Babylonians, was the son of Enlil, or Marduk, the Merodach of the Bible (Jeremiah l:2), who became merged in the Jupiter of the Romans. Nebo was the husband of Tashmitum, or Tashmit, or Tashmetu, sometimes called Erna. Her name is translated as signifying “revelation,” “she who listens,” or “she who intercedes.” She is frequently invoked and besought to placate her more important spouse, or she is appealed to by worshippers to intercede with her consort to reveal what he had prophesied on the “tablets of fate.”
As the grandson of Ea, who was the god of doctors, Nebo inherited the privileges of healing. He also presided at birth and death, and could cure diseases. One of his symbols seems peculiar and is still retained on the Tarots. It is a sword, for in the minds of the men of his day a pestilence was a certain follower of war. Although Nebo was not the god of war, he was first its herald and then the healer of the sick or wounded, so it was under these conditions that a sword became his attribute.
Nebo shared with Shamash, Gula, and Nergal of Assyrian mythology, the power of restoring the dead to life, which, being interpreted, means curing the ill, whether from disease or sin.
It was to Nebo that the Assyrian kings ascribed their wisdom, for he was deemed to be the source of all knowledge, and the wonderful inventor of the art of writing that enabled the wise men who were his priests to preserve the records of the different reigns and the history of wars, the description of buildings and their donors, of deeds of valour and of charity, for the enlightenment of posterity.
The great temple built at Calah in the time of Ram-man-nerari III (812-783 B. C.) is inscribed with a dedicatory inscription placed by the king on the statue of Nebo. It closes with the sentence:
“Oh! posterity, trust in Nabu,
Trust in no other god.”
Nebo was also the patron of agriculture, who taught the husbandmen when to plant, the best time for irrigating, and a favourable time for the harvest. Being the messenger from heaven to earth, one of his symbols was the lightning. This emblem is preserved on the Japanese cards, although it is probably accidental. A hymn to Nebo attests his having lightning as an attribute, and the tablet upon which it was transcribed in cuneiform characters has been translated as follows:
“Lord of Borsippa, Son of E-Sagila! Oh, Lord, to thy power
There is no rival. Oh, Nebo, to thy Temple E-Zida there is no rival,
Or to thy home, Babylon. Thy weapon is the lightning,
From the mouth of which no breath does issue or blood flow.
Thy commands are as unchangeable as the Heavens,
Where thou art Supreme.”
The chief temple of Nebo was at Borsippa, on the opposite side of the Euphrates to Babylon; the town was sometimes called Babylon II. Nebo’s temple was styled E-Zida, the true house, and E-Sagila signified the lofty house, which was the temple of his father, Marduk. The connection with lightning is too marked to be overlooked when studying the derivation of Mercury’s attributes from those of Nebo.
The mighty king Ashur-banapal invokes Nebo on thousands of tablets that have been found in his great library. Nebo is called “the opener of the ears to understanding,” “he who gives the sceptre of sovereignty to kings, that they may rule over all lands,” “the upholder of the world,” “the general overlord and the seer.” All these attributes were combined with the scientific attainments of Nebo, and he was proclaimed as the inventor of language and the art of writing, together with being the great teacher and encourager of learning and scientific investigations. This is all emphasised by his numerous titles, such as “Speaker,” which is said to be derived from his name, signifying “to speak,” or “one who announces the fate of mankind,” which was another inheritance of Mercury’s when he was called the “Messenger of the Gods.” The attribute, then, in both cases, was the emblematic Sceptre of the ruler, the caduceus. The Sceptre was also named by the Assyrians “the Proclaimer,” and was variously represented, sometimes by the Staff with twisted serpents, although in earlier times it was generally pictured as stylus, which was closely copied in the representations of Thoth. The entwining serpents of the caduceus sacred to Mercury were directly inherited from votive emblems peculiar to the Babylonians, and they received force and significance after the rods of the Egyptian magi were turned into serpents and swallowed by the rod of Aaron.
When Nebo is called “Ilu-tashmit,” or god of Revelations, who teaches through his invention of writing and of speech, he is then regarded as a soothsayer or prophet. The Hebrew word for prophet is Nabi, and this leads to the interesting discussion that was started by Mr. Chatto in his “History of Playing Cards” (page 22), when he speculates on the name of Naibi, given to cards by the earliest Italian writers who mention them. As Naypes or Naipes is still the name printed on the wrappers and on the Four of Cups of Spanish cards, it evidently was connected with prophesy, and this card has peculiar values and significances among the gypsy fortune-tellers. Mr. Chatto states that in Hindustani the word Na-eeb or Naib signifies a viceroy or overlord, and quotes from “several Spanish writers” who have “decidedly asserted that the word Naipes, signifying cards, whatever it might originally have meant, was derived from the Arabic.” All the writers on playing cards quote from Corvelluzzo, who states: “In the year 1379 was brought into Viterbo the game of cards, which comes from the country of the Saracens and is with them called Naib.” The Arabian “divining arrows” are always made from a tree called Nabaa.
This little history, which is one of the earliest records of cards that were then no longer considered prophetic, has seemed to close all inquiry into the birth of games or their vehicle. No inquiry was therefore made into anything preceding this period. However, had cards been regarded as the survival of one of the most ancient of cults, connected with it by its traditions of prophesy or fortune-telling, the true story might have been unravelled centuries ago, for a study of the traditions, religions or superstitions of Africa and Asia would have revealed that Naibi (the name given at that time to cards) meant prophesy or revelation, and was inherited from the great “Writer on the Tablets of Fate,” Nebo the prophet, the Assyrian god. The prophets of the Bible were called Nabi, and it seems to be no accident that the mountain dedicated to Nebo and bearing his name should have been selected for the death place of the great prophet, Moses.
In the earliest histories of Assyrian mythology Nebo was not the influential personage that he became afterwards. But it was still early days when he was accorded the honour of having one of the planets named for him, which afterwards became identified with Mercury. When Nebo took his place among the mystic seven great gods, he found associated with him Marduk (or Jupiter), Nergal (or Mars), Ishtar (or Venus), Nineb (or Saturn), the Sun, represented in a chariot drawn by horses, as copied in the seventh card of the Atouts, and the Moon (Nan-nar), who was called the “Heifer of Anu,” and was the presiding genius. She received the name because the horns of the new moon resembled those of a cow. Her Assyrian temple was at Ur of the Chaldeans, and she was also worshipped in Egypt and is represented by the eighteenth Atout. Her horns are always typical of wisdom and prophesy, and, as such, are used on Michael Angelo’s famous statue of Moses.
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Early Italian Tarots
Pip Cards of the Cup Suit
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31 Ace of Cups 32 Deuce of Cups 33 Trey of Cups |
34 Four of Cups 35 Five of Cups 36 Six of Cups |
The first month of the Babylonian year was sacred to Nebo and his father, Marduk, and was called Nesan. The Egyptians made Thoth, or September, the first month; that began August 29th, as we figure it, with the rising of the Dog Star, which also was sacred to that god. This is symbolised in the seventeenth Atout, called The Stars, represented by an oblation to Osiris.
Daily sacrifices were made to Nebo, the offerings being bulls, and other animals, fish, birds, vegetables, honey, wine, oil and cream. Their technical term was Sattuku and Gina. It is probable that the wild boar was sacred to Nebo, as it was to Mercury, being one of the animals sacrificed to the latter, and the emblem is still found on the Two of Bells of the German cards. The boar was sacred among the Assyrians, and its flesh was forbidden on certain days in the Babylonian calendar. Its name was Nin-shakh, or Pap-sukal, meaning “Divine Messenger,” the name that was synonymous with that of Nebo.
There were many great ceremonies connected with the rites of Nebo, for the scientists, doctors, warriors and kings were all anxious to conciliate the arbiter of their fate, and there were many statues erected in his honour all over the land. The one representing him that was kept in E-Sagila, at Borsippa, called by Nebuchadnezzar “the house of the temple of the world,” meaning the lofty home, was yearly conducted with great ceremonies across the Euphrates in a car, or ark, shaped like a ship, in order that Nebo might pay homage at the temple of his father, Marduk.
The cult of Nebo reached its height when Nabu-polassar (626 B. C.), Nebu-chadnezzar (605 B. C.), and Nabonnedos (556 B. C.), adopted his name, thereby throwing themselves on his mercy, or invoking his protection. Nebuchadnezzar adopted it as signifying “Oh, god Nebu, protect my boundaries.”
About the ninth century before Christ there were innumerable temples devoted to the cult of Nebo dotted over the land, for those were troublous times, and, doubtless, the rulers and their people were anxious to have all the advice that they could obtain from the “Arbiter of Fate.” He was styled “the all-wise who guides the stylus of the scribes,” as well as “the possessor of wisdom,” and “the seer who guides all gods.” These inscriptions are found in many places, not only on the temples but on clay tablets.
Ashur-banipal extols Nebo on many of the tablets found in his great library at Nineveh, thanking him for his instructions and the inspiration that enabled the king to record in writing his valiant deeds, that were thus preserved for the benefit of his subjects. One of them reads, “write for posterity.”
The Assyrians invaded Egypt many times, and the Egyptians in return overran Palestine, Persia, Babylonia and Assyria, so that by intermarriage and constant intercourse the scientific attainments and the mythologies of both became influenced or mingled.
Although the capital of Menephtah, the Pharaoh of the Exodus, was at Thebes, the site of the great temple of Thoth and the favourite residence of “the Ruler” was Zoan, or Sau, as it is now called, which is three miles from Goshen. It was there that Moses and Aaron had their interviews. From that time on Thoth and Nebo became almost one god, and it is by no means stretching a point to connect the cults of Assyria and Babylonia with those of Egypt. Isaiah xix:23 says: “There shall be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians.” In the same chapter (third verse) we find: “And they shall seek to the idols, and to the charmers, and to them that have familiar spirits, and to the wizards.” It is, therefore, but a simple conclusion to suppose that the magi of Egypt adopted the great tablet writer of the Assyrians as one of their inspiring gods, and, that afterwards, when the pair were introduced to Europeans, they were merged into Mercury, while “The Book of the Writer” became known as “The Book of Thoth Hermes Trismegistus” (three times great), now called the Tarot pack of cards.
“The Bearer of the Fate Tablets,” dedicated to Nebuchadnezzar at Borsippa, has been translated, “Oh! Nabu! On thy unchangeable Tablets which determine the boundaries of Heaven and Earth, decree the length of my days. Write down posterity.” Which we would read, “Tell me how long I am to live and bestow children upon me.”
There is a colophon in Semitic Babylonian, written by Nabu-baladhsuigbi, son of Mitsircea (the Egyptian), probably during the reign of Nabonidus, the father of Belshazzar, that is also an invocation in the same style. The inscription of Tiglath-Pileser I, king of Assyria, which “is the longest and most important of early Assyrian records,” says Professor Sayce, dates from about 1106 B. C. This inscription was found under the foundations of the four corners of the temple of Kileh Shergha, the ancient city of Asshur, and is now in the British Museum. The one hundred and fifth sentence mentions divining rods as the “Oracle of the Great Divinities,” being placed within the temple. “This Elalla,” says Professor Sayce, “was a stem of papyrus covered with writing.”
Many tablets of Assyrian times have been deciphered from the cuneiform text and are designated as “Tablets of Grace,” or “Tablets of Good Works.” These are supposed to be those that Nebo wrote describing the virtues of men. Besides these, the Babylonians mentioned tablets on which the sins of the evil were recorded. The pious worshipper, therefore, prays that the Tablet of his sins and iniquities may be destroyed, saying: “May the Tablet of my sins be broken,” showing how prevalent was the belief that Nebo controlled fate entirely, both when predicting the future and also after death, and in this Thoth resembles him closely.
Similar connections are met with in the Old Testament, when Moses cries, “Forgive their sins—; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.” (Exodus xxxii:32.) The belief that such records are kept by the Almighty is referred to also in the New Testament. “Your names are written in Heaven.” (St. Luke x:20.) The verse in Ezekiel ix:2, “One man among them was clothed in linen, with a writer’s inkhorn by his side,” is supposed to refer to Nebo, “the Heavenly Scribe.”
In a long cuneiform text inscribed on a terra cotta prism found at Nineveh, King Asshur-banapal glories in having received from Nebo and Tashmitu (his consort) the power to understand “the art of tablet-writing.” In “Babylonian Magic and Sorcery from the British Museum,” by Leonard W. King, M. A., Assistant in the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities, British Museum, there are tablets invoking the protection of Nebo as well as of other gods. One of them has been translated as follows:
“Oh! Hero Prince, First born of Marduk;
Oh! prudent ruler of Spring of Zarpanitu;
Oh! Nabu, Bearer of the Tablet of the destiny of the Gods, Director of Isagila,
Lord of Izida, Shadow of Borsippa,
Darling of Ia, Giver of Life,
Prince of Babylon, Protector of the Living.”
It may be stretching a point to observe that the “arrow-headed” letters on the tablets of Babylonia closely resemble a sheaf of arrows that have fallen haphazard. But this may be seen in the name of the god Nebo.
CHAPTER VI
THE ATOUTS OF THE TAROTS
Since the creation of the world mankind has realized a divine power shaping his destiny, and has tried to conciliate the unknown god. Since life is made up of happenings that are unforeseen, man believed that certain occult powers directed and shaped them. It was natural, therefore, to try to ascertain the wishes of the controller of fate, so that they might be complied with and misfortune thus averted.
Invocations, sacrifices and queries, private or public in the temples, are recorded from early days. Some have been found that date from at least five thousand years before Christ. Directions for “wave offerings,” “burnt offerings,” etc., are frequent in the Old Testament. The commands for marking the “rods” with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, for the purpose of laying them on the altar and awaiting results when the wishes of the Lord would be revealed, are given in Numbers xvii. Prayers to Nebo, Thoth, and Mercury are found everywhere in the countries where they were worshipped. The use of divining arrows (rods), when demanding the wishes of the gods, is a known historic fact, so it is readily seen whence the Egyptians received their inspiration to gather together the customs, ceremonies and superstitions of alien religions, to absorb them in the worship of their god Thoth.
The temples of the Egyptian gods were generally gorgeously decorated, and those of Thoth were filled besides with learned women and men who devoted the result of their studies to the common good, without a thought of self-aggrandisement. They made themselves the go-between of Thoth and man, when revealing the wishes of the occult beings. The number of Hermetic Books, written at Thoth’s dictation, is given by Jamblichus as 20,000.
Naturally, when sacrifices or offerings were made, the worshipper demanded a reply to his inquiries, thus taxing the ingenuity of the prophets, who were, in fact, no wiser than himself as to the predestinations recorded at birth. So, sometimes they found the desires of the gods hidden in the entrails of animals or in the palms of the hands.
Astronomers and astrologers, observing that the heavenly bodies conformed to certain laws, decided that these laws also governed the lives of men. In the worship of Ishtar, the great Babylonian goddess, who has been identified with both Venus and Diana, the flight of birds had portent; while at the oracle of Delphi straws (a variant of the rods of Aaron or the divining arrows of the Asiatics) were employed to ascertain the wishes of the gods, and it is the descendants of these that are now sometimes known as Jackstraws, that came to us from the Chinese, and at others are identified as the pip cards now in common use.
A close study of each card of the old Tarots reveals much of the history of the book and its original intention, for the resemblance of the different cards to the different Egyptian deities is clearly displayed to the student. The attributes and costumes of Maut, Isis, Phthah, Neith, Amun, Thmei, Nepte, Seth, Anubis, and Ra are all to be traced on the detached leaves of the ancient book. The costumes are those of Italians of about the thirteenth century, it is true, but the caps, the girdles, the positions and the attributes, as well as the qualities assigned to each by the fortune-tellers, are too apparent to be ignored. It would seem that the cards were designed by some person to whom these different marks had been described, but who had no knowledge of the original pictures of these gods that are still so instructive in Egypt. While the attributes are retained, the pictures do not recall the old ones that can still be found in mummy cases or historic monuments. It was therefore impossible for those who wrote on Playing Cards before the great discoveries in Egypt to recognize the connection of the Tarots with the ancient mysteries, although the symbols of Mercury might have given a clue, had these been noted.
Without declaring that the deductions connecting the Atouts with the Egyptian gods is infallible, the strong resemblance between them must be carefully considered, and the intention of each card studied with all the obtainable history connected with it.
I. LE BAGATLEUR (Il Bagattel)
This card, also known as the Juggler or Pagat, bears various names, according to the locality where it was used. “It is derived,” says Count Emiliano di Parravicino, in the Burlington Magazine for December, 1903, “from Bagat or Paghead and Gad, that signifies fortune, and the card is often called Bagatto (or cobbler), since there are sometimes tools placed on the board in front of the figure, one of which (in the corrupted designs of modern cards) resembles a cobbler’s awl.” The figure on this card represents the Player or Inquirer, and when the cards are laid out, according to the rules of prophesying, it is controlled by all that are dealt close to it. That is to say, the cards surrounding this figure tell the events that are likely soon to befall the inquirer. The first Atout represents a young man standing behind a table. On his head is a hat of mystic meaning, for it is shaped like the sign of “eternal life,”
; his left hand carries a wand, called by de Gebelin “son Bâton de Jacob, ou Verges des Mages.” This magician’s wand was readily recognized by the shrewd Frenchman, who evidently understood the symbolism of the rod of Aaron (or Jacob). The rod is really the caduceus of Mercury that has so many significances. It is one of the pip devices that has been reproduced in the Ace of Rods, Staves, or Sceptres, as it is variously called, and, by placing it in the hand of the inquirer, it denotes that he has been given the power to consult the oracle. The other articles placed on the table before the youth are the other devices that mark the suits of the cards, namely: Money, Cups and Swords, although on modern Italian Tarots these emblems are often changed for others that lack significance. In “the lottery chart,” called Tsz-fa-to, used by the Chinese fortune-tellers, there is a figure like the Bagatleur, holding up his hand in the same way, which recalls the many mystic meanings attached to the “blessing hand.” The Pagat or Magician (as this card is often called) is sometimes expressed merely by the Hebrew letter Aleph, which is placed beside the figure, or is used alone, when an Initiate understands the symbol as well as if the Pagat was in its place. What relation the Hebrew alphabet has to the Tarots is a matter for conjecture, but the characters are often placed on early packs, and some writers have pointed out that, in their opinion, these letters offer fresh evidences of the origin of cards and their connection with divination. So Papus says: “The first letters of the alphabet express hieroglyphically man himself as a collective unity—the Master principle—the ruler of the world.” In very old packs the earth is represented at the bottom of the picture, ornamented with its fruits. The centre is occupied with the man, whose right hand bent towards the ground, the left hand raised towards heaven, thus representing two principles, the one active and the other passive, of the great All, and it corresponds with the two columns of Jakin and Bohas of the temple of Solomon and of Freemasonry, as well as with the great statues erected before the tombs of the Egyptian kings. The meaning may be thus stated: “Man with one hand seeks for God in Heaven, and with the other he plunges below to call up the demon to himself, and thus unites the divine and the diabolic in humanity.”
It is well known that among primitive people, boys, upon arriving at manhood, went through certain ceremonies with fasting and incantations so this card also represents a youth making his first offering to the gods of the temple, and consulting them as to his future life, or asking what Nebo or Thoth had written at the time of his birth on their “Tablets of Fate.” In order to learn from the gods what his future occupation should be, one of the symbols of Mercury is lifted haphazard from the table before him. Thus, if a sword be grasped, a man will be a soldier, and a woman will have a person of rank for a husband. The Cup represents the Church or Love. In primitive nations various articles are still placed before a child, and the one selected influences its occupations, when mature. In Korea a bundle of yarn, a handful of rice, a few coins, a cake of ink, a brush, and some paper are placed before a baby, on attaining its first birthday. If it selects the yarn, it denotes a long life; the money means prosperity; the writing materials signify that a scholar’s life will be the one followed, while rice means happiness. Hebrew letters can be expressed by numbers as well as by the conventional characters; this is well exemplified by the way they were used in making the fringes of the temple of Solomon, the strands of which were peculiarly knotted in groups of different numbers, that, when deciphered, represented a text. A similar knotted fringe adorns the Taleth or praying scarf, worn by the Jews when worshipping in the synagogue, on which a text is typified by groups of knots expressing Hebrew letters. “This fringe is made with four threads, one of which is longer than the others. Two threads are bound together with the longest one in a double knot, then it is wrapped seven times, then eight, then eleven, followed by thirteen, with two knots separating each.” “According to the Kabbalah,” states Professor Rosenau, in his book entitled “Jewish Ceremonial Institutions,” “these knots and windings have a secret meaning, making thirty-nine in all; they correspond to the numerical value of the letters constituting two words, or ‘the Lord is one,’ since each letter of the Hebrew alphabet has numerical significance.”
Among uneducated people symbols took the place of written characters in early days, so, since these knots conveyed a sound and a meaning, a number is also indicated by the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. These letters or numbers that were occasionally placed on the early Atouts have the greatest value when deciphering the attributes found on the Tarots, since each one has occult significance attached to it, evidently placed there with the intention of assisting the early fortune-tellers to decipher their meaning, although omitted in the later books of Thoth-Hermes, when they were used only for amusement or gambling.
II. LA PAPESSA (THE FEMALE POPE)
This card is supposed to represent Isis. She is typified by a seated female figure with two pillars behind her, between which hangs a curtain indicating her temple. She is crowned with a triple tiara, and has an open book in her lap. This goddess instructs and persuades. Law, erudition, and occult science are under her protection. As the first female figure among the Atouts, she represents the priestess of the temple of Thoth, also Eve, also the mother. When a woman is the inquirer, this card represents her, instead of the Pagat, which represents a man inquirer. The name of Papessa, given to this card by the modern Italian card-painter, seems to be a corruption of Isis. The former name is misleading, and has no connection with the original meaning of the figure, for it has nothing in common with the mythical Pope Joan of the Roman Church, while all the attributes show that the figure represents Isis, or, perhaps, Tashitum, the consort of Nebo, called “the Interceder.” “The Italian card-makers,” says de Gebelin, “named numbers II and V of the Atouts, mother and father, or Papessa and Papa;” but he declares “their emblems are Egyptian and the triple phallus worn by number II is the one borne by Isis in the Fête des Pampylies, where Isis joyfully receives Osiris. It is the symbol of regeneration of plants, or spring.” The card is also supposed to represent Juno in the Roman mythology. “The attitude connects it,” says the same authority, “with la haute magic, since it is the first of the symbols of the Emerald Tablet, one of the books of Thoth, that was discovered on the mount of Nebo.” Wiltshire says: “Believers in magic find occult meanings in the hands of this figure.” Roman women sacrificed to Juno on their birthdays, as she was not only the goddess who presided over maternity (making Mercury her messenger, who carried the child to its parents) but she was also the protector of women. Part of the great book of Thoth, called the Ritual of the Dead, said to have been written with the finger of Thoth, and generally placed with a mummy, says: “I am yesterday. Yesterday is Osiris. Phthah goes around. The divine Horus prefers Thee. The god Set does so in turn, as well as Isis, whom thou hast seen.” The Hebrew letter on the second Atout is Beth, which hieroglyphically expresses mouth or tongue, one of the things used in the sacrifices to Nebo and to Mercury.
III. L’IMPERATRICE (The Empress)
This card betokens Venus Urania according to the Roman mythology, or Maut according to that of Egypt. The vulture is its emblem, one of Maut’s attributes signifying maternity. The mouse also represents her, and it typifies fecundity. The card has many significances, such as speech, action, initiative, friendliness, protection, progress, production, and helpfulness. The figure is that of a seated woman holding a shield and a sceptre. In old cards she is crowned with a diadem that has twelve stars on its points. This card also symbolizes generation and productive forces. Its letter is Gimel, the meaning of which is the throat, or the hand of a man half closed; hence, it signifies that which encloses, that which is hollow, a canal, an inclosure. The card also represents a woman friend, but not always one that is desirable. The Egyptian goddess, Maut, wears a cap and crown, and she bears a sceptre. Her flowing robes are confined below the breasts with a girdle, the typical zone that has such occult meanings. Among the Persians and tribes of North Africa, the girdle is always removed from a bride, as part of the wedding ceremony, and neither is she nor the bridegroom allowed to wear one for seven days after the marriage. Maut is called “Lady of Heaven,” and “Giver of Life,” and has been identified by some as the Ishtar of the Babylonians.
IV. L’IMPERATORE (The Emperor)
The fourth Atout shows in profile a male figure seated on a throne. He represents Jupiter or Amun, the Ammon of the Egyptians, the Marduk of the Babylonians, and the Merodach of the Bible. This letter is Daleth, suggesting growth, nourishment, generation, divine will, long life, strong character or personal ability and ambition. This card and number three have similar representations on the Persian cards, which pack alone of those adopted by different countries retains the figure-pictures, to the entire exclusion of the pip cards. This seems to point to the fact that, while the Egyptians or Assyrians overran Persia and imposed some of their customs and religious beliefs on the people, the great gods were adopted reluctantly, and the key to their wishes was not bestowed on the conquered people, as would have been the case had their use, in combination with the prophetic arrows or rods, been taught at the same time. The great temple of Ammon was at Thebes, the southern Egyptian capital. The name Ammon means concealment, to veil, to hide. “His most common title,” says Mr. Rawlinson, in “Ancient Egypt” (page 322), “was Suten-Netern, king of the gods, also called Hek or Hyk, the Ruler, the Emperor, Lord of Heaven, strong bull.” His image, like that of the fourth Atout, is represented as seated on a throne. He is crowned, and wears a collar and bracelets. He bears the sceptre, the symbol of power and plenty. One of the invocations to Ammon begins “Hail to thee, Lord of Truth, whose shrine is hidden.”
V. IL PAPA (The Pope)
The pronunciation of the name of this card alone proves its connection with the Egyptian god, Phthah, but, besides this, it has many strange significances assigned to it, all of them pointing to the same conclusion. The figure denotes the religious superior, as it wears the triple crown, combined with the two pillars of the temple. The African god was greatly revered and feared, while many temples were dedicated to his worship. Four figures kneel before Il Papa, whom he blesses with uplifted palm, sacred to religious ceremonies, and inherited from the “hand of the Cohen” of the Jews. In the old cemetery at Prague there are hundreds of tombstones, on which the uplifted hands are carved to represent ideographically the descendants of Aaron, who alone can bestow benediction in this way. The hand plays an important part in heraldic emblems. “The Ulster, or bloody hand,” is a mark of rank, not only in English heraldry, but is venerated by Orientals as well. A bloody hand is frequently found stamped beside the lintel of the door among North Africans, and small silver or brass facsimiles of the right hand are also fastened to the door or worn on the person, to ward off the evil eye, when it is called the “hand of Fatima.” Arabs frequently wear this hand, that is then covered with engraved quotations from the Koran. Their name for it is Kam or five fingers. The number five—Khamsa—is considered so powerful and mystic that it is believed to bring bad luck if it is mentioned, so the word is not pronounced, but the Arabs say “two-three” instead. The Neapolitans generally wear a hand with one finger outstretched as a charm, one of the many links connecting them with Egypt. The fifth Atout in its position and consequence represents aspiration, health, intelligence, union, strength of will, religion and faith. The accompanying letter is He, the meaning of which is aspiration. The triple-barred sceptre is an especial emblem of Phthah, who was known as “the revealer,” the one who made hidden duties manifest.
The first four figures of the Atouts are connected with family life. The inquirer in number one, the parents in two and four, and the influence of State and Church in three and five, forming a significant group when studying the cards and their meanings.
VI. GLI AMANTI (The Lovers)
The sixth card has not yet been connected with any of the occult gods of Egypt or Babylonia. The figures seem to belong solely to Cupid. The card shows a young man between two females, symbolizing virtue and vice. Cupid hovers overhead, blindfolded, and with bent bow, ready to “shoot an arrow into the air.” When used for prophesying, this card is typical of a young man starting in life, whose future depends upon the choice before him, since good and evil both seem to claim him. The card also denotes affection, love, friendship, charity, union and sight, the latter being indicated by the letter, which is Vau, the hieroglyphic sign for eyes, light or brilliancy. The import of this figure is personal magnetism. This card also indicates marriage, and is emblematic of the legal tie, as well as of luck and good fortune.
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Early Italian Tarots
Pip and Court Cards of the Cup Suit
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37 Seven of Cups 38 Eight of Cups 39 Nine of Cups |
40 Ten of Cups 41 Knave of Cups 42 Cavalier of Cups |
VII. IL CARRO (The Chariot)
This is one of the most mystic of cards, its number being one that was regarded as occult by the ancients. It displays a picture of a king or a conqueror, in his car drawn by beasts, precisely as Nebo was frequently represented in the texts, “when the gilt chariot never marks the way.” Sometimes the car is drawn by horses, frequently by oxen, sometimes by lions, and occasionally by black and white sphinxes. This car typifies Mars, the god of war mentioned in Babylonian mythology and in the Bible, “when every nation made gods of their own and the men of Cuth made Neral (Mars).” (2 Kings xvii:30.) As has been mentioned, Nebo bore a sword and was regarded as accompanying warriors, although he generally represents the pestilence that follows in the wake of war. The Hebrew letter of the seventh Atout is Zain, that expresses an arrow, thus suggesting a weapon as well as a soldier, so it denotes victory, a ruling power, triumph, protection, a domineering character. “The arrows of divination” are frequently referred to in the Bible, for instance, when “the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way at the head of the two ways to use divination. He made his arrows bright, he consulted with images, he looked at the liver.” The tablets found at Nippur frequently refer to all the arts of divination, as when a text in cuneiform characters says: “the arrows were marked Yes and No,” or, “the king had shaken the arrows, questioned the house gods, and looked into the liver.” Mr. Culin, in his “Korean Games,” considers that divination by arrows is one of the most primitive forms, and it is still kept up in Korea, China, Japan, etc. The sticks used for the purpose in China are in the form of arrows, and are kept in a cube-shaped box resembling a quiver. They are shaken in a peculiar way until one jumps out, when the design on it, and the direction in which it points to the shrine, are considered to have replied to the inquirer.
The Chariot of the Atouts was, under certain conditions, supposed to represent Osiris. It was also called “the chariot of Mercury,” in the sense that he was the messenger of Mars when war was to be proclaimed, or when his caduceus was used as a flag of truce. Seven was always considered by the Egyptian savants a mystical number, so this card played an important part in occult science. Count Emiliano di Parravicino, in his essay published in the Burlington Magazine, December, 1903 (page 238), says: “Mgr. Antonio Dragoni (1814) suggests that the Atouts, numbering twenty-one [not counting the Joker (Fou), which has no number], represent the Egyptian doctrine beloved by Pythagoras, of the perfect number Three and the mythical number Seven. Hence, Thoth, the Mercury of the Egyptians, forms with the pack of pip cards his book or picture of the creation of three classes of images, which symbolize the first three ages of the world—i. e., the golden, the silver, and the bronze. Each of these three classes is to represent in its seven divisions a greater reference or mysticism, a mysterious book of the highest value in the art of divination, since this book of unbound leaves contained the key to all mysteries, although its contents were undecipherable to all but those taught in the temples of Thoth.” This proves that other thinkers besides Papus and de Gebelin had come to the same conclusions from their study of the Tarot pack, although without having the benefit of exchanging views on the subject.
The Babylonians believed in seven evil spirits, as the following prayer, translated from a cuneiform tablet, will prove:
Seven are they. They are seven,
The same in the mighty deep;
And Seven are they in heaven,
’Though in water, sometimes they sleep.
They are neither male, nor female,
These awful spirits that fly,
But like destructive whirlwinds,
They swirl across the sky.
Without a home or offspring,
Compassion and mercy are nil,
Since prayers or supplications,
They neither hear nor feel.
Like wild beasts bred in the mountains,
They defy both gods and men,
Polluting even the fountains
The rivers, the marshes, the fen.
Evil are they, strangely evil,
In temples, in cities, in homes;
For Seven are they, cruel Seven,
With weird and terrible forms.
Mr. Willshire, in his “Catalogue of the Playing Cards in the British Museum,” says: “It hardly requires a reference to the Bible to notice the frequency with which the number Seven is mentioned. Not only was the Seventh day to be kept holy, but, then, there was the mystery of the Seven stars, of which Nebo (Mercury) was one, the latter being the most rapid and brilliant. Also of the Seven golden candlesticks, and, in Zachariah iii:9, we find that on the stone laid before Joshua there were Seven eyes. Mercury invented the lyre, according to the Egyptians, in the year of the world two thousand. At first it had only three strings, but in the hands of the Muses, Seven were adopted. Then also the Seven virtues were called the Seven cords of the human lyre, having their analogies in the Seven colours of the prismatic spectrum. Then there were Seven precious stones, namely: Carbuncle (garnet), Crystal, Diamond, Agate, Emerald, Sapphire, and Onyx, besides the Seven chief metals.” The emerald was considered the stone of Thoth, we may infer, since one of his books was entitled “The Emerald Tablet.” Among the Berber tribes, of North Africa, the women put seven marks on their foreheads, to protect them from the evil eye; this is also done among some of the Negro tribes. When consulting the pip cards, the Sevens have peculiar and occult values, marking the boundaries between those lower and higher. They also make combinations that influence the consideration of other cards.