Transcendental Magic — Éliphas Lévi

p. 369X The elements, the visible world, tlie reflected light, material forms, symbolism. Hieroglyph, the moon, dew, a crab rising in the water towards land, a dog and wolf barking at the moon and chained to the base of two towers, a path lost in the horizon and sprinkled with blood. p Composites, the head, apex, prince of heaven. Hieroglyph, a radiant sun, and two naked children taking hands in a fortified enclosure.

Other Tarots substitute a spinner unwinding destinies, and others, again, a naked child mounted on a white horse and displaying a scarlet standard. 1 Vegetative principle, generative virtue of the earth, eternal life. Hieroglyph, THE JUDGMENT. A genius sounds the trumpet and the dead rise from their tombs. These persons who are living and were dead, are a man, woman, and child — the triad of human life.

V The sensitive principle, the flesh, eternal life. Hieroglyph, THE FOOL. A man in the garb of a fool, wandering without aim, burdened with a wallet, full, no doubt, of his follies and vices ; his disordered clothes discover his shame ; he is being bitten by a tiger, and does not know how to escape or defend himself. n The microcosm, the sum of all in all. Hieroglyph, Kether, or the kabbalistic crown, between the four mysterious animals.

In the middle of the crown is Truth holding a rod in each hand. Such are the twenty-two keys of the Tarot, which explain all its numbers. Thus, the juggler, or key of the unities, explains the four aces with their quadruple pro- 2A 3p. 370gressive signification in the three worlds and in the first principle. So also the ace of deniers or of the circle is the soul of the world ; the ace of swords is militant intelligence ; the ace of cups is loving intelligence ; the ace of clubs is creative intelligence ; they are also the principles of motion, progress, fecundity, and power.

Each number, multiplied by a key, gives another number, which, explained in turn by the keys, completes the philosophical and religious revelation contained in each sign. Now, each of the fifty-six cards can be multiplied in turn by the twenty-two keys ; a series of combinations thus results, giving all the most astonishing conclusions of revelation and of light.

It is a truly philosophical machine, which keeps the mind from going astray while leaving its initiative and liberty ; it is mathematics applied to the absolute, the alliance of the positive and the ideal, a lottery of thoughts as exact as numbers, perhaps the simplest and grandest conception of human genius.

The mode of reading the hieroglyphs of the Tarot is to arrange them in a square or triangle, placing equal numbers in antagonism, and conciliating them by the unequal. Four signs invariably express the absolute in a given order, and are explained by a fifth. Hence the solution of all magical questions is the pentagram, and all antinomies are explained by harmonious unity.

So arranged, the Tarot is a veritable oracle, and replies to all possible questions with more precision and infallibility than the Android of Albertus Magnus. An imprisoned person with no other book than the Tarot, if he knew how to use it, could in a few years acquire universal knowledge, and would be able to speak on all subjects with unequalled learning and inexhaustible eloquence.

In fact, this wheel is the true key to the Oratorical Art and the Grand Art of Kaymund Lully ; it is the true secret of the transmutation of shadows into light ; it is the first and most important of all the arcana of the great work. By means of this universal key of symbolism, all allegories of India, Egypt and Judea are illuminated ;