Transcendental Magic — Éliphas Lévi
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By the help of this purely dogmatic explanation we shall already understand the kabbalistic alphabet of the Tarot. Thus, Figure I., entitled the Buffoon, represents the active principle in the economy of divine and human autotelia. Figure II., vulgarly called Pope Joan, represents dogmatic unity based upon numbers, and is the personification of the Kabbalah or the Gnosis.
Figure III. represents divine Spirituality under the emblem of a winged woman, holding in one hand the apocalyptic eagle, and in the other the world suspended from the end of her sceptre. The other emblems are equally clear, and can be explained as easily as the first. Turning now to the four suits, namely, Clubs, Cups, Swords, and Circles or Pantacles, commonly called Deniers — all these are hieroglyphics of the tetragram.
Thus, the Club is the Egyptian Phallus or Hebrew jod ; the Cup is the cteis or primitive he ; the Sword is the conjunction of both, or the lingam, represented in Hebrew preceding the captivity by vau ; while the Circle or Pantacle, image of the world, is the Tie final of the divine name.
Now let us take a Tarot and combine all its emblems one by one into the Wheel or EOTA of William Postel ; let us group the four aces, the four twos, and so on, together ; we shall then have ten packs of cards giving the hieroglyphic interpretation of the triangle of divine names on the scale of the denary, as previously tabulated. By referring each number to its corresponding Sephira, we may then read them off as follows : — p. 95mrr Four signs present the name of every name. 1 KETHER. Tliefour Aces. Four brilliant beams adorn his crown of flame. 2 CHOCHMAH. The four Twos. Four rivers ever from his wisdom flow. 3 BINAH. The four Threes. Four proofs of his intelligence we know. 4 CHESED. The four Fours. Four benefactions from his mercy come. 5 GEBURAH. The four Fives. Four times four sins avenged his justice sum. 6 TIPHERETH. The four Sixes.
Four rays unclouded make his beauty known. 7 NETSAH. The four Sevens. Four times his conquest shall in song be shewn. 8 HOD. The four Eights. Four times he triumphs on the timeless plane. 9 JESOD. The four Nines. Foundations four his great white throne maintain. 10 MALCHUTH. The four Tens. One fourfold kingdom owns his endless sway, As from his crown there streams a fourfold ray.
p. 96By this simple arrangement the kabbalistic meaning of each card is exhibited. For example, the five of clubs rigorously signifies Geburah of Jod, that is, the justice of the creator or the wrath of man ; the seven of cups signifies the victory of mercy or the triumph of woman ; the eight of swords signifies conflict or eternal equilibrium ; and so of the others.
We can thus understand how the ancient pontiffs proceeded to make the oracle speak.
The chance dealing of the lamens invariably produced a fresh kabbalistic meaning, exactly true in its combinations, which alone were fortuitous ; and, seeing that the faith of the ancients attributed nothing to chance, they read the answers of Providence in the oracles of the Tarot, which were called Theraph or Theraphim by the Hebrews, as the erudite kabbalist Gaffarel, one of the magicians employed by Cardinal Richelieu, was the first to perceive.
As to the figures, a final couplet will suffice to explain them : — KING, QUEEN, KNIGHT, ESQUIRE. The married pair, the youth, the child, the race ; Thy path by these to Unity retrace.
At the end of the Eitual we shall provide further details, together with full documents, concerning the marvellous Tarot book, which is of all books the most primitive, the key of prophecies and dogmas, in a word, the inspiration of inspired works, a fact which has remained unperceived equally by the science of Court de Gebelin and by the extraordinary intuitions of Eteilla or Alliette.
The ten Sephiroth and the twenty-two Tarots form what the kabbalists term the thirty-two paths of absolute science. With regard to particular sciences, they distinguish them into fifty chapters, which they call the fifty gates — among Orientals the word gate signifies government or authority.
The rabbins also divided the Kabbalah into Bereschit, or universal Genesis, and Mercavah, or the chariot of Ezekiel ; then by means of a dual interpretation of the kabbalistic alphabets, they formed two sciences, called Gematria and
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