Category: Tarot and Astrology Articles

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The Fool/Le Mat – Jolly Green Giant of Tarot de Marseille


“There is no danger of lowering God.”

“…a time comes, especially when the play of gods and heroes develops to gigantic proportions, when the spectator must feel the need for relief from the high concerns of great immortal themes; and a pathetic consciousness begins to form of little man confronted by these things – seeming by contrast comic in his limitations, yet peculiarly valiant in his one invincible power to take knocks; the Eternal Butt. His only weapon of offence to raise up against it all is the phallus, or a need to be undone and seduced when life becomes too much of an obstacle to step over with ease and dispassion.”
~ Richard Southern, The Seven Ages of Theatre, on the introduction of the comic interlude.

Fool from Heironymus Hess’ Dance of Death (after Holbein),  mid 19th c

It’s been said that the Renaissance was a direct reverberation of the Black Plague, that out of this grim blackening (it always begins with blackening) a golden age was created, the rebirth of the light. In Italy, three famous poets (‘the big three’) are usually credited with having initiated Humanist thinking, providing an inspirational blueprint or script for the artistic movement that would reshape the consciousness of Europe; Petrarch (The Triumphs), Danté (The Divine Comedy) and Boccaccio (The Decameron).

Petrarch’s Triumph of Vainglory [Fame], ca 1380 (BnF)
Renaissance scholar Jacob Burckhardt says that Danté “was and remained the man who first thrust antiquity into the foreground of national culture. In the ‘Divine Comedy’ he treats the ancient and the Christian worlds, not indeed as of equal authority, but as parallel to one another” and that Petrarch “owed his fame among his contemporaries far rather to the fact that he was a kind of living representative of antiquity, that he imitated all styles of Latin poetry, endeavored by his voluminous historical and philosophical writings not to supplant but to make known the works of the ancients.”

Although Boccaccio too drew on and borrowed from classical/ancient themes and styles, The Decameron was set in more contemporary, plague times and is referred to as early satire. It has been nicknamed the ‘Human’ Comedy and from my understanding (I haven’t read it) gets pretty bawdy and anti-clerical, enough so that it was thrown upon the vanity bonfire. We might say that in Boccaccio’s case, the phallus was indeed raised as his weapon of offence against the high concerns of great immortal themes, and in defiance of death, following the plague.

Laugh? I thought I’d die!     (Camoin-Jodorowsky ConverTdM)

Tarot dates back at least to the middle Renaissance and, like the great poets, pairs ancient, classical themes and traditions with Medieval ones – especially the idea of a parade of characters (or gods), such as those in the Totentanz or Canterbury Tales, etc. The Fool and his Unnamed double emblematize the Middle Ages (pre-Renaissance) while at the same time representing that which is eternal; the immortal breath of spirit and the infinite void.

A jester points out God in a cloud, c 1405-15 (British Library)


“Men are born soft and supple; dead they are stiff and hard.
Plants are born tender and pliant; dead, they are brittle and dry.
Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death.
Whoever is soft and yielding is a disciple of life.
The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will prevail.”
~ Lao Tzu

Noblet dingle dangle (mid 17th c)

Although the animal going after his buttocks in the classic, Conver Fool card (eg. Camoin-Jodorowsky and two samples in mid-quartet, below) looks canine, in pre-Conver type decks, such as Jean Noblet (above), it is usually feline. Fools were often depicted with a cat familiar,  licentious, nocturnal cats being associated with sinners and the Devil (hence they were persecuted along with witches in Medieval Europe, resulting in the spread of plagues due to rodent profusion).

‘Devil’s Anus’ Woman with a Mirror and Jester, 1600s (anon)

However…like the proverbial cat who may look upon a king, a court fool/jester was the only person allowed to truly ‘look at’ the king. Like Fluffy, he’s acutely unimpressed by human status. It’s an old tradition. In ancient Rome, for instance, there was a person whose role was to stand behind the celebrated conqueror in his victory chariot, whispering, “Remember you are a man.” As well, ‘there are accounts of a funny man who performed impressions of the deceased – at their own funerals. The archimimus was allowed to offend even family members.’ [BBC]

The number of Fools is infinite. ~ Ecclesiastes

Ancient Roman gallows humour [via BBC]
Our Tarot Fool is more jongleur (travelling entertainer) than court jester, but he comes from the same, marginalized lineage. Though they were very skilled, jongleurs were often mistrusted, even condemned as ‘agents of the Devil’ because of their music, profane songs and dancing, which smacked of ancient, Pagan ritual. I say ‘smacked’ because this is usually what that long spoon was for – a slap stick. (Perhaps the comedic prop reminded the church of those ‘Pagan’ libations). An outsider who ‘stirred things up’ would likely need to make ninja use of their accoutrement on occasion. Yet he makes no effort to shoo the clawed attacker away.

So is the Fool a king? For a possible answer to this question, we might ponder another: Why does the tear in his pants reveal green skin?
The usual explanation is that the printers were simply ‘pulling a fig leaf’ by colouring his bared rump green, yet somehow Noblet got away with exposing not only his fleshy butt, but genitals too (apparently his way of flipping the bird to the tax man). And why make the Fool’s ‘outer skin’ (leggings) flesh coloured?

Green Men; Dodal, 2 Conver versions, Bologna version

Another, small but noteworthy detail is that the monadic ball on his left shoulder is usually – though not always – the only one (of the two on his shoulders) coloured red. Green skin (more on his upper back?), dog and red shoulder ball might together suggest a connection to Osiris, conflated with his constellation, Orion.
Orion is actually mentioned in the Bible as ‘Kesil’, a Hebrew word meaning fool/dullard/stupid fellow. Maybe because Orion the Hunter boasted he could kill any animal (and was also a criminal who committed rape), or else the Israelites regarded the Egyptian lord the same way a cat regards a king.

This incredibly evocative mosaic (below) depicts the moment Orion is transformed into a god aka constellation. It is so loaded with symbolism and emotion, I’ll have to do a separate post about it, at some point.

The moment Orion is transformed, House of Orion, Pompeii

The descent and rebirth (as vegetation) of Osiris was based on his constellation’s disappearance below and reappearance above the horizon. Next to it, in Canis Major – hence the dog – is Sirius, star of his loyal, loving Isis. The heliacal rising of Sirius initiated the new agricultural year, signifying the Nile would be rising, beginning a new cycle of life. The ‘red giant’ star in Orion’s eastern shoulder is Betelgeuse. [Note: the constellation was not seen as literally being Osiris, nor was Sirius Isis herself. They were called Sah and Sopdet, consecutively.]

Orion (Betelgeuse in top left)  photo credit:  Rogelio Bernal Andreo

The death/dismemberment of Osiris and his resurrection as new vegetation can also be understood as an alchemical process, which begins with ‘blackening.’ The word ‘alchemy’ comes via Khemet, aka Egypt, the black land (its fertile soil), but also the ‘black art’ they practiced; smelting and melting metals, which initially turned them black and for which charcoal was used. The term later became equated with ‘black magic’…not excluding witches, fools and their devilish familiars.

Green Osiris with three-fold flail and crook.

“You sleep that you may wake
You die that you may live.”  ~ Pyramid Text 

Osiris was syncretized with Greek Dionysus, so in TdM tradition, if our Fool evokes one, he’s going to evoke the other, via attributes. Dionysus, the antithesis of rational Apollo, was naturally more ‘Fool-like’ than the wise, good and beloved king Osiris. But they played similar roles as dying (dismembered) and resurrecting agricultural gods, celebrated in annual festivals. The triumph was originally a hymn of praise (thriambos), to Dionysus, sung in processions to his honour. He was also god of the Greek stage (hence the masks).

Greco-Roman Mosaics: Dionysus dancing with panther and with satyr and maenad.
Baby Dionysus and his wild kitty, standing on a precipice (with masks), Pompeii

“The ancients conceived their divinities not as super-mundane beings of a different calibre from mankind, but as stooping sympathetically and not infrequently to don the mouse skin of humanity.”
 ~ Harold Bayley, The Secret Language of Symbolism

The word MAT likely comes from the Italian word ‘matto’ meaning crazy. But it can also refer to ‘dark’ (as in skin) or ‘dull’ (as in non-reflective or dim) or an actual mat, which, like the shoe, selflessly positions itself between us and the cold, dirty ground during pilgrimage or prayer. Similar to a mask?
There is also the oft mentioned Ma’at, Egyptian Goddess whose feather is weighed against hearts in the Judgement of the Dead. But let’s stay with crazy, dark and Christ-like, for the time being.

“Humour is reason gone mad.”  ~ Groucho Marx

Mad Dionysus Tauros (horned)

The cult of Dionysus was, initially, a rebellion against the powerful, known for only admitting people of the lowest ranks, like slaves, women, outcasts and outlaws. The aim of the cult was to spiritually liberate those who were always looked down on and empower them to help themselves. The devotees did practice sacrifice, and, in their frenzied, ecstatic state of becoming one with their god, were rumoured to have torn apart and eaten the flesh of whatever living being was in their path. Just imagine if, during Beatlemania, there’d been no bobbies to protect the Fab Four from scores of devouring, teen maenads. Would they have stopped at ‘a lock of George’s hair’?

But the wild things cried, “Oh please don’t go –
we’ll eat you up – we love you so!”
~ Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak, 1963

Beatlemania maenads, 1964  …and this is without the laced wine!

A clue to the Fool’s role in all of this sits square above his shoulders. Let me just say, I have tried to replicate his posture with a rod held over the opposite shoulder and face held upward and turned all the way to the side, while walking, and conclude he is either a skilled contortionist or is minus a skeleton. Upon closer examination, it appears he’s actually wearing a mask, which may have been moved to the side of his ‘real’ face.

Did I Fool you?

Pompeii Tarotist Didier Dufond (you can find him on Facebook) points out that:

Le Mat’s headdress shows all the elements of the liknon: the wicker braces, the handles, the revealed phallus (with undoubtedly part of the veil falling) and even a fruit (probably a poppy) in the same place as on a Campana plaque, elements dismantled and reassembled to make this strange headdress, prefiguring cubism, and that there are numerous representations of Silenus carrying this mystical van on his head to celebrate an initiation, head bend over and look towards the sky. In his late representations, Silenus lost his Socratic snub nose and his equine references to become totally “human” (Coptic hanging of Dionysus or mosaic of Sarrin… and tarot…).

[Addendum: Profuse apologies for previously having written that he said the Fool’s head “resembles the Silenus mask in a liknon,” my faulty understanding/translation of his video presentation. Nobody likes to be misquoted!]

To me, the basket-hood also resembles a serpent head with open maw, sometimes accentuated with red ‘lips’, which is perhaps reminiscent of the Egyptian Mehen – a giant serpent who wraps itself around the Sun god Ra (Re) to protect him during his journey through the Underworld, during which he merges with Osiris, who becomes his ‘corpse’. (The shape beneath his shoulders even looks like a reverse sunset).  It is also the name of an associated  game with a coiled serpent board. The transit of the soul essentially begins at the snake’s tail and ends being ‘born’ through its mouth, a la Jonah and the Whale (the Christian version). This mystical rebirth is the real [a descendant confirmed it] meaning of the Visconti Biscione. ‘Renaissance’ means rebirth, after all (topic of future post).

Serpent births (clockwise from top left: TdM Fool, Mehen, Visconti Biscione, Jonah

Whether you care to invoke Osiris or not, or recognize a twinning with #13, it’s obvious that Le Mat is divided into 3 sections by his sticks; the bottom section shows his foot having made the initial step below (even the ground appears lowered), the middle one shows his thigh being wounded, or at least ‘unveiled.’ A mortal wound to the thigh was a typical prerequisite for heroes prior to descent (as was madness), but often what was meant by ‘thigh’ in myth was actually ‘genitals.’ (The Fisher King tale is a good example of this). The phallus held a prominent place in Dionysian ritual, to say the least (perhaps Noblet was conveying more than just an insult). Furthermore, remember Dionysus’ second birth was from the thigh of his father, Zeus, which is what made him a God and not simply a hero. At the top, the face or mask re-emerging from a winged maw (as described), and/or hinting at Dionysian objects.  Oh yes, and his passport dangles beside his opened ham.


Fool’s ‘Passport’? Orphic gold tablets were sometimes leaf-shaped.

The Fool’s face resembles depictions of Hermes (hence the ‘wing’ in his hood) or Dionysus (Silenus was pug-nosed, but as Dufond states above, he later lost the “Socratic snub nose.”). Regardless, it’s clearly mask-shaped. In the Conver version (last two squares, above), you can even see the defining line of its side edge. His hood is also shaped to subtly define the mask border.

Coin with Silenus mask (or laureate head) in liknon and baby satyr playing with the mask
Mercury 6th-4th c BC and Dionysus 490-480 BC

Silenus, teacher and ward of Dionysus was of course a satyr and the Silenus mask would have been worn by the leader of the chorus in Greek Satyr plays. This became the mask of Comedy (Thalia), the other side being Tragedy (Melpomene). Boccaccio was influenced by these bawdy plays which were once the highlight of the Dionysian festival. Yes, in spite of efforts to prove the contrary, satire is indeed related to satyr plays.

Actors, House of the Tragic Poet, Pompeii

Like Silenus, the Fool archetype also has a dark side; that of the nihilist who believes that life is meaningless, rejecting all religious and moral principles and projecting their own inner emptiness onto the outer world. I am sure we’ve all met someone who fits this description (or been this person, in our existential twenties). Maybe this is why the Fool must embody all 21 arcana, before he can emerge at the other end crazy wise, and not just crazy.  ~rb

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.
The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are,
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.
(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)

 ~ excerpt from Walt Whitman’s ‘Song of the Open Road’

***

Speaking of immortality…
Below is an Ice Age ivory carving nick-named ‘The Adorant’, thought to represent the constellation of Orion:
“The total number of notches (88) not only coincides with the number of days in 3 lunations (88.5) but also approximately with the number of days when the star Betelgeuse (Orion) disappeared from view each year between its heliacal set (about 14 days before the spring equinox around 33,000 BC) and its heliacal rise (approximately 19 days before the summer solstice). Conversely, the nine-month period when Orion was visible in the sky approximately matched the duration of human pregnancy…”
~ Don’s Maps (fantastic site!)

‘The Adorant’…oldest Tarot card??


Opening quote, ‘There is no danger of lowering God’ from Harold Bayley (quoting the Dean of Ely), The Lost Language of Symbolism, v. 1

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The Empress, the Alembic and the Secret Fire

From joy springs all creation, by joy it is sustained,
towards joy it proceeds, and to joy it returns. – Mundaka Upanishad

Tarot de Marseille is a funny creature. Just when you think you’ve ‘figured it all out’, like a chimera it changes into something else. Fortunately I en-joy a mystery and seeking that which has no end. If I’ve learned one thing from TdM, it’s that the same pattern exists in whatever particular wisdom path you choose to follow. “All roads lead to Alexandria.” (wink)
The enigma is perhaps most apparent in the triad sequence, beginning with the Empress. To re-cap TdM’s inherent Pythagorean principal:

One becomes two, two becomes three and
out of three comes the one as the fourth.

Each 3 place card completes a triad from which the next cycle of three will be born, with 21 also completing the entire 3 x 7 cycle. Unlike the 1s with their solar crowns (monadic) and 2s with their lunar vessels (dyadic), there’s no  obvious, recurring object in every 3 place card (triadic), other than a predominance of wateriness (and darkness, in the case of 9, 12, 15 and 18). The Mercurial spirit of creation requires a container – a body of some kind – for transformation to take place, AND it is also that container, like caterpillar and pupa. They are not separate, but form each other. The 3 place cards allude to this secret, inner and outer process. Magic is afoot, is all we really know.
[Please click on any images to enlarge]

3 place cards, Camoin-Jodorowsky TdM

3
Let’s look at the three cards in the 3 place with the numeric sum of 3. The first, The Empress (3) shows us what we need to know. Atop her sceptre is the globus cruciger or sovereign’s orb – nothing unusual about that….except maybe the size? In reality, a globus this big would be hand held, with a smaller one atop the accompanying sceptre. Masculine sceptre and feminine orb (and the 4 and 3 of the orb’s parts) are being combined, and we can see that the base of her sceptre points to precisely where it’s all going to happen.

Emblem 2, the feminine qualities of the stone, from Michael Maier’s, Atalanta fugiens

In alchemy, one of the symbols for antimony, the ‘wild spirit of man’ (sometimes represented by a wolf) is the reversed Venus/copper symbol – a circle with cross on top. “Pliny the Elder (ca 77 AD) made a distinction between the “male” and “female” forms of antimony; the male form is probably the sulfide, while the female form, which is superior, heavier, and less friable, has been suspected to be native metallic antimony.” [Wikipedia]

cinnabar with mercury droplets, antimony rendered in antimony

But most (?) likely, it is the symbol for cinnabar, the ‘parent’ mineral from which Mercury is born. Note the orb which the philosopher’s child, hermaphroditic Mercury holds as he wades through the alchemical bathwater, below. Is it the cinnabar womb water, or the antimony purification bath, which eats away everything but gold? Or maybe both, considering the two parent luminaries lovingly at hand?

‘Our Son’ Mercury, Baro Urbigerus 1705

‘The watery matrix holdeth the fire captive.’  – Jacob Boehme

Like the eagle on her shield, the Empress has ‘wings.’ Beside her left hip is a scallop or scalloped bowl/baptismal fount. The scalloped basin was also a type of alchemical vessel and symbol of the Hermetic pilgrim, according to Fulcanelli. Either way, it has to do with the purification process.

Hellenistic Greek Glass Shell 2nd-1st century B.C.

In both type 1 and type 2 Empress cards, there is often what resembles a triple flag under the basin, likely representing the main 3 stages/colours of the work (black, white, red), as in this relief (detail) on Notre Dame Cathedral depicting all the stages of alchemy (please see this new article on the Popess for more on Notre Dame alchemical reference). It might also represent the three philosophical elements; salt/body, sulphur/soul and mercury/spirit.

Threefold alchemy ‘flag’ from Notre Dame, Noblet and Payen Empress details.

All these raw, heavy materials, still in their ‘vulgar’ state almost appear to weigh her down. Mythically speaking, since the Emperor evokes Pluto (aka Dionysus, aka Osiris), his partner must also evoke Persephone, Queen of the Dead and personification of Spring regeneration. The ‘M’ shape of her blue skirt is the age-old symbol for water. Maya or Maia is mother ocean/womb, and Maria is literally ‘Maia with fire (R/Ur) in her belly’ (covered by red vest). The perennial fountain? Or an alembic?  I like to think of her eagle shield as the ultrasound screen, and her sceptre as the transducer.  But again, M might just stand for MERCURY, here in female form (remember, with 3s, the process, container and its contents are as one).

Noblet, Dodal and two versions of Conver Empress card

Another honourable Maria, namely Maria the Prophetess, was the first [non-mythical] alchemist of the western world. Schooled by the great Zosimos of Panopolis, she lived sometime between the 1st and 3rd centuries in Alexandria, Egypt (of course). Maria also had a favourite axiom:

One becomes two, two becomes three and
out of three comes the one as the fourth.

Wait, haven’t we heard that before? Did she get it from Pythagoras (who lived several centuries prior) or is it just a case of universal truth? Both geniuses stood faithfully by these words. Pythagoras was not an alchemist, but nevertheless, he understood this fundamental equation to be the basis of all creative cycles.

mathematical and alchemical tetractys
Empress crown detail from Schaer Tarot

‘Maria the Jewess,’ as she’s also known, “incorporated life-like attributes into her descriptions of metal such as bodies, souls, and spirits. She believed that metals had two different genders, and by joining the two genders together a new entity could be made.” [Wikipedia]
She is accredited with many firsts, particularly her invention of the balneum Mariae (bain-Marie), progenator of the modern-day double-boiler. Of her written works surviving in Arabic we find two most curious titles; The Book of Maria and the Wise Men and The Epistle of the Crown and the Creation of the Newborn Baby. 

Leonora Carrington, The Chrysopeia of Mary the Jewess, 1964

Maria excelled in both mystical and scientific approaches and it’s thought she may have originated the idea of 4 colour stages in alchemy. Indeed she herself was an alembic, which is the whole point of this exercise, the teachings of the 3s. Hermes Trismegistus (‘thrice great’) was another such person, albeit more mythical. In Pythagorean numerology, 3 is the number of creativity, joy, artistic expression. In astrology, the trine is considered the most harmonious aspect, connecting planets or points of the same element. (However, it is fiery and energy can flow with lightening speed for better or worse).

Maria Prophetissima and Hermes Trismegistus from Michael Maier’s Symbola Aurea Mensae Duodecim Nationum (1617)
Maria’s bath, 1528.

So, the Empress, similar to the Juggler, has all four elements (or stages) about her, in physical form; earth (ground below + snake/globus + barely visible horns), fire (crown + hair), air (wings + human features) and water (blue robe/shell). The eagle represents the work as well as the water element. The difference being that 1 alone can’t yet do anything with all the separate, single parts, other than superficially (ie, practical magic), like performing tricks or perhaps trading with Jack for his cow.
The Empress and Emperor will complete each other (he too has orbed sceptre and eagle, and faces toward her), but they have not yet come together, they are still 3 and 4, neither added nor multiplied.

Conver Empress and World cards. Note the shield eagle’s amphibious wing.

In this older version (below), that she has attributes of the four ‘elemental beasts’ of the World card are more obvious; longer ‘horns’ (in crown and necklace), wings/human, eagle/phoenix and even a lion’s paw/mane.

Guilaume Dubesset-Claude Valentin, ca 1680

12
I’ve already written on some of the 3 place cards – the Hanged Man, the Hermit, the Devil and the Moon – so will just touch on the Hanged Man (12) here, as he’s part of this 3 x 3 sequence.
His flaming hair and his number might suggest solar connotations, although he’s still situated in-between the Sun and Moon ‘parents’. The Sun represents the gold, and thus the process of purifying the ‘inner’ (philosophical) gold is in progress. But it is not the literal Sun, physical fire or material gold. Rather, it is a different fire altogether.

Visconti Sforza 16th c, Jacques Vieville 17th c, Nicholas Conver TdM 18th c

In the middle example, the number is placed so that he is flipped, indicating that as his body descends, his spirit ascends (note the lunar and solar ‘mounds’ on each side of his head, the solar one containing all the heavenly spheres), with emphasis on the spiritual. Not an accident, but likely an Orphic reference. In the third card, the descent of the ‘Sun’ (his head) into matter is emphasized. High noon and midnight, apex and nadir, bipolar. It really is like the separation that goes on inside the alchemist’s glass egg. The main thing is that we can’t observe his inner process. Typically, the Hanged Man’s expression is placid, as if he’s either in acceptance or ‘somewhere else.’ His gibbet is like a (golden) doorway or threshold. All of this suggests he is experiencing what’s known in alchemy as the secret fire:

Search, therefore, this fire with all strength of your mind, and you shall reach the goal you have set yourself; for it is this that brings to completion all the stages of the Work, and is the key of all the Philosophers, which they have never revealed in their books. If you think well and deep upon this above-mentioned fire, you will know it. Not otherwise.
– Potanus, The Secret Fire

To me, the Visconti-Sforza version looks very alchemical, its colours alluding strongly to the (philosophical) Green Lion devouring the Sun. I love how well the following description of the symbolism relates to the card, albeit it seems to be more from a Jungian perspective than traditional alchemy (and granted, the solar ‘ego’ looks anything but terrified):

The image corresponds to the releasing of primordial essence. That is why the lion is green, which is a primordial, unripe color. It also connotates fecundity. Eating the sun symbolizes the dominance of the Ego by instinctual forces. It is the beginning of a return to a more natural psychological state in which human beings flourish.
The ego perceives the encounter as terrifying because all transformational processes appear to be a kind of death to the ego. However, this process is the catalyst for an encounter with the Self. The instincts are amoral relative to human society and culture. Social conditioning aims to keep the instincts in check until the Higher Self is adequately present. Once present, our attitudes and feelings will be conditioned and directed by the Self. Otherwise, we experience a regression to the animalistic nature.
~ Tony Laguia, ‘The Green Lion Devouring the Sun‘ [Medium]

Visconti-Sforza hanged Man and Alchemical Green Lion devouring the Sun

21
The World (21) card, signifies the completion of the opus, the central figure representing ‘quintessence.’ Like an awakened eye, it is the revelation of that which embodies the essence of all past forms and potential for that shall be. In other words, what has been purified through many transformations becomes a catalyst for transformation; the Holy Grail or Philosopher’s Stone. Perhaps you’ve met someone who is a human tuning fork, or experienced a work of art, poetry, music, etc. that in its perfection had the effect of putting you ‘right side up’ again. Perhaps Tarot itself. ‘A light cannot help shedding its light. A flower cannot help giving off its fragrance.’ [Upanishads, ibid] When the young man in arcanum 6 was being initiated into the school of Venus/Eros, it was with the ultimate purpose of becoming just such a universal lover. ‘Everybody loves a lover.’

Ascend above any height, descend further than any depth; receive all sensory impressions of the created: water, fire, dryness and wetness. Think that you are present everywhere: in the sea, on earth and in heaven; think that you were never born and that you are still in the embryonic state: young and old, dead and in the hereafter. Understand everything at the same time: time, place, things: quality and quantity.
~ Corpus Hermeticum, 1460

The four creatures in the corners are assumed to be the four evangelists, the fixed signs of the zodiac, the seasons and/or the 4 elements. However…the bull is also lunar (2), the lion solar (1), and as we can see, they are now conjoined (3). The eagle previously represented the alchemical work, so then who might the winged human be when they’re at home? What of the Empress’ wings? Hmm.

Incidentally, Egyptian initiates were  called ‘scarabs’ because they ‘pushed along the egg of their regeneration’ – the container and the work?

Below, left, is the oldest of all known TdM type World cards (found in the Sforza castle cistern). Though it is badly damaged, some curious details remain. The androgyne or hermaphroditic Christ/Dionysus figure appears to have one breast only, on their right side, which is our left (mirroring). Their other, male side has the thicker leg. On their breasted/female side, the partially-obscured bull (or cow) has perfect, lunar crescent horns and on their male side, the lion has distinct, solar rays in its mane. Unique to this card, the angel in the top left (Aquarius/Matthew/air) has a ‘flame of inspiration’ in his forehead – ‘fire in the belly’ raised to crown level?

Oldest TdM ca mid-late 16th c (photo courtesy Ross Caldwell), Jacques Vieville ca 1650

The Vieville version, right, mixes things up a bit – bull and lion are switched around and have no wings. Since this card depicts a sexless figure facing straight forward, I ventured to see what one might look like as two. (Admittedly, it felt taboo, but…for science).
The male twin has a red cloak, denoting fire and his life force energy is directing upwards, expressed poignantly by what’s left of the sceptre. His body, arms open, creates an M for Mars. The female twin has a dark blue cloak, denoting water and her large V for Venus directs life force energy downward to her vulva, which she covers with her hands. Two opposite triangles, converging as one. On the Empress and Emperors’ shields, in fact, her eagle’s wings  point upward, his downward, similar to the yin-yang idea of ‘opposite but interconnecting, mutually perpetuating forces.’ [wiki]

Vieville twins

In medieval alchemy, ‘philosophical Mercury’ is what remains when earth, air, fire and water are removed from a substance. It is associated with ‘prima materia’ (‘first matter’), from which all other matter is composed.

Philosophical Mercury, composed of sulphur and quicksilver (distinguished from their ordinary or ‘vulgar’ forms),  ca 1400

When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female, and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in the place of a hand and a foot in the place of a foot, and a likeness in the place of a likeness: then will you enter [the kingdom].
~ From the Gospel of Didymos Judas Thomas (‘the Twin’), Nag Hammadi Library

ANAHATA the heart (fourth) chakra

Whatever wisdom path you choose to follow, the same patterns are found,  and this is because patterns are ultimately geometrical/mathematical. But wisdom is not just an intellectual exercise. It must be applied, to thrive.

In Sanskrit, ‘anahata’ means ‘unstruck.’ (Funny, considering arcanum 6). The anahata or heart chakra, illustrated by two, interlocking triangles, is associated with unconditional love, compassion, and joy. This rose window of our personal cathedral serves to balance the upper (spiritual) and lower (material) chakras, so that we may experience pure love for both self and others, without attachment and expectation.

On March 21 (3/3), Venus (Ptolemaic 3rd sphere) will conjunct Saturn in Pisces. Saturn is the cold karma lord and task master of our consciousness, who has a way of shackling the heart with guilt, pain and sorrow. In Pisces, Saturn can feel like the weight of the whole, wretched world (as we collectively witness the shadow expression of yet another ancient symbol). Venus, on the other hand, exalts in Pisces, bringing potential for a moment of healing, amnesty and grace to weary hearts. Like the Empress conducting Venus into her belly, if we channel the energy of this transit, perhaps whatever beauty we create from it will serve as a tuning fork for someone, somewhere, sometime down the road.  ~ rb

“I’ll be back…”

Thanks for reading!

All written content except quotations is copyright© Roxanna Bikadoroff and may not be reused or reprinted. Please share via LINK ONLY (accompanied by pull quote/paragraph with credit/link is fine).

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Disrobing the Papal Couple – Tarot de Marseille’s Pope and Popess

Allegory of Prudence with Janus face, 16th c, Nantes, France

Previously we looked at the masculine/solar cards in the 1/4 placement, beginning with the Juggler (1). Now let’s turn our attention to the feminine/ lunar cards in the 2 placement, beginning with The Popess (2) and The Pope (5). These two flank Empress (3) and Emperor (4), like the spiritual component or parent of each. The book on the Popess’ lap, whatever its mystery content, illustrates this concept; two covers (‘hidden’) and two facing pages (‘spread eagle’) inside.

Various Conver cards, 18th c

To Pythagoreans, and others throughout western history, the number of duality, by itself, was considered negative. Besides being Lunar (death) and feminine (sin), 2, the first real number to follow the ‘monad’ created a division:

The confrontation between I and Thou contains, by its very nature, an opposition, and such an opposition becomes even more evident when the human I is confronted with the absolute, unique, divine Thou…
…it is impossible to think of anything truly opposed to the divine One. Thus, 2 becomes a number of contradiction and antithesis and, logically, of the non-divine. Since it produces discord, it is rarely used in magic.
– Annemarie Schimmel, The Mystery of Numbers

Not exactly the ‘yin-yang’ approach. Of course, 2 could also bring about union and balance, but for the most part, it was suspect. Patriarchal religion regarded the feminine 2 (Eve) as usurper of the one-on-one relationship with the Godfather.

Eye pennies or prophylactic eyes?  Conver 2 of Coins, BnF

Yet, Tarot de Marseille places the holy mother and father under its influence. Are we meant to interpret this as a mere jab? I don’t think so. 2 is the number of both desire – which is a complex issue – and duplicity; nothing in TdM is what is seems. Perhaps most importantly, 2 is the number of paradox, wherein truth lies. And although the 2s preceding the Strength (11) card are more indicative of division, those proceeding it emphasize reunification. The running visual theme in all of the 2 cards is of course pairs/doubles, always with some kind of vessel or opening. (We can think of the Papal crowns as a pair). I’m going to do a post on the Strength card by itself, because it’s so fascinating.

Cards which occupy the 2nd place, Camoin-Jodorowsky deck


Sweet Delight and Endless Night

But let’s begin with the Pope and his pair of strange little nipple-heads. These clearly have a connection with the middle figure in arcanum 20, another ‘2’ card, but we’ll leave that aside, for the time being.

Sarcophagus eyes

Number 5, belonging to sensual Venus, is connected to the 5 senses (plus 5 points of the human body, and 5 digits on each hand and foot, etc). Being the sum of the first two ‘real’ numbers (2 and 3), 5 is considered sacred, and has been since the days of Goddess worship. The role of numbers in TdM imagery interpretation cannot be understated:

From early times 5 was considered a somewhat unusual, even rebellious number, and the discovery by Hippasos of a fifth geometrical body, the pentagondodecahedron, which consists of 12 regular pentagons, embarrassed the Pythagoreans, who had concentrated on the 4. Legend tells that the discoverer of this new body was drowned for his transgression...
…Since the human being consists of 4 elements, a fifth, secret one (quinta essentia) was added in order to reach the sacred 5. This quinta essentia, our quintessence, was considered to be the real element of life, and its production was a goal of medieval alchemists.
To find the principal of life and overcome death one has to rely on procreation and Eros [Venus], so the quinta essentia again points back to the ancient life-giving power of the Mother Goddess…
– Annemarie Schimmel (ibid)

Heads will roll…

You might have noticed that, in many TdM versions of this card, the two, perfectly round, alternately spinning heads are not even really attached to their bodies. And in the Conver cards, they often have red centres, reminding me of my least favourite Peak Frean cookie.

Fruit Cream fortune cookies

Notice that the nipple-head on the Pope’s right has a golden hat (solar, but also appears to contain a Moon) on his back, distinguishing it from the one on his left, who usually has a light/flesh-coloured round form in front, partially hidden (lunar?). An arm appears behind him from outside the picture and in Conver type decks, a little curved knife shape under the hand suggests something sinister. The power struggle between Horus and Set comes to mind, wherein Horus loses an eye. The gradual restoration (‘filling’) of it relates to the Moon’s phases.

Agathos daemon (good) and Cacodaemon (bad), 2nd c Roman mosaic, Antioch

Here, we must bring Plato into the picture. The Myth of Er, from his Republic is, I think, essential to a more complete understanding of this card and the theme(s) of TdM in general. If you wish to be read to, here’s an audio link.

It opens with Socrates saying:

Well, I said I will tell you a tale; not one of the tales which Odysseus tells to the hero Alcinous, yet this too is a tale of a hero, Er the son of Armenius, a Pamphylian by birth. He was slain in battle, and ten days afterwards, when the bodies of the dead were taken up already in a state of corruption, his body was found unaffected by decay, and carried away home to be buried. And on the twelfth day, as he was lying on the funeral pile, he returned to life and told them what he had seen in the other world. He said that when his soul left the body he went on a journey with a great company, and that they came to a mysterious place at which there were two openings in the earth; they were near together, and over against them were two other openings in the heaven above. In the intermediate space there were judges seated, who commanded the just, after they had given judgment on them and had bound their sentences in front of them, to ascend by the heavenly way on the right hand; and in like manner the unjust were bidden by them to descend by the lower way on the left hand; these also bore the symbols of their deeds, but fastened on their backs.

He [Er] drew near, and they told him that he was to be the messenger who would carry the report of the other world to men, and they bade him hear and see all that was to be heard and seen in that place. Then he beheld and saw on one side the souls departing at either opening of heaven and earth when sentence had been given on them; and at the two other openings other souls, some ascending out of the earth dusty and worn with travel, some descending out of heaven clean and bright.

Further description given of wretched souls trying to climb out and being dragged back reminded me of my favourite Mercurius depiction of all time, which in turn reminded me of the Pope card.

Cappella della zodiaco, Agostino di Duccio
detail

The Conver Pope’s staff has the triple (ie, suspiciously Mercurial and/or Lunar) cross of a high-ranking Roman pontiff, used in procession or when crossing a threshold of a holy door. Hmm. 3 might also neutralize the divisive effect of 2 by creating sacred 5 (or 7). In other decks it’s usually a shepherd hook crosier – which, Tarot or not, comes from Egyptian Osiris – or something resembling a spindle whorl (or a mix of the two). Consistent in all versions, however, is that his staff appears to penetrate the lunar nipple-head on his left, like the pitchfork in the mosaic of the ‘bad daemon.’ And btw, who or what are those curious little daemons that flank the Pope’s head in the Vieville card?

Noblet, Payen and Vieville Popes

Further into The Myth or Er, we are told how souls choose their next ‘lots’:

When Er and the spirits arrived, their duty was to go at once to Lachesis; but first of all there came a prophet who arranged them in order; then he took from the knees of Lachesis lots and samples of lives, and having mounted a high pulpit, spoke as follows: ‘Hear the word of Lachesis, the daughter of Necessity. Mortal souls, behold a new cycle of life and mortality. Your genius will not be allotted to you, but you choose your genius; and let him who draws the first lot have the first choice, and the life which he chooses shall be his destiny. Virtue is free, and as a man honours or dishonours her he will have more or less of her; the responsibility is with the chooser –God is justified.’ When the Interpreter had thus spoken he scattered lots indifferently among them all, and each of them took up the lot which fell near him, all but Er himself (he was not allowed), and each as he took his lot perceived the number which he had obtained. Then the Interpreter placed on the ground before them the samples of lives; and there were many more lives than the souls present, and they were of all sorts. There were lives of every animal and of man in every condition. And there were tyrannies among them, some lasting out the tyrant’s life, others which broke off in the middle and came to an end in poverty and exile and beggary; and there were lives of famous men, some who were famous for their form and beauty as well as for their strength and success in games, or, again, for their birth and the qualities of their ancestors; and some who were the reverse of famous for the opposite qualities. And of women likewise; there was not, however, any definite character then, because the soul, when choosing a new life, must of necessity become different. But there was every other quality, and they all mingled with one another, and also with elements of wealth and poverty, and disease and health; and there were mean states also.

And they say Tarot was never about fortune telling until the late 18th century!

Lucky lottery numbers

In Medieval/Hellenistic astrology, no chart was complete without calculating the ‘Arabic’ lots or parts (pars). The two main ones still used today in the west are the Part of Fortune and Part of Spirit (or Daemon). The two are opposites, derived from the same equation done forwards and backwards, and, vice versa depending on whether a day (solar) or night (lunar) chart. It’s said that “the Lot of Fortune is the hand you’re dealt, and the Lot of Spirit is how you play your cards.” And so begins the game.

Daemones gambling for souls, between the prophylactic eyes.
‘Snake eyes’ aka ‘dog’s throw’ (Cerberus?) for Romans


Whatever sacred knowledge there was from the highest reasoning, the ancient poets joined to their measures. Thus the mystical philosophy of Poetry can be spoken in its own right. She sings mystical truths. For while the impulse of the heavens driven around in circles rushes down, she produces sounds with constant rotation.
~ Lodovico Lazzarelli, De Gentilium Deorum Imaginibus, 15th c (trans. William O’Neal)

Silenus with lyre and wild-eyed Dionysus (detail), 30 BC, British Museum

Although the Pope, like the Emperor, evokes various gods and prophets, or god-prophets, the one that stands out for me is Silenus, teacher and foster parent of Dionysus (if not an older Dion himself). For one thing, he always looks a bit drunk. And what is drink but the pap of satyrs? Also, if we follow the gold trim on his robe opening, particularly in ‘type 2’ (Conver, Madenié), we can make out a harp shape – an instrument often interchangeable in Medieval/Renaissance depictions of the Orphic lyre. Perhaps he is teaching Orphic hymns or using music to disarm the marked assassin sent by Pythagoras (or both). It’s not at all far-fetched when you consider that harmony and discord/chaos will produce good and bad fortune. A scholarly paper about that here.

Dionysus characterized the essence of the drama, by crossing and transgressing the border between the divine and the human world. When the gods interacted with men in the Homeric epics, they did so for their own selfish reasons, but in the classical drama they reflect and judge the activity of men. The drama thus reflects a change of paradigm from the world of myth to an ethical dialogue between men’s world and the will of heaven.
– Dr. Britt-Marie Nässtrom, The Rites and Mysteries of Dionysus: The Birth of the Drama

Skeleton with 2 wine jugs, Pompeii, Naples Museum. Photo: Marie-Lan Nguyen

Silenus wasn’t just a prophet, but when pie-eyed, possessed a ‘terrible wisdom,’ as famously expressed in this telling (during a brief capture by King Midas):

Midas, after hunting, asked his captive Silenus somewhat urgently, what was the most desirable thing among humankind. At first he could offer no response, and was obstinately silent. At length, when Midas would not stop plaguing him, he erupted with these words, though very unwillingly: ‘you, seed of an evil genius and precarious offspring of hard fortune, whose life is but for a day, why do you compel me to tell you those things of which it is better you should remain ignorant? For he lives with the least worry who knows not his misfortune; but for humans, the best for them is not to be born at all, not to partake of nature’s excellence; not to be is best, for both sexes. This should be our choice, if choice we have; and the next to this is, when we are born, to die as soon as we can.’ It is plain therefore, that he declared the condition of the dead to be better than that of the living.
– Aristotle, Eudemus (354 BCE), surviving fragment quoted in Plutarch, Wikipedia 

The Silenus mask, btw, was essential to the Dionysian mysteries and was the prototype for that worn by Thalia, muse of Comedy – the implication alluded to in a previous post on Death and the Moon. Note the doubles, in the pic below.

A shocking revelation, Dionysiac Frieze detail,  Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii


She Whose Wedding is Great

Now, let’s return to that beguiling embodiment of the primal 2, The Popess. If you are familiar with the Gnostic hymn, The Thunder : Perfect Mind,  this gives a good sense of the paradoxical element of the mysteries in general, but especially of the dual feminine. The Popess holds a book open (one hand on each side, in type 2 decks) in full view – yet, unless we understand the imagery itself, we can’t begin to know what it says or means.

The rituals of the Lesser Mysteries were often called the myesis, as opposed to the rites of the Greater, which were called epopteia. The word myesis means “to teach” and also “to initiate.” Epopteia has a similar meaning, but with an important difference; it means “to witness” and “to be initiated.” The slight differences in these two words explain a fundamental difference in what happened to the initiates during these two sets of rituals. In the Lesser Mysteries, candidates were taught the theology of the Two Goddesses, and the meaning of the rites of the Mysteries. However, in the Greater Mysteries, they could experience what they had learned, and near the end of the week-long festival, they would even see a vision of Persephone.
~ Hellenion, Lesser Mysteries of Eleusis

Veiled Persephone or the soul of the deceased, Museum of Cyrene, Libya.

The Mysteries represented the myth of the abduction of Persephone from her mother Demeter by the king of the underworld Hades, in a cycle with three phases: the descent (loss), the search, and the ascent, with the main theme being the ascent of Persephone and the reunion with her mother. – Wikipedia

In type 2 versions of the card, the ends of her curled drapery are typically stencilled red, so that they resemble inverted torches, which are a lunar goddess symbol, since they illuminate the darkness. We could think of the torches as the descent, the labyrinthian book as the search and the ribbon going from its spine (hinge/door) to her heart, as the ascent.

Conver Papess and Victorian tombstone symbols
Altar with Iacchus, Demeter, Rhea and Kore, National Archaeological Museum of Athens. Note three boukrainion (bull craniums) with Moon horns.

The serpentine ‘scroll’ endings in type 1 might suggest the lituus, a ritual divining rod used in augury, or plant shoots. As well, in the Lesser Mysteries of Eleusis, ‘touching the snake’ meant the initiate was ready to receive them. The Dodal version (type 1) calls her ‘La Pances’, which in old French (and Italian) means ‘belly’ – a clue to her oracular nature? Perhaps the book represents words of wisdom from her middle.

Jean Dodal ‘La Pances’

Originally, ventriloquism was a religious practice. The name comes from the Latin for ‘to speak from the stomach: ventre (belly) and loqui (speak). The Greeks called this gastromancy (Greek: εγγαστριμυθία). The noises produced by the stomach were thought to be the voices of the unliving, who took up residence in the stomach of the ventriloquist. The ventriloquist would then interpret the sounds, as they were thought to be able to speak to the dead, as well as foretell the future. One of the earliest recorded group of prophets to use this technique was the Pythia, the priestess at the temple of Apollo in Delphi, who acted as the conduit for the Delphic Oracle.   – Wikipedia

Altar with sacred articles of Demeter, National Archaeological Museum of Athens

The phallic shape created by her crowned head and shoulders (well, why not, the Pope card has nipples) might have something to do with the desire element. It’s been suggested that this image (below) of a woman reaching to lift the covering of a ritual phallus, represents desire – the object of which is potent so long as its mystery is maintained. (It’s why we rarely see full frontal male nudity in the movies. That would spoil everything). The individual (or institution) ‘holding The Phallus’ has all the desire power, which translates as the power of mystery; ie, it is not a monarch or pope’s actual shlong that people are drawn to, but rather, the inexplicable mojo they are in possession of. And they keep possession of it precisely by keeping it under wraps. Otherwise, everyone would immediately see that the Emperor has no clothes. Comedians are their greatest nightmare.

Shrouded in mystery, Dionysiac Frieze detail, Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii

So the (shrouded) shape of the Popess’ head and bib might serve to illustrate that she is the living mystery, or alone contains within her ‘perfect mind’ that which we seek/desire. Further, that it is the feminine – woman – that naturally possesses ‘The Phallus’, for the simple reason that her procreative (lunar) magic is contained within, where it can’t be seen, only imagined. (Thus it’s ok to expose her, like the open book, since doing so won’t give anything away and will create more desire). The Popess presents us with the ultimate conundrum of the 2: the unknowable ‘other.’ And if you don’t think that is a powerful notion, you have obviously never seen an advertisement or a selfie.

‘Out of one (tis wonder and no wonder,) Come forth’, Manley P. Hall collection

That’s one possibility. The other might simply be that her crown resembles the omphalos of Delphi  – where the maxim ‘Know thyself‘ was inscribed on the temple – confirming that she is an oracle. The omphalos is modelled on a beehive and we can see the flowers in her crown, distinguishing it from the Pope’s. No reason both explanations can’t coexist, of course, that is the nature of the 2.

Python coin, Conver Popess, Omphalos

I’ve started using the word cryptic rather than esoteric, in reference to TdM, the latter is so wrongly overused and has all but lost its true meaning. However, the Popess truly embodies the esoteric, which at it’s root means ‘within.’ Prior to and/or without application, inquiries into her meaning are ‘Lesser Mysteries’.

The last 2 card is Judgement (20), which, as mentioned, is connected to 5 by a third nipple-head rising from the ‘grave.’ This bizarre and extremely loaded card is way TMI to include herein, but potentially offers insight into Tarot’s immense popularity at the dawn of the Aquarian Age. Stay tuned, I’ll get to it!  ~rb

Behold, I have related things about which you must remain in ignorance, though you have heard them.  –Apuleius

Persephone: “I brought the ergot!” Dionysus: “I brought the grapes and kantharos!”


Here’s another, short article of mine on the Popess, if you want more.

*All written content, except for  that which is in quotation (grey bold print) is copyright ©Roxanna Bikadoroff and may not be reused or reprinted in whole without my permission. Please share via LINK only (with a short, credited  excerpt, if necessary). Thanks for respecting my work as I have respected the work of others, herein.*


Resources:

The Myth of Er (Plato’s Republic)

The Lesser Mysteries of Eleusis (Gitana, Hellenion)

Mystery Cults and Visual Language in Graeco-Roman Antiquity: An Introduction (Nicole Belayche and Francesco Massa, Brill)

Phallus (video on Lacan’s theory, Todd McGowan)

Compare TdM cards (Reddit)

The Rites in the Mysteries of Dionysus (Dr. Britt-Mari Näsström, Brewmate, an excellent blog!)

Article about the liknon and its contents (Iulia Millesima)

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Let Me Take You Down – The Juggler/ Le Bateleur of Tarot de Marseille

Isis assists with the embalming of a mummy, Kom El Shokafa, Alexandria, 2nd c

‘One becomes Two, Two becomes Three,  and out of the Third
comes the One as the Fourth.’   ~ Pythagoras

In a previous post , we saw how this Cosmology of Pythagoras applies to Tarot. It is but one of the initial or initiatory, key concepts conveyed to us as a visual clue by our Master of Ceremonies, The Juggler/Le Bateleur (aka the Magician). Do you see it?
Hint: It’s ‘dessous la table’, in every Marseille-type deck.

Vieville, Conver and Noblet cards

Of course, I am referring to the legs. People tend to write off his three-legged table as simply being of the portable sort that Bagatelles used. It’s true, three legs provide the most stable table for any surface. (Especially if it happens to be a tripod with a Pythia sitting on it). But his table in fact has four. Because one of his legs is behind or combined with one of the table legs, his other leg becomes the 4th leg; ‘the One as the Fourth.’ Another consistent feature is that the rectangular table top always extends beyond the picture border… just how long might it be?

Below are two images of Anubis, god of funerary rites and underworld guide, preparing the dead. His uncovered, lower legs are always visible beneath the embalming bed, and knees about level. This ritual table traditionally had a lion head(s) and legs, which we will return to in a moment.

Legs of Anubis
Egyptian embalmer’s bed, 664-332 BC  (Met Museum, NY)

The Juggler is often equated with Hermes/Thoth, initiator into the mysteries or the ‘in-between’ state itself who oversees the alchemical process. But he’s also seen as an initiate, who maybe doesn’t yet know what all these objects he’s selling are for. As others familiar with Osirian-Orphic mystery content in TdM imagery have noted, they likely allude to dismemberment or sacrifice. They also bear a resemblance to the tools used in the Egyptian ‘Opening of the Mouth’ ceremony, which according to belief, enabled the deceased to eat, breathe, drink and use their senses in the afterlife.

Religious equipment for ‘Opening of the Mouth’ ceremony, 6th dyn. (British Museum)

Naturally, the Juggler’s objects also symbolize the four Hermetic elements (ie, the suits of the minor arcana) and the four ways a body is returned to them in traditional funerary rites. The four ‘parts’ of us that are returned to their sources – body to earth, spirit to fire, soul to water, mind or breath to air – will again be drawn from them and remixed, for another round.

Four ways a body is returned to the elements

Now, let’s just for fun assume the Juggler’s table should have another wooden leg, that it is indeed modelled on an embalming table with leonine features and that it displays tools related to the ‘opening of the mouth.’
Where would we then look for the missing leg? Only the Conver-type decks give us a proper clue [addendum: Dodal also] – the Strength lion’s single leg having a distinctly wooden look and no paw. (Always thought it a rather canine-looking lion). In other TdM decks, it has normal, lion forepaws, which, nevertheless is a hieroglyphic feature, based on Horapollo.

The missing leg and the opening of the mouth

The Pythagorean rule informs us that every 4th card is also a first. 1 was considered masculine/solar and 2, feminine/lunar. 3, while odd, fiery and therefor technically ‘masculine,’ creates the first enclosed space (triangle/womb), so it is actually a combination of masc/fem (the Mercurial, creative magic of the trinity need not be re-explained here). 11 is two 1s or 1+1=2, the lunar partner to the solar Juggler.
I’ll discuss the 2s in my next post, but let the image below, from the Catacombs of Kom El Shokafa, where Egyptian and Greco-Roman mysteries meet, serve as a preview.

Where did you get that hat? Gorgoneion as ‘death face’ of the Sun

The crown/corona worn by royals represents the Sun’s rays. To be coronated means to be crowned with the Sun and become a god-like, solar figure. In alchemy, the Sun symbolizes both the material gold and the hidden, spiritual gold, which is only achieved after a long process. The Juggler holds a little yellow coin or roundel (material gold) and there is a small, yellow flame [aka ear of golden grain] beneath the table, in the distance (spiritual gold). They are separate, at this point in the game.

One/Four cards (Camoin-Jodo deck)

Notice that every card in the 1/4 place between Juggler and Sun depicts a crown, in various phases of transmutation, as well as solar wheels (Chariot, Fortune) and phallic symbols (all seven do, but in the last card it is a horizontal wall). The Sun is its own corona (unified, risen spirit), but what about the Juggler? He is only a 1, not a 1/4, and wears not a crown but a floppy hat with a spherical, red middle.  Could this too be symbolic of the Sun?

Floppy discs

Answer is yes. The question of his hat had admittedly irked me a long time, until I saw these beautiful, French prints of Egyptian deities in the NYPL collections.

Winged solar disk, emblems of Thoth/Hermes Trismegistus (NYPL)

So the red sphere of the Juggler’s hat represents the solar disk, its brim being vaguely reminiscent of wings – or – perhaps symbolic of the funerary boat in which the Sun god Ra, and thereby Kings and Pharaohs traversed the Duat, when the sun set. The red sphere appears to sink into the brim, ie, setting below the horizon, corona faded. Meanwhile, on the distant horizon flickers that tiny, golden flame of spirit, which will become a bright Sun once again.
Pythagoreans believed in reincarnation, Pythagoras himself was said to have remembered several of his past lives.

New take on retro fashion or just comparing scars?

On that note, I leave you with a vivid, childhood memory…
My father was a psychiatrist with a sense of humour (and with whom I often played cards). Hanging on our bathroom wall was a small, framed photo of Sigmund Freud, with a quote by Groucho Marx taped beneath:

“This may be a phallus, but gentlemen, let us remember, it is also a cigar.”

~rb


All written content created by and copyright ©Roxanna Bikadoroff and may not be reprinted without permission. Please share via LINK only.

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Death and the Moon in Tarot de Marseille

Previously, we looked at the influence of hieroglyphica and emblemata in the Renaissance and its connection to Tarot de Marseille, how TdM’s ‘mytho-alchemical’ imagery is hieroglyphic in nature, playfully imbedded with visual hints of esoteric meaning hidden in plain sight. The cards relate to each other in a variety of ways, too, be it by numeric pattern or other similarities. (Perhaps why they naturally lend themselves to being ‘read’, a different narrative following every shuffle).
Do read my post on  Horapollo and the Hieroglyphic Mysteries of TdM , if you haven’t, as an introduction. And as always, click images for details.

Fool and Death (Camoin-Jodorowsky deck)

The Unnamed Card – Death

The Unnamed card (‘Death/La Mort’) is a prime example. Most Tarotists are aware of its relationship with The Fool/Le Mat, and how they strike the very same pose. By design alone, it is immediately apparent that the two figures are related or even one and the same; the first being unnumbered, the second, unnamed. Suddenly it all makes sense, right?

Original Tragicomedy act: the Greek Muses Melpomene (T) and Thalia (C)

Let’s take a closer look at the Unnamed card and its relationship to another major, The Moon, that we might find the visual clues needed for a better understanding of their mystery teachings.

The first consistent features we notice in the TdM skeleton, are its colour-emphasized spine and hip bones, and the skin pulled back around his skull, creating a crescent shape. Also, his spine appears to be made of grain. Typically, it matches the grain in the Emperor’s necklace (which his chicken-basilisk surely must covet!). The Emperor wears the golden seeds of his own, cyclic renewal. 1 + 3 = 4 and in number order, both cards are in the 1/4 place.

grain storage?
Skull face (featuring  pyramid and new Moon) and Moon face of TdM

It’s obvious, too, that the Reaper’s face is a mirror image of the Moon. Makes sense, the Solar year has 13 moons, the last one being the ‘killing Moon.’ [Clarification: although there are 13 moons within a solar year, there are not 13 full, synodic cycles of the moon in every solar year, but roughly every 2.5 solar years (when we get a ‘blue moon’). 2.5 solar years is one Saturn transit through a zodiac sign.] It’s ultimately why Sun worshippers suffer from triskaidekaphobia. Try as they might, the Greeks could not make 13 – or death – be rational and fit in. They felt the same way about 0, rejecting it outright (ie, no number?). The “inconstant Moon” has long been considered a kind of depository for souls coming and going between incarnations. It is not the light of wakefulness.

Of course Horapollo is talking about the djed bone of Osiris and we can see how the card must be a reference to the Osirian myth. While the djed bone has obvious phallic implications, it is actually symbolic of the grain god’s spine, by which his ‘kundalini energy’ or ‘life force’ climbs:

“The djed was an important part of the ceremony called “raising the djed“, which was a part of the celebrations of the Sed festival, the Egyptian jubilee celebration. The act of raising the djed has been explained as representing Osiris’s triumph over Seth. Ceremonies in Memphis are described where the pharaoh, with the help of the priests, raised a wooden djed column using ropes. The ceremony took place during the period when fields were sown and the year’s agricultural season would begin, corresponding to the month of Koiak, the fourth month of the Season of the Inundation. This ceremony was a part of one of the more popular holidays and celebrations of the time, a larger festival dedicated to Osiris conducted from the 13th to 30th day of the Koiak. Celebrated as it was at that time of the year when the soil and climate were most suitable for agriculture, the festival and its ceremonies can be seen as an appeal to Osiris, who was the God of vegetation, to favor the growth of the seeds sown, paralleling his own resurrection and renewal after his murder by Seth.” [wikipedia]

Seth and his hungry familiar, the Oxyrhynchus

As for his phallus, remember that when Isis collected her dismembered beloved’s pieces to put them back together, she could not find this last bit, which had been eaten by a fish, so the resourceful Goddess had to make a new one, using magic. Might we even see a fishbone shape in the reaper’s frame, its head being the hips and tail being the crescent? Peut-être.

Claude Burrell 1751 (Yves Renaud repro 2015) and a bass

Dismemberment is the  beginning of the transformation process. This card alludes to that which Osiris/Osiris-Dionysus presided over, the natural cycles of death and resurrection/rebirth. He was also called ‘god of the living’ and ‘lord of silence’ (ie, no name?). The black soil [of Kemet (‘kmt‘), the ‘black land’ from whence comes ‘alchemy’] pertains to fertility – new growth from rich putrefaction and loam. The Egyptians took their cues from nature, the great alchemist. 

“In some rare instances, Osiris was depicted wearing a crown that included a rendering of the moon. This has led some researchers to surmise he was associated with the moon or the night.” [Ancient Egypt Online] 

Thoth (Thoth-Hermes), Ibis-headed god of the Moon, who oversees the whole transmutation, might also be at hand…

Ibis beak and scythe

The Moon – Rebirth

Now that we’re experts on the Lunar associations in the Unnamed card…what about the Moon card’s association with Death?

That the crayfish may literally represent the astrological sign of Cancer in TdM is, as the detective novels say, a ‘red herring’. But the association reminds us that in ancient Egypt, Cancer was a scarab – symbol of birth, life, death, resurrection and immortality.

Osiris Canopus with ‘scrab’ (detail) Roman-Egyptian 100-200 AD

Crabs and other sea creatures (and worms) become active, lay eggs, spawn or hatch with lunar cycles/tides, just as we came into the world through our mother’s watery womb at the end of 9 (1+8) lunations. Cancer also rules the breasts and Momma’s milk. Interestingly, in Arab astronomy, the four stars of Cancer were seen as a crib or manger, while in Chinese, as ghosts or spirits of the deceased. [Tip: Stick with stars, planets and constellations, rather than ‘signs’ if/when applying to TdM.]

Cary and Dodal Moon cards – 200 year difference in crayfish design

The Great Mother’s milk is of course the Milky Way, by which the stalwart scarab navigates. Surely this did not escape the Egyptians, whose sky was the Goddess Nut, and readers familiar with Pythagorean and Orphic beliefs will see the significance. Note how the position of the crayfish mimics the upward facing scarab in Egyptian art. Scarab amulets carved with magical hieroglyphs were buried with the dead to protect the heart (seat of the mind) and ensure a safe transition. But the full Moon’s bright light can actually make the scarab’s journey longer and more difficult.

Nutrient-rich dung is my gold:  Winged scarab, Greek Period (304-330 BC)

It’s tempting to assume that TdM printers were unfamiliar with the number of legs on a crayfish. But might there be a better explanation for its having only 6?
Greco-Romans and Gnostics, incorporating Egyptian culture/religion also used amuletic, carved scarabs and gems – which, as mentioned previously, were collected and studied during the Italian Renaissance:

“The leading families of Renaissance Italy, the Visconti and the Sforza dukes in Milan, the Estes and Gonzagas in Ferrara and Mantua, or the Medicis in Florence, were certainly willing to pay huge sums of money for authenticated ancient gems: Piero de’ Medici is reported to have remarked that an engraved gemstone was ‘worth more than gold itself.’ They became treasured family heirlooms.” [John Mack, The Art of Small Things]

Like hieroglyphica and coinage, this art form influenced emblemata and likely Tarot as well.

[addendum: the crayfish was used on Greek coins as a symbol for ‘city.’ Marseilles, a port city,  was originally founded and colonized by the Greeks.]

Roman carved gems with triplicate Hekate and Moon card crayfish
Hekate with Anubis (gem and impression), 2nd century

The Moon card, being 18,  falls into the ‘3’ position and contains the three dominions of the Goddess Hekate; sky, earth and sea. Hekate (pronounced Hekaté) was portrayed in antiquity as three figures around a central column; forming the Lunar Goddess triad with Selene and Diana, or Underworld Goddess triad with Demeter and Persephone (mysteries). Goddess of crossroads, the saffron-robed, torch-bearing Hekate was invoked to guide souls in the afterlife (some sources say Hermes was her consort) – note the crayfish’s torch-like claws. 

Green Conver Moon card and Hecate lamp (Roman, 1st-4th c)
Selene with ‘claws’ and torch (Roman, 1st c)

But she had many other roles besides psychopomp, including Goddess of childbirth. Let’s not ignore the crayfish’s uterine shape, either.

The two fortresses in the distance are thought by some to be her temple towers, which is not unreasonable. As well, the Lunar Nodes – ecliptic points where paths of Sun and Moon cross (hence eclipses), connected to reincarnation – have an approximately 18.5 year cycle. Hmm. The visual clue, however, is that these structures are the only elements here, besides the Moon and ‘spirit-dew’, that are above the horizon (the dogs look as if sinking beneath it). There are few cards that make use of depth perspective, so this should alert our attention.

Addendum: Tarot expert Andrea Vitali points out something so hidden in plain sight, even I didn’t spot it (!), which is that the entire lunar cycle is depicted in the card; the two towers representing waxing and waning phases, the middle obviously being the full phase, and the water/crayfish being the dark Moon, when it is not visible. This adds to the idea of Hekate residing here, in the underworld/between world or unconscious realm, so to speak. As mentioned, the claws resemble the guiding torches she bears during this passage. 

Pompeii fresco (detail)

The horizon is where the stars rise and set, ie, are born and die. Circumpolar stars never sink beneath the horizon, thus represent the eternal. Two such stars were known to the Egyptians, therefor, as the Indestructibles; Kochab, in Ursa Minor and Mizar, in Ursa Major, which flanked the Pole Star (then Thuban, constellation of Draco). Pharaohs’ pyramids were built in exact alignment with these stars so they could be directly ‘beamed up, Scotty.’

For those without custom-built pyramids, the in-between state might be less streamlined and more perilous. The Moon here appears to occult the Northernmost star, just as she obscures the Milky Way for our scarab. A wandering soul without a visible sky map might find themselves reborn down here, rather than as a god in eternity. I say we invoke the crayfish.

And look, it’s those 4 stars! A bit of a stretch, perhaps…but how curious that the tip of the right dog’s tail in the Conver Moon card is clipped by the border. Accidental or intended clue?
The little croc-headed beastie pasted in the lower right is Ammit, the composite Goddess (I think also part leopard and hippo) who gobbles scale-tipping hearts. Actually, she is more like a composter of the heart-mind:

“Two ways are offered to our soul after death: either a final liberation or a return into incarnation in order to continue the experience of becoming conscious. Many are the texts alluding to reincarnation, either overtly or implicitly through such locutions as ‘renewal of life’ or ‘repetition of births’.
The Judgment of the Dead takes place in the ‘Hall of the Double Maât’. This judgment is made in the presence of the dead person’s consciousness, Maât, while the other Maât, cosmic consciousness, presides at the weighing of his heart. Placed on one of the pans of the scale, and weighed against the feather of Maât, the heart expresses the feelings and passions which, if too heavy, risk drawing the soul back again towards earth.”
[Lucie Lamie, Egyptian Mysteries New Light on Ancient Knowledge]

Thus we return to the first lesson, that of the Fool (Le Mat, as if that wasn’t obvious enough) and the Unnamed being as one. An important, first lesson to get us through life, death and all the in-betweens. ~rb


Who will reach the Moon first?

*Happy Sun and Pluto into Aquarius!*

All written content (except in blue quotations) is original, researched and composed by and copyright ©Roxanna Bikadoroff. It may not be reprinted anywhere without permission. Please share via LINK only (a short pull quote/paragraph is ok, with a link/credit). Thank you.

 

 

 

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Horapollo and the Hieroglyphic Mysteries of Tarot de Marseille


It is a tradition in esoteric history that whenever a new culture is embryonic in the womb of an older one, or when an esoteric school recognizes that a culture has served it’s purposes and is coming to an end, then a major work of art is created in dedication, as an outer sign for future ages. The work of art may be a remarkable piece of music, a poem, a garden or a building — but whatever its external artistic form, it encapsulates, in entirely esoteric principals, a summary of what has gone before, and what is to come. All great esoteric artists from Dante to Shakespeare, from Milton to Blake, have recognized this primal function of their art. The interesting thing is that all too often it is the exoteric aspects of their products which attract attention of those who follow, and the esoteric contents remain hidden, save perhaps for the seeing few, who are themselves alive to the esoteric background to human history.

– Fred Gettings, The Secret Zodiac

Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, Emblemata, 1635

At the height of Renaissance in the 15th century, a fresh, Humanistic view of the world was flourishing. Scholarly and creative minds, it seems, had been opened through a revised symbolic and syncretic way of thinking. Revised, because a pre-existing, Medieval tradition of visuals serving as a window to higher concepts was already well-established, as were heraldic devices and emblems, but a big part of the collective re-awakening came by way of a new, parabolic language in the arts, born or copied from an older one shrouded in mystery. Renaissance literally means rebirth. But who and what was being reborn? A civilization, perhaps, that had planned for just such an everlasting afterlife?

[please click images to enlarge and read]

In Italy, especially in Florence, there was great interest in learning from the distant past. Greco-Roman revivalism in poetry and philosophy, art and architecture thrived, as the nobles competed for legacy and church fathers, for a time, actively encouraged and commissioned works. Pagan gods and goddesses frequently appeared alongside Christian ones, albeit not as subjects of worship (except for Isis, under guise as the Virgin). Ex-pats had returned from exile with personal libraries including medical, alchemical and astronomical manuscripts from the Middle East. Arthurian legends of courtly love from England and France were extremely popular. The printing press now meant more people could have access to literature – although nobles considered printed works to be gauche and still preferred to commission hand-crafted books. Among these, of course,  was the first, Latin translation of The Corpus Hermeticum. The ‘alchemization’ of Europe had begun.


(More here. Pre-Conver Emperors do not show the Basilisk throne).

Egyptian artifacts, housed in Italy since Roman times, were a major part of this resurgence in all things ancient, esoteric and therefor exemplary. (To give you an idea, Pope Alexander VI aka Rodrigo Borgia even had his genealogy ‘traced’ back to Osiris thus establishing a link between the Egyptian gods and the church). Renaissance Humanists, fascinated by hieroglyphs, began a race to unlock them that would continue for the next 3 centuries. One main source of reference was a manuscript called ‘The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo Nilous.’ Horapollo (Horus Apollo) was a 5th century Egyptian scribe and one of the last remaining priests of Isis, who had also made a partially successful effort at decipherment (hieroglyphs were already thousands of years old, by his time). A translation of his work had turned up in Florence, in 1422 and was first printed in 1505. Another, slightly later reference source was the ‘Mensa Isiaca‘ or Table of Isis, which Athanasius Kircher in particular took as a model.

Egyptian winged Uraeus and Hieroglyphica by Valeriani, 1556

‘Hieroglyphica’, as it became known, inspired a tidal wave of emblematic art (‘emblemata’), as neo-Platonists and others sought to emulate these cryptic little pictures, resulting in an imaginative, western European hybrid. Hermetic and alchemical artists would employ this method of concealed meaning ‘for initiates only’ (namely, other hermeticists/alchemists).

This genre of the symbolic rereading of the hieroglyphs – “enigmatic hieroglyphs” as Rigoni and Zanco (1996) call them – was very popular in the late Hellenistic period. It should not surprise us, then, that so many Renaissance Humanists – for whom this was all quite familiar through Lucan, Apuleius, Plutarch, Clement of Alexandria and, especially, Ennead V by Plotinus – should see in the Hieroglyphica a genuine connection with the highest sphere of wisdom.

– Studiolum 

Other antiquities being scoured for emblematic images were things like Roman coins, medallions and gem charms, which the ruling class loved to collect. Roman carved gems in particular were highly sought after, and became family heirlooms, often set in jewelry [see ‘Death and the Moon’ post].

It was out of this tradition that Tarot de Marseille emerged, presumably in Italy, during the mid 16th century. [No known prior examples of the classic TdM format exist and the oldest known example of a triumph is a single, World card – the oldest complete decks known are 17th century.] Its images are not just allegorical, but ‘hieroglyphic’ in nature – though obviously not actual Egyptian hieroglyphs. The apparent (I would even say obvious) application of Horapollo’s descriptions alone leaves little doubt, though, that they were purposefully designed with visual clues that provided a context for imbedded messages. What that purpose was and why playing cards, we can’t know for certain, but as Counter-Reformation loomed on the horizon, maybe it was time to encapsulate esoteric principals for future ages?

I will dive more deeply into some of the ‘glyphs in the other cards (not included herein), in upcoming blogposts, but wanted to provide this overview, first.

Stay tuned! ~rb

Wee sphinx from Minchiate Tarot, 18th c

All written content herein except quotations is COPYRIGHT ©ROXANNA BIKADOROFF and may not be reused in full anywhere without permission. Please share via LINK only (with short, credited pull-quote, if needed).

QUOTATIONS:
~ Fred Gettings opener from ‘The Secret Zodiac – The Hidden Art in Mediaeval Astrology’ [Routeledge & Kegan Paul, 1987]
~ ‘Enigmatic hieroglyphics’ quote from studiolum.com
~ Horapollo text translations (Alexander T. Cory, 1840) from sacred texts.com

REFS/OTHER LINKS:
~ The Egyptian Renaissance – The Afterlife of Ancient Egypt in Early Modern Italy, Brian Curran, Penn State University (pdf)
~ Hieroglyphs and Meaning, Lucia Morra, Carla Bazzanella (pdf)
~ Pinturicchio’s Frescoes in the Sala dei Santi in the Vatican Palace, Roger Gill, Birmingham City University (pdf)
~ The Art of Small Things by John Mack [Harvard University Press]
~ Horapollo Hieroglyphica via Jason Colavito
~ Giovanni Pierio VALERIANO BOLZANI Hieroglyphica, Google Books

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Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (in three parts, with intermissions)

Nicholas Conver, 1760

PART ONE:  NOT-SO-HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

The Devil is a conceptual chameleon that has evolved alongside us every step of the way, and on which the literature is exhaustive. This article focuses on the ‘classic’ Tarot de Marseille Devil (above), an image which alone contains enough riddles for a whole book; What’s that he standing on? Is that water in the background? Why does he take that pose? What is on his head? Why is he wearing a blue wetsuit? It turns out these are not simple questions to answer and the mystery is sure to remain after this honourable attempt to scratch the surface of his enigma. Tarot de Marseille (TdM) is unique, in that the images are not always what they seem, yet clues are often hiding in plain sight. All is speculative. Resistance is futile. So, ready to dive in?

[Please click on any images to zoom and for more info.]

Holkham Bible 14th c, Histoire de Merlin, 15th c, Cary Devil, 16th c

The last image in the row above is a fragment of the earliest (supposedly) TdM type Tarot we know of, the Cary Sheet, ca 1500s. Although the Cary is thought to be a prototype for the classic format, its Devil does not provide us with one. Rather, this ‘puppy-face’ demon is spearing souls to collect in his basket. Krampus comes to mind, but he wasn’t really incorporated into the christian tradition until much later. He may have older, pagan roots, but his back-pack for souls is based on medieval Devil imagery, not the other way around.

The first, true TdM type Devils we have examples of (Noblet and Dodal, below), are from quite a bit later, so it’s not clear whether they are the actual prototypes. Nevertheless, it’s what we’ve got. One can’t help but notice a resemblance to the Minoan double axe/butterfly goddess, with those wings. Or maybe Psyche, again eluding to ‘soul.’ Perhaps the Cary Devil’s basket was a cocoon for his next incarnation, and that of his larval captives.

Mycenaean butterfly goddess 1500 bc and Psyche from a relief 2 bc
Early TdM Devils, Jean Noblet (1650) and Jean Dodal (1701)

In the early Middle Ages, when the Devil we know was just getting his mojo on, he was depicted as a somewhat comical character – lusty, bestial, mischievous – but not yet overtly sinister. Sometimes he’s the butt, getting clobbered by the Virgin Mary. Often he mimics or tempts holy men. Similarly, in TdM he stands in a power pose, lolling, as if mimicking a deity or preacher.  A relationship between the TdM Pope (5) and Devil (15) is suggested by the number they share (5), that of the bodily senses.

The image below, though 15th c, is a good example of Devil as a kind of pope’s ‘Fool’. We can still see remnants of Pan, even though he now has acquired demonic characteristics courtesy of various feminine entities; bird talons (harpies, lilitu), belly face (Baubo and/or the ‘belly-speaking’ Pythia of Delphi). Additionally, the number 15 was sacred to Ishtar, and represents the height of Lunar power (‘full’ phase), while 5 belongs to Venus (same planetary goddess).

old illustration of devil mimicking pope
Donkey-eared anti-pope, Master of Girart de Roussillon-ca. 1455

A closer look at the TdM Devil’s ‘antlers’ shows they do not grow from his own skull, but are stuck through/attached to the red brim, which might be the hide of some animal. Perhaps the skin of his former (Cary) self or yet another accoutrement  borrowed from a pagan goddess?

Juno Sospita (‘the saviour’), Etruscan, ca 500-480 bc

Dante is accredited with ascribing Satan’s ‘bat-like’ wings, emphasizing his dragon lineage. In the Middle Ages, thanks in part to the widespread popularity of Arthurian legends, apocalyptic visions, St. George and alchemical symbolism, dragons + every other kind of monster were at large in the collective imagination. And to the western, christian mind, dragon = Devil. (Hence Dracula, ‘son of Dracul’, the Dragon). Bacchus was often depicted riding one, as a symbol of drunkenness. But ‘dragon’ comes to us from the Greek word ‘drakos’, meaning ‘eye’ or ‘I see’, pertaining to an ever-watchful guardian of some treasure or mystery.

Dante’s triadic, alchemy-faced Lucifero 1450-75, and Medieval Dragon consumption
Drunken Bacchus 14th c, François Toucarty 2 of Cups 17th c, Bacchic eyes 520-500 BC

Meanwhile, the importation of demon imagery from the Middle East is also influential, and the christian Devil, as mentioned, adopts various features from them. The TdM Devil’s stance is apparent in the two examples below, especially with Pazuzu. (It’s not known whether Tarot artists ever saw these pieces, though, and for the record, the Burney Relief wasn’t discovered until the 20th century, so that’s off the list).

Clay tablet with Ereshkigal /Ishtar c 300 bc, bronze Pazuzu Demon c 800-600 bc

Witch hunts were what really made the Devil into a force for creating suspicion and fear. As persecutors projected their own darkness and depravity onto their scapegoats, the Devil’s terrible character grew into itself. The ‘Nature’ personification (below, right), created during the time of the 16th century witch trials is clearly based on head witch, Artemis Ephesus and bears a resemblance to our TdM Devil. At opposite ends, the men of science and religion, who would divide the spoils, agreed on one thing; that nature and her beasties didn’t possess anything even close to a human ‘soul’.
And that’s because they were idiots.

Personification of the Deadly Sins (15th c) and ‘Nature’ (16th c)

END OF PART ONE

 

 

PART TWO:  LORD OF GHOSTS

So far, we’ve addressed possible, historical influences for the TdM Devil’s look; the pose, mimicry, belly face, bat/moth wings and bird talons as well as his resemblance to pagan deities and Mesopotamian demons. Though not common in TdM, Tarot Devils may also sport serpents from their groin and head, similar to Gorgons or Furies. I include this fave, TdM exception (below, left) holding a delightful bouquet of pit vipers; it’s the thought that counts.

Now, let us venture deeper into the blue…

Blue Devils: Jacques Rochelais (1782), Besancon (1784), Giuseppe Mitelli (ca 1665)

Ok, I know what some of you are thinking: The Devil is not always BLUE! True, but he is blue enough of the time to warrant an investigation. Barring that colour was on sale, let’s look at some other, plausible reasons.

Giotto’s blue Satan, from The Last Judgement (detail), 1306

Giotto’s choice of colour is thought to have been based on the Etruscan ‘blue demons’ such as those in the ‘Tomb of the Blue Demons‘ (discovered in 1985, however) or the Greek Eurynomos:

Eurynomos was a flesh-devouring daimon (spirit) of the underworld who stripped the flesh from the rotting corpses of the dead. He was depicted as a man with black-blue skin seated on a vulture’s skin. Eurynomos was associated with carrion-feeders such as vultures and meat-flies. His name means “Wide-Ruling” from the Greek words eury- and nomos. 

Etruscan daimon  (looking rather ‘eastern’) from the Tomb of the Blue Demons, Italy

So naturally, blue palor is associated with the dead, who have ‘turned blue.’ Giotto’s Satan has simply replaced pagan Hades/Pluto. Platonists (TdM is reputed to have neo-platonic leanings) believed the physical body was as a corpse in which the soul (psyche) was imprisoned. With this philosophy in mind, the blue Devil and his willing, sacrificial victims represent attachment to the corporeal.

Two customers approach a statuary, one wishing to place the sculptor’s  work [a statue of young Hermes or a Herm] in the tomb of his son, one proposing to use it for private worship. Deciding to sleep on the matter, the sculptor is visited by Hermes in a dream and is told that he has in his hands the decision to make him either a dead man or a divinity. The 2nd century physician and philosopher, Galen gave the light-hearted fable a more serious turn by applying the story to human potentiality:
“You have a choice between honouring your soul by making it like the gods and treating it contemptuously by making it like the brute beasts.”

Herm of Hermes-Mercury as dedicated portrait, ca 150-170

In other words, when we only live within the realm of the bodily senses and appetites, the soul ‘dies’. Losing our senses in any of the Devil’s vices – including magic and the occult – might run us adrift and rudderless. The water (another symbol of soul) behind the Devil is still or frozen. His podium also kind of resembles a ship’s capstan, but without the levers in place with which to haul the anchor up (or down).

capstans

Another way to turn blue, or even die, is to be in frigid water too long. The TdM Devil is usually only blue from the neck down, excluding arms and head. His cup-like hat and blue ‘antlers’ seem to echo the fishes in the Two of Cups, once bonded in sacred union, now turned away from each other. (In black magic, everything is reversed). The shape of his tripartite, blue body also suggests something fishy or amphibious, like conjoined lamprey (from Latin lampetra, ‘stone licker’) or frog legs/ears. Something is being drawn out of the murky unconscious or indeed from the two, willing minions, heads previously filled with Pope’s pape.

Cup hat and fish shapes, two of cups fish and fishy wet suit

Amphibiously speaking (ribbit ribbit), the toad is a symbol of alchemy par excellence. It is a ‘living crucible.’ 

Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
I would not change it.

– Shakespeare, ‘As You Like it’ 

‘Lord of the Flies’

Of course Lucifer also once had a precious, emerald stone in his forehead, aka the philosopher’s stone, aka the Grail. The TdM Devils’ crossed eyes direct us to where a third one should be, but at the same time are disquieting and repel us. Do they, and his grotesque, ever-watchful, nipple eyes serve to distract from what he’s standing on and guardian of? And don’t the minions’ ropes create a perfect crucible shape? A basket’s no good for cooking souls in, this is better.

They have compared the “prima materia” to everything, to male and female, to the hermaphroditic monster, to heaven and earth, to body and spirit, chaos, microcosm, and the confused mass; it contains in itself all colors and potentially all metals; there is nothing more wonderful in the world, for it begets itself, conceives itself, and gives birth to itself.

– Theatrum Chemicum (‘The Chemical Theatre’)

Conver Diable and Roman crucible for metal, found in England.

The distillation stage is when all of the impurities are removed, and there is nothing left but the essence. In Chemistry, distillation involves boiling and condensation to separate components and is commonly used in desalination. A liquid is boiled until it evaporates, and as the steam condenses, the essence is liberated from the matter. It marks the point at which our essence becomes spiritualized. In others words, in spiritual alchemy, distillation is a metaphor for the actualization of one’s spirit.

Although TdM is never quite this=that, it’s worth noting distillation is the 6th stage (1+5). It seems Temperance (14) has turned Temptress and now these Dionysians are hitting the hard stuff. Because, in seeking to separate the quintessence (purest and most concentrated form or ‘spirit’ of a substance) from the dross, alchemists also created…gin! The root of ‘alcohol’ (Arabic) is ‘kohl‘, pertaining to powdered antimony, which,  in alchemy, symbolizes ‘the wild spirit of man and nature.’ At this delicate stage, there are various ‘pure spirits’ that might be drawn out.

Alchemical Distillery, 1512

Here we must briefly retrograde back to Dante. His Lucifer was not shackled in flames, but perma-frozen in ice. Dante and Virgil climb up the shaggy legs, ‘until gravity is reversed and they fall through the earth into the southern hemisphere’. The omphalos has become the omicron phallus (omicron being the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet). It’s been pointed out that the Tarot Devil’s genitals are situated at the centre of the image. In keeping with this subject explored by Renaissance artists, if you draw an ‘X’  from corner to corner, the lines cross right at the ‘Centrum Mundi.’

Lucifer in Ice, Centrum Mundi, 9th ring of Hell

The gravitational reversal described sounds a lot like distillation, and what with Lucifer hermetically sealed and his 3 faces of black, red and white…
Alchemy, like witchcraft, was considered a form of ‘black magic’ and Dante even punishes alchemists – deemed ‘falsifiers’ – with leprosy. Unfortunately, ‘puffers’ (fraudsters who took peoples’ money, promising to turn lead into gold) were lumped in with true, spiritual alchemists and the sullied reputation persists to this day. Perhaps the TdM Devil stands upon the gold as both a temptation and warning to spiritual materialists who’d use Tarot for such nefarious purposes.

A ‘puffer’ from the Ship of Fools, Sebastian Brant, 1494

END OF PART TWO

 

 

Typhon, Willem Goeree, 1700

PART THREE:   MYTHICAL CHAMELEON

Believe it or not, the above, most impressive depiction of Typhon and its resemblance to the TdM Devil is what ‘spawned’ this whole inquiry. In Greek myth, Typhon was the monstrous, serpentine Titan son of Gaia (Earth). When he fought against Zeus (one of many male gods who wrangle with serpent beings) for rule of the cosmos and lost, Zeus threw him down into Tartarus and plugged the hole with a mountain (Mt. Etna), so he couldn’t escape. The similarity to Satan cast down into Hell and shackled in chains or ice is obvious. Volatile Typhon rattling his chains and blowing his top caused earthquakes, volcanos, tornados (typhoons), plagues (typhoid) and other natural disasters:

In size and strength he surpassed all the offspring of Earth. As far as the thighs he was of human shape and of such prodigious bulk that he out-topped all the mountains, and his head often brushed the stars. One of his hands reached out to the west and the other to the east, and from them projected a hundred dragons’ heads. From the thighs downward he had huge coils of vipers, which when drawn out, reached to his very head and emitted a loud hissing. His body was all winged: unkempt hair streamed on the wind from his head and cheeks; and fire flashed from his eyes.

And furthermore…

Typhon was a “poison-spitting viper whose “every hair belched viper-poison.” He “spat out showers of poison from his throat; the mountain torrents were swollen, as the monster showered fountains from the viperish bristles of his high head” and “the water-snakes of the monster’s viperish feet crawl into the caverns underground, spitting poison!”
He also has many other animal heads, including leopards, lions, bulls, boars, bears, cattle, wolves, and dogs, which combine to make ‘the cries of all wild beasts together’ and a “babel of screaming sounds.”

Typhonic Devil waiting at the edge of the earth

Typhon makes medieval dragons look like newts. Again, it’s interesting to note the parallel between Hades, which later became Hell proper, and the watery abyss. Typhon’s spitting similarity to Satan did not escape medieval christian philosophers, either. They recognized him as one and the same.
[The title phrase, ‘between the Devil and the deep blue sea’ means having to chose the lesser of two evils, the way Odysseus had to chose ‘between Scylla (a man-eating sea siren), and Charybdis (a deadly whirlpool)’, ie, ‘a rock and a hard place’.] 

Hungry sea monsters surrounding a ship.

Typhon was conflated with Set, Egyptian god of chaos, storms and all strange and terrifying natural events from eclipses to earthquakes. Like Typhon and the Devil, Set is an elemental beast of many guises, very ancient (pre-dynastic) and attributed with major, occult powers. Sometimes he takes a recognizable form – hippo, pig, fish or crocodile – but mostly he’s the magical and alluring ‘Set animal’, with rectangular ears, downward curved snout and a stiff, straight  tail. His face reminds me a bit of a duck-billed dinosaur and one theory is that  he was based on an extinct creature, which is why we don’t recognize it.

Set

Typhon was said to have chased the Greek gods into Egypt, where they transformed themselves into animals. Among them, Pan jumped into the Nile, and became the half-goat/half-fish, otherwise known as Capricorn. On one hand, a neat way to explain their conflation, but on the other, it made Typhon the very agent of the gods’ transmutation, including his own. To hermetic thinkers of the 16th century, Typhon-Set seems to have been understood as a kind of extreme Mercurius.

Typhon as Scorpio, Athanasius Kircher, 1652-54

In his ‘Egyptian Zodiac’, Taurean Athanasius Kircher depicts Typhon-Set as the ‘hieroglyphic’ Scorpio, which makes sense, at least intuitively, as it’s the (sometimes serpent) sign of death and regeneration – both Osiris and Dionysus are dismembered by Set and Titans, consecutively, and are reborn with the dedicated magic of goddesses Isis and Athena. Kircher was not an alchemist by any means, but he was a master of syncretization and made an honest attempt to crack Egyptian code, long before the Dendera Zodiac and Rosetta Stone had been discovered.

On another level, ‘true’ alchemist, Michael Maier‘s allegorical Typhon-Set (below), just like the TdM Devil, is an androgyne with enlarged breasts. He/she holds the tools of dismemberment and transformation. Osiris-Dionysus is all cut up and Isis brings a cauldron/crucible and presumably her magic.

Puppy-faced, Ziphius-bellied Typhon-Set from Michael Maier’s Mythoalchemy (detail)

Three centuries before Dr. Jung, Maier (1568-1622) told of “chymical secrets behind the myths.” He said, therefore, that they should not be taken as merely historical, but as allegory or hieroglyph, “concealing some deeper meaning, philosophical or moral, which must be withheld from those persons too ignorant or too impious to use it aright” and “the truest interpretation is that it all concerns the Philosophical Medicine.” He called Typhon-Set “the burning spirit” and indeed, “the alchemical vessel itself.” Ta-da! 

I did not die, and I was not alive;
think for yourself, if you have any wit,
what I became, deprived of life and death.

– Inferno, 34.25-7

The mosaic below depicts a scene from the Last Judgement, wherein the goats (on Christ’s left) are being separated from the sheep (on his right). The blue angel is believed to be the earliest known depiction of Satan.  ~rb

6th c mosaic, Sant’Apollinaire Nuovo, Ravenna


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All blue/bold bits herein are quotations. 
Eurynomos quote from Theoi.com
Distillation and Inferno quote from  thecollector.com
All other quotes from Wikipedia (some edited for length)
Quotation pages and any other pages of interest are linked within the article. More information on images/sources can be found in their descriptions by clicking on them. 

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The Hermit – Shedding a Little Light on the Situation

[Originally posted April 17, 2023, now re-posted with some Mercury retrograde addendums and edits. Enjoy!]

In 15th century Renaissance Tarot decks, this allegorical figure was called ‘Time’ and his device was an hour glass. Later, with a few exceptions, it was replaced by a lamp, changing the meaning somewhat. Instead of being a Saturnine symbol of old age reminding us of the passing of our mortal existence, he became more of a monk-sage, holding up a guiding light for seekers. But as we shall see, the two are not so different.

Visconti-Sforza Time

In this well-known Visconti-Sforza card, Father Time holds the hourglass and wears the deep blue of Lapis, i.e, wisdom/the philosopher’s stone (Lapis simply means ‘stone’). This he will wear into future Tarot decks, it is his trademark. On his head, a dome-shaped turban with rings. Until the 18th century, Saturn was known as the outermost planet, whose orbit encircled those of all the other planets’. It was the last stop. The average person was fortunate to experience one or even two Saturn returns in a lifetime. (The super-power of survival, however,  is a common gift to those born  under his rulership).

His colours are probably indicative of ‘the work’. Inside its holder, the hourglass is black and white (I inquired – it is not tarnished silver, but black paint). Likely this means the white inside it is salt. The tria prima of philosophical alchemy are as follows:
– SALT representing the body, which is material (in hourglass, also his white gloves, socks, hair)
– SULPHUR representing the soul, which is fiery (hat colours, also his lining or undergarment, boots)
– MERCURY representing the spirit, which is watery (blue cloak)
The green grass is symbolic of renewal/rebirth, nature, and is perhaps also an alchemical reference, which the Hanged Man card of this deck picks up on.
The planets are the ‘above’ to alchemy’s ‘below’, the metals, but spiritual (or philosophical) alchemy is about the transmutation of the soul.

Saturn, from Lazzarelli’s De Gentilium Deorum Imaginibus, ca 1470

The ‘So-Called Mantegna’ prints, an Italian Renaissance relation, though not actual cards, were a little more esoteric. Above is a page from a book by Ludovico Lazzarelli, which beautifully replicates the prints, in colour, with fancy borders. While still nothing typically Hermit-like about him, other than his shabby cloak, Saturn  is doing the most allegorical thing possible to show the passing of time – eating his offspring, in order that he might reign eternal and avoid succession. (This was actually what kept patriarchs awake at night,  in olden days). The serpent or dragon biting its tail is one of the oldest alchemical symbols, representing mercury and the work itself; ‘my end is my beginning’.

Seated in a line, as if to complete a (second) scythe shape, are four of his children, a fifth one is about to be devoured. The sixth, Zeus-Jupiter has been hidden away by his mother, Rhea, and will later return to  succeed his Titan Father, beginning a new era of Olympian rule and providing an endless supply of mythology for generations to come. That cherub on the right holding a golden  ‘O’ (mirror or empty picture frame) for ‘Olympus’ might be him, preparing his new place in the line. The babe at its father’s lips must be Vesta, who was born/eaten first (and coughed up last). In fact, at one time, first-borns were given to the Gods, in sacrifice, that was their honour.  Again, the theme of age, elders, death. Note the mysterious (funerary?) urns which match the four, seated babes – Juno, Pluto, Neptune and Ceres. Missing is Vesta’s urn…are we to presume that Saturn himself is the container for her? Attached to the two brothers’ urns is a wreath, signifying completion, while new growth emerges from the sisters’ taller urns.

Rare Vesta in human form, Pompeii, 1st c, note she also holds a coiled serpent
Vesta or Vestal, lifting her lamp

In Ancient Rome, Vesta (Greek Hestia) was Goddess of the hearth, eternal flame of the city. Vestal Virgins enjoyed much privilege…as long as they kept their vow of chastity and never let the eternal flame go out.  Punishment for either was severe, usually being sealed up or buried alive. Extreme Saturn. The fate of Rome itself depended, it was believed, on that fire being kept alive. Similarly, and prior to this, in each Roman home, women had to ensure their home hearths didn’t go out, lest the ancestors and living family should suffer calamity.

Europa, Ripa 1603 and TdM style Hermite, 18th c (?)
Lamp-lifting Hermits: Old one from Lyon, Dodal Tarot de Marseille mid-17th c, Grumppenberg ca 1807-1816 (note the copulating snakes suggesting Tiresias).

Am likely not alone in seeing the Hermit’s lamp as being temple-shaped. It was indeed Vesta’s temples that were circular and domed, to replicate the dome of the sky over the earth. Just as Vesta’s flame represented eternal life, the little light in the Hermit’s temple-shaped lantern must also be symbolic of the eternal existence of spirit. 9 is indicative of (human) gestation…a most mysterious alchemical process.

Roman coin, silver, 55 BC

Returning to the Visconti-Sforza card, we find that the leap from being an allegory of Time to the christianized (?), hermetic Hermit of TdM is really just a small step. His hourglass is encased in a tri-sectioned (Hermes-Mercury), lantern/temple-shaped holder, and the black outline of the hourglass is shaped very much like two, entwined snakes. The TdM card simplifies it into a tri-sectioned lantern and calls him l’Ermite or l’Hermite, as an added clue (both old and new French were used, depending on when/where the cards were printed, meaning doesn’t change). Time is not simply about counting hours, but is essential to the great work that is our development of spiritual wisdom over the course of a lifetime. This ultimately (hopefully) prepares us for our transition from bodily form to spirit. The blue cloak takes up most of the V-S figure, while the white areas of salt and body are comparatively small.

V-S card detail

By now I hope you can see the connection between Saturn, representative of constricted time, lead and bodily age, and Vesta, embodiment of the vital, ever transformative life force energy – that which is eternal, whether you interpret it as Earth-fire, the Sun (by which her sacred fire was lit for the Olympic Games) or Holy Spirit. The Hermit holds up this little, temple light not as literal Vesta, but to evoke what her temple and fire signifies. Number 9 will in fact re-emerge or be reborn, in the Sun card, number 19, after a process of being ‘tortured’ (alchemically speaking) through the next 9 cards. In astrology, too,  the 9th sign, following the trials of Scorpio, is Sagittarius (aka the Sage) – mutable, transforming flame of the fire triplicity. Keep this light burning within you at all times, never let it be snuffed out. If it is, well, fortunately Vesta is also the sacred, phallic fire stick (brother Jupiter to the rescue!), with which she rekindles herself. This was inserted into a hollow piece of wood and “rotated in a phallic manner” to light her flame, ahem.

Time/Hermit, Bologna Leonne 1776 and Horologion (time keeping) Tower, Athens

Segue and full circle… I had mentioned device exceptions. This Time/Hermit figure above has both a (phallic?) column – probably a sundial, ironically – and wings on his back. It is usually interpreted as the fleeting of time but another way to see it is buoyant spirit (wings) readying to leave the heaviness of this mortal coil or simply not being affected by it. Perhaps the same sort of idea as the Tower card, a release from bondage or prison. Sometimes the elderly do begin to look angelic. Or maybe it’s just the signature of our old friend, Hermes-Mercury, the winged wonder.

The Sanskrit word for temple (I recently learned), mandir, is a combination of mana, meaning ‘inner self’ and dir, meaning ‘a place’, ie, a ‘place where the inner self lives’. I can think of no better description for The Hermit.
Tarot images are cryptic, it’s not ‘this = that’, but rather, ‘this resembles that, I wonder if there might be a reason…’

Saturn and Vesta sitting in a forest, The Allegro & Il Penseroso of Milton, 1848 [BM]


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Secrets of the Emperor’s Chicken

Jodorowsky-Camoin Emperor

There is a curious detail in the Marseille Emperor’s throne, which always reminded me of a goofy-looking bird, a bit like the Roadrunner cartoon. Merely an accident of design…or is  it? Jodo refers only to the eye-like, circular shape, as symbolic of ‘alchemical gold.’ He and Camoin also insist there was an egg (under eagle’s tail) in the Conver card, which they ‘restored,’ a topic of much debate in Tarot circles.

detail in 3 versions of the Conver Emperor

Details in Tarot imagery are known to get muddled or omitted, so it’s necessary to look at as many variations as possible, to try and put a picture together. Often it’s nothing, sometimes it’s something. In this case, it was the latter.

In the two versions below, you’d be forgiven for thinking the bird head on the back of the Emperor’s throne was just another eagle, being the imperial bird (and in the first card, it appears to be), except for a couple of other clues; in the 2nd card, the arm of the throne is clearly ‘feathered’ like a rooster’s tail. Also there is the fact that the brim of the Emperor’s helmet-crown is almost without exception consistent in its red colouring.

18th c Emperors (Solothurn and Benois)

We could also make the connection to the alchemical basilisk, which symbolized the destructive fire preceding the transmutation of metals, as well as having the ability to kill with a glance, like Medusa (hence situated behind the Emperor, his shadow nature or hidden super-power). And, of course, the presence of Mercurius, the transmuter.

Basilisk in 12th c archway

Now, the next question is, why? Why, when chickens are a medieval symbol of cowardice and avarice, and when the rooster in particular belongs to Mercury or Mars, would anyone associate the noble Emperor with poultry? Isn’t the Emperor an avatar of Jupiter??

Actually, Emperors and Gallus gallus go a long way back. No ancient Roman Emperor was without an assembly of sacred fowl. You see, in olden days, chickens were not bred for frying, but for fighting and alectryomancy, a form of augury. Chickens were used to predict the outcome of battles and, yup, who the next Emperor would be. We can see the military aspect of our Tarot Emperor, though he be seated in repose.

Etruscan buccher 630-20 BC and German Rooster helmet c 1530 (MET Museum, NY)

Alright, so what does the regal rooster have to do with de Zeus, if anything?
This is where it gets a bit esoteric, because TdM imagery is never this = that. We can find associations in the Emperor card to Jupiter (imperial eagle on his shield, sometimes a thunderbolt in his sceptre, bearded), Mars and Mercury (rooster, as mentioned), as well as the Sun (rooster, medieval 4th sphere, wears a radiate crown over his helmet), but what about Pluto? Pluto/Hades was, after all, an aspect of the Jupiterian triplicity, one of the ‘bros’.

While the other, major Greco-Roman gods were always busy doing – Mars at battle or cavorting with Venus, Mercury flying all over the place, Jupiter running Olympus between mythic, erm, conquests – it seems Pluto’s one, big event was the ‘abduction’ of his young bride, Persephone/Proserpine. After that, the god of subterranean riches pretty much just sits there on his Underworld throne or lies in repose at banquets for the newly-dead, right?

engraving by Wenzel Holler (detail) 1600, Francesco Berti Bologna Emperor  17th c

This is likely due to the abduction myth being a relatively late injection; Persephone had long presided in the underworld as part of a Goddess triplicity (with Demeter and Hekate), before the patriarchal gods usurped:

“There is an archaic role for Persephone as the dread queen of the Underworld, whose very name it was forbidden to speak. In the Odyssey, commonly dated circa 800 to 600 BCE, when Odysseus goes to the Underworld, he refers to her as the Iron Queen. Her central myth, for all its emotional familiarity, was also the tacit context of the secret initiatory mystery rites of regeneration at Eleusis, which promised immortality to their awe-struck participants—an immortality in her world beneath the soil, feasting with the heroes who dined beneath her dread gaze.”

Note the ‘dread gaze’ reference, again.

Persephone and Hades/Pluto Enthroned, 500-450 BC, Greek (Cleveland Museum of Art)

As it turns out, Hades/Pluto and Dionysus may have been one and the same (or syncretized). In this beautiful relief, we see that the cock and hen are familiars of Persephone and her consort, representing Springtime regeneration (and eggs!), when she emerges from the Earth to make it fecund, again. The ear of grain/wheat is another of her attributes (indeed she was the grain itself), and we see that the TdM Emperor wears a necklace (circle) of golden grain, just like Pluto/Dionysus wears on his head.

Going back to the subject of my previous post, every 4th card is also the 1st card of the next cycle of 3, the Empress being the first 3. Like Persephone, she embodies the cyclic, creative triplicity. The Emperor, in 4th place, represents the ‘death’ of the first cycle as well as the beginning of the next. Similarly, Winter is the 4th season, when the forces of life go underground.

Conver Empress and Emperor (BnF)

The aging Emperor is typically shown in profile, facing the Empress/past and with his back to the next cards/future (if they were laid out in numerical order). He will not go further in his current form, but holding his sceptre erect, looks to his lady for renewal, while she, in turn, holds her sceptre to her womb.

Addendum: Hermes-Mercury’s travels famously included being a psychopomp, being the only god who had licence to travel back and forth between realms. So don’t worry, this is not to discount the rooster/chicken as possible presence of Mercury,  significator of transition, alchemical, numerical or otherwise. Rather it is to draw attention to the Plutonian nature of the Emperor. Hermes-Mercury is present in every Major Arcana card of the TdM (more on that some other post). Interestingly, modern ‘evolutionary’ astrology sees planetary Pluto as having to do with both death and transformation. ~rb

“Hey hon, think I’m ovulating…”


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