Preface

The Illustrated Key
To The Tarot

THE VEIL OF DIVINATION

Illustrating The Greater And Lesser Arcana

EMBRACING

THE VEIL AND ITS SYMBOLS.
SECRET TRADITION UNDER THE VEIL OF DIVINATION.
ART OF TAROT DIVINATION.
OUTER METHOD OF THE ORACLES.
THE TAROT IN HISTORY.
INNER SYMBOLISM.
THE GREATER KEYS.

_By_

_L. W. de Laurence_

AUTHOR OF, THE MASTER KEY. THE IMMANENCE OF GOD,
KNOW THYSELF. GOD, THE BIBL, TRUTH AND CHRISTIAN
THEOLOGY. MEDICAL HYPNOSIS AND MAGNETIC HYPNOTISM.
MANUAL OF DISEASE AND MODERN MEDICINE. VALMONDI:
THE OLD BOOK OF ANCIENT MYSTERIES. THE DEAD MAN'S
HOME. SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS IN PUBLIC. THE GREAT
BOOK OF MAGICAL ART, HINDU MAGIC AND EAST INDIAN
OCCULTISM, A SELF GUIDE FOR ALL MEN, ETC., ETC.

The de Laurence Company

Chicago, Ill., U. S. A.


_Copyright, 1918_

_By_

de LAURENCE, SCOTT & CO.


SPECIAL NOTICE

The illustrations, cover design and contents of this Volume are
protected by copyright, and must not be reproduced or copied without
written permission from the Publishers.

Disregard of this warning will subject the offender to the penalty
provided by law.

This book is manufactured in strict conformity with Government
regulations for saving paper.


Printed in U.S.A.




_THE ILLUSTRATED KEY TO
THE TAROT_




Preface


It seems rather of necessity than predilection in the sense of
_apologia_ that I should put on record in the first place a plain
statement of my personal position, as one who for many years of literary
life has been, subject to his spiritual and other limitations, an
exponent of the higher mystic schools. It will be thought that I am
acting strangely in concerning myself at this day with what appears at
first sight and simply a well-known method of fortune-telling. Now, the
opinions of some, even in the literary reviews, are of no importance
unless they happen to agree with our own, but in order to sanctify this
doctrine we must take care that our opinions, and the subjects out of
which they arise, are concerned only with the highest. Yet it is just
this which may seem doubtful, in the present instance, not only to
those, whom I respect within the proper measures of detachment, but to
some of more real consequence, seeing that their dedications are mine.
To these and to any I would say that after the most illuminated Frater
Christian Rosy Cross had beheld the Chemical Marriage in the Secret
Palace of Transmutation, his story breaks off abruptly, with an
intimation that he expected next morning to be door-keeper. After the
same manner, it happens more often than might seem likely that those who
have seen the _Occult Powers_ of Nature through the most clearest veils
of the sacraments are those who assume thereafter the humblest offices
of all about the House of Wisdom. By such simple devices also are the
_Adepts_ and _Great Masters_ in the secret orders distinguished from the
cohort of Neophytes as _servi servorum mysterii_. So also, or in a way
which is not entirely unlike, we meet with the Tarot cards at the
outermost gates--amidst the fritterings and débris of the so called
_occult_ arts, about which no one in their senses has suffered the
smallest deception; and yet these cards belong in themselves to another
region, for they contain a very high symbolism, which is interpreted
according to the Laws of Grace rather than by the pretexts and
intuitions of that which passes for divination. The fact that the wisdom
of God (Nature) is foolishness with men does not create a presumption
that the foolishness of this world makes in any sense for Divine Wisdom;
so neither the scholars in the ordinary classes nor the pedagogues in
the seats of the mighty will be quick to perceive the likelihood or even
the possibility of this proposition. The subject has been in the hands
of cartomancists as part of the stock-in-trade of their industry; I do
not seek to persuade any one outside my own circles that this is of much
or of no consequence; but on the historical and interpretative sides it
has not fared better; it has been there in the hands of exponents who
have brought it into utter contempt for those people who possess
philosophical insight or faculties for the appreciation of evidence. It
is time that it should be rescued, and this I propose to undertake once
and for all, that I may have done with the side issues which distract
from the term. As poetry is the most beautiful expression of the things
that are of all most beautiful, so is symbolism the most catholic
expression in concealment of things that are most profound in the
Sanctuary and that have not been declared outside it with the same
fullness by means of the spoken word. The justification of the rule of
silence is no part of my present concern, but I have put on record
elsewhere, and quite recently, what it is possible to say on this
subject.

* * * * *

The little treatise which follows is divided into three parts, in the
first of which I have dealt with the antiquities of the subject and a
few things that arise from and connect therewith. It should be
understood that it is not put forward as a contribution to the history
of playing cards, about which I know and care nothing; it is a
consideration dedicated and addressed to a certain school of occultism,
more especially in France, as to the source and center of all the
phantasmagoria which has entered into expression during the last fifty
years under the pretense of considering Tarot cards historically. In the
second part, I have dealt with the symbolism according to some of its
higher aspects, and this also serves to introduce the complete and
rectified Tarot, which is available separately, in the form of colored
cards, the designs of which are added to the present text in black and
white. They have been prepared under my supervision--in respect of the
attributions and meanings--by a lady who has high claims as an artist.
Regarding the divinatory part, by which my thesis is terminated, I
consider it personally as a fact in the history of the _Tarot_; as such,
I have drawn, from all published sources, a harmony of the meanings
which have been attached to the various cards, and I have given
prominence to one method of working that has not been published
previously; having the merit of simplicity, while it is also of
universal application, it may be held to replace the cumbrous and
involved systems of the larger hand-books.




_CONTENTS_


PAGE

PREFACE 3

An explanation of the personal kind--An illustration from
mystic literature--A subject which calls to be rescued--
Limits and intention of the work.