Section I

INTRODUCTORY AND GENERAL

The pathology of the poet says that "_the undevout astronomer is mad_";
the pathology of the very plain man says that "_the genius is mad_"; and
between these extremes, which stand for ten thousand analogous excesses,
the sovereign reason takes the part of a moderator and does what it can.
I do not think that there is a pathology of the _occult_ dedications,
but about their extravagances no one can question, and it is not less
difficult than thankless to act as a moderator regarding them. Moreover,
the pathology, if it existed, would probably be an empiricism rather
than a diagnosis, and would offer no criterion. Now, _occultism_ is not
like mystic faculty, and it very seldom works in harmony either with
business aptitude in the things of ordinary life or with a knowledge of
the canons of evidence in its own sphere. I know that for the high art
of ribaldry there are few things more dull than the criticism which
maintains that a thesis is untrue, and cannot understand that it is
decorative. I know also that after long dealing with doubtful doctrine
or with difficult research it is always refreshing, in the domain of
this art, to meet with what is obviously of fraud or at least of
complete unreason. But the aspects of history, as seen through the lens
of occultism, are not as a rule decorative, and have few gifts of
refreshment to heal the lacerations which they inflict on the logical
understanding. It almost requires a _Frater Sapiens dominabitur astris_
in the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross to have the patience which is not
lost amidst clouds of folly when the consideration of the Tarot is
undertaken in accordance with the higher law of symbolism. The true
Tarot is symbolism; it speaks no other language and offers no other
signs. Given the inward meaning of its emblems, they do become a kind of
alphabet which is capable of indefinite combinations and makes true
sense in all. On the highest plane it offers a _"Key" To The
Mysteries_, in a manner which is not arbitrary and has not been read in.
But the wrong symbolical stories have been told concerning it, and the
wrong history has been given in every published work which so far has
dealt with the subject. It has been intimated by two or three writers
that, at least in respect of the meanings, this is unavoidably the case,
because few are acquainted with them, while these few hold by
transmission under pledges and cannot betray their trust. The suggestion
is fantastic on the surface, for there seems a certain anti-climax in
the proposition that a particular interpretation of
fortune-telling--_l'art de tirer les cartes_--can be reserved for Sons
of the Doctrine. The fact remains, notwithstanding, that a _Secret
Tradition_ exists regarding the _Tarot_, and as there is always the
possibility that some minor arcana of the Mysteries may be made public
with a flourish of trumpets, it will be as well to go before the event
and to warn those who are curious in such matters that any revelation
will contain only a third part of the earth and sea and a third part of
the stars of heaven in respect of the symbolism. This is for the simple
reason that neither in root-matter nor in development has more been put
into writing, so that much will remain to be said after any pretended
unveiling. The guardians of certain temples of initiation who keep watch
over mysteries of this order have therefore no cause for alarm.

In my preface to _The Tarot Of The Bohemians_, which, rather by an
accident of things, has recently come to be re-issued after a long
period, I have said what was then possible or seemed most necessary. The
present work is designed more especially--as I have intimated--to
introduce a rectified set of the cards themselves and to tell the
unadorned truth concerning them, so far as this is possible in the outer
circles. As regards the sequence of greater symbols, their ultimate and
highest meaning lies deeper than the common language of picture or
hieroglyph. This will be understood by those who have received some part
of the _Secret Tradition_. As regards the verbal meanings allocated here
to the more important Trump Cards, they are designed to set aside the
follies and impostures of past attributions, to put those who have the
gift of insight on the right track, and to take care, within the limits
of my possibilities, that they are the truth so far as they go.

It is regrettable in several respects that I must confess to certain
reservations, but there is a question of honor at issue. Furthermore,
between the follies on the one side of those who know nothing of the
tradition, yet are in their own opinion the exponents of something
called occult science and philosophy, and on the other side between the
make-believe of a few writers who have received part of the tradition
and think that it constitutes a legal title to scatter dust in the eyes
of the world without, I feel that the time has come to say what it is
possible to say, so that the effect of current charlatanism and
unintelligence may be reduced to a minimum.

We shall see in due course that the history of Tarot cards is largely of
the negative kind, and that, when the issues are cleared by the
dissipation of reveries and gratuitous speculations expressed in the
terms of certitude, there is in fact no history prior to the fourteenth
century. The deception and self-deception regarding their origin in
_Egypt_, _India_ or _China_ put a lying spirit into the mouths of the
first expositors, and the later occult writers have done little more
than reproduce the first false testimony in the good faith of an
intelligence unawakened to the issues of research. As it so happens, all
expositions have worked within a very narrow range, and owe,
comparatively speaking, little to the inventive faculty. One brilliant
opportunity has at least been missed, for it has not so far occurred to
any one that the Tarot might perhaps have done duty and even originated
as a secret symbolical language of the Albigensian sects. I commend this
suggestion to the lineal descendants in the spirit of Gabriele Rossetti
and Eugène Aroux, to Mr. Harold Bayley as another _New Light On The
Renaissance_, and as a taper at least in the darkness which, with great
respect, might be serviceable to the zealous and all-searching mind of
Mrs. Cooper-Oakley. Think only what the supposed testimony of watermarks
on paper might gain from the _Tarot Card_ of the Pope or Hierophant, in
connection with the notion of a secret Albigensian patriarch, of which
Mr. Bayley has found in these same watermarks so much material to his
purpose. Think only for a moment about the card of the High Priestess as
representing the Albigensian church itself; and think of the Tower
struck by Lightning as typifying the desired destruction of Papal Rome,
the city on the seven hills, with the pontiff and his temporal power
cast down from the spiritual edifice when it is riven by the wrath of
God (Nature). The possibilities are so numerous and persuasive that they
almost deceive in their expression one of the elect who has invented
them. But there is more even than this, though I scarcely dare to cite
it. When the time came for the Tarot cards to be the subject of their
first formal explanation, the archæologist Court de Gebelin reproduced
some of their most important emblems, and--if I may so term it--the
codex which he used has served--by means of his engraved plates--as a
basis of reference for many sets that have been issued subsequently. The
figures are very primitive and differ as such from the cards of
Etteilla, the Marseilles Tarot, and others still current in France. I am
not a good judge in such matters, but the fact that every one of the
Trumps Major might have answered for watermark purposes is shown by the
cases which I have quoted and by one most remarkable example of the Ace
of Cups.

[Illustration]

I should call it an eucharistic emblem after the manner of a ciborium,
but this does not signify at the moment. The point is that Mr. Harold
Bayley gives six analogous devices in his _New Light On The
Renaissance_, being watermarks on paper of the seventeenth century,
which he claims to be of Albigensian origin and to represent sacramental
and Graal emblems. Had he only heard of the Tarot, had he known that
these cards of divination, cards of fortune, cards of all vagrant arts,
were perhaps current at the period in the South of France, I think that
his enchanting but all too fantastic hypothesis might have dilated still
more largely in the atmosphere of his dream. We should no doubt have had
a vision of Christian Gnosticism, Manichæanism, and all that he
understands by pure primitive Gospel, shining behind the pictures.

I do not look through such glasses, and I can only commend the subject
to his attention at a later period; it is mentioned here that I may
introduce with an unheard-of wonder the marvels of arbitrary speculation
as to the history of the cards.

With reference to their form and number, it should scarcely be necessary
to enumerate them, for they must be almost commonly familiar, but as it
is precarious to assume anything, and as there are also other reasons, I
will tabulate them briefly as follows:--


CLASS I