SECTION I.

THE TAROT AND SECRET TRADITION

The Tarot embodies symbolical presentations of universal ideas, behind
which lie all the implicits of the human mind, and it is in this sense
that they contain secret doctrine, which is the realization by the few
of truths imbedded in the consciousness of all, though they have not
passed into express recognition by ordinary men. The theory is that this
doctrine has always existed--that is to say, has been excogitated in the
consciousness of an elect minority; that it has been perpetuated in
secrecy from one to another and has been recorded in secret literatures,
like those of Alchemy and Kabalism; that it is contained also in those
Instituted Mysteries of which Rosicrucianism offers an example near to
our hand in the past, and Craft Masonry a living summary, or general
memorial, for those who can interpret its real meaning. Behind the
Secret Doctrine it is held that there is an experience or practice by
which the Doctrine is justified. It is obvious that in a handbook like
the present I can do little more than state the claims, which, however,
have been discussed at length in several of my other writings, while it
is designed to treat two of its more important phases in books devoted
to the Secret Tradition in Freemasonry and in Hermetic literature. As
regards Tarot claims, it should be remembered that some considerable
part of the imputed Secret Doctrine has been presented in the pictorial
emblems of Alchemy, so that the imputed _Book Of Thoth_ is in no sense a
solitary device of this emblematic kind. Now, Alchemy had two branches,
as I have explained fully elsewhere, and the pictorial emblems which I
have mentioned are common to both divisions. Its material side is
represented in the strange symbolism of the _Mutus Liber_, printed in
the great folios of Mangetus. There the process for the performance of
the great work of transmutation is depicted in fourteen copper-plate
engravings, which exhibit the different stages of the matter in the
various chemical vessels. Above these vessels there are mythological,
planetary, solar and lunar symbols, as if the powers and virtues
which--according to Hermetic teaching--preside over the development and
perfection of the metallic kingdom were intervening actively to assist
the two operators who are toiling below. The operators--curiously
enough--are male and female. The spiritual side of Alchemy is set forth
in the much stranger emblems of the _Book Of Lambspring_, and of this I
have already given a preliminary interpretation, to which the reader may
be referred.[2] The tract contains the mystery of what is called the
mystical or arch-natural elixir, being the marriage of the soul and the
spirit in the body of the adept philosopher and the transmutation of the
body as the physical result of this marriage. I have never met with more
curious intimations than in this one little work. It may be mentioned as
a point of fact that both tracts are very much later in time than the
latest date that could be assigned to the general distribution of Tarot
cards in Europe by the most drastic form of criticism. They belong
respectively to the end of the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries. As I
am not drawing here on the font of imagination to refresh that of fact
and experience, I do not suggest that the Tarot set the example of
expressing Secret Doctrine in pictures and that it was followed by
Hermetic writers; but it is noticeable that it is perhaps the earliest
example of this art. It is also the most catholic, because it is not, by
attribution or otherwise, a derivative of any one school or literature
of occultism; it is not of Alchemy or Kabalism or Astrology or
Ceremonial Magic; but, as I have said, it is the presentation of
universal ideas by means of universal types, and it is in the
combination of these types--if anywhere--that it presents Secret
Doctrine.

[2] See the _Occult Review_, vol. viii, 1908.

That combination may, _ex hypothesi_, reside in the numbered sequence of
its series or in their fortuitous assemblage by shuffling, cutting and
dealing, as in ordinary games of chance played with cards. Two writers
have adopted the first view without prejudice to the second, and I shall
do well, perhaps, to dispose at once of what they have said. Mr.
MacGregor Mathers, who once published a pamphlet on the Tarot, which was
in the main devoted to fortune-telling, suggested that the twenty-two
Trumps Major could be constructed, following their numerical order,
into what he called a "connected sentence." It was, in fact, the heads
of a moral thesis on the human will, its enlightenment by science,
represented by the Magician, its manifestation by action--a significance
attributed to the High Priestess--its realization (the Empress) in deeds
of mercy and beneficence, which qualities were allocated to the Emperor.
He spoke also in the familiar conventional manner of prudence,
fortitude, sacrifice, hope and ultimate happiness. But if this were the
message of the cards, it is certain that there would be no excuse for
publishing them at this day or taking the pains to elucidate them at
some length. In his _Tarot Of The Bohemians_, a work written with zeal
and enthusiasm, sparing no pains of thought or research within its
particular lines--but unfortunately without real insight--Dr. Papus has
given a singularly elaborate scheme of the Trumps Major. It depends,
like that of Mr. Mathers, from their numerical sequence, but exhibits
their interrelation in the Divine World, the Macrocosm and Microcosm. In
this manner we get, as it were, a spiritual history of man, or of the
soul coming out from the Eternal, passing into the darkness of the
material body, and returning to the height. I think that the author is
here within a measurable distance of the right track, and his views are
to this extent informing, but his method--in some respects--confuses the
issues and the modes and planes of being.

The Trumps Major have also been treated in the alternative method which
I have mentioned, and Grand Orient, in his _Manual Of Cartomancy_, under
the guise of a mode of transcendental divination, has really offered the
result of certain illustrative readings of the cards when arranged as
the result of a fortuitous combination by means of shuffling and
dealing. The use of divinatory methods, with whatsoever intention and
for whatever purpose, carries with it two suggestions. It may be thought
that the deeper meanings are imputed rather than real, but this is
disposed of by the fact of certain cards, like the Magician, the High
Priestess, the Wheel of Fortune, the Hanged Man, the Tower or _Maison
Dieu_, and several others, which do not correspond to Conditions of
Life, Arts, Sciences, Virtues, or the other subjects contained in the
denaries of the Baldini emblematic figures. They are also proof positive
that obvious and natural moralities cannot explain the sequence. Such
cards testify concerning themselves after another manner; and although
the state in which I have left the Tarot in respect of its historical
side is so much the more difficult as it is so much the more open, they
indicate the real subject matter with which we are concerned. The
methods show also that the Trumps Major at least have been adapted to
fortune-telling rather than belong thereto. The common divinatory
meanings which will be given in the third part are largely arbitrary
attributions, or the product of secondary and uninstructed intuition;
or, at the very most, they belong to the subject on a lower plane, apart
from the original intention. If the Tarot were of fortune-telling in the
root-matter thereof, we should have to look in very strange places for
the motive which devised it--to Witchcraft and the Black Sabbath, rather
than any Secret Doctrine.

The two classes of significance which are attached to the Tarot in the
superior and inferior worlds, and the fact that no occult or other
writer has attempted to assign anything but a divinatory meaning to the
Minor Arcana, justify in yet another manner the hypothesis that the two
series do not belong to one another. It is possible that their marriage
was effected first in the Tarot of Bologna by that Prince of Pisa whom I
have mentioned in the first part. It is said that his device obtained
for him public recognition and reward from the city of his adoption,
which would scarcely have been possible, even in those fantastic days,
for the production of a Tarot which only omitted a few of the small
cards; but as we are dealing with a question of fact which has to be
accounted for somehow, it is conceivable that a sensation might have
been created by a combination of the minor and gambling cards with the
philosophical set, and by the adaptation of both to a game of chance.
Afterwards it would have been further adapted to that other game of
chance which is called fortune-telling. It should be understood here
that I am not denying the possibility of divination, but I take
exception as a mystic to the dedications which bring people into these
paths, as if they had any relation to the Mystic Quest.

The Tarot cards which are issued with the small edition of the present
work, that is to say, with the _Key To The Tarot_, have been drawn and
colored by Miss Pamela Colman Smith, and will, I think, be regarded as
very striking and beautiful, in their design alike and execution. They
are reproduced in the present enlarged edition of the Key as a means of
reference to the text. They differ in many important respects from the
conventional archaisms of the past and from the wretched products of
colportage which now reach us from Italy, and it remains for me to
justify their variations so far as the symbolism is concerned. That for
once in modern times I present a pack which is the work of an artist
does not, I presume, call for apology, even to the people--if any remain
among us--who used to be described and to call themselves "very occult."
If any one will look at the gorgeous Tarot valet or knave who is
emblazoned on one of the page plates of Chatto's _Facts And Speculations
Concerning The History Of Playing Cards_, he will know that Italy in the
old days produced some splendid packs. I could only wish that it had
been possible to issue the restored and rectified cards in the same
style and size; such a course would have done fuller justice to the
designs, but the result would have proved unmanageable for those
practical purposes which are connected with cards, and for which
allowance must be made, whatever my views thereon. For the variations in
the symbolism by which the designs have been affected, I alone am
responsible. In respect of the Major Arcana, they are sure to occasion
criticism among students, actual and imputed. I wish therefore to say,
within the reserves of courtesy and _la haute convenance_ belonging to
the fellowship of research, that I care nothing utterly for any view
that may find expression. There is a Secret Tradition concerning the
Tarot, as well as a _Secret Doctrine_ contained therein; I have followed
some part of it without exceeding the limits which are drawn about
matters of this kind and belong to the laws of honor. This tradition has
two parts, and as one of them has passed into writing it seems to follow
that it may be betrayed at any moment, which will not signify, because
the second, as I have intimated, has not so passed at present and is
held by very few indeed. The purveyors of spurious copy and the
traffickers in stolen goods may take note of this point, if they please.
I ask, moreover, to be distinguished from two or three writers in recent
times who have thought fit to hint that they could say a good deal more
if they liked, for we do not speak the same language; but, also from any
one who, now or hereafter, may say that she or he will tell all, because
they have only the accidents and not the essentials necessary for such
disclosure. If I have followed on my part the counsel of Robert Burns,
by keeping something to myself which I "scarcely tell to any," I have
still said as much as I can; it is the truth after its own manner, and
as much as may be expected or required in those outer circles where the
qualifications of special research cannot be expected.

In regard to the Minor Arcana, they are the first in modern but not in
all times to be accompanied by pictures, in addition to what is called
the "pips"--that is to say, the devices belonging to the numbers of the
various suits. These pictures respond to the divinatory meanings, which
have been drawn from many sources. To sum up, therefore, the present
division of this key is devoted to the Trumps Major; it elucidates their
symbols in respect of the higher intention and with reference to the
designs in the pack. The third division will give the divinatory
significance in respect of the seventy-eight Tarot cards, and with
particular reference to the designs of the Minor Arcana. It will give,
in fine, some modes of use for those who require them, and in the sense
of the reason which I have already explained in the preface. That which
hereinafter follows should be taken, for the purposes of comparison, in
connection with the general description of the old Tarot Trumps in the
first part. There it will be seen that the zero card of the Fool is
allocated, as it always is, to the place which makes it equivalent to
the number twenty-one. The arrangement is ridiculous on the surface,
which does not much signify, but it is also wrong on the symbolism, nor
does this fare better when it is made to replace the twenty-second point
of the sequence. Etteilla recognized the difficulties of both
attributions, but he only made bad worse by allocating the Fool to the
place which is usually occupied by the Ace of Pentacles as the last of
the whole Tarot series. This rearrangement has been followed by Papus
recently in _Le Tarot Divinatoire_, where the confusion is of no
consequence, as the findings of fortune-telling depend upon fortuitous
positions and not upon essential place in the general sequence of cards.
I have seen yet another allocation of the zero symbol, which no doubt
obtains in certain cases, but it fails on the highest planes and for our
present requirements it would be idle to carry the examination further.