III. — Study of the Divine World.

Divine hierarchies
Arcanum XX.
11 th hour
Nirvana !
Arcanum XXII.
12th hour!
272 THE TAROT.
Need we add how much effort and time (years, lives, often centuries) are required for each of these hours, how few there are who pass even the first steps !
And what can we expect from their knowledge ? The hoj3e of indefinite progress towards the realization of our most radiant hopes, the desire to attain at least those first realizations, so that we may derive from them the assurance of the others ; confidence in the instruction of those whom we recognize for masters already far advanced ; lastly, the certainty that in these fruitful doctrines we shall find the salvation of our suffering societies, as well as the most longed-for individual happiness. And these desires, this confidence, are felt after the first preliminary studies.
To succeed, we need undertake but one work at first, that which the Sphinx depicts to us : moral and intellectual preparations. But only the man who seriously under- takes them can know what immense and persevering efforts they exact ! May this rough glimpse of them inspire the reader with the desire and the courage to devote himself to them with all the ardour of Hope !
F. Ch. Barlet.
THE DIVINE NAME IN THE TAROT. By Ch. Barlet.
The totality of the symbols which form the Tarot is distributed through a series of 78 plates or cards, instead of being presented in a single figure ; the reason for this is, that the signification of this totality is very multiple ; for it is at the same time théologie, cosmologie, psychologic, and divining, and this variety is the result of the different combinations which can be produced by the arrangement and comparison of these 78 cards. This variety is not one of the lesser beauties of this unique masterpiece, in the sense that it adds movement and consequently life to the usual immobility of every written representation, without counting the diversity of its appliances, which include numbers, words, form, and colour.
The Tarot can therefore be made to speak when one of its innumerable combinations has been found ; that is to say, when the student knows how to arrange the whole or part of his cards upon the table, in the order necessary to discover the answer which he seeks.
We ask him : What is the Creation from man s point of view, that is to say, what is the life of the Great All, and how can or should man participate in it ? The whole Tarot, with its 22 great arcana and 56 minor arcana, will answer us, as we shall show by quoting only a few of the profound interpretations which it provides.
274 THE TAROT.
To obtain this information we must remember that the three first cards which express the Trinity form at the same time the key to the 22 great arcana, which, when the 0 is abstracted, are only seven repetitions of this Trinity. We must also notice that the card IV., the fourth term of the divine tetractys, is both the realization of the Trinity restored to the unity, and the first term of the following Trinity. The four first cards thus represent the divine name of 4 letters, IEVE (PlTT), so that if we repeat the Trinity seven times, to obtain the sequence of the 21 great arcana, the numbers will correspond to the four letters as follows —
lumbers 1. 2. 3 — 4. 5. 6. — 7. 8. 9 — etc.
^ni-n^n — irr> — etc
Letters...
I E V - ■ E I E - V E I - etc.
We will assume that these letters are thus attached to the corresponding arcana, and this remark will be the first key to the arrangement which we are looking for.
To find a second key, we must redeal our cards in a given space ; at first only their place in the plane will appear ; then it will be clearly defined. We know that the Kosmos is conceived as the final expansion of the mathematical point, that is to say, of the Absolute, which before this expansion included all force or potentiality in its nothingness. Let us draw this sphere (see Fig. 1). The centre of it will be represented by one of the cards, 0, the Foolish Man or Crocodile, which is the pivot of the whole pack, at the same time that it participates in all the other cards, for they include all the properties of our universe. From some point of the sphere, a point which becomes our north pole, the movement will start, by which the creation will appear on its surface.
276 THE TAROT.
Around this point upon the sphere, the reflex of the centre, we will place the cards of our 3 first arcana : I. (the Mage, the Spirit, >) ; II. (Knowledge, Substance, n) ; III. (Love, the fertile Power, the Being, 1) ; and in order that this Trinity may be repeated in the whole septenary of our distribution we will make it the root of 3 great divisions, representing the 3 terms of the Trinity, which will divide the surface of our sphere by 3 meridians.
We can then continue the distribution of our cards upon this surface in the following way. The head of each partial Trinity will be in division 1 ; each second term will be in division 2 ; each third term in division 3. Consequently our IV. card (the Emperor, H) will be in the