The Lesser Arcana

The pack of cards of the Lesser Arcana has been generally acknowledged as the origin of our ordinary playing-cards, though subsequent authorities do not wholly agree upon this point. Thus we find Dr. Papus saying:

"... wands have become the clubs (or trefles) of our present playing-cards, cups have become hearts, swords have become spades and pentacles have become diamonds." (Chapter I.)

Mr. Waite in his Key says:

"... wands or sceptres... diamonds... cups correspond to hearts... swords answer to clubs..." and finally pentacles "which are the prototype of spades." (P. 37.)

In MacGregor Mathers' booklet we find in extenso the following table:

Italian	French	English	Answering to
Bastoni	Bâtons	Wands, Sceptres or Clubs	Diamonds
Coppe	Coupes	Cups, Chalices or Goblets	Hearts
Spadé	Epées	Swords	Spades
Denari	Deniers	Money, Circles or Pentacles	Clubs

The discrepancies are evident. Furthermore questions may arise as to how one writer could call swords, clubs, while linguistically a wand and a club originally mean the same thing, and cover the same meaning, viz. that of a detached part of a living tree; and how is it that another could see wands answering to diamonds and a third make pentacles clubs? Evidently a sword must be a 'spade' and a wand must be a 'club,' the names being virtually identical. There seems, however, some difficulty regarding the other two. I object to the usage as given by Papus and MacGregor Mathers and can easily bring forward proof against it. Important differences like these, found in the writings of the principal authors on the subject, show that something is wanting in the understanding of the doctrine itself and the 'why' has been lost, or at least partially. The quest for this doctrine must be fully worth the trouble - and we shall endeavour, in the following pages, to follow it up to its origin in general cosmological principles.

Now the first thing we wish to point out is this: the system of the Tarot is so important, that no explanation can be accepted as satisfactory other than that which acknowledges it as a general outline of Creation itself, which ever was, and ever continues, pervading every creature and everything with its principles as a divine immanence.

Therefore Papus is quite right in stating, that "each card of the Tarot represents a symbol, a number and an idea."

At the basis of Creation are the Four Cosmic Elements, as they were symbolically mentioned by visionaries such as Ezechiel and St. John of Patmos, and taught by astrology of old. It requires no extraordinary intuition of the occult student to recognise in the four colours of our playing-cards or the four suits of the Tarot's Lesser Arcana those four basic Elements: Fire, Earth, Air and Water. The question remains however: Which is which?

There must have been a time when knowledge about these matters was nearer at hand than is the case nowadays; the symbols speak for it. A student of Occultism has to pay attention to symbols above all. So what do they tell us?



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