The Tarot of the Bohemians
Papus
Chapter 14
General Summary Of The Symbolical Tarot.
Theogony-Androgony-Cosmogony.
Involution and Evolution. Theogony - The Absolute according to Wronski, Lacuria, and the Tarot - Theogony to divers Religions identical with that of the Tarot - Summary. Androdgony - Cosmogony.
Figure containing the Symbolism of all the Major Arcana, enabling the Signification of each Card to be defined immeadiately.
General Sumary Of The Symbolism Of The Major Arcana.
Theogony - Androgony - Cosmogony.
Having completed our study of the twenty-two major arcana, considered separately, we will now review as clearly as possible the knowledge which may be gathered from the preceding explanations.
We have already established from the study of the first card, that the three primary principles are considered throughout their evolution: The Universe, Man, and God.
We need only to recall gorsso modo the sense of each card of the Tarot to prove the existence of a well-established progression, which starts from God the Holy Ghost to end in Matter, while passing through a number of varying modalities. Another gradiation leads from Matter to God, the primitive origin of all things.
This double current of the progressive Materialization of the Divine, or Involution, and of the Progressive Divination of the Material, or Evolution, has been too well studied by our eminent friend Ch. Barlet, for us intentionally to vary from him in any way; We shall therefore quote his interesting work in extenso1, and thus enable the reader to see that our conclusions are absolutely identical, although we have been led to them by very different paths.
But our present object is to review as clearly as possible the meanings of the major arcana of the Tarot, regarded from a synthetic point of view. From the preceding chapters it will be seen that this study is really a Cosmogony, or the study of the creation of the Universe, crowned by an Androgony, or study of the creation of Man, and even by an essay on Theogony, or study of the innate creation of God.
Theogony.
The Tarot places at the origin of all things the Absolute undetermined, undeterminable, the One, both knowing and unknowing, affirmative and negative, force and matter, unnamable, incomprehensible to man2.
The Unity manifests itself to itself by three terms, the highest and most general terms which the human comprehension can grasp; terms which form the basis of all theogonies, and which designate the same principles under a multitude of varying names.
1. The first of these terms symbolizes Absolute activity in all its acceptations, the origin of all movement, of all masculine creative forces.
- God The Father: Osiris - Brahma - Jupiter.
2. The second of these terms symbolizes Absolute passivity in all its acceptations, the origin of all repose, of all feminine preserving force. It is the humid principle of nature, even as the first is the igneous principle.
- God The Son: Isis - Vishnu - Juno.
The third of these terms is the most important to us. Synthetically it blends the two preceding terms in one Unity; all study should be commenced by it, for no being is conceivable unless it be considered synthetically, and the third term is the origin of all synthesis. It is Absolute Union in all its acceptations, the origin of all reality, of all equilibrium, of all equilbrist transforming force. It is the mercurial principle in nature balancing the two first.
- God The Holy Ghost: Horus - Siva - Vulcan.
1. See p. 253.
2. Ch. Barlet, Initiation, p.10.