The Tarot of the Bohemians (Papus) · 70 of 134 · tr. A.P. Morton
Chapter XIV (part 1)
CHAPTER XIV.
GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE SYMBOLICAL TAROT.
THEOGONY--ANDROGONY--COSMOGONY.
Involution and Evolution.
Theogony --The Absolute according to Wronski, Lacuria, and the Tarot--Theogony of divers Religions identical with that of the Tarot-Summary.
Androgony -- Cosmogony .
Figure containing the Symbolism of all the Major Arcana, enabling the Signification of each Card to be defined immediately.
GENERAL SUMMARY 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.
Woe have already established from the study of the first card, that three primary principles are considered throughout their evolution: the Universe, Man, and God.
We need only recall grosso 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 gradation 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 Divinization 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 extenso , 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 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 man.
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 force.
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 equilibrist transforming force.
It is the mercurial principle in nature balancing the two first.
GOD THE HOLY GHOST: HORUS--SIVA--VULCAN.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The text links Tarot symbolism to universal principles (God, Man, Universe) and equates them across diverse religions (Osiris-Brahma-Jupiter).
Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.
The chapter is explicitly titled 'GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE SYMBOLICAL TAROT. THEOGONY--ANDROGONY--COSMOGONY' and discusses the creation of the Universe.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
The passage describes a progression from God to Matter (Involution) and Matter to God (Evolution), establishing a hierarchical flow of principles.
A historical or mythical chain of transmission for secret wisdom from master to disciple across time and cultures — the credential of the teaching, not merely its content. Distinct from oral_tradition (the spoken-not-written modality of transmission, which a lineage may or may not use) and hidden_sayings (the concealment-for-readiness of a teaching's meaning, independent of who transmitted it or in what unbroken chain).
The author references 'our eminent friend CH. BARLET' and 'Wronski, Lacuria', indicating a chain of occult transmission.
The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.
The passage states that three primary principles are considered throughout their evolution: the Universe, Man, and God, implying a structural link.
The Hermetic doctrine that apparent opposites are identical in nature but differ in degree — two extremes of the same scale (hot/cold, love/hate) — such that one pole can be shifted toward its opposite by a change of degree ('mental transmutation'). Distinct from opposites_transcended (a completion-state marking the path's end, not this doctrine's active technique) and magical_equilibrium (balance held BETWEEN two forces, not identity-by-degree of what looks like two forces).
The text describes the Absolute as 'affirmative and negative, force and matter' and balances active/passive principles.