22. The Book Of Hermesd

It is a word which expresses kabalistically the dogmatic and natural absolute; it is formed of the characters of the Monogram of Christ, according to the Greeks and Hebrews. The Latin R or Greek P is found between the alpha and omega of the Apocalypse; the sacred TAU, image of the Cross, encloses the complete word, as represented previously in our “Ritual”. Without the Tarot the Magic of the ancients is a closed book, and it is impossible to penetrate any of the great mysteries of the Kabalah. The Tarot alone interprets the magic squares of Agrippa and Paracelsus, as we may satisfy ourselves by forming these same squares with the keys of the Tarot, and reading off the hieroglyphs thus collected. Hereinafter follow the seven magical squares of the planetary genii according to Paracelsus: By casting up each column of these squares, you will obtain invariably the characteristic number of the planet, and, finding the explanation of this number by the hieroglyphs of the Tarot, you proceed to seek the sense of all figures, whether triangular, square or cruciform, which you find to be formed by the numbers. The result of this operation will be a complete and profound acquaintance with all allegories and mysteries concealed by the ancients under the symbol of each planet, or rather of each personification of influences, celestial or human, upon all events of life. We have said that the twenty-two keys of the Tarot are the twenty-two letters of the primitive kabalistic alphabet, and here follows a table of the variants of this alphabet according to divers Hebrew Kabalists: אBeing, mind, man, or God; the comprehensible object; unity mother of numbers, the first substance. All these ideas are expressed hieroglyphically by the figure of the JUGGLER His body and arms constitute the letter ALEPH; round his head there is a nimbus in the form of ^, emblem of life and the universal spirit; in front of him are swords, cups and pantacles; he uplifts the miraculous rod towards heaven. He has a youthful figure and curly hair, like Apollo or Mercury; the smile of confidence is on his lips and the look of intelligence in his eyes. בThe House of God and man, the Sanctuary, the law, Gnosis, Kabalah, the Occult Church, the duad, wife, mother. Hieroglyph of the Tarot: THE FEMALE POPE, a woman crowned with a tiara, wearing the horns of the Moon and Isis, her head enveloped in a mantle, the solar cross on her breast, and holding a book on her knees, which she conceals with her mantle. The protestant author of a pretended history of Pope Joan has met with, and used, for good or bad, in the interests of his thesis, two curious and ancient figures of the Female Pope or Sovereign Priestess of the Tarot. These figures ascribe to her all the attributes of Isis; in one she is carrying and caressing her son Horus; in the other she has long and unbound hair. She is seated between the two Pillars of the duad, has a sun with four rays on her breast, places one hand upon a book and makes the sign of sacerdotal esotericism with the other - that is to say, she uplifts three fingers only, the two others being folded, to signify mystery. A veil is thrown behind her head, and on each side of her chair the flowers of the lotus bloom upon the sea. I commiserate sincerely the ill-starred scholar who has seen in this antique symbol nothing but a monumental portrait of his pretended Pope Joan. גThe word, the triad, plenitude, fecundity, Nature, generation in the three worlds.