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To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.consciousness.mysticism,talk.religion.misc
From: hara 
Subject: Re: Kabbalah and Tarot History (was Hermetic QBL ...)
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 21:41:41 GMT

50011216 VI om

shalom alechem, my kin.

Gnomedplume@aol.com (Gnome d Plume):
>>>>> The Hermetic/Rosicrucian [Qabalah] applies to a broader universal frame 
>>>>> of reference and very properly includes the Tarot cards and mythological 
>>>>> correspondences. 

re-specified ("Qabalah"), agreed.

>>>>> In Gershom Scholem's non-magical, exclusively rabbinical view
>>>>> relating the Tarot to the kabbalah was "charlatanism" -- 

I think this is still too extreme. my impression is that he was talking
about the way people represented themselves with respect to Jewish
mysticism and how much knowledge they actually reflected back to the
reader, as compared to novel ideas or a heavy focus on methods which
precede and transcend Jewish culture (gematria, for example).

>>>>> and yet it does relate beautifully as those sincere students of 
>>>>> Tarot and Golden Dawn kabbalah will be quick to tell you --

jwrevak@home.com (James W. Revak):
> That it can be related is true.  That it relates "beautifully" is
> highly debatable.

agreed, and I'd like to delve into the details of that at some point here.

Gnomedplume@aol.com (Gnome d Plume):
>>> Waite only copied Scholem's charlatans in his Tarot.
>
> Not really.  Where specifically is the tarot deck or Tarot doctrine
> from which Waite and Smith (the artist) copied?  

I think this may merely be an overstatement, that Poke intended to mean
that Waite was inspired by Levi and Papus, but I can't be sure. I don't
even know that this latter assertion is tenable.

> Lévi never published a Tarot deck.  

true, but his "Transcendental Magic" contains tarotic assignments which
many a magician might use in his wake.

> Papus published a partial deck in his _The Tarot of the Bohemians_, 
> a set of Majors drawn by Wirth, but they look similar to the Tarot 
> de Marseille -- not Waite's deck.

what about symbolism resonance? 

> Later, in his _Le Tarot divinatoire_ Papus published a deck drawn by
> Goulinat -- but it doesn't look even remotely like Waite's....

has a strict comparison been done in someone's book(s) or online? 
it might be helpful in evaluating Waite's originality.

> Naturally, Lévi, Papus, and Crowley wrote about Tarot, sometimes in
> detail, during their lives.  But where's the hard evidence that Waite
> merely copied their doctrines.  I haven't found any.  In fact, with
> regard to Lévi and Papus, we have evidence that he often didn't think
> much of their ideas.

and with good reason, depending on the standards he wished to maintain.

> On the other hand, Waite, like many designers of decks, was certainly
> influenced by a variety of other Tarotists and intended that his deck
> be viewed from an esoteric perspective.  Nothing terribly surprising
> about this.  But was his deck a "copy"?  I don't think so.  If nothing
> else the numeric cards are fully illustrated with scenes.  This was
> very rarely done prior to Waite....  

I remember someone informing me that Waite may have been inspired by
alchemical drawings or mystical diagrams. there's a relevant story
here that I'm forgetting. I looked into JKarlin's Tarot FAQ but did
not see anywhere he mentioned inspiration for Waite's small card images.

RBrzustowicz and JKarlin and I had a conversation about 'emblems' with
respect to Tarot history and the Small cards (if I'm not mistaken) in
May of 1997) which seemed a bare connection, but I'm unsure.
 
> Similarly, was his doctrine of Tarot merely a copy?  It is very
> difficult to say.  Waite was extremely coy about commiting his notions
> of the "deeper" meanings of Tarot to print, and his _The Pictorial Key
> to the Tarot_ is rarely helpful in this regard.

JKarlin mentions the same, and that it was based on Etteilla's guide book.
he suggests that PFCase was probably a better source for occultists on
account of Waite's attitudes towards magic (something Poke mentioned
also -- that AEWaite wasn't writing for mages, but for someone else,
'documenting' things and at times corrupting them so that the ignorant
would not be able to accomplish 'bad things' like Goetic evocations).

sri catyananda :
>>>> Of Waite, Scholem only noted with regret that he had used an incomplete
>>>> source, named Von Rosenroth's translation of the kabbalah. 

> Scholem neither thought of Waite as a great Cabala scholar nor a
> charlatan.  

this much is demonstrably true, but it isn't what was being claimed, as 
we have recently seen in quotes from Scholem's "Major Trends in Jewish 
Mysticism":

        The existence of speculative Gnostic tendencies in the immediate
        neighborhood of Merkabah mysticism has its parallel in the
        writings grouped together under the name of *Maaseh Bereshith*.
        These include a document -- the *Sefer Yetsirah* or Book of 
        Creation -- which represents a theoretical approach to the problems
        of cosmology and cosmogony. 

        [AUTHOR'S NOTE:

        There exists a vast literature on this book, cf. my article Jezira
        in EJ vol. IX col. 104-111 where bibliographical notes are given.
        The English translations and commentaries of W. Westcott (1895) and
        K. Stenring (1923) contaim some rather fantastic passages.]

        The text probably includes interpolations made at a later period,
        but its connection with the Merkabah literature is fairly evident,
        at least as regards terminology and style. Written probably between
        the third and the sixth century, it is distinguished by its
        brevity; even the most comprehensive of the various editions does
        not exceed sixteen hundred words. Historically, it represents the
        earliest extant speculative text written in the Hebrew language.
        Mystical meditation appears to have been among the sources from
        which the author drew inspiration, so far as the vagueness and
        obscurity of the text permits any judgment on this point. The
        style is at once pompous and laconic, ambiguous and oracular, --
        no wonder, therefore, that the book was quoted in evidence  alike
        by medieval philosophers and by Kabbalists. Its chief subject-
        matters are the elements of the world, which are sought in the ten
        elementary and primordial numbers -- *Sefiroth*, as the book calls
        them -- and the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. These together
        represent the mysterious forces whose convergence has produced the
        various combinations observable throughout the whole of creation;
        they are the "thirty-two secret paths of wisdom," through which
        God has created all that exists.... After the author has analyzed 
        the function of the *Sefiroth* in his cosmogony, or rather hinted 
        at the solution in some more or less oracular statements, he goes 
        on to explain the function of the letters in creation.... He then
        proceeds to discuss, or rather to unveil, the secret meaning of
        each letter in the three realms of creation known to him: man, the
        world of the stars and planets, and the rhythmic flow of time
        through the course of the year. The combination of late Hellenistic,
        perhaps even late Neoplatonic numerological mysticism with
        exquisitely Jewish ways of thought concerning the mystery of 
	letters and language is fairly evident throughout.
        ----------------------------------------------------------------
        "Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism", Gershom Scholem, 
        Shocken Books, 1969 (Fourth Printing; original 1961); pp. 75-6.

and

        It is not to the credit of Jewish scholarship that the works
        of the few writers who were really informed on the subject
        [of Kabbalah] were never printed, and in some cases were not
        even recorded, since there was nobody to take an interest.
        Nor have we reason to be proud of the fact that the greater
        part of the ideas and views which show a real insight into
        the world of Kabbalism, closed as it was to the rationalism
        prevailing in the Judaism of the nineteenth century, were
>       expressed by Christian scholars of a mystical bent, such as
        the Englishman Arthur Edward Waite of our days and the German
        Franz Josef Molitor a century ago. It is a pity that the fine
        philosophical intuition and natural grasp of such students 
        lost their edge because they lacked all critical sense as to 
        historical and philological data in this field, and therefore 
        failed completely when they had to handle problems bearing on 
        the facts.

        The natural and obvious result of the antagonism of the great
        Jewish scholars was that, since the authorized guardians
>       neglected this field, all manner of charlatans and dreamers
        came and treated it as their own property. From the brilliant
        misunderstandings and misrepresentations of Alphonse Louis
        Constant, who has won fame under the pseudonym of Eliphas Levi, 
        to the highly coloured humbug of Aleister Crowley and his 
        followers, the most eccentric and fantastic statements have 
        been produced purporting to be legitimate interpretations of 
        Kabbalism.  

        [AUTHOR'S NOTE PERTAINING TO THIS STATEMENT: 

        Eliphas Levi is a Judaization of his Christian names
        Alphonse Louis. No words need be wasted on the subject
        of Crowley's "Kabbalistic" writings in his books on what
        he was pleased to term "Magick," and in his journal,
        The Equinox.]
        -------------------------------------------------------------------
        Ibid., p. 2; and p. 353 (apparently intended as a note to p. 2).


> ...here is Scholem's take on Waite & company.   Comparing Waite to the
> "supreme charlatanism" of Lévi, Papus, and Crowley, Scholem wrote: 

> "The comprehensive works of A.E. Waite (_The Holy Kabbalah, 1929), S.
>  Karppe, and P. Vulliaud, on the other hand, were essentially rather
>  confused compilations made from secondhand sources."
> --_Kabbalah_

> "In English literature on the subject A.E. Waite's "The Secret
>  Doctrine of Israel" represents a serious attempt to analyze the
>  symbolism of the Zohar.  His work, as I have had occasion to remark at
>  the outset of these lectures, is distingusihed by real insight into
>  the world of Kabbalaism; it is all the more regrettable that it is
>  marred by an uncritical attitutde towards facts of history and
>  philology. . . ."
>  --_Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism_

lovely.

> I conclude that Scholem had greater respect for Waite than Lévi,
> Papus, and Crowley, and that he felt that Waite had some understanding
> of "true" Kabbalah.  However, I also conclude that his opinion of
> Waite as a scholar of Kabbalah was generally pretty low.

this was my point about him being a "student of Kabbalah" and a "Christian
scholar of a mystical bent" or some other subject. the reference has to do
with their general reliability, it seems to me, since he dismisses Levi,
Papus and Crowley as unreliable sources on the subject of Jewish mysticism 
(Kabbalah), while Waite is given the benefit of the doubt as regards motives.

> ...Waite had very little to say about any connections between his Tarot
> and Kabbalah/Qabalah/Cabala and/or the Golden Dawn.  Additionally, no
> one has proven that Waite's Tarot is intimately connected with the
> brand of Cabala preached by the Golden Dawn and related groups.

VERY interesting! I'll find the comparisons fun to make if I don't find
someone else has documented it elsewhere.

> Furthermore, Waite's deck frequently does not follow the
> specifications for a Golden Dawn deck contained in the order document

> "Book T".  Furthermore, Waite makes plenty of references to Christian
> mysticism in his writings on Tarot; the man was essentially a
> Christian mystic.  Assessing exactly what doctrines are behind Waite's
> Tarot is very difficult.  And they may very well *not* be those of the
> GD and related groups.

thank you very much.

>> my impression is that the commentary by Scholem had to do with what each
>> man *actually* knew about Jewish mysticism. Scholem said nothing about 
>> the Tarot which Pamela Smith and Arthur E. Waite made (only noted that 
>> charlatans attributed the origins of tarot with Kabbalah). since we know
>> that Tarot originated with card games, this accusation is accurate. 
>
> I don't see why.  Until relatively recently the origins of Tarot as a
> card game in northern Italy in the early 15th century was neither well
> established nor well known.  The history of cards and card games was
> woefully undeveloped until only a few decades ago.  

fair enough. 

> In addition, just because someone decides to relate Tarot to Cabala
> doesn't make him/her a "charlatan".  Maybe this activity can't be
> classed as "pure" or "Jewish" Cabala, but it isn't necessarily
> "charlatanism".  

agreed, as I have said elsewhere, Scholem's conclusion appears to be based
on his assessment of what each purported to know about *Kabbalah* and how
well-founded their claims were about this specific subject. his choice to
identify a facet of charlatanry as the "kabbalistic origins of Tarot-cards"
may be related to the unfoundedness of the claim, rather than that they
should have known differently.

> However, if someone insists that Cabala literally formed the basis of 
> Tarot from day one, it is clearly another matter.

this seems to be the problem, yes.

> Then they are either totally ignorant of current research or possibly
> a true charlatan.

this is where an assessment of Levi, Papus and Crowley (where Kabbalah
are concerned) is in order. were they merely being "romantic" as Poke
maintains, and are thereafter misunderstood by Scholem, or was their
motivation more dastardly and deceptive?

>>>> And this is why, i believe, Scholem calls him a scholar and not a
>>>> charlatan. 

> Waite was certainly not the greatest scholar to come down the pike,
> but clearly he was head and shoulders above, say, Lévi, in this
> capacity.

this was apparently the basis of the characterization, yes.

> ...there is a clear, qualitative difference between Waite's writings on
> Cabala and Lévi's, and Waite's was far more scholarly.  Lévi's, on the
> other hand, was often undocumented, uninformed, and, frankly,
> fantastical.

Scholem's criticism, in a nutshell. I gather he attributed religious
contention to the motives of the three "charlatans" (Levi, Papus, and
Crowley), but he doesn't really go into it deeply. he may have had
other things in mind (fabulizing for attention, for example).

>>> I don't think Scholem was even aware that Waite had done anything with 
>>> Tarot, except to state in one of his QBL books that it did not derive 
>>> from Jewish QBL (and it doesn't ----- but the Hermetic QBL and the Tarot 
>>> have been with us for 500 years, 

> Yes, but not as a related or joined entity.  Tarot and Cabala were not
> linked until the late 18th century when de Gébelin and the Comte de
> Mellet did so.  Even then the linkage was pretty obscure and their
> statements about said linkage very brief.  The first person to link
> Tarot and Cabala big time was Lévi in the mid-19th century.  Later,
> his system was adapted and promoted by the GD....

Poke said the same thing about Levi and Tarot further on.

>>> If the later day Rosicrucians wanted to glamorize the "Egyptian" 
>>> origins of Tarot and relate it to QBL, that is not "charlatanisim", 
>>> it is glamor. 
>>
>> it is charlatanism if they identify it as history. you can apologize for
>> it as "glamor" or "romance", but as history it is unreliable, and if
>> portrayed as such, constitutes charlatanry.
>
> Agreed, from the historic perspective the tall tales about Tarot in
> Ancient Egypt, etc., etc. are BS.

I'm sure that's how Scholem was evaluating these sources.

>>> Unless you are a completely anti-romantic and anti-magical....
>>
>> can one be a student of history *and* a romantic? 

> Yes, I think so.  I study Tarot from both perspectives.  It only gets
> confusing when one isn't clear from which perspective one is writing
> or speaking.  For example, someone says, "The Cabala comprises the
> framework for Tarot.  Clearly the Magus (or Fool or whatever)
> corresponds to Aleph, blah, blah, blah."  This statement from a
> historic perspective is BS.  From the "romantic" or "metaphysical"
> perspective, however, it may be true, depending on one's understanding
> and experience of matters romantic and metaphysical.  

agreed.

>>>> I think that in this newsgroup [alt.magick] Waite often gets short shrift 
>>>> -- but in Scholem we hear another voice -- a voice from outside our gates, 
>>>> so to speak -- noting that Waite the "scholar" was distinguishable from
>>>> Crowley the "charlatan" by virtue of his reasoned claims, devoid of
>>>> false appropriation.

> Where exactly did Scholem ever say this?

the closest I could come would be the text above or the text below:

        The many books written on the subject [of Kabbalah] in the
        19th and 20th centuries by various theosophists and mystics
        lacked any basic knowledge of the sources and very rarely
        contributed to the field, while at times they even hindered
        the development of a historical approach. Similarly, the 
        activities of French and English occultists contributed 
        nothing and only served to create considerable confusion
        between the teachings of the Kabbalah and their own totally
        unrelated inventions, such as the alleged kabbalistic origin
        of the Tarot-cards. To this category of supreme charlatanism
        belong the many and widely read books of Eliphas Levi (actually
        Alphonse Louis Constant; 1810-1875), Papus (Gerard Encausse;
        1868-1916), and Frater Perdurabo (Aleister Crowley; 1875-1946),
        all of whom had an infinitesimal knowledge of Kabbalah that 
        did not prevent them from drawing freely on their imaginations 
        instead. The comprehensive works of A.E. Waite, (*The Holy 
        Kabbalah*, 1929), S. Karppe, and P. Vulliaud, on the other hand, 
        were essentially rather confused compilations made from 
        secondhand sources [e.g. Knorr Von Rosenroth's "Kabbalah 
        Denudata" -- hara].
        ----------------------------------------------
        "Kabbalah", Gershom Scholem, Dorset Press, 1987 (1974 
         copyright), pp. 202-3. 


so if Levi can be credited with the major link betwixt Tarot and
his Qabalah, then Scholem's assertion seems sound. the argument
seems to center on whether the characterization of "supreme
charlatanism" is accurately applied here. some have tried to
defend the three, but not with any substance. instead, they've
attempted to criticize Scholem for liking Waite's work, which
also seems unfounded, especially in the area of Kabbalah.

>>> You miss the point entirely here. Scholem and Waite were not 
>>> magicians and they were not writing for magicians.
>>
>> are you claiming that Levi was writing for magicians? this is contrary
>> to what I understand he was doing (writing for parlour entertainment).

> Yes, part of his reading audience was probably the merely curious who
> wanted a good story, and Lévi gave it to them.  On the other hand,
> Lévi was taken very seriously by many occultists of his day and even
> afterwards.  For example, the GD, with some adaptation, took over many
> of his teachings with regard to Tarot and other matters.  For better
> or worse, the reality is that Lévi, despite all his faults, lack of
> scholarly credentials, and penchant for BS-ing, spearheaded the
> revival of magic in the mid-19th century.

yes, he should be credited with a great deal of the fabrication of the
Qabalah of Hermetics, especially that which pertains to Tarot et al.
I'd like to see credit given where due, and removed where misapplied.

>> I couldn't say who Papus was writing for, perhaps for mystics.

> Christian mystics certainly comprised a significant portion of his
> audience as well as occultists in general.  Papus undoubtedly
> attracted magi too.  In fact, he wrote an entire, lengthy treatise on
> magic.

how was he different than Waite, if both were Christian mystics?
I gather that Encausse was French, perhaps a true follower of Levi,
whereas Waite was English, apparently a son of the Church.

>> and without historical legitimacy. claiming it, one loses credibility,
>> and is open to the criticism of being a charlatan. the term is in this
>> case rightly applied.
>
> In that case, we have to throw the entirety of the Zohar out. It is
> well documented that it is a forgery.  It isn't as old as it is
> supposed to be.  

I think you may be confusing levels of criticism here. it is one thing
for a document to have legendary origins, but it is another for someone
to pretend to represent a mystical tradition and people with whom they
have no connection. the way I'd distinguish them would be that as far
as Kabbalah (and Scholem's view, well-founded), Levi, Papus, and
Crowley were charlatans because they attempted to deceive, whereas at
least Waite had the right idea and merely suffered from a lack of
proper sources. the only way I could get charlatanry into the Zohar
would be if people tried to pass it off as something real when in fact
it is a forgery. the document itself, like the teachings of these three
men, may be incredibly valuable.

> Again, the reality is that many mystical and
> religious works are given questionable ancient pedigrees and it is
> probably unfair to describe this as a sordid form of "glamor"....

agreed. and here it is the description being discussed, rather than
the pedigree of any particular document. whether the writer sought
to identify with the Jewish mystics and yet knew little about them
or their tradition would seem one of the qualitative criteria, but
Scholem doesn't really give us much to go on as to his methods. I've
figured someone really versed in the subject would know.

> Does this mean that _Yetzirah_ is "bogus" and unworthy of study.  

no, and I think only the hypersensitive would presume this was the
necessary outcome. is Hermetic Qabalah therefore "bogus" or "unworthy
of study"? no, that's not the point (which is only to identify good
sources on Jewish mysticism -- Kabbalah -- and perhaps to move on
from there and see how the Christian and Hermetic counterparts may
compare, whether or not this be over the objections of scholars of
Jewish mysticism such as Scholem).

>>>>> Professor Scholem may be forgiven for saying that. 
>>>>> He was an old German-Jewish professor in Jerusalem.... 
>>
>>>> ...Scholem did not "spit" on Waite, only on Levi, Papus, and
>>>> Crowley. His response to hermetic and Golden Dawn correspondence systems
>>>> involving the kabbalah was far more rational, thoughtful, discerning,
>>>> and measured than you allege. 

> Hmmm.  Care to throw in a few quotes to bolster this position?

see above?

>>> ...Waite's Tarot system...  was firmily based on the 
>>> Levi-Mackenzie-Westcott-Mathers Tarot architecture....

> Unfortunately one person knows Waite's Tarot "system" and he is Waite
> and he is dead.  Waite was extraordinarily coy about explaining his
> system.  There is no hard evidence that he followed the Lévi or GD
> tradition except in the vaguest ways--Hulse's pathetic writings about
> Waite's deck nothwithstanding.

very interesting. I'd like to see the arguments from both positions,
though I am not sure where Poke gets his information.

>>> The Jewish kabbalah has no Tarot, 

> But here's a really strange quote from Waite.  I've never been able to
> figure out exactly what he meant.  It is from his _The Holy Kabbalah_:
>
>	There is, moreover, a Jewish Tarot of great rarity which 
>	has never been published; but it belongs to the worst side 
>	of so-called Practical Magic.  

page #? publishing data? I'd love to archive this for future reference!

> Now, what does Waite mean here?

referring to Levi?? :>

>>> and is essentially a commentary on the Torah. 

> Essentially, that's what *Jewish* Cabala is.  

I'm not sure this is entirely true, but there is evidence for it.

> However, it does sometimes shade off into magic, meditation, etc.  
> To a degree, for example, the _Sefer Yetzirah_ can be viewed as 
> a manual for meditation and magic.

precisely the points made in this thread previously, thanks.

> ...there are at least *three* Kabbalahs/Qabalahs/Cabalas (pick your
> spelling): Jewish, Christian, and Hermetic.  None of them are
> necessarily the domain of charlatans.  Each have something important
> to offer.

I think Scholem's assertion should only be understood in the context
in which it was meant (concerning the subject of Jewish mysticism,
which we are coming to standardize as 'Kabbalah' as compared with the
Christian 'Cabala' and the Hermetic 'Qabalah' -- and, if you like, the 
Thelemic 'Qaballah'). he was talking about what these guys knew about
that subject, and commenting thereupon.

I'd agree that there is much value in all these, and it seems
such a heated issue that Hermetics take it personally when Christian
or Hermetic material is discerned, as a valuable source, from
more authentic Jewish mystical texts -- sources on Kabbalah. rabbis,
for their part, seem more often to eliminate anything using the term
resembling "Kabbalah" at all, which is the opposite extreme. I've
taken a middle-position between the extremes, supporting a standardized
term set with clear identification of what one is likely to find
within any of these religio-magical texts as expressed by their authors.

the only point where charlatanry becomes an issue is where deception
appears to be part of the expression, pretense at being something one
is not. I got the impression, in this case, that Scholem considered
these three (Levi, Papus, and Crowley) to be charlatans where Kabbalah
is concerned, and I've seen evidence for this in at least Levi's and
Crowley's text (I haven't yet really scoured the work of Papus).

thank you for putting your two cents into this thread, I think it may
have some potential to yield valuable insights into the Tarot and the
Qabalistic (rather than Kabbalistic) facets which may be found
therein. particularly interesting to me are the way that Waite fits
into Hermetic tradition, what he inspires and where he gets his ideas
for Major and Small cards.
 
peace be with you, blessed beast!

hara
 nagasiva@luckymojo.com