The Case Against Qabalistic Trumps
AUTHOR’S NOTE: In his occult tarot history, The Esoteric Tarot . . . etc. (I get tired of typing the whole title), Ronald Decker theorizes that when the primordial tarot-as-we-know-it was developing in Renaissance Italy, there were only 14 numbered trump cards ending with Temperance (the unnumbered Fool was a thing apart) and they were adequately defined by Pythagorean and Hermetic (as distinct from “Qabalistic” or “Kabbalistic”) principles.
In Decker’s iconoclastic opinion, later Hermetists added a third septenary to align the whole with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet and the 22 paths on the Tree of Life. (Although he doesn’t date the event, it must have occurred sometime between the early 15th Century and the late 1700s when Antoine Court de Gebelin intimated such a connection, or the mid-19th Century when Eliphas Levi stated it plainly; however, other historians believe this syncretic alignment to be purely coincidental.) As a critic of the Golden Dawn’s placement for many of the Major Arcana on the Tree, I’m amenable to Decker’s argument that an understanding of qabalistic symbolism is not essential for an esoteric appreciation of the trump cards.
In support of his premise, Decker observes that all we need to adequately describe those initial fourteen trumps are the nine single-digit numbers and the decad itself (10) — all of which have both ordinal (i.e. sequential) and symbolic significance — with the 10 being augmented by the discrete insertion of the first four numbers to arrive at 14. Decker then extrapolates from this theory to accommodate the full population of 21 cards (minus the Fool, which eludes Pythagorean numeration).
His assumption that the numbers above Ten are a construct of 10-and-1; 10-and-2; 10-and-3; 10-and-4; and so on is not much different from the model presented by Alejandro Jodorowsky in The Way of Tarot and also described by Dr. James Wanless in the written material accompanying his Voyager Tarot. Both authorities stipulate that the zero and the nine single digits are introduced by the “1” (Wanless personifies it as the Juggler/Magician) as a way to figuratively explain the double-digit trump cards 10 through 19 (but they had to get more creative with 20 and 21). Because “10” reduces to “1” (10=1+0=1), using the Magician rather than the Wheel of Fortune as the lead-in to the second digit seems to be entirely consistent with Decker’s approach, making the series 1-and-0, 1-and-1, 1-and-2, etc. Here is an excerpt from my own essay on the subject (linked in full below; the second link adds more detail).
The Wheel of Fortune suggests “the development of the individual into a social being and the evolution of the Fool into double-digit diversity. A more fanciful take on the Wheel of Fortune is my metaphor for the assertion of James Wanless that all of the trump cards in the form of ‘1x’ have the Magician as a common ‘conductor’ for their advancement.”
“The Magician is driving with the Fool in the back seat.”
The paradigm holds true — with different “passengers” — for all of the trump cards from Fortitude up to and including the Sun (which is also a “numerological counterpart” of the Magician since 1+9=10 and 1+0-=1), after which the High Priestess steps into the “conductor” role. Jodorowsky treats the second digit of each set as the dominant factor, but in keeping with the Wanless model I see it more as a “back-seat driver” who sets the course but relies on the Magician to steer. Decker considers the Juggler to be the “esoteric genius” (that is, the “guiding spirit”) of the Tarot de Marseille, so it stands to reason that it would be involved with nearly all of the two-digit trumps, serving as the “way-shower” or “front-man” for their exploits.
Although I’ve studied the Hermetic Qabalah, the Tree of Life and the esoteric tarot since 1971, I make almost no use of the trump-card affiliation with the Hebrew letters and the paths on the Tree in my day-to-day practice of divination. They are of academic interest, of course, and also have a place in astral pathworking if I ever get back to that, but for all practical purposes they are useless to me in any kind of counseling. I do, however, occasionally attach astrological and elemental importance to the Major Arcana and make frequent references to the link between the forty pip cards and the structure of the Tree and its ten sephiroth. To his credit, Decker does come up with some brief definitions for the trump cards that add to my knowledge without being redundant.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on April 6, 2024.
