THE BATELEUR (MAGICIAN) IN RELATION TO NEOPYTHAGOREAN NUMEROLOGYIn French from 1584 and the major languages of western Europe soon after, with many reprintings, Guillaume de Saluste du Bartas's Sept Semaines (Seven Weeks) includes a series of forty lines describing the first ten numbers. Of the number One the 1611 English translation by Josua Sylvester reads (https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/a11395.0001.001/1:66?view=toc, section entitled "The Colvmnes," p. 361, with modernized spelling):
Mark here what Figure stands for One, the right
Root of all Number; and of Infinite:
Love's happiness, the praise of Harmony,
Nursery of All, and end of Polymnie [Polyhymnia, muse of sacred poetry and hymns]:
No Number, but more then a Number yet;
Potentially in all, and all in it.
That One was not itself a number had been declared by the 5th century Roman writer Macrobius (I.VI.7-8, Stahl trans., pp. 100-101, in archive.org), who also said:
one is called monas, that is, Unity, and is both male and female, odd and even, itself not a number, but the source and origin of numbers. [8] This monad, the beginning and ending of all things, yet itself not knowing a beginning or ending, refers to the Supreme God, and separates our understanding of him (the One, without number) from the number of things and powers following; you would not be so rash as to look for it in a sphere lower than God.
Those who could read Greek could read something similar in the Theology of Arithmetic, a compendium written in Greek in the 5th century, brought to Rome in around 1460 and then Venice in the 1470s (part of Cardinal Bessarion's donation to the city), published in Paris, 1539:
sun-like and ruling, . . .
it resembles God, and especially because it has the power of making
things cohere and combine, even when they are composed of many
ingredients and are very different from one another. (p. 36)
By
itself the Monad is unitary, but it creates all numbers out of itself,
and establishes the whole in harmony. As Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa said (Three Books of Occult Philosophy, ed. Tyson, originally 1533, p. 241, in archive.org):
It
is therefore the one beginning, and end of all things, neither hath it
any beginning, or end itself: Nothing is before one, nothing is after
one, and beyond it is nothing, and all things which are, desire that
one, because all things proceeded from one, and that all things may be
the same, it is necessary that they partake of that one: And as all
things proceeded of one into many things, so all things endeavour to
return to that one, from which they proceeded; it is necessary that
they should put off multitude. One therefore is referred to the high
God, who seeing he is one, and innumerable, yet creates innumerable
things of himself, and contains them within himself.
What it creates first is the archetypal world, a world of pure form, everything permanent and unmoved, as the Theology continues:
because
it maintains everything and forbids whatever it is present in to
change, it alone of all numbers resembles the Providence which
preserves everything, and is most particularly suited both to reflect
the principle of God and to be likened to him, in so far as it is
closest to him. . . . Just so, the Monad, which even if differentiated in the
different kinds of thing has conceptually encompassed everything within
itself, is as it were a creative principle and resembles God, and does
not alter from its own principle, and forbids anything else to alter,
but is truly unchanging. (pp. 36, 38)
The Monad is unchanging yet the source of multiplicity, not only eternal things, but indirectly, in that it produces transient combinations of eternals, transient things as well:
So, in short, they consider it to be the seed of all, and both male and female at once - . . . because it is taken to be father and mother, since it contains the principles of both matter and form, of craftsman and what is crafted, that is to say, when it is divided, it gives rise to the dyad.
Among the gods of the ancients, Agrippa says that "unity was ascribed to the Sun, which is the only king of the stars" (p. 315). Christianity also made such an association, for example in Prudentius's well-known Hymnus Matutinus, Hymn to the Morning:
Nox et tenebrae et nubila, / confusa mundi et turbida, / lux intrat, albescit polus: /
Christus venit, discedite.
(Night, darkness, fog,
/ indistinct and confused things of the world,
/ the light penetrates, the sky clears: / Christ is coming: begone!)
Other examples are Hieronymus Bosch's placement of Christ in the central painting of his Haywain Triptych, in the sky above a collection of sinners with yellow rays behind him, and Durer's engraving Sol Iusticia, Sun of Justice. It is Christ who was the Logos of John 1:3, "through whom all things were made," so the crafter of the universe.
Coming now to Etteilla, there is also his own numerology, published somewhat later than his first assignment number to tarot cards in the Troisieme Cahier. In the Deuxieme Cahier, he says, "One is not a number." This is consistent with standard Pythagorean numerology. Then in the Premier Cahier, published in around 1785, he says that "1 is correlated to God" (p. 17) and "1. God" (n. on p. 30). In the Cours Theorique et Pratique du Livre de Thot, he says again, "God is 1" (p. 6) Likewise on p. 17: "1, unique number of the Deity." But on p. 6 he also says "1. Man the Magician," and on p. 7, "it is the figurative of the strong man." So there seems to be a connection between the number and both the Magician and God.
As craftsman, in the context of Plato's Timaeus (named for the Pythagorean philosopher who is given the principal role in the dialog), the number One is like the Bateleur, who creates his many marvels out of a few simple ingredients. That he holds in his two hands a round object and, pointing at it, a long object, reminds us of female and male. If that were not enough, in the extended tarot game called minchiate, coins and cups were called the "round" suits and had female servants as the lowest court cards; swords and batons were the "long" suits and had the usual male servants. The Noblet Bateleur's wand (second from left below) seems to be a joke to this effect.
The four suit objects are reminiscent of the four elements out of which, in Plato's Timaeus, the "craftsman" (demiurgos) created the world. For Plato, moreover, this
created world was a source of illusion, comparable to a conjurer's trick; so likewise the Bateleur creates
his illusions, shuffling his little round objects among the cups. The four suit-objects occur as early as the Sforza card of the 1450s (far left above). His little cloth covering something on the table compares him to a priest preparing the Eucharist, continuing a tradition said to have been initiated by Christ. Under the cloth is something mysterious in both cases. In the French cards, the cloth is replaced by a purse, in which only part of one object is visible, like a snake escaping from the snake-charmer's basket.
Plato imagined two gods, one, unnamed, to create the
archetypes, and another, the Demiurge, to create the world. In Genesis, one god creates
everything. If in the Gospel of John, we have the Logos creating the world, that is still the one God, now Father, now Son. At
the same time, in Christianity God is also three, the Trinity. This
number might be why there are so many a groups of three on the Noblet
card: three coin-like circles, three dice, three cups, a three-pointed
plant, three visible legs. The later Marseille cards do not maintain
this feature. The famous card of A. E. Waite (far right, above), of course, is not concerned with any of this numerology. God is simply what sends the Magician his power, which he transmits to objects in the material world. Likewise, he holds no round object in his hand; the nearest equivalent are the flowers at his feet.
Etteilla, in his own late 18th century deck, used the theme of the seven days of creation for his first seven cards, perhaps following a numerological tradition initiated by Philo of Alexandria, of the first century b.c.e. Philo wrote an essay On the Creation associating each of the seven
numbers with one the seven days of
creation. In that case, the Bateleur might represent the
first day of creation, when God said "Let there be light." That scene had already been used in an expanded tarot-like deck known as the Minchiate Francese, based on an expanded Italian deck known as Minchiate. The card (below left) is quite similar to Etteilla's card one, minus the creator-figure (below c, a 1789 original from the book Wicked Pack of Cards, an 1838 version, and the original pre-1789 watercolor model for the card, which I get the online Public Domain Review).
There is no card corresponding to the Bateleur in the Minchiate
Francese (see here Wikipedia entry on Minchiate); the closest is its
"Momus," dressed in the costume of a professional Fool. In Greek
mythology, Momus was the god of mockery, especially of authority. But to have mockery, there must be some order or creation to mock. Momus is card 29 of the Minchiate Francese.
The parallel to the Tarot of Marseille is supported by the interpretations that Etteilla and his school give to his first card, which they summarized by means of a list of
"synonyms and related meanings" to supplement the keyword printed on the card. One is by de la Salette in his Dictionnaire Synonomique du Livre de Thot, published in around 1791. Another is in d'Odoucet's Science des Signes, vol. 2, 1806 or after. There is also the1838 book Art de Tirer Les Cartes
by "Julia Orsini" (pseudonym of the publisher Simon Blocquel), which seems to draw from both lists. The first two have had English translations, but not reliable ones. Those below are my own. I have put the keywords in all-caps, the cards appearing in de la Salette only in italics, and those appearing in d'Odoucet only in bold. For this card, the main difference between the two lists is in the Reverseds and, oddly given the Reversed keyword, where to put the male querent. Etteilla numbered his cards from 1 to 78.
No. 1. UPRIGHT: ETTEILLA. God, supreme being, Most High, All-powerful. the Unitrine, spirit of God, Central Spirit, Chaos, Glory. Immortal Man, Male Querent. Thought, Meditation, Reflection, Mental Concentration, Affirmation [Fr. contention] of spirit. REVERSED: THE QUERENT [MALE]. Philosopher, Philosophic, Philosophically, Sage, Sagacity, Sagely. The Universe. The Physical man or the male. Male querent.
With the keywords Etteilla and Questionnant, the card represents both himself, standing in for the Most High, and the male querent, who will be wise to listen to Etteilla. Here it is worth keeping in mind another characterization of the number One, this time by Etteilla's disciple d'Odoucet in Science of Signs, that 1 is for "man in general."This is a formulation that Etteilla himself seems to deny in the Premier Cahier (p. 15), saying that man is inherently composite, hence not Unitary. However, Etteilla does say that the chaos of first day is like the chaos in the querent's mind, and that is what the clouds represent on his card 1. For his part, d'Odoucet affirms of Etteilla's card that "it implies God in the center of the universe, the spirit of God above the waters, but also the chaos with its number and epithets" (https://archive.org/details/b22018529_0002/page/12/mode/2up). As God is to the chaos, so the adept is to the mental chaos of the querent. At the same time, since "It [one] is also the emblem and number of all that is mover or subject, and [thus] of man generally speaking" (https://archive.org/details/b22018529_0002/page/8/mode/2up)
There is a visual relationship between Etteilla's card that of the Minchiate Francese, both of which bear a symbolic similarity to card one of the French Tarot, the Bateleur, as corresponding in the macrocosm to a world-creating power. It is possible, however, that the Chaos would be zero, as depicted on the Fool card, as a description of his state of mind. Most lists of the tarot's special cards put the Fool, even though unnumbered, before the Bateleur; a few put him at the end, and Court de Gebelin, writing a little before Etteilla, put him in both places. Another analogy would be to the dealer in a card game vs. the cards he holds. Shuffling the deck makes it chaotic in its order; distributing the cards to the players then creates a world which the hand plays out.
It is possible that as Etteilla and his followers developed their ideas they saw something more general in the number 1 than simply God or the mind of the adept. Etteilla does say that the soul of man is unitary, even if "composed of the
will, the emanation, and the gift of the Creator" (Premier Cahier, p. 15). It is also,
for d'Odoucet, the "mover" or "agent," so perhaps any driving force that produces
activity, something like what Paul Christian will later call "Will,"
expressed in three worlds, that of "the absolute Being," intellectually
as "Unity, the principle and synthesis of numbers," and physically as
the "principal of action," in particular that of man, "highest of all
living creatures" (History and Practice of Magic, p. 95 of Stahl et al trans., in archive.org).
A complication is that Etteilla's card for the first day of creation is his card 2, with the keyword "Enlightenment" and looking like the Tarot of Marseille Sun card, its two (not coincidentally) children facing each other. The synonyms are "light, explication, clarity, Heaven and Earth." In the reversed, they have to do with fire, the element Etteilla associates to this day of creation.
Another problem is that Etteilla has his own version of both the Bateleur (above) and the Fool (below, with his take on the Magician, in both an 1890 reproduction and the ca. 1788 watercolor model). His Fool is the very last, number 78, but with an O also on it, described as such by both Etteilla and d'Odoucet. The synonyms given are "madman, insane, drunkenness, rage, furor, frenzy, ignorance" etc. in the Uprights and "imbecility, imprudence, negligence, emptiness, vain" etc. in the Reverseds. That is the chaos which most querents keep under wraps. 
In contrast, Etteilla's Magician is the 15th in his sequence, with keywords and synonyms relating (except "mage") only to illness (including mental illness) and health. That is one aspect of the Logos, the one by whom "all things were made," i.e. Jesus, the worker of healing miracles. Curing illness in ways the authorities did not approve was also the trade of the Renaissance mountebank (from montambanco, mount a bench), who stood on a platform and got people to listen to his sales pitch by means of magic tricks and other entertainment; so an association with healing is very much connected with the Marseille card. Medical treatment was also a tool of a trained Pythagorean, using music and other means to achieve the right internal balance for healing. Shakespeare's Pericles has a scene with such treatment, by a priest of Apollo reviving a person who drowned.
ONCE AGAIN ON SUITS
It is important in looking at historical decks to do so with the eyes of the historical epoch. In particular, for the Marseille and Etteilla traditions, the suits were seen in terms of social units: agriculture and the countryside for Batons, nobility and military for Swords, the clergy and towns for Cups, and merchants, bankers, and artists for Coins.
To this may be added some spillover from how people saw French suits. Paulmy d'Argenson (Mélanges Tirés d'une Grande Bibliothèque, Tome 2, 1779, p. 332, in Gallica (https://gallica.bnf.fr./ark:/12148/bp6tk10423710/) associated Hearts with love, Spades with war, Diamonds with money, and Clubs with ambition. If the money suit of Tarot was Coins, the war suit Swords, and the love suit Cups, that would leave Batons with ambitions. On the other hand, de Mellet, studying the parallels between fortune-telling with ordinary cards and with Tarot, came to the conclusion that Diamonds, known in France as Carreaux, Tiles, were associated with the countryside and Clubs, known in France as Trefles, Clover, with money. To the extent this confusion would have affected the interpretation of Batons and Coins, equally confused.
In addition, starting with Etteilla, the writers on Tarot had their own numerological systems. Whether these reflected preceding practice or were developed ad hoc to justify their own systems is hard to say, but it appears to me more the latter.
THE ACES IN THE "MARSEILLE" AND ETTEILLA TRADITIONS.
In the Marseille tarot, the Aces of Swords and Batons, by their outstretched hands in a nimbus and mysterious rays emanating from them, suggest the Judeo-Christian God.
In
Batons, we have a hand reaching out from an unseen body, holding a
green stick. Green is the color of spring and life. It is God as the
source of life. The red at the cuts in the wood suggest the red blood
of life.
Etteilla's are similar, at least to the extent of showing a hand coming from outside the card. However, there is no nimbus and no rays. It would seem to be a desacrelizing of the image, also reflected in hia keywords and the word lists of his followers, even though they agreed that the number One was associated with God (Etteilla,
Cours Theorique et Pratique, p. 17; d'Odoucet,
Science des Signes, tome 1, p. 41, both in archive.org). In Batons the two lists are almost the same, except that de la Salette has for some reason made Etteilla's upright the reversed and vice versa. While the so-called "Etteilla I" style, starting with the first deck in 1789 and continuing intermittently therafter, had "Birth" as upright and "Fall" as reversed, de la Salette and two later versions of the deck, starting in 1838, had "Fall" as upright and "Birth" as reversed. So:
No. 35. ACE OF BATONS UPRIGHT (IN ETTEILLA AND D'ODOUCET; IN DE LA SALETTE, REVERSED): BIRTH, Nativity, Origin,
Creation, Source, Beginning Principle, Primacy, New, [Primeur]. Extraction, Race, Family, Condition, House, Lineage, Posterity, Occasion, Cause, Reason, First, Presage. REVERSED (IN ETTEILLA AND D'ODOUCET; IN DE LA SALETTE, AND IN A VERSION PRODUCED STARTING IN 1838, UPRIGHT). (3rd Cahier, DISTRUST THE FIRST VICTORY.) FALL. Cascade, Decadence, Decline, Wasting Away, Weakening, Dissipation, Collapse, Bankruptcy, Ruin, Destruction, Demolition, Damage, Devastation. Mistake, Error, Misunderstanding, Despondency, Exhaustion, Discouragement. Perdition, Abyss, Chasm, Precipice. Perish, Fall [Tomber], Wane, Demean.—Depths.
For Etteilla and his school, the Ace of Batons deals with the origins of things, which we see also in the Theology--although to be sure not only there. The Reversed "synonyms" are obviously just the opposite of the Uprights.
D'Odoucet adds another numerological point, relating this card to the number 35 (it is the 35th card of Etteilla's deck). 5 is the number of "universal spirit" (https://archive.org/details/b22018529_0002/page/80/mode/2up). God, for him (even though he is a follower of Etteilla) is represented by the number 5, not 1, while 3 is the number of "generation." So it is God's power, or any driving force, in relation to that area of life. It does not bother d'Odoucet that while all four of Etteilla's aces have hands and forearms ending in the suit-object, two of them lack the required 5 to indicate the hand of God!
The Etteilla lists had much influence on Waite in his influential Pictorial K
ey to the Tarot. Just compare the two accounts. For this card he has (http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/pkt/pktwaac.htm):
Divinatory Meanings: Creation, invention, enterprise, the powers
which result in these; principle, beginning, source; birth, family,
origin, and in a sense the virility which is behind them; the starting
point of enterprises; according to another account, money, fortune,
inheritance. Reversed: Fall, decadence, ruin, perdition, to perish, also a certain clouded joy.
Waite's card itself is simply a variation on the Marseille versions (second above), continuing to emphasize the theme of vegetation. Waite has merely added the background, with its hills and the outline of a castle, no doubt indicating the goal of one's ambition. The addition of money matters to the uprights is probably due to what in the tarot corresponds to the suit of Clubs in regular cards. Clubs according to de Mellet corresponded to Coins, but for others, such as Paulmy d'Alencon, they were Batons. So Clubs as money transfer to Clubs as Batons.
I turn to Swords. Its redness characteristic of all the swords in that suit; it would seem to be the instrument that cuts down the profusion of life, including the cuts seen on the Ace of Batons.
In the Etteilla School's Upright list for Swords, we can correspondingly see another facet of the Judeo-Christian God, while the Reverseds indicate another type of beginning:
No. 63. ACE OF SWORDS, UPRIGHT: 3rd Cahier: "CRAZY LOVE" [amour folle]. Lists: EXTREME, Big, Excessive.—Extravagant, Fierce [not
in c. 1838, which has Furious], Carried Away.—Exceedingly,
Passionately, Inordinately.—Vehemence, Animosity, Momentum,
Excessiveness, Anger [colère], Fury, Rage.—Extremity,
Bounds, Border, Limits.—Last, Last Breath, Utmost Extremity. Quarrel [Brouillerie]. REVERSED: PREGNANCY (GROSSESSE), Beginning, Seed, Sperm, Mold, Impregnating, Fathering, Conception, Fructification Labor, Childbirth.—Fertilization, Production, Composition, Growing, Expansion, Augmentation, Multiplication.
The Upright epithets fit the God of the Old Testament at his most
angry and destructive, one who reappears in the Book of Revelation. It is also the experience of being "carried away," as the word-list states. The Reverseds are simply a different aspect of the Upright, that of the fertilizing power. The Theology of Arithmetic does something similar, ending its presentation by comparing the divine power to the beginning of pregnancy, before the embryo has developed to the point of acquiring distinctive genitalia.
You might wonder where Etteilla got the idea of "crazy love," which his successors quietly dropped. In his first work, on divination with the piquet deck, an ordinary deck with the 2s through 6s removed, he had given the card the meaning "Love." De Mellet, 11 years later, gave it the meaning of "peace through Victory," based on what, coming out of the crown on top of the card, he took to be a palm branch and an
olive branch. But is peace really secured through victory, as opposed to justice? Even for de Mellet, the suit in general had the meaning of "misfortune." For de Paulmy, it was "misfortune in love." Etteilla went with a variation on that one, love that is out of control. That fits the type of branches that the Visconti claimed it to be when they adopted the heraldic in the 14th century: palm and laurel, both symbols of victory. Since Etteilla had not yet designed his own cards when he wrote the Third Cahier, these symbols plus the crown would likely have struck him as excessive, especially by one opposed to the monarchy.
D'Odoucet attempted to justify Etteilla's card by means of its number, 63 (https://archive.org/details/b22018529_0002/page/136/mode/2up). Misery has gone to the limits of the globe, which for him is represented by 6 (as well as 0). However, the heights of misfortune bring a benign fructification, in other words the generation, 3, of new prosperity. In that way the Uprights and Reverseds are united. However, I cannot see either that the idea of the globe is conveyed by the number 6 or that the globe implies extremes; the concept is too general.
Again we can see where Waite (http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/pkt/pktswac.htm) got his meanings, now for the Ace of Swords (while the card pictorially is based on the Marseille):
Divinatory Meanings: Triumph, the excessive degree in
everything, conquest, triumph of force. It is a card of great force, in
love as well as in hatred. The crown may carry a much higher
significance than comes usually within the sphere of fortune-telling. Reversed: The same, but the results are disastrous; another account says--conception, childbirth, augmentation, multiplicity.
Here there is a certain relationship to another card with "1" in it, namely the Tarot of Marseille's number 11, Strength. A roaring lion on the loose is not dissimilar from a person whose rage is out of control. The lady on the card indicates what must be done: taming the lion with courage and care.
The Marseille Ace of Cups is rather strange. On top of what appears to be a communion cup we see a structure with six walls and turrets. Jean-Michel David associates it with the New Jerusalem of Rev. 21:12: "The city had a great high wall with twelve gates." For the card, gates have become turrets and twelve are now six. The same was done on the World card of the Visconti-Sforza deck, there with six high turrets and two smaller ones, so six or eight gates. The water gushing out would then be from the "Water of Life" whose source is the Lamb, i.e. Christ. Alternatively, M. J. Hurst, in an "Ace of Cups" post on his "Pre-Gebelin Tarot" blog, points to resemblances between the Marseille image and monstrances of the time, presentation vehicles in the center of which were communion wafers. An example is one in the Victoria and Albert Museum dated at 1492. Of course the liquid gushing out on the card would not be in the originals. A source for that detail might be something like what is seen on the baptismal fonts, which could be similar.. Or more likely, since the water is rather gushing, a fountain. Hurst presents one with water and wine from two spigots and three joyous figures enjoying the liquid coming out of a spout at the bottom. It is the rejuvenating water of life, which also made its appearance in the more secular "fountain of youth." In the same tradition is the "fountain of love," a feature of courtly romances ever since the Roman de la Rose in the 13th century (far right, Harley ms. 4425, 112v). In the case of the card, it is divine love that is flowing. Given that the communion wafer was the body of Christ, that the water of life should flow from inside a sacred receptacle is not inappropriate.
(
http://my.pclink.com/~allchin/1814/retrial/cusa2.pdf, p. 13)
:
But Pythagoras, a very famous man of undeniable authority in his own time, added that this Oneness is trine.
He continues:
But
since oneness is eternal, equality eternal, and union also eternal,
oneness, equality, and union are one. And this is that trine Oneness
which Pythagoras, the first philosopher of all and the glory of Italy
and of Greece, affirmed to be worthy of worship.
Indeed, there is something like this account in an ancient source about
Pythagoras that was available in the Renaissance. Porphyry in his "Life
of Pythagoras," section 49 (from
The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library, p. 133, in Google Books) said:
The Number One denoted to them the reason of Unity, Identity, Equality, the purpose of friendship. sympathy, and the conservation of the universe, which results in persistence in Sameness.
This says nothing about Unity, Equality, and Sameness being worthy of
worship. For that, there is another source, from 12th century Chartres, which I will discuss a bit
later.
In the Etteilla school's meanings for the card, there is not much reference to the divine. Mostly it focuses on the very secular meaning of cups, as a container of food and drink, even if, for this card, it is of a notable kind, as suggested by "feast," "gala," "treat," and "regal." However, food was generally considered as by the grace of God, with a special thanks given at the beginning of a meal. In France, "table" had a special sense referring to a household's style of providing food for its members and guests:
No. 49. ACE OF CUPS, UPRIGHT: TABLE, Meal, Feast, Galas, Regal, Nourishment, Food, Nutrition.— Convivial, Services.—Invitation, Prayer, Petition, Convocation, Invocation.—Host, Hotel, Hotel Trade, Inn, Cabaret, Bistro, Tavern. Abundance, Fertility, Production, Robustness, Stability, Steadiness, Constancy, Perseverance, Continuation, Permanency, Duration, Regularity, Persistence, Firmness, Courage. Picture, Painting, Image, Hieroglyph, Description. Tablets, Portfolio, Bureau, Writing-Desk. Table of Nature, Bronze Table, Marble Table, Law, Catalog, Table of Contents of the book of Thoth, Garden Table, Sound Table, Holy Table [Altar].
REVERSED. CHANGE, Mutation, Permutation, Transmutation, Alteration, Vicissitude, Variety, Variation, Inconstancy, Frivolity [or Casualness: légèreté]. —Barter, Exchange, Purchase, Sale, Deal, Treaty, Convention—Metamorphosis, Diversity, Versatility, Reversal, Disruption, Upheaval, Revolution, Reversion.—Version, Translation, Interpretation.
The
Reverseds are in general the opposites of the Uprights: alteration, transmutation, variation, inconstancy, etc. The uprights are in that way reminiscent of the Theology of Arithmetic's emphasis on unchangeableness in what the One produces (i.e. eternal forms). In "Sainte-Table" there also remains some reference to the sacred.
D'Odoucet attempts to justify the keywords by reference to 4 and 9 (https://archive.org/details/b22018529_0002/page/108/mode/2up). 4 for him is the number of the universe, and 9 the number of highest expansion. He says that this expansion is accomplished through talking and comes to us just when we are most indecisive, which could not be better. This seems to me rather strained, as there is nothing about the meanings of the card reflecting either "highest" or "talking."
The 1838 book by "Julia Orsini" incorporating de la Salette's list seems to be aware of the downplaying of the sacred, because it says (p. 115)
Le sens primitif de ce tarot etait loi qu'on a truiduit par table ou table de la loi...
(The first meaning of this card was law, which has been translated by table or table of the law.)
The first "table of the law," of course, was the law of God given to Moses in the form of the tablets of the law. a law written in stone, as if to emphasize its permanence. But the list mixes at least three ideas. Words like "Abundance,"
"Fertility," Production," might be more appropriate in Batons, as pertaining to life. "Courage" and "Firmness" would seem more appropriate for Swords.
Here is Waite:
Divinatory Meanings: House of the true heart, joy, content, abode, nourishment, abundance, fertility; Holy Table, felicity hereof. Reversed: House of the false heart, mutation, instability, revolution.
Again, the list reflects much of what is in Etteilla, even literally so. "House
of the true heart" (Maison de bon coeur) and "house of the false heart" (Maison de faux coeur) are to be found in
the "Etteilla" section of Le Bohemien, a compendium on card-reading and
magic tricks, p. 56 of 1802 ed. (first ed. 1799), referring to upright and reversed meanings of the Ace of Hearts. "Holy table," sainte-table, meaning the altar where one receives communion (https://www.encyclopedie.fr/definition/sainte-table) is from the Etteilla followers' word-lists, already cited. The image on Waite's card reflects that meaning, with a communion wafer above the cup and the dove of the Holy Spirit above that. In the text he says that there are four streams coming from the cup; on the card, we find five. If four, they would be the "four rivers" flowing out of Eden in Genesis 2:10, portrayed as such in numerous medieval illustrations. Five of course has many numerological associations. I know of none that pertain specifically to water, but the five wounds of Christ, four of blood and one of water, are close enough. Waite has merely spared us the gory details.
His inspiration was likely any or all of three historic cards in London at the time: the Victoria and Albert, Goldschmidt, and Guildhall (below, left to right) all estimated to be of the late 15th century or so, inasmuch as they seem to be variations on the Visconti-Sforza card of the 1450s. Remembering the various connotations of fountains: the "water of life" from Christ's sacrifice, fountains of youth, and fountains of love, the Visconti-Sforza, and the Marseille that followed, retain a nice ambiguity, especially since the same fountain is seen on the front of the male lover of that deck's Love card. .
I turn to the Ace of Coins. The Marseille suit-object in color and shape, resembles a sun with red and yellow rays (Chosson at near right, ca. 1735). The vines emerging from it
remind us that
living things need its light and warmth.The concentric circles are also
reminiscent of the medieval view of the cosmos, with our world in the
middle, with its four elements and, between them, the four
qualities hot, cold, dry, wet. At the same time it is also an ordinary flower, of a type seen in countless Renaissance pictorial settings.
The image on the card also suggests, like that of the Ace of Cups, a monstrance, in another version of that liturgical receptacle (far left, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, from 1690). In that version, it shoots out rays, from its center, where the communion wafer is put. Moreover, its base sometimes takes the form of four or more half-circles around a hollow center, as can be seen from the example I showed for the Ace of Cups. In that case, we are seeing the monstrance from the bottom.
Etteilla's
card features the sun more explicitly, with its astrological symbol as
well as the sun behind its Apollo, the Olympian god associated with that
body. Here he is probably following his predecessor de Mellet, who had described the card as "consecrated to Phoebus" (in J. Karlin, Rhapsodies of the Bizarre, p. 55, p. 401 in de Gebelin, Le Monde Primitif, vol. 8). Etteilla and his school explain the meaning in their word-lists:
No. 77. ACE
OF COINS, UPRIGHT: PERFECT CONTENTMENT, Felicity, Happiness, Rapture, Enchantment, Ecstasy, Marvel, Complete Satisfaction, Complete Joy,
Inexpressible Pleasure, Color Red, Perfect Medicine, Solar Medicine,
Pure, Accomplished, Stone Accomplished [Pierre Accomplie - referring to the Philosopher's Stone].
REVERSED: PURSE (OR GRANT, BOURSE) OF MONEY, Sum, Capital,
Principal.—Treasure, Wealth, Opulence.—Exceptional, Dear, Precious,
Inestimable.
The Upright list suggests both the sun and
life spent dwelling in something like divine rapture, the result of
being pierced by a divine force. The reverseds give the material
equivalent. This is quite in tune with the Pythagorean emphasis for this number on the divinity.
D'Odoucet again attempts justify the card in terms of its number, this time the two 7s, the symbol of life twice, which suggests to him "infinite sufficiency," that is to say, "the number one of the coin indicates a complete renumeration of all goods, which plunge us into the most perfect contentment" (https://archive.org/details/b22018529_0002/page/164/mode/2up). This is not the meaning of 1 as he has early recounted it, man in general and as agent. It perhaps pertains more to the divinity within us, expressed by the dot in the circle, or God in the universe, but applied to the realm of material goods, as signified by the "gold" color, for d'Odoucet is a descent from its earlier "felicity," which did not have such a basis.
Here is Waite:
Divinatory Meanings: Perfect contentment, felicity, ecstasy; also 
speedy intelligence; gold. Reversed:
The evil side of wealth, bad intelligence; also great riches. In any
case it shews prosperity, comfortable material conditions, but whether
these are of advantage to the possessor will depend on whether the card
is reversed or not.
Waite's
last thought, that whether material prosperity is of advantage to the
possessor, depends on whether the card is reversed or not is rather
paradoxical. His meaning seems to be that material prosperity is
associated with both the uprights and the reverseds, but if reversed
suggests that the happiness it promises is problematic. Etteilla's "Reversed" list pertains more to the specific suit-object, that of money. The Marseille motifs, at least for all except Cups, are quite early, as we can see from the
images in the 16th century Italian proofsheet below, now in the Budapest
Museum of Art. The rays emanating from the unseen figure holding the
sword and baton is particularly suggestive of the deity. In Cups, the
chalice is held by a hand; and there seems to be a dove on top (images from Kaplan, Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. 2, p. ).
Comparing these early images with later ones in France, one might wonder whether certain numerological details had been added with specific reference to both Christian and Kabbalist symbolism. What are merely rays in the Budapest sheet, and droplets in the Noblet (Batons, far left below), become what we are accustomed, from the occultist versions of various cards, to call yods, the first letter of the Hebrew four letter word for God, yod-heh-vau-heh. In the Dodal version of the Ace of Batons (second from left), there are 32 of them, which would correspond to the "32 paths of wisdom" of the Sefer Yetzirah and the 10 sefiroth and 22 paths of the Kabbalists' Tree of Life. Since this number is not found otherwise (29 will be standard, as in the Chosson, far right), it may be accidental; on the other hand, its adoption in a tarot that also is one of the earliest with the yod shape gives us pause for thought. The otherwise extremely similar Rolichon tarot of about the same time, oddly has only 31 (third from left); but since this is an artist's rendition for a magazine, it is possible that the artist forgot one. 
Also of possible numerological significance are 32 "rays," or triangular shapes pointing outward, on all the TdM2 Aces of Coins (e.g. Tourcaty, 1730s, at left below - my thanks to Joe Walsh for pointing this out to me). The TdM1 - early style - has only 12 (Dodal, c. 1701, center below) or 15 (Noblet, ca. 1650, right). Moreover, the Dodal (a TdM1) and Tourcaty (a TDM2), show a certain number of "stamens," 10 or 12 or perhaps more. (In the Noblet and others, nothing can be seen.) These little dots, too, might have numerological significance. In the TdM2, each of the four petals has in it three lines, so 12 altogether. The petals themselves form the shape of a cross. There are numerous associations to these numbers, for those who wish to make them.
THE SOLA-BUSCA ACES OF BATONS AND SWORDS
The earliest surviving tarot with scenes involving human figures is the Sola-Busca, probably a Venetian commision, probably finished in 1491; it is probably also the earliest surviving tarot with all 78 of its cards intact (but not to deny that it may be a later copy). Waite and Smith undoubtedly got some ideas for their own number cards from those of the SB, because there was an exhibition of photographic reproductions of the cards in London at the time they were preparing the deck. We will see in what follows how many of the SB's designs they used, more or less.
The SB Aces of Batons and Swords each have two figures, as opposed to Coins
and Cups, which have three (I will get to them later). That immediately raises the question, how can the Monad be expressed by two figures, much less three? Let us first look at the cards,
In Batons, we see two identical cherubs facing each other and working together to
hold up a club much bigger than they are. (my source for these images
is (http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Sola-Busca_gallery).
In Swords, it is two different-looking figures holding up one sword,
looking away from each other. Moreover, the figure on our right is
decidedly effeminate. If one didn't look closely, one would assume it
was a woman with a broad feathered hat. As it is, an arm and attached hand appearing out of nowhere (we can see the fingers) obscures the view, so we can't be sure. The figure's ample blouse
suggests breasts underneath. Even looking closely, I am not sure what
the feather-like thing on top is. . One might wonder whether the two letters "M" and "S" stood for two families united in marriage. More likely they are the initials of the person for whom the deck was done (the diarist Marino Sanuto has been suggested, about which more when I get to the Twos).
It seems to me that Batons, in one possible interpretation, represents the union of sames, and Swords the union of differents. In Plato's Timaeus (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timaeus_(dialogue)), "Same" and "different" are two out of three basic categories there (after the four elements); the third is "being."
For the Theology,
harmony is characterized as a combination of "same" and "different."
The components may all be musical tones (or whatever is in harmony);
but in music, harmony can be analyzed down to units in specific
proportions, e.g. 2:1 (the octave), 3:2 (the fifth) 4:3 (the fourth),
etc. (see "Interval" entry at Wikipedia). In these two Aces, we see an
emphasis on "same" in Batons and "different" in Swords; yet in each the
result is a unified design. For even though the cherubs of Batons are
essentially "the same," yet they are accidentally different, in that one is
on the right facing left, and the other on the left facing right. And
although the two figures in Swords are essentially different, yet they
also have attributes in common, in that both are human figures on
either side of a sword, facing away from the blade. Thus each Ace is in
microcosm a philosophical image of one aspect of God, as that in which
all opposites and sames are combined harmoniously.
There is another way in which the Ace of Swords reflects a specific "unity of opposites" and humans as a microcosm of God: the Theology
says that the Monad is "both male and female at once" (p. 38), because
it produces everything out of itself with no recourse to anything else. Thus there is the impression of male and
female for the two figures on the Ace of Swords. In the 3rd Cahier, the descriptor "crazy love" would probably be understood as of a person for someone of the opposite gender.
Another interpretation of both aces might be as the second and third persons of the Trinity. That is how three can illustrate the One. Nicholas of Cusa, let us recall, said in his On Learned Ignorance:
But
since oneness is eternal, equality eternal, and union also eternal,
oneness, equality, and union are one. And this is that trine Oneness
which Pythagoras, the first philosopher of all and the glory of Italy
and of Greece, affirmed to be worthy of worship.
All that is
missing is the notion that the second and third persons "proceed" from
the first. That the One "generates" Equality is the subject of Cusa's
Chapter 8. That Union "proceeds" from Unity and Equality is the subject
of his Chapter 9.
The
Theology of Arithmetic declares that Equality is a property of the Dyad. "Union"--the combination the Monad and the Dyad--is a
property of the Triad, which Cusa appropriates for the third
person of the Trinity. What Cusa wants to show is that
since all three, Unity, Equality, and Union are are eternal, are all
descriptive of the one God, thus a proof of the Trinity derived from Pythagoras.
According to Cusa's translator, footnote 39, his source is
John of Salisbury's
De Septem Septenis
VII (PL 199.961C). This text is in volume
5
of Joannis Saresberiensis,
Opera Omnia, p. 233.
Deus
est unitas: ab unitate gignitur unitatis aequalite procedit. Hinc
igitur Augustinus: Omne recte intuenti perspicuum est; quare a sanctae
scripturae docturibus patri assignatur unitas, Filius aequalitas,
Spiritui Sancto connexio; et licet ab unitate gignatur aequalitas, ab
utroque connexio procedat: unum tamen et idem sunt. Haec est illa trium
unitas: quam solam adorandam esse docuit Pythagoras.
Marco Ponzi, on Tarot History Forum (
http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=530&p=9383), provides a translation:
God is unity: generated by unity he proceeds from the equality of
the unity. Therefore Augustine: everything is clear to he who examines
in the right way; for this reason those who have studied the holy
scripture attribute unity to the father, equality to the Son, union to
the Holy Spirit; it follows that equality is generated from unity, and
that union proceeds from both [unity and equality]: yet they are one
and the same. This is the unity of the three: which Pythagoras taught to be the only thing [deserving] to be adored.
We can see here that Cusa has taken his text directly from Salisbury.
In
this case, I can see an alternative interpretation of the Ace of
Swords. That is, the two figures on each side of the sword, different
in appearance but doing the same thing on the same level, might
represent "the Equal," and so the second person of the Trinity, the one
who came not to bring peace, but the sword.
The two identical putti on
the Ace of Batons, however, are still "the Same." In Chapter Nine (
http://my.pclink.com/~allchin/1814/retrial/cusa2.pdf, p. 15), Cusa goes on to identify "union" with "the same."
And
although equality of oneness is begotten from oneness and although
union proceeds from both [of these], nevertheless oneness, equality of
oneness, and the union proceeding from both are one and the same
thing--as if we were to speak of [one and] the same thing as this, it, the same.
The fact of our saying "it" is related to a first thing; but our saying
"the same" unites and conjoins the related thing to the first thing.
Assume, then, that from the pronoun "it" there were formed the word
"itness," so that we could speak of oneness, itness, and sameness:
itness would bear a relation to oneness, but sameness would designate
the union of itness and oneness.[In this case, the names "Oneness,"
"Itness," and "Sameness"] would nearly enough befit the Trinity.
With
"the Same" as the third person of the Trinity, the raising of the baton
over the empty cuirass and helmet then signify the overcoming of the
strife brought by Christ in the peace of the Holy Spirit. The SB Ace
of Batons in that way is similar to the "Venus Victrix" of Zoppo's Parchment Book,
done somewhat earlier, probably in Venice, the vanquishing of Mars by
Venus, of war by love, as in the image on the right below, with the cuirass reduced to a prop or plaything (for a fuller discussion, see my post at viewtopic.php?f=12&t=530&p=8743&hilit=Venus+Zoppo#p8743),
Admittedly
this interpretation of the Ace of Swords, as "Equality" as well as
"Difference," and the Ace of Batons as "Union" and "Sameness" is rather obscure. But it might have been just the thing,
in a noble Venetian drawing room, to add the proper elevated tone to
what might have otherwise looked like a rather plebian game of cards.
THE SOLA-BUSCA ACES OF CUPS AND COINS
The
SB Ace of Cups and Coins, I think, also fit the Pythagorean idea of the Monad. Here Christianity again shows its influence, as it does in the Etteilla
Swords. This time both SB cards depict the Christian
Trinity as a whole, as opposed to the philosophical God of the Timaeus, or the second and third persons of the trinity, in SB Swords and
Batons.
Cups (far right) has three cherubs on a cup: three on one,
so to speak. Why else three, except to signify the Trinity? They correlate well to the three streams we see coming out of the cup on the Marseille Ace of Cups, already discussed. One is even pouring out a vase of water. Admittedly,
using cherubs to represent the Trinity is a bit perverse or comical; but many of
the SB images are that way.
There is also the motto "Trahor Fatis" painted on the
cup. I will talk about that motto in relation to the Ace of Coins,
where it also appears. In Cups, it has no particular function that I
can see, and the motto was not part of the original engravings; perhaps
it is a motto favored by the patron who commissioned the painted deck
(as Zucker, Illustrated Bartsch vol. 24 part 3, p. 81, suggests).
There are also three cherubs in Coins. Tarotpedia (http://www.tarotpedia.com./wiki/Ace_of_Coins_Sola-Busca, but now only on the Wayback Machine)
points out that the cherub on the left, holding his head in its hand,
is in a characteristic pose signifying melancholy (for example in
Durer's engraving with that title). and thus also the alchemical stage
of the nigredo, Latin for blackening. Above this cherub is a banner,
not part of the engraving but painted later; it reads, "Trahor Fatis" --
"I am drawn by Fate." Tarotpedia goes on to say that there is a comet
above this cherub, traditionally a bad omen. I don't think we can
conclude that it is a comet, because there is no tail, here or on the
other cards where this motto and the star-like image appears (Postumo,
Trump 2; Catone, trump 13). Zucker (pp. 66, 107) says it is simply a
star. The motto might just mean that the cherub is ruled by Fate,
whether good or ill, as opposed to its own will. There might be a
reference to the Theology's Atropos, mentioned in connection with the Monad; she is the Fate who chooses the time and manner of death.
It
seems to me that this cherub also represents the Father of the Trinity,
in particular, the Jehovah of the Old Testament. Jehovah was identified
with Saturn, the god associated with lead, blackness, and melancholy.
Moreover, after Adam and Eve's sin, all humanity was condemned by God
to suffer death without a return to Paradise; "Sheol" was the soul's
destination, a dismal place like the Hades of the Greeks (although
there was also the "bosom of Abraham" as temporary quarters for the
righteous; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheol); such is the lot of those bound by Fate, until the advent of Jesus.
The
center cherub triumphantly carries a coin that is bigger than it is.
Around the coin is painted the motto, "Servir. Chi persevera infin
otiene"--"To serve. If you persist you obtain [your goal] in the end."
Tarotpedia interprets the ox skull as connoting hard, persistent work,
thus relating to the motto. That is based on a similar ox skull where that meaning is given, in the book Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Many-Loves' Strife of Love in a Dream), of 1499 Venice. The coin is probably golden, and hence
signifying the rubedo in alchemy, or else the yellow stage just before it.
It seems to me that whatever the alchemical significance, this cherub signifies the Son of the Trinity. It is because of the crucifixion
that humanity can now, through faith and good works, rise above Fate
and return to Paradise. That is the main goal which persistence and
hard work attain. In alchemy, the rubedo was associated with the
Son. For example George Ripley's Cantilena ends with the elevation of the "ruddy son" and his mother (Fabricius, Alchemy, p. 134f, also Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, p. 283). An English cleric, Ripley was in Italy 1457-1477, according to Wikipedia.
Moreover, his burden associates him with Hercules, who was seen as a precursor of Christ by the early Church. In temperament, he would be sanguine, that is, optimism and vigor. In his opposition to evil, he might also be characterized as choleric, that is, angry, his blood boiling.
Tarotpedia
says that the cherub on the right probably represents the albedo in
alchemy, which occurs between the nigredo at he beginning and the
rubedo at the end. Since there is white space above this cherub and the
other two cherubs represent the two other major stages of the
alchemical work, this hypothesis is reasonable.
It seems to me
that this cherub also represents the Holy Spirit. For one thing, it was
conventionally represented by a dove, which is white. For another,
Jesus was conventionally shown praying when he received the Holy Spirit
at his baptism, just as the cherub seems to be doing on the card. Its temperament would be phlegmatic, a state of calm.
Another
example that supports my hypothesis is the early-15th century "Ripley
Scrowle." Tarotpedia applies one version of the particular image I have
in mind to the Three of Swords (originally
http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Three_of ... Sola-Busca, bu now only available on the "Wayback Machine").
I think it fits here as well. The image on Tarotpedia is in color, and
it says XVII century. I have not so far confirmed that dating; their
reference, to Adam MacLean's site (
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/rscroll.html) is to an image that appears there in black and white and undated. A similar one in black and white is from 1715 (
http://hdelboy.club.fr/gravures.html; search
"Ripley Scrowle;" the image is "IV" in the series). There is also a 15th century image (
http://hdelboy.club.fr/gravures.html,
clicking on "IV" of the "Erskine Roll"), which is more primitive, shown
in green and white below, to the left of the other one. What interests
me is not the three circles at the bottom, which Tarotpedia focuses on
for the Threes, but the three at the top; I have reproduced these
details in the second pair of images below. In the 15th century image,
two of the circles are white, one black. By 1715 the two white ones are
further differentiated (as they are on MacLean's image); I suspect that
the meaning was the same in the 15th century: what we see is a black
circle for the Father, a white one for the Holy Spirit, and a third
circle (white in the version below, but light-colored on levity.com)
with a dot in it, the symbol of the sun, for the Son.
And here is a section of Ripley's poem accompanying the illustration:
Many a name he hath full sure
And all is but one Nature
Thou must part him in three
And then knit him as the Trinity
And make them all but one
Lo here is the Philosophers Stone.
(
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/rscroll.html.)
I
think that Coins provides us with the most specific correspondence
between the "Etteilla" list and the corresponding SB card. Namely, the
large coin held by the center cherub, the one representing Jesus,
connotes the "sunny" (i.e. happy) attributes of the person whose life,
after death and some of the time on earth, is spent with Jesus.
Moreover, the "Etteilla" word "redness" might correspond to rubedo
stage of alchemy; and it certainly corresponds to Jesus as the rising
sun of the second coming. In that case the puzzling reference to the "accomplished stone" might be to the so-called "philosopher's stone," the object of the alchemist's quest.
CONCLUSION THIS FAR
Whether the Marseille Bataleur and Aces were conceived with Pythagorean numerology in mind cannot be determined; certainly no one wrote about them in these terms. Doing so was left to Etteilla and his school, where it is rather evident for the Aces and for the first two cards of his sequence. I have not found where Etteilla talks about the meanings of the numbers per se, but his pupil d'Odoucet certainly did (see Science des Signes, vol. 1, pp. 41-45). They also thought that this analysis fit the Marseille, even if the "majors" in that deck in their view were in the wrong order and had distorted the designs; Etteilla associated each of his cards to a Marseille equivalent in his Third Cahier. The "minors" were of course unaffected. What they say about the Aces fits the Marseille Aces well enough, while the actual Pythogoreanism of the time fits the Marseille even better, in that it illustrates the "theological" parts of Pythagorean teachings.
In the case of the Aces' pictorial design, Waite borrows mostly from the Marseille cards as opposed to the SB; not only do his Aces of Swords and Batons duplicate much of what is in their Marseille counterparts: the greenery on the "Wand," the crown and branches on the Sword, but the hand coming out
of a cloud on all four, something consistent with a Pythagorean association of the One with God.
As far as the SB, there is not much relationship to either the Marseille designs or Waite. Only in the
Ace of Cups do I see a possible SB influence, in that all three persons of the Trinity
are represented: the hand of the Father, the cup and Omega of the Son,
and the dove of the Holy Spirit. However, the Trinity is so much a part of Christian depictions that it really cannot be attributed to any one preceding image, even involving the same tarot subject.
That all three are consistent with a Neopythagorean interpretation does not mean that they were designed with such considerations in mind. However, Pythagoras was extremely popular in 15th and 16th century Italy, going into the 17th and 18th centuries in France. That a cartomantic tradition using Pythagorean considerations is clear from Etteilla onwards. Whether there was one before then is less clear. Etteilla's earliest writings give different interpretations than the later ones. Different yet is the Bologna cartomancy document, fairly securely of the 18th century, even if there are many points of contact between the two. Unfortunately there are many factors influencing how someone would
interpret the cards, especially those shared by regular and
tarot decks. The games played were different, and in France the cards even
looked different - French rather than Italian suits, in France. However, we are just at the beginning of an inquiry that must take us through all 78 of the cards.
THE NEOPYTHAGOREAN ONE IN THE TAROT AFTER ETTEILLA
The next tarot theorist of any significance after Etteilla was Eliphas Levi, who discarded the former's "restoration" of the tarot triumphs in favor of the usual Marseille order. But like Etteilla, he did not disdain changing what was depicted somewhat to depict what he wanted to be there. Neopythagoreanism is one of the influences, especially in the first seven.
Thus the Magus expresses the idea of the One in a sideways figure 8 above his head, "symbol of life and the universal mind." It was already, since the mid-17th century, the mathematical symbol of infinity, a property of the succession of 1s ad infinitum, as well as of the Christian God, possessed of a power and goodness than which none greater could be conceived. That it is above the head of a man reflects also what d'Odoucet said about the number 1, that it was the number of man, and of his unitary mind or spirit, mover of the body. Levi did not, so far as I know, comment on the number and court cards of the deck.
After Levi, Paul Christian gave a conception that expanded on his teacher: the number was that of Will in three worlds, the divine, intellectual, and physical (History and Practice of Magic, trans. of L'Histoire de la Magie, p. 95, in archive.org:
A --1 expresses in the divine world the absolute
Being who contains and from whom flows the infinity of all possible things:
in the intellectual world, Unity, the principle and synthesis of
numbers; the Will, principle of action: in the physical world, Man,
the highest of all living creatures, called upon to raise himself, by a
perpetual expansion of his faculties, into the concentric spheres of the
Absolute.
To Levi he added several numerological symbols: a snake eating its tail as the Magus's belt, symbolizing eternity. That one arm goes up and the other down, the posture imagined by Levi, he adds that it is man aspiring to reflect divine will in the imposition of his own will upon the physical world. Of course the Marseille image did not actually have one arm pointing up and the other pointing down, but rather each bent at the elbow, with forearm on one side pointing up and the other pointing at around a thirty degree angle below horizontal, so in a sense downward. Tarot decks following Levi's ideas, such as Waite's and Papus's, both published 1909, conformed to Levi and Christian's description.
Christian did discuss the cards of the four suits, but in an astrological way that did not have imitators.
Papus used Pythagorean numerology in a way of his own devising. The 21 triumphs (excluding the Fool) divided into three septenaries, each of which corresponded to his version of Christian's three worlds: the first seven were the divine world, the next seven the human, then the universe; he also called the three the spirit of God, the soul of God, and the body of God (1889 trans., p. 206). Then he divided each septenary into two trinities plus an enhancement of the sixth. The first, second and third members of each trinity were assigned the letters YHV of the divine name, with the seventh getting the final H. The same system applied to the suit cards, with each suit having two septenaries. But while he interprets the symbolism of the triumphs in terms of these trinities (or thesis-antithesis-synthesis), he does not do so for the suit cards, except to note that the four suits again express the YHVH again, in the order Etteilla put them in, Batons as Y, Cups first H, Swords V, and Coins/Pentacles fourth H. Giving no specific reason, he relates Scepters to Fire, Cups to Water, Swords to Earth, and Coins to Air.
For Papus the Bateleur ("Juggler" in an archaic sense of one who moves his hands quickly: "prestidigitator" would be the modern equivalent) reflects Christian's three worlds by means of the sideways figure eight above (divine), the man in the middle (human), and the earth below (universe). He also unites active and passive, not only with his two arms but also with the objects on his table, with Scepters as active (God), Cups as passive (the Universe), Swords as the equilibrium between the two (Man).By their roundness Pentacles (i.e. Coins) represent Eternity, he says, uniting all three in one whole.'
Along with Papus and Waite, another deck of 1909 of some interest for its Neopythagorean aspects is that of Eules Picard (https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/32466484). For the Bateleur, he mostly repeats Christian and Papus, while the card is simply that of the Maseille. Picard's originality is in his conceptions of the number cards, starting with the Aces. Each seems to capture a different aspect of the Bataleur.
Here Batons is a kind of thesis, Coins its antithesis before any action upon it, and Swords the mediation between them. Cups, with its soul hovering above and within the chaos, is reminiscent of Etteilla's and the Minchiate Francese's card 1. In addition, Picard incorporates in the designs symbols associated with the zodiacal signs assigned to each of the four elements, i.e. the fire-signs Aries, Leo, Sagitarius in Batons; Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn in Coins; etc.
My final example is Jodorowsky' s Way of Tarot, originally in French as La Voie du Tarot, 1997. He takes the Pythagorean principle of pure potentiality, unactualized in reality, expressed in the four areas represented by the suits, which for him are creativity and sexuality for Batons, emotions for Cups, thinking for Swords, and material concerns, including health, for Coins. So the potentiality for creativity and sex, for love relationships, for projects involving thoughts, and for making money or healing. It is that simple.
Jodorowsky also finds features in each of the four aces to support his interpretation. The tree limb of the Ace of Wands/Batons (Baton = Stick, in French) is phallic in shape, ending in a cut that resembles the female sex organ. The sword is comparable to intelligence, in that it is crafted rather than ready-made: "Intelligence is not received ready-made, it is part of the self on which you must work to make it strong and flexible" (p. 273). Its color red signifies that this crafting is through experience and emotional suffering." That it pierces a crown signifies that "it does not remain imprisoned within the individual mind. The two branches on either side signify space and time, both unending, in that way part of Cosmic Consciousness. And so on. Both signify activity, but in different ways.
In contrast, Cups and Coins are passive. The Cup represents the Totality in potential; everything is possible." He observes, "Emotional virginity is intact, and love ceaselessly renews itself, as if a material chalice housed a bottomless well that found its source in eternity" (p. 275). Various details can be interpreted in terms of the interrelatedness of mind, soul, and spirit, or intellect, emotion, and sexuality.
The Ace of Coins/Pentacles is circular with a flower in its center: "divine, impersonal energy lies at the heart of matter," which includes ourselves as material beings. The various details again represent the Totality, this time of material life, in potentiality, in particular the union of spirit with matter in the cultivation of unselfish work that is also ecologically sound: "Ecological consciousness works hand in hand with inner discovery" (p. 278).
APPENDIX: D'ODOUCET'S AND ETTEILLA'S PRESENTATIONS OF THE NUMBERS AS SUCH
First, here is my translation of pp. 7-11 of d'Odoucet's Science of Signs, book 2, with which he prefaces his discussion of the individual cards (starting at https://archive.org/details/b22018529_0002/page/n21/mode/2up). Here I had difficulty understanding one clause, the one I have included in French afterwards, in case others with better grasp of French can figure it out. I think he means to say that the cards must be numbered from 1 to 77 plus 0, because after the first comes the second, etc. This is not a very good argument, since the suits themselves do not have to be in any particular order, and as far as I know nobody has followed Etteilla's numbering system since.
EXPLICATION
of the Hieroglyphs and Inscriptions from each leaf [i.e. page, i.e. card] of the Book of Thoth, its related homonyms, synonyms and numbers.
The leaves which compose this unique book must be considered under the various relations which their numbers have between them, the hieroglyphs which they present, and the inscriptions which they bear.
The configuration of the numbers [i.e. from 1 to 77 and 0] of each lamina [i.e., inscribed metal plate] contributed, together with the numeral quantity [i.e., the number of suit-objects], to indicate the correspondence of the epithets between the number and the hieroglyph.
The numbers of each lamina are of absolute necessity by their progressive order, since they would exist by right when
they would not be exposed in fact, because then from the first blade comes the second, the third, etc. [ . . . puisqu’ils existeroient de droit quand ils n’y seroient pas exposés de fait, parce qu’ensuite de la première lame vient la seconde , la troisième, etc.]
But after the 9 first numbers, plus the zero, the numbers which follow are only (start of 8) an assembly of the first ten characters: therefore these first ten characters must be key to the whole work, although they offer different meanings because of the various combinations they have among them, combinations which are not of their positive essence, since a multiplied number can be reduced to its simple expression by which we find the renumerator character; such for example the number 45 will be reduced by the cabalistic addition to 9; because 4+5=9 etc.
The most important, the most all-embracing [embarasant, meaning "awkward," but probably a misprint for embrassant] was to discover the true meaning of the first ten characters considered both
as a number and as a hieroglyph.
1. Is not a number, but the principle, the beginning and the end of all numbers; it expresses everything that bears the character of simplicity such as the soul, the universal spirit, etc. it is to be noted that whatever is simple can only be intellectual; that is, being able to manifest itself to our senses only through effects. is also the symbol and the number of (start of 9) all that is motor or subject, and of man generally speaking.
2. This number is the first number; it is that of the human species (man and woman) and more particularly the emblem and the number of woman, or the physical and permanent principle of her [son: its?] vegetative development.
3. Is the second number, it determines all the triangles, it is indispensably that of the geometrical dimensions, length, width and depth. It is the emblem and the number of the reproduction or generation of the animal kingdom.
4. This number is the third in general and the second even number; it is composed of a point and a triangle; it is that of the universe which is a compound of four elemental qualities, hot, cold, dry and humid; these qualities, of which two are negative and two positive, are properly the basis of the integral parts of this same universe which offers us substantially only earth and water, the fixed and the volatile of the volatile, completing the square whose root (start of 10) is two, agent and patient inherent in the human species, abbreviated from this same universe under the name of microcosm.
5. Is a number composed of the others which precede it, and the triangle and the line are seen there dominant, like the square and the unit, it is the number of the quintessence or unity of first matter, this number is proper to universal medicine
which is a product of the concentration of the universal spirit, which is indivisibly the potential animator of the macrocosm and the microcosm.
6. Is the first perfect number, it is the emblem of the globe, and particularly of the inserted earth of the vivifying, corporifying universal spirit, and of the atmospheric fluid which surrounds us.
7. This number is the distance between the cube of unity and the cube of the first number; it is the emblem of the mineral kingdom, namely four elements and three substances.
8. Is the emblem of the progressive circulation of the generations or reproduction (start of 11), of all the mixtures, it is the number of the vegetable kingdom, namely a vegetable soul, four elements and three substances.
9. Is the emblem of only vegetative reproductions; that is to say, produced according to the terrestrial globe, it is the number
of the animal kingdom, a sensitive soul: a vegetable soul, four elements and three substances.
0. Is the passive emblem of the globe, without proper number and fit for any value, by the additional effect of the universal principle, and sometimes by the efforts of art.
Such are in general the distinctions which are the type of the configuration which it is advisable to establish of the ten numeric characters.
Much of this makes a kind of sense. However, it is none too clear what the difference is between the "vegetative development" related to women and the "generation of animals" of 3; perhaps the first has to do with the growth of an individual organism and the second with its reproduction. Also, he mostly ignores this characterization of 7 and 9, prefering to call 7 the number of "life." How the number of the mineral kingdom became the number of life he does not explain, and both are quite different from Etteilla's own interpretation of that number (see below). Also, he makes 8 another number of reproduction. As for 9, it becomes a number of expansion and effusion of reproduction. Without these modifications and others, he would have difficulty arriving at Etteilla's interpretations, which he seems to have made without the considerations that d'Odoucet advances, as we will see.
There are also various pronouncements about the numbers from 1 to 10 by Etteilla himself. The most complete is a footnote on p. 30 of his Premier [First] Cahier, 1783. He writes (https://wellcomecollection.org/works/ux34pwxe/items?canvas=244:
1 = God
2 = humanity, male and female
3 = principles: sulphur, salt, mercury
4 = elements
5 = sacred
6 = first perfect composition
7 = science, human wisdom
8 = multiplication, extension
9 = perfection of simple humanity, following nature
10 = divine seal
In a few places he says other things that seem to supplement the above, for example, on p. 17 of the same work, he says that 1 is the number of God, 2 that of humanity, male
and female, and 3 that of generation, whose aim is the child. Then on the next page, 4 is "necessarily" the Universe. In the footnote on p.
19 we find that 5 is sacred, the universe, 4, supported by God, 1. 5 is also
between the Universe, 4, and perfection, 6. In the footnote on p. 33, he reiterates that 7 is the number of wisdom, citing Isaiah, Revelation, and Augustine. He adds that for Cicero "Seven is the key to all the sciences."
The first seven of these interpretations have some historical justification, it seems to me. And 8, 9, and 10 are logical extensions of what came before and do not simply repeat in vaguer terms the previous interpretations. Even though 8 repeats the idea of generation, including reproduction, enunciated in 3, what is generated in 8 is the perfection reached in 6, once imbued with wisdom, 7. How much any of this applies to his interpretations of the cards is another matter.
On the number 1, we see on p. 6 of Cours Theorique et pratique, 1790 (https://archive.org/details/1790courstheoriqueetpratique/page/n5/mode/2up), that 1 applies to the "Magicien" (p. 6), and the strong person (p. 7). That is what enables him to say that one keyword for card 1 is "Etteilla," who obviously is the epitome of both. It also enables d'Odoucet to say that 1 is the number for man as agent. The number 2 is then that of the "weak person" (p. 7) - such as the two children on his second card.
Hopefully this will be enough to orient the reader in the posts that follow.
There is also his reasoning regarding the symbolism of the four suits, in terms of the four elements (p. 31). That there are four
elements is an assumption of Pythagorean and most other ancient
philosophies. As for how these elements could be seen in the French suit-symbols, it is an application of the Pythagorean methodology of looking for relationships and
commonalities between the members of different natural groups. An oft-repeated story about Pythagoras was that in
listening to blacksmiths’ hammers, he noted that the tones varied
according to the weights of hammers producing them, and that the same
tones produced by strings varied according to the same ratios in weights
applying tension to those strings (Nichomachus, Manual of Harmonics, Ch. 6; Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras, Ch. 26; Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio,
II.1.8-12). Accordingly, Pythagoras was depicted listening to hammers,
e.g. by Luca della Robbia, 1437-1439, on the campanile of Florence
cathedral (author’s photo above right, taken at the Museo del Duomo, with the
museum’s placard). Identifying which ratios were harmonious was part of
Pythagorean musical theory. In general, Pythagoreans saw number as the
key to understanding numerous phenomena.
