This text is taken from my book Ideology of the Tarot.
If you want to buy this book, write to dorijan.nuaj@gmail.com
To create the premises for understanding tarot,
it is useful to keep in mind two theories of memory: one is Aristotle's, and
the other is Plato's. Frances A. Yates explained this in her book The Art of
Memory. She writes that Aristotle's theory of memory and recollection is based
on his theory of knowledge. Perceptions received through the senses are first
processed by the imagination, and then, when they are transformed into images,
they can become material for the intellect. The imagination is the intermediary
between perception and thought. Undoubtedly, knowledge originates from sensory
perceptions; thought does not process them in their raw state, but only after
they have been absorbed and processed by the imagination. Without the
participation of the soul that creates images, higher thought processes would
not be possible. What is important is that memory belongs to the same part of
the soul as the imagination. It is a collection of mental images obtained
through sensory impressions, but with the added element of time, since mental
images from memory are not obtained by perceiving things present now, but
things from the past. Thus, Yates summarizes Aristotle's theory of memory and
recollection.
To today's mentality, Aristotle's view of memory
is closer than Plato's, as it is empirical and concrete. Plato's view is
somewhat Jungian and metaphysical, making it more appealing to esoteric
thinkers. Yates says that Plato, unlike Aristotle, believes that there is
knowledge that does not originate from sensory impressions and that there are
latent forms or ideas in our memory, parts of reality that the soul knew before
it incarnated into the material world. True knowledge consists of linking the
sensory impressions with the forms or imprints of that higher reality, as
things here on earth are merely reflections of that higher reality. According
to Plato, all objects accessible to the senses can be connected to certain
archetypes that their images represent. We have not seen or encountered these
archetypes in this life, but we saw them before our life began, and the
knowledge of them is contained in our memory. True knowledge consists of
connecting the imprint left by the sensory impression with the imprint of the
form or idea that corresponds to the sensory perceived object. Plato's key view
on this matter is that the recognition of truth and the soul consists of
remembering, recalling the ideas that all souls once beheld, whose confused
copies are found in earthly things.
Does the order and appearance of the major arcana
of the tarot represent an expression of Aristotelian memory of a lived
initiatory experience, thus being encrypted and passed down to future
generations, or is it a Platonic concept of reviving primordial memories with
the help of archetypal symbol-laden images? The stance of many occultists and
esotericists could be described as a combination of these two approaches, but
with a greater reliance on Platonism. Tarot is understood as an expression of
an initiatory story, but this story is impregnated with archetypal images that
help us remember. This predominantly Platonic view, so to speak, forms the
foundation of the Kabbalistic concepts of macrocosm and microcosm, which have
greatly shaped the esoteric and occult perspective on the tarot. Considering
the aforementioned, I am free to hypothesize that the tarot is a
memory-codified system of knowledge, whose keys we will not discover by merely
staring at the cards and "astrally projecting" into them. However, we
can learn a lot by observing the principles and correspondences through
analyzing different tarot constellations and contemplating them. In this sense,
the tarot is a didactic tool whose origins can be traced to the Renaissance
interpretation, primarily of Hermetic philosophy, but also to the mystical
understanding of Christianity.
According to Frances A. Yates, Aristotle is key
to scholastic and medieval forms of the art of memory, while Plato is central
to Renaissance forms. As Yates has shown, the sources of the art of memory can
be traced back to ancient Greece, to a certain Simonides. However, I would dare
to say that the primal sources of this art can be located in the wisdom of
ancient Egypt, whose spirit is embodied in the Book of the Dead, where the key
imperative is the memory of certain formulas, sequences of images, and representations
of the afterlife in Amenti. Of course, I do not mean to suggest that we will
find direct sources of inspiration for the figures and sequences of the tarot
in Egyptian mythology, magical and religious practices, nor that they are an
expression of some surviving secret doctrine that Egyptian priests immortalized
and condensed into a system of cards for gaming and divination, secretly
transmitted through underground initiatory streams throughout history until
reaching modern occultists.
The question, then, is what influenced the
emergence of tarot and how. However, once it appeared in the 15th century, we
can more easily trace its development to the present day. I remind the
followers of Carlos Castaneda of how his alleged teacher, Don Juan, spoke of
memory stored in the so-called higher consciousness and that the trick of the
sorcerer is to remember everything experienced and understood in those states.
Don Juan would raise Castaneda's consciousness to a higher level through
magical means when transmitting knowledge to him, which Castaneda would then
forget upon returning to the normal state of consciousness. Therefore, it was crucial
for him to recall those lessons and thus induce the state of heightened
consciousness himself. The key lies in memory. Many occultists have believed
and still believe that the tarot actually hides a coded message from ancient
Egyptian masters, the unlocking of which triggers the recollection of hidden
archetypal truths otherwise inaccessible to everyday consciousness. However,
this raises the question of which tarot we are actually talking about. Is it an
Italian Renaissance tarot or a later version, perhaps the Marseille tarot? If
any of this is true, why did occultists from the 18th century onward feel the
need to reinterpret this tarot of ancient Egyptian initiates? Are modern
initiates perhaps wiser than the ancients, and what exactly is their advantage?
Why then did modern occultists reshape the presumed ancient Egyptian wisdom
hidden in the cards? To make it more transparent? Clearly, something doesn't
add up here.
Why, then, did Egypt capture the focus of
intellectual and spiritual individuals at the dawn of modern times? The
original impulse of Egyptian civilization was colossal and all-encompassing.
The reflections of that impulse can be traced even to the present day.
According to the well-known German seer Rudolf Steiner, our era is a kind of
re-living of the ancient Egyptian epoch. Steiner divided post-Atlantean
history, i.e., history after the fall of Atlantis, into seven periods, of which
we are currently living in the fifth. The first period was the time of the
ancient Indian civilization, which will repeat in the last—the seventh period.
The second period was the time of Persian culture, which will somehow revive in
the sixth period, while the third and fifth periods belong to the spirit of
Egypt. The ancient Greco-Roman epoch is the fourth and unique, meaning it is
unrepeatable in Steiner’s transhistorical scheme of period shifts. Hence, the
great interest in the myth, civilization, and culture of ancient Egypt, or
rather the fascination with the spirit of Egypt. In a way, today we witness the
revival of certain echoes and principles of that spirit. Many occult streams
draw from this source. It is as if there is behind-the-scenes coordination of
some necromancy that will revive the dried-up mummy and somehow restore the
glory of the temples and pyramids planted in the Nile Valley. And perhaps it is
all lawfully coincidental considering that even the ancient epoch had an
interest in this mysterious civilization.
In the early modern surge of European
civilization, explorers and conquerors encountered the sleeping Egyptian Sphinx
and were fascinated by its spirit. It is as if we are part of a grand
historical séance, where the spirit of modern times invokes or is possessed by
the spirit of a dead civilization. Regarding the dawn of the Egyptian
Renaissance, Mircea Eliade noted how Giordano Bruno enthusiastically welcomed
Copernicus' discoveries, primarily because he believed that heliocentricity had
deep religious and magical significance. During his stay in England, Bruno
predicted the inevitable return of the ancient Egyptian occult religion.
According to Eliade, for Bruno, Copernicus' celestial diagram represented a
symbolic sign of divine mysteries.
Egypt, being geographically close to Europe, has
throughout history cast its light on Europe, but it was only in modern times
that this influence reached its peak. The penetration of Christianity into
Egypt also stirred the interest of ecclesiastical intellectuals in the ancient
civilization of that land, especially in Egyptian ideas about the afterlife. In
the 15th century, when the foundations of the modern era were laid, Europe
rediscovered ancient writers who spoke about Egypt. Since then, the fascination
with Egypt has accelerated. Thus, Egypt's influence on the European world is
immense and often unnoticed because many of its channels are subterranean. For
instance, Steiner claims that Darwinism is a kind of reflection of Egyptian
religious zoomorphism. He even links the materialism of modern culture with the
Egyptian practice of mummifying the dead. He goes so far as to assert that
modern people would not be so materially oriented and would lose interest in
the physical world if the Egyptians had not buried mummies. As one in a series
of correspondences reflecting the essential connection between Christian
European culture and ancient Egypt, Steiner points out the similarity between
the image of the Madonna holding the Savior in her arms and Isis holding the
child Horus.
James Frazer, in his book The Golden Bough, also
wrote about the influence of ancient Egypt on the European world, pointing to
the Catholic cult of the Virgin Mary as a model for the Egyptian goddess Isis.
Another Briton, Gerald Massey, in his book Ancient Egypt: The Light of the
World, drew parallels between Christianity and the teachings of the Egyptian
Book of the Dead, suggesting that Christianity is a decadent and impoverished
expression of the Egyptian magical religion. To paraphrase a few of his references
about the Egyptian origins of Christian mysteries: the mysteries of the Virgin
Mother; a twelve-year-old boy who transforms into a thirty-year-old man; the
transformation of the dead Osiris into the living Horus through the descent of
the Holy Spirit, or the bird with a human head; the mystery of the divine being
in three persons; resurrection and ascension; transubstantiation; regeneration
after baptism; anointing; the Eucharist, etc. According to Massey, the Egyptian
mysteries are the source of Christian, Gnostic, Kabbalistic, and Masonic
mysteries. Massey claims that the anointed Christ is a mystical rather than a
historical figure, stemming from the concept of the Egyptian mummy through the
dual nature of Osiris in his death and Osiris in his resurrection.
According to Rudolf Steiner, there is a kind of
spiritual geographical determinism on Earth. Specifically, in Africa, the
strongest influence of the Earth on human beings occurs in their childhood and
youth; in Asia, it occurs in their middle years; and in Europe, in old age.
Further west is the land of death. All culture that arises in the west,
according to this schema, is a culture of death, a culture devoid of soul.
Revitalization, following Steiner's perspective, involves the movement of human
masses and the center of the world from the West to the East. Central Asia
figures as the ideal destination. This is the ideal geographical location for
the future capital of the world, the civilizational heart of a new humanity
that aspires to creativity and life. In a subsequent stage, this would mean
shifting the center of the world back to childhood – to Africa, specifically
the region of the Niger Delta. Thus, a sort of Africanization is the aim of the Age of Aquarius in geopolitical and
geo-esoteric terms. And here we return to Egypt, as everything that reached its
peak in ancient Egypt has its roots in even older sub-Saharan Africa.
Kenneth Grant, in his book Cult of the Shadow,
asserts that some of the original names for magical power have been preserved
in West African fetish cults and later integrated with ancient Egyptian and
Chaldean traditions. According to Grant, the ophidian (serpent) cult of inner
Africa was continued and developed in ancient Egypt in the form of Draconian
tradition. In his book Magical Revival, Grant presents an interesting analogy
where the oldest form of "physical geography" was based on the feminine:
the woman below as the Earth, and the woman in the heights (i.e., the celestial
Nuit) as the sky. Whether referring to the woman below with her feet towards
the constellation of the Great Bear, or the woman in the sky as the Great Bear, inner
Africa was considered the womb of the world, Egypt the outlet (vulva) to the
North, and the Nile itself the representation of the vulva of the woman below. The revival of interest in Egypt, or the
manifestation of the spirit of Egypt in our time and culture, is a path leading
to the Africanization of the world spirit, as Egyptian roots are African.
Simultaneously, there is a resurgence of astrology, interest in stellar magic,
the star Sirius, the Devil, Satan, Set, Cthulhu, Voodoo, and so on.
The conventional monotheistic idea of free will,
given to humans by God, represents a distortion of the idea of magical will,
which exists as a dormant potential within the human being rather than as a
predetermined fate. Freedom of choice is not the same as freedom of will, as a
person can easily become a slave to their own choices. The Egyptian god Shu, in
some sense, represents the embodiment of a person whose will is activated,
hence free, but this is an ideal projection, a god as a person and a person as
a god. It does not apply to every person who, in the monotheistic framework,
chooses between faith and unbelief, between God and the devil, between
righteousness and sin, and therefore considers their will free. Free will
cannot be reduced to choosing between two options. In modern times, this
teaching has mutated into ideas of freedom, celebrating some form of freedom,
demanding freedom, liberation from the constraints of dark and dogmatic
thinking, etc. This is nothing more than a secular mutation of the idea that
the human being has some form of choice, and consequently, free will. It is
akin to a distorted image of the aforementioned Egyptian air god who separates
Heaven and Earth.
We can say
that ancient Egypt has somehow come alive in our time, but I fear we are
dealing with a revived mummy, with something that is dead and unnaturally, like
a zombie, lifted into a false life. What is now considered Egyptian gods are
merely shells and shadows of the former majestic splendor when these gods lived
in full power, when there was an empire that maintained their earthly presence
through worship. Now, they are barren shadows that inspire modern devotees of
Egyptomania. The Egyptian gods no longer reside here. Today, we are witnessing
something akin to necromantic spiritism. This spiritism is not satisfied with
merely resurrecting the long-dead Egypt. It seeks to dig even deeper, to
resurrect the mythical Atlantis from the ocean depths, or even further, to
awaken the ancient Cthulhu. For the spirit of ancient Egypt to be once again
vital and powerful, the presence of a living god on Earth is necessary, and in
this context, it can only be a pharaoh. The modern spirit wants to enjoy in the
exotic emanation of ancient cults but is not ready to give up its cozy place in
the chronocentric image framed by the mentality of Western civilization.
Revived cults and magical currents of ancient times imply the establishment of
corresponding social values and order. Keep in mind that, figuratively
speaking, where Cthulhu or the god Set rules, there are no human rights, and
there is no human being as we know it.
