Category Archives: Tarot

Any set of Tarot that carries the proper traditional elements speaks directly to the soul, even when the person has no clue as to the internal keys or Tree of Life basis. And that is because it carries knowledge that pre-dates the religious, classical and Homeric eras, even while it includes the ideas and cultural contexts of the latter. In the same way, some very old churches contain stones and carvings that can be traced back to prehistoric times when the greater part of our whole land was covered with thick forests. The ancient Egyptians recycled building materials from much older temple structures and built them into newer structures, perhaps after two thousand years or more had passed, retaining some of the hieroglyphs and reliefs of the older works.

Clearly understanding the esoteric symbolism of the Tarot cards requires that we first liberate our minds from the baneful curse of modernism and of post-modernism within the occult, which has loudly suppressed all genuine tradition. When we refer to an ancient Egyptian source we are not speaking of the Egyptian civilisation as such. We are alluding to that Great Mind, whose heirs preceded the race of humans and established their divine image on the earth in times of unimaginable antiquity.

Thomas De Quincey spoke of a sublime form of divination by which ‘magnetism’ may call up from the darkness, ‘sentiments the most august, previously inconceivable, formless, and without life’, and so exalting their character as to ‘lodge them eternally in human hearts’.[1] De Quincey refers here, by way of analogy, to rhabdomancy, divination (or geomancy) by rod. The notion of ‘magnetism’ was rather popular at the time in which he wrote but what is important is that he speaks of divination as akin to evocation, ‘to call forth’. This is divination in the real sense, as opposed to the degraded sense of it as is applied by psychism, fortune telling or prediction. The real ‘cause’ of all natural phenomena can never be known through ordinary observation and the recording of supposed facts, as is the case with material scientism. The will is esoteric; the effect is exoteric. The True Will cannot be rationally understood. It is intuited firstly through the act of evocation. This is done through the mode of analogous thinking. The meaning behind the symbols of the Tarot, as with any complete universal yantra, is known through such evocation. The analogy may be extended even to the method of creating talismans and ensouling them. By means of magical evocation, life and substance is conveyed to a housing or ‘body’ as befits the nature and function of the indwelling intelligence.

By further analogy, the soul has a tenuous relation with the mind, and cannot do without that relation; the very existence of the soul depends on it. The soul is latent until she is able to bring forth her ‘child’, by which she is able to resurrect and restore the world to the divine image—which is called a Great Work.

It is through such subtle relations that the soul releases the principle that is able to resurrect the whole individual. If this relation does not exist, then the soul departs and is effectively, as far as the person is concerned, non-existent. Also if the mind refuses the soul, or there is some intervention or disruption so that the mind is unable to give substance to the soul through the power of attention, then the soul may depart. The person is then of the damned, without a soul. This is the great tragedy of the world. The joy of the world is for those who will live, which have chosen life.

Thus in every true act of divination, in every true act of magick, something of the soul is born into the world. The soul will take with her something of the nature of the world she is in sympathetic accord with, even upon the death of the physical body that houses her. This is the great transformation, recounted in diverse ways in the Egyptian papyrus spells. To return to the elegant words of De Quincey, the ‘previously inconceivable’ or ‘formless’ that may be ‘lodged eternally in the human heart’ is not a foregone conclusion. Hence there is a need for a Great Work. Now, perhaps more than at any other time in history, that need is most pressing.

[1] Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1856 Revision).

From the book Egyptian Tarot.

Gemini: Egyptian Tarot Shenut VI

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The Egyptian Tarot trump for the seventeenth path of Gemini is Shenut VI. Mercury, the Stellar Light, is the ruler of Gemini. The Twins of Gemini are here portrayed as ancient Egyptian sacred dancers, expressing the mobility and fluidity of Azoth, the Hermetic Light in dual expression.

All tarots on this website are from our Egyptian Tarot and Guidebook.

Egyptian Tarot Shenut VIThe esoteric title of the trump is Children of the Voice: Oracle of the Mighty Gods. The ‘voice’ is the oracle of Understanding and Wisdom. On the Tree of Life, these are Binah and Chokmah. The primary cosmic duality is personified in pairs such as Sophia and Logos, Eve and the Serpent.

In the centre of the Tarot picture are two Egyptian dancing girls.[1] The hieroglyphic name Shenut, goddess of dual manifestation, is at the top of the Tarot picture. Related terms are shni-t, ‘spell’, ‘curse’, and shnem, ‘to unite with’.[2] When the hieroglyphic determinative of a bird alighting is used, as shown here in the lower half of the Tarot picture, the word means ‘dancers’, or a company of dancers and musicians.

The goddess Shenut was revered in the swampy Delta region of Lower Egypt. Over time, her identity was merged with Isis, Hathoor and other feminine deities. In the Delta, Shenut was identified with the acacia or Tree of Life from which the gods are sprung. Shenet (shent), the ancient Egyptian name of the acacia tree, also indicates the fruit of the tree and its products or essences. Thus the word of dual manifestation issues from the sacred heart and tongue of the goddess. The word shent also means ‘a seal’ or ‘impression’. The children of the word-vibration, Oracle of the Mighty Gods, convey the primal utterance through means of non-physical vibration.

The value of the name Shenut (ChNT) is 67, equal to the letter zain of the seventeenth path of Gemini, ‘a sword’, spelled in full (ZIN). ChNT has the meaning of ‘magic’, ‘spells or incantations’. The root of the word is khen, ‘to dance’, which is etymologically related to kheni, ‘love songs’, ‘to flutter’, ‘to alight (as a bird)’. The ancient Egyptians associated dancing with birds and sky, all that is ‘high’, ‘above’. Thus Shenut is a goddess of the sky and space. The act of dancing is to describe space, to define it geometrically. Through movement, birth is given to form and the visible appearance of things. A further related term is khnem-t, ‘friend’, ‘companion’, also ‘mistress’.

Gemini, the Twins, is the Zodiac sign of friends, lovers and companions. To utter a word, a word must be heard. The duality of the seventeenth path of Gemini is expressed as Sol and Luna in alchemical terms. The Tarot trump images this forth as dancing twins, called kheter in ancient Egyptian, a word that also has the meaning ‘friends’, ‘marriage’ and ‘union’. The word is identical in sound to that of Kether, the first emanation. The polar twins each contain the germ of their complementary opposite and are united by the principle that transcends them both

Notes on Gemini and Shenut

1. The drawing is based on the tomb painting of Nebamun Osama.

2. E. A. Wallis Budge, An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary Vol 2, pp. 745, 747. Budge transliterated the word as ‘Khenit’ (see Vol 1, pp. 549). In later times, the ‘k’, pronounced much like the Aramaic cheth, was superseded by the phonetic ‘sh’. The letter is symbolised by a rolled and tied scroll, indicative of ‘secret things’ or ‘mysteries’, or otherwise, as shown here, as the shen knot of eternity (see Vol 1, pp. 525).

3. Khenit = ChNT.

© Oliver St. John 2020 (Revised 2023)

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Taurus: Egyptian Tarot Hathoor V

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The Egyptian Tarot trump trump for the sixteenth path of Taurus is Hathoor V. Venus, the Egyptian Hathoor, is the ruler of Taurus, while the Moon, the Lunar Flame, is exalted therein. The name is derived from Het-Hor, literally ‘House of Horus’.[1] The Magus of the Eternal is the esoteric title of the Tarot trump. The Hierophant or Pope is the traditional name of the trump.

All tarots on this website are from our Egyptian Tarot and Guidebook.

Egyptian Tarot Hathoor VIn the centre of the Tarot picture is Hathoor, seated on a cubical throne, for Taurus is the Foundation of the Earth as the fixed or most stable aspect of the earth element in astrology. The throne is deep indigo, the colour of the sixteenth path in the Queen Scale. It is placed between two pillars of silver and gold. Lotus flowers surmount the tetrahedronal capitals. Hathoor is crowned with the solar disc and lunar cow horns. She bears the lotus wand in her right hand, symbol of the perfume of immortality or ‘essence’, and in her left she bears the Ankh or Rosy Cross of Life and Love. She is naked but for a translucent garment worn on the lower half of her body and legs. Her ornaments are a collar and armbands of red-orange and indigo, which is nature’s fourth primary colour.[2] Thus she is the soul of the world and the light of the world. She is Venus, the goddess of love, and the ruling star of Taurus, the Bull of Earth.

The Egyptian hieroglyphic name of Het-Hor is at the top of the Tarot picture. It is the simplest and most elegant expression of Hathoor’s name, the ‘house’ with the Horus falcon within. On either side are the symbols of Hathoor, her mirror and her sistrum rattle. The nature of the Moon, as with the human psyche, is cathodic, reflective. The world is the mirror of the soul; Venus appears to us as a star in the morning or evening by virtue of the fact that she reflects the rays of the sun, as does the Moon and other planets. The sistrum rattle is the emblem of music and dance, and is at the same time the sharp call to attention, to ‘wake up’!

Word of Hathoor

As Magus of the Eternal, Hathoor is the will to love, which is at the same time the innate knowledge of the true Self that inspires the return of the self or individuality to the integral Self. The Word of Hathoor is the eidolon, if this is understood as divine Idea, of the solar power of Horus, her sun-star, born by divine parthenogenesis.

In older depictions of the Tarot trump the Hierophant or Magus of the Eternal is shown as a pope or mysterious patriarch, or otherwise masked. When man seizes the power of sacerdotal authority and attributes it to his self, he is enslaved by that power and it matters not whether the slave calls his master Satan, God, Religion, Fate or Science. The goddess of truth and beauty will reveal nothing and mean nothing to those who do not seek her only, and with a pure heart. Thus she looks serenely and steadily straight back at the observer of the Tarot picture.

The astroglyphs for the Sun and Taurus are shown on the border at the top of the card. On the lower edge of the card are the astroglyphs for Venus, the ruling planet of Taurus, and the Moon, who achieves her exaltation therein. Vav, the letter of the sixteenth path, is to the right of the title. The letter vav has the Hebraic number value of six, the macrocosm. Venus was anciently associated with the pentagram or microcosm. Her conjunctions with the sun, as viewed from the earth, form two pentagrams, aright and averse. The apple, a Venusian symbol, is cognate with the Garden of Eden or of Paradise, which is otherwise symbolised as the Holy City in various traditions, which is the ‘return to the Self’. When the ‘five’ is added to the ‘six’ of the divine image, the vav, the result is eleven, the number of the perfect unity of the microcosm, man, with the macrocosm of the celestial worlds or higher states of being.

Notes

1. Hathoor is the spelling more commonly found in the works of the Golden Dawn, based on transliteration from Coptic.

2. As according to R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz.

© Oliver St. John 2020, 2024

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