I Tarocchi Di Oswald Wirth Pdf File
. Bill Butler, Dictionary of the Tarot. (Schocken, 1975; ).
Butler, supra. Gray, E. The Tarot Revealed: A Modern Guide to Reading the Tarot Cards. New York, N.Y.: Bell Publishing Company.
^ This article incorporates text from the 1910 book. Please feel free to update the text. McCann, David (March 1999). Houlding, Deborah (ed.).
The Traditional Astrologer. Nottingham, UK: Ascella (18).
Annie Lionnet, Secrets of Tarot, Dorling Kindersley (DK series) p 41. Waite, Arthur Edward, 1857-1942. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications. CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list. Arthur Edward Waite's: The Pictorial Key to the Tarot #I.
The Magician. Childs, Elizabeth C. Retrieved 14 May 2013.References. A. Waite's 1910. Most works of.
Lewis Hyde, Trickster Makes this World: Mischief, Myth, and Art (1998). Juliette Wood, Folklore 109 (1998):15-24, The Celtic Tarot and the Secret Tradition: A Study in Modern Legend Making (1998)External links. Media related to at Wikimedia Commons.
LeTAROT OF THE MAGICIANSOSWALD WIRTHSAMUEL WEISER, INC. York Beach, MaineFirst pUblished in English in 1985 by Samuel Weiser, Inc. Box 612 York Beach, Maine 03910 Second printing, 1990 English translation©1985 Samuel Weiser, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, without permission in writing from Samuel Weiser, Inc. Reviewers may quote brief passages.
First published in Paris in 1927 under the original title: Le Tarot, des lmagiers du Moyen Age Special thanks to Richard Gardner and Diana Faber who helped with this translation. ISBN 0-87728-656-6 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Number: 85-51592 BJ Printed in the United States of AmericaContentsPage Preface Introduction9 15PART ONE: The Tarot 1. The Origins of the Tarot 2. Signs Revealing the Secrets of the Tarot 3. The Kabbalistic Tarot 4.
The Astronomical Tarot 5. Notions of Symbolism: Forms and Colours 6.
The Tarot and the Hebrew Alphabet PART 1WO: The Symbolism of the Twenty-Two Keys to the Secret Knowledge of the Middle Ages PART THREE: Resume and Recapitulation 7. Cosmogonic Outline 8. The Programme of Initiation as Revealed by the Tarot 9.
The Tarot Seen in the Light of Hermetic Philosophy 10. The Masonic Harmonies in the Tarot 11. The Arcana Interpreted in Terms of Good and Bad PART FOUR: The Tarot Applied to Divination 12.
Imagination 13. The Art of Divination 14. The Instruments of Divination 15. Consulting the Tarot 16. Interpretation of the Oracle 17. An Example of Interpretation 18. The Reality of the Art of Divination 19.
Conclusion521 5557 159 164 179 181 183 185 187189 192 195The Tarot of the Magicians 201 215 221Appendix References Index6To the Memory of Stanislas de Guaita7PrefaceIndulging as I was in the practice of occultism and before studying its theories deeply, I was, at the beginning of 1887, applying my hypnotic skills on a sick woman who fell asleep under my influence. She was a lucid patient who informed me of the state of her organs and of the effect produced by my fluid. Her tendency to chatter came out in spontaneous revelations, quite unexpected, to which I only paid moderate heed. One day however, I was struck by my clairvoyant's tone of conviction, which seemed to perceive with more accuracy than usual as she said 'You will receive a letter with a red seal of armorial bearings!' This she exclaimed as if this fact were of particular importance. 'Can you see who the letter will come from?'
'It is written by a young fair-haired man with blue eyes who has heard of you and wishes to make your acquaintance. He will be very useful to you and you will get on extremely well together.' I asked other questions, but the replies were confused; they merely embarrassed the lady to no purpose. She was floundering and finally said, 'Wait for the letter; I can see it clearly with its red seal. It will reach you in a few days, before the end of next week.'
Intrigued, I looked out for my mail, but the week went by and nothing came, thentwo more weeks went by and I was tired of waiting. I decided that the sleeping woman had been dreaming, surrendering to the suggestion of her wandering imagination, as was her wont as soon as her vision ceased to relate to herself and to the stages of her cure.
In short, lucidity is dependent on the instinct which urges the sick animal to seek its health-restoring grass. In any case it is easier to see clearly within onself, than to draw true information from the outside. That is to say, vague moving images which receptive imaginations pick up.
Reflections such as these made me forget the letter that I had waited for in vain, to such an extent that the prediction which I have rejected only came to mind when I received a letter with a red armorial seal. Without bothering with the envelope, I hastened to find out the contents, they took me far away from all the mutterings of a sleepwalker. Stanislas de Guaita was inviting me to come and talk to him. Now, what I knew then of the future author of Serpent de fa Genese made me picture him as an erudite man, rich in knowledge accumulated during the course of many years of study. I expected to be received, if not by Doctor Faustus, not yet rejuvenated, at least by a master writer who had passed the half-way mark in his life.
You can imagine my surprise when I saw9The Tarot of the Magicians myself joyfully welcomed by a young man of twenty-six years of age: who in no way pontificated. My heart was immediately won. He was young and fair-haired, with blue eyes, and the letter had been sealed with red; no doubt at all.
This was him, the friend, the protector as promised by the sleeping patient. The future justified the extraordinary emotion of the clairvoyant when she announced the letter with the red seal, which at that time had not yet been written. 1 My entering into a relationship with S. Became for me an event of great importance! He made me his friend, his secretary and his collaborator. His library was at my disposal and benefiting from his conversation, I found in him a teacher of the Kabbala of high metaphysics, as well as the French language; for G. Took the trouble to form my style and to refine me from a literary point of view.
He made me appreciate well-turned phrases by initiating me into the aesthetics of beautiful French prose. It is to him that I owe my readability. I am also obliged to him for forming my intellect. When it was his desire to have me as a friend, I was only an elementary handler of fluid, gaining empirical results, but I was weak in logic.
Guaita possessed the enlightenment which I lacked. Whereas I had but a smattering of spiritism and vague theosophy, he had assimilated the traditional doctrine of the masters of the science of the occult, of which he said he was a very humble disciple.
Starting from Eliphas Levi he had gone on to the Kabbalists of the Renaissance and to the hermetic philosophers of the Middle Ages, reading and understanding everything with amazing facility. The most obscure texts became clear as soon as he threw the light of his brilliant mind upon them. Metaphysical problems were like child's play to him, and I was far from being able to follow him, but when I was too far behind he was quick to retrace his steps and in brotherly fashion take me by the hand.
He was lenient towards my slow saturnineunderstanding. Being caught up I was in the briars of the earthly forest: I found in Guaita the guide who moved in the heights. Without him how would I have found my way? It was he who inspired the study which I have not ceased to pursue. Knowing of my skill in drawing, he advised me, right from our fust interview in 1887, to restore the 22 arcanas of the Tarot to their hieroglyphic purity and gave me the necessary material by providing me immediately with two Tarots, one French the other Italian, as well as Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, the most important work of Eliphas Levi, in which the Tarot is the object of copious commentary. Such was the starting point of the present work of which one could say that Stanislas de Guaita is the spiritual father. After I had submitted to him a first Tarot redesigned on the two crude packs which I have compared, this learned occultist gave me his criticism for which he was held answerable at the time of the publication of the Tarot Kabbalistique, which appeared in 1889, with 350 copies, with the help of the photogravers of G.
This Tarot was valued and appreciated by the occultists. Compared with the card games then in circulation it was very satisfying, but it still had to be perfected. The ideal to be realized demands a perfect unity of symbolism, so that everything fits into the 22 compositions, which must throw light upon each other and must contain no arbitrary detail which is not justified.
To lead to this operation one had to grasp the overall idea of it and become acquainted with the concepts which gave it birth. With the help of Stanislas de Guaita, I set to work to acquire the knowledge of symbolism empowering me to restore the Tarot to the design and colours in accord with the Medieval Spirit. It was a long process, but I had the patience to learn methodically. Whenever I came across them I practised interpreting the symbols even to the point of gaining the reputation of being a specialist in the field. Starting first of all 10Preface with the constructive symbolism of the Freemasons, I was then led to compare it with that of the Alchemists, who put the esotericism of initiation into picture forms, taken from ancient metallurgy. This esotericism was most carefully adapted to the practice of their arts by the stone cutters of the Middle Ages. 2 As soon as one is able to make the symboIs speak, they surpass all speech in eloquence, for they allow one to find the 'Last Word', that is to say the eternal living thought, of which they are the enigmatic expression.
Decipher the hieroglyphics of the deep silent wisdom, common to thinkers of all ages, religions, myths and poetic invention, and you will reveal ideas in harmony and relative to the problems which have always preoccupied the human mind. In a poetic way syrnbols reveal to us concepts which are too ethereal to lend themselves to the limitation of words. Not everything can be dehydrated into the prose of barristers and rhetoricians.
There are some things so subtle that one has to feel and divine them like the adepts of the wise philosophy of the Medieval Symbolists, who will react against the pedantic slavery of words. It is from these wise and discreet masters that the Tarot comes to us, as a unique monument which instructs the thinker more than all the sententious treatises, for its pictures teach us to discover the modest truth which lies hidden in the depths of our own understanding. No collection of symbols is comparable to it, revealing as it does, wisdom of a completely unarbitrary kind, for each of us discerns it freely, without being prey to any other suggestion but that of silent pictures. Containing in a condensed form, otherwise inexplicable thoughts, these pictures have no words, but do not hide the fact that they have to make us fathom their precious wisdom.
But does the mentality of the twentieth century lend itself to divination? What would be the lot of the Tarot today if it remained enigmatic, just as it has come to us, without beingaccompanied by some interpreting text however slight? We are in a hurry and no longer have the leisure time for meditation; to think entirely for oneself takes too long.
We need ideas explained clearly to achieve a quick assimilation or immediate rejection. I did my best to conform to the requirements of the age.
My efforts ended in a series of essays which I felt in no hurry to have published in view of their imperfection. In 1922 however, I thought that I ought to draw from my mass of materials a definite manuscript. The editor of The Green Snake 3 had made proposals which made me decide finally to produce a work which was bordering on an obsession. The draft copy which I entrusted to the publisher however, did not deserve to see daylight, for it was lost in a rather incomprehensible way. After a long but fruitless wait concerning the result of searches undertaken to find my text, I had to resign myself to starting the work again. The necessary uninterrupted meditation was found for me in the course of my holidays of 1924/25.
Benefiting from a lovely retreat in a delightful spot where the view embraces one of the finest landscapes in France, I hope that my final text reflects the inspiring background and great light of the longest days. By becoming absorbed in a contemplation stimulated by a Gothic background, I thought that I was in meditative communion with the past, living in the memory which constantly evoked Stanilas de Guaita. I am convinced that the master for whom the veil of mystery was lifted, does not abandon his colleague who is straining to discern the truth. Like many other theories, that of the Unknown Superior Beings is true, provided that it is understood. Our true initiators often do not reveal themselves to our senses, and sometimes remain as silent as the symbolic compositions of the Tarot, but they keep watch on our efforts at deciphering, and as soon as we have found the first letter, they can mysteriously prompt the second to put us on the path of the third. Guaita 11The Tarot of the Magicians somewhat mystical respect.
Certainly helped me, for my thought calls to The journalists who saw the author of the his so that between us a telepathic Temple de Satan as the 'dark Marquis' connection is established. The relationship spending his nights in conjurations with the between one mind and another is in the help of books of spells, made the nature of things, that has nothing in enlightened author laugh heartily as he was common with the classic or modernized totally opposed to any suspect practices. He necromancy in the form of spiritism. Was never tempted to carry out the slightest Philosophic occultism is not superstitious magical act, knowing only too well that although it is based on a study of whatever can be gained in this way is only superstition.
It is concerned with dangerous illusion leading to breakdown and indestructible beliefs used to analyse and search for the truth which motivates them; madness. Nevertheless ridiculous rumours are abroad for it would be illogical to admit that in certain places where it is not accepted that humanity is forged with all the patches of the owner of the 'Clef de la Magie Noire' false ideas which go with nothing. The smoke which darkens space comes from a fire died of natural causes. They carry their effrontery as far as claiming that the last whose hearth we should discover. The words of Guaita were 'I die the victim of my investigators of the obscure occultism assign own work'. I flatly deny this imaginary story, themselves the task of going back to the invented to fit in with the doctrines of source of a belief which by necessity has its charlatans' occult practices.
Guaita died in 'raison d'etre'. The Chateau d'Alteville towards the end of Stanislas de Guaita pursued this 1897 without ever having attributed his investigation with the enthusiasm of an illness to his studies, which had been exceptionally gifted neophyte, who discerns undertaken before the onset of his illness.
Quickly and who perceives immediately the The people who were present during his last theoretical synthesis, realizing the overall moments thought that they heard him significance of the facts which are seen as magical. This marvellous receptivity gives us murmur. , while an expression of happy surprise spread over the the worth of books which are the face of the genial explorer of the occult. Enlightening testament of a tradition which Solar natures in love with an ideal of is established from now onwards. Guaita, who has never allowed himself to innovate in beauty live the life of the flesh only in part, and then only for a limited time.
I Tarocchi Di Oswald Wirth Pdf File Download
Like occultism, arrived only at interpreting Raphael and Mozart, Guaita was to die faithfully an orthodoxy, that of the masters of the school to which he was linked. It was granted to me to live on, but the incomparable friend, the inspiring masters were sacred to him and he did not think of criticizing their assertions, for he master, has never died for me. His thought could not hold suspect the teaching of those remains as mine; and with him and through whom he admired without reserve. Him I aspire to initiate myself into the secret At this stage one should point out the things. We collaborate secretly, for he who most remarkable trait in Guaita's character. Has gone encourages me to pursue his work, His generous spirit led him to admire others.
Which I deem useful to resume on the basis I have heard him praise to the skies of the most recent archaeological discoveries. Josephine Peladan, Maurice Barres, Laurent Occultism deserves to be taken seriously, and Tailhade, Saint Yves d 'Alveydre and a should not be left to the equivocal number of other contemporaries whose dogmatism of disturbed imaginations. In it knowledge or literary talent he appreciated. Everything is to be reviewed, weighed up and controlled according to the requirements of He gave Eliphas Levi almost the status of a an enlightened empiricism.
God and bowed before Fabre d'Olivet with a12Preface gratitude towards the intelligent spirit, whose In this sense I have always done my best, acts continue, for nothing is lost in this especially when studying the Tarot; as I am sphere of strength. Conscious of never having ceased to be the May the reader be grateful to Stanislas de secretary of Stanislas de Guaita, who found Guaita for the ideas which I express, and in me but an inadequate scribe, but strong in his determination in sincerely searching indulge his pupil who sets them fonh here. For the truth, and strong too in his cult of OSWALD WIRTH13I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I IIntroductionIn occultism a very great importance is attached to the twenty-two arcanas or keys of the Tarot, which all together present in pictures a treatise on high philosophy. Similar books in which the text can be reduced at the very most to the chapter headings, have nothing to say to the person who has acquired the faculty of making the books speak to him. On the other hand they speak. And with marvellous eloquence. To those who can question them wisely.
Unfortunately we have lost the habit of becoming absorbed in rich and fruitful thought prompted in us simply by the appearance of things. To us the book of nature remains closed with seven seals; its pictures disconcert us, for we understand nothing except the words, whose sound alas bewilders us pitifully. This has not always been the case.
Human language has only recently become philosophical and precise. In early times it did not lend itself to the expression of any abstract idea. The first thinkers were therefore condemned to silence; lacking words, they outlined pictures to relate their dreams to them. Then in order to communicate their ideas to each other, they made for themselves a language incomprehensible to ordinary people, not by inventing new terms, but by drawing the current vocabulary away from its coarsemeanings, and giving it a mysterious sense which would be intelligible to the wise. Thus came into existence the system of allegory which all revealers of truth have used. This language evolved, gradually becoming more precise to provide for the needs of dialectic. Communicative nations acquired the taste of using words, and granted us supremacy in this field, a supremacy which reached its zenith in the ages of scholasticism.
The excess of sterile verbalizing and discussing was bound therefore to cause a reaction, a return to silent meditation based no longer on words and phrases, on definitions and arguments, but simply on the evocative magic of symbols. Tired of pointless quarrels, imaginative thinkers withdrew and turned aside to devote themselves to dreams.
The suggestive influence of these dreams was to bring to life poets like the trou badours, artists, like the builders of cathedrals, not forgetting the modern illustrators, whose enigmatic compositions seem to have been inspired in a mysterious way. Among these, one masterpiece has survived; it is the Tarot, whose pictures of naive appearance proceed from a secret wisdom, as if the refinements of Hermetism, of the Kabbala and other diffused traditions, had taken form in the series of the twenty-15The Tarot of the Magicians two arcanas. In order to appreciate this strange monument we must study it in a profound way. The present work will facilitate the task of the searcher, who will not recoil when faced with the unavoidable effort involved in a strictly personal piece of work. When interpretations are applied to symbols, which are as windows opening onto the infinite, they can have only an indicative value; they never exhaust the subject. Now the indications are there for whoever can make use of them.
Simply to repeat them is of no use if no direct application results from this. To make the Tarot speak is our objective, but the arcanas only speak to those who have learned to understand them. So let us develop our understanding if we wish to interrogate, to some purpose, an android, which far from being a thinking machine like Albert the Great's, teaches us to imagine rightly, with the help of a true alphabet of the imagination. Is the reader ambitious to discipline his imaginative faculties with a view to acquiring an art once honoured, yet is hesitant now that reason alone claims to guide humanity in the paths of wisdom?
Is there a better guide than the symbols of the Tarot to the person who is obsessed by mystery, to the heart anxious to sound the depths of night which at present envelop us? Combined in such a way as to reveal the secret of their interpretation to perceptive spirits, these symbols lead us to discover the mysteries of a world which is foreign to narrow objective assertions, but one mustdecipher. Through what method? Being anxious to reply to these questions, the author has dedicated the first part of this book to an expose on method, the aridity of which may put off impatient readers who could be tempted not to linger long enough to benefit from the results of the method, results condensed in the interpretation given to the symbolism of each of the twenty-two arcanas. Then, lastly instructed in the meaning of the symbols, they will be in a hurry to draw divinatory oracles from the Tarot.
Alas, what poor divination they will practise, those who are in haste. One does not become a diviner by improvization, however gifted one might be with a spontaneous flair for divination, for these gifts do not offer real service except when they have been cultivated. Divination is an art which has its rules like any other art, and if the Tarot is to be the ideal instrument of this art, then this instrument must perforce be handled as an artist would handle it. The following pages attempt to reach a judicious handling of the Tarot. I hope they will be able to guide those who are curious and worthy of them, in their own efforts to become initiated into the mysteries of human thought. By making known this work through its own right, a work so characteristic of the Middle Ages, may these following pages also pay homage to the unrecognized genius of a so-called 'dark' era, which made the stars of the most sublime idealism shine in the night of the Western World.16Introduction The Consultation. Wood engraving, end of the sixteenth century.17PART 1The TarotChapter 1The Origins of the Tarote oldest game of cards known to us comes from Venice, where it was played as early as the fourteenth century.
It is made up of seventy-eight cards, which is equivalent to the sum of the numbers from one to twelve inclusive. This total is divided into two fundamentally distinct categories. The first category contains twenty-two cards, called 'tarots'.
These are symbolic representations, clearly designed with a view to something quite different from the game itself. The players are hampered by them and can do nothing with them, except for the trump cards, which are given a value according to their numerical order, without the players being concerned at all with the subject of the card. One might as well replace them with blank cards, simply marked with a number.
But it is even more logical to take out of the pack the so-called 'tarots', as did the Spanish players, keeping only the ftfty-six other cards. This second category is divided into four series or 'colours' of fourteen cards. The distinguishing signs of the series are the Wand, the Cup, the Sword and Money, which correspond to what we, in the game of piquet, call Clubs, Hearts, Spades and Diamonds. Each series has ten numerical cards: Ace, Two, Three, etc., up to Ten, then four persons, King, Queen, Knight and Jack. All card games played in differentcountries are, in varying degrees, modifications of the earlier game, which has been kept in its entirety in Italy, French Switzerland, Provence, and in the east of France, as far as Alsace. The name of Tarot is attributed to it by extension, for, strictly speaking, this term only applies to the twenty-two cards which are named thus: The Magician The Priestess Uuno) 4 3. The Empress 4.
The Emperor 5. The Chariot 8. The Hermit 10.
The Wheel of rortune 11. The Hanged Man 13. Temperance 15.
The Devil 16. The Tower 17. Judgement 21. The rool or Mate 1.2.21The Tarot of the Magicians extended.
A wigmaker called Alliette, who The Alleged Book of Thoth under the name of Eteilla, became the high Until the eighteenth century Tarot was only priest of fortune-telling, proclaimed the seen as the remains of a barbarous age, and Tarot to be the oldest book in the world, a of no interest whatsoever. No one took any work by Hermes-Thoth. He did not stop at notice of it until 1781, the date of the that, but believed that he was qualified to publication of Le Monde Primitifby Court revise a document of such importance, but de Gebelin, a work in which appeared, in 'this man of imaginative rather than volume VIII, page 365, the following lines: judicious spirit' 5 managed only to falsify a If one heard the statement that there still symbolism which had not been studied exists today a work of the ancient Egyptians, sufficiently deeply. One of the books saved from the flames which Christian in his Histoire de /a Magie also destroyed their superb Libraries, a book which agrees upon Egypt.
This author makes us contains their purest doctrine on objects of attend an initiation into the mysteries of interest, each one of us would, without doubt, Osiris. After this we go into the crypts of the be anxious to know such a precious and great Pyramid of Memphis, where the extraordinary book. If furthermore it were initiate undergoes terrifying trials, which stated that this book was well known lead him to the opening onto a gallery throughout the greatest part of Europe, and that for a number of centuries has been in whose double wall has two pilasters, twelve everyone's hands, then one's surprise would on each side, in twenty-two panels decorated certainly increase. Our surprise would be even with hieroglyphic paintings. These are the greater if we were told that it had never been prototypes of the Tarot.
The person about to suspected of being Egyptian, that we have this be received walks past these pictures which book without really possessing it, and that no relate the secret doctrine of the high priests. One has ever tried to decipher one sheet of it, As he goes along a guardian of the sacred and that the fruit of a delightful wisdom is symboIs provides explanations which make simply looked upon as a collection of up the beginner's instruction in initiation. Extravagant images which in themselves mean It is annoying that this gallery should be nothing at all. Unknown in the study of Egyptology, which The fact however is only too true: this Egyptian Book, the sole survivor of their has not brought to light a single trace of this magnificent Libraries exists today: it is even so wall-painted book of Hermes of which, when well known that there is no learned man persecuted by the Christians the last of the who has not deigned to look into it, no one initiated would have taken a copy, while they before us having even guessed at its illustrious were preparing to flee the sanctuary. This book is the GAME OF According to our present thesis the secret TAROTS. Hieroglyphics, once reproduced on portable tablets, were passed on to the gnostics, then Court de Gebelin, quite unprompted, to the alchemists, from where we have confirms the Egyptian origin of the Tarot.
He inherited them. Only needed to discern the symbolic What one can grant to those who support character of the figures until then considered this connection is that the 'ideas' from which as products of the imagination, to recognize the Tarot takes its inspiration are of great them at once to be hieroglyphics, which one antiquity. These ideas are timeless; they are could attribute to the wise scholars of highest as old as human thought, but they have antiquity. But this is going too quickly on been expressed differently, according to the with our task.
Climate of the age. The philosophical system A hypothesis which appeals to the of Alexandria gave them verbal expression, imagination is not put forward without whereas the Tarot was later to present them being immediately reconsidered and in the form of symbols. If not by its22The Origins of the Tarot substance, at least by its form, the Tarot proves itself to be an original work which, in no aspect at all reproduces pre-existing models.
Archaeology has not found the slightest trace of what could constitute the remains of an Egyptian Tarot, either gnostic or even of Graeco-Arab alchemy.The Theraphim What strikes us particularly in the Tarot is the number 22, which is exactly the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. One may therefore, wonder whether it is not to the Jews that we owe our Kabbalistic forms. We know that the priests ofJerusalem used to consult the oracle of 'Urim' and 'Thumin' with the help of the 'Theraphim', that is to say, with representations or hieroglyphics.