thoth-and-the-tarot.pdf

Thoth and the Tarot (c) Douglass A. White, 2005 1

Thoth and the Tarot

The Amazing Secrets

Douglass A. White, Ph.D.

* The Historical Origins and Development of the Tarot Cards.

ʳ Cards with all sorts of themes and dedicated to all sorts of serious purposes, games, or

gambling have existed since the invention of paper. The concept behind cards certainly

predates the medium of paper. It must go back to when man first began to make

symbols and developed tokens for inscribing them. These could be used for business or

pleasure, religion or art. Some of the earliest examples we have are the Sumerian clay

Bullas. These held clay tokens used to represent various objects used in commerce.

We also find that statues and images of gods, kings, and other important figures occur in

almost all early societies. Recently in Africa archaeologists found decorative shells that

go back tens of thousands of years.

In this book we are going to focus on a particular set of images that forms the pack of

cards known as the Tarot. For hundreds of years this pack has been used for

cartomancy as well as many amusing card games. It has shown remarkable consistency

over the years. Scholars of the occult have claimed that the pack's Trump cards

originated in ancient Egypt or came from the Jewish Qabbalah. Many modern scholars

scoff at these claims. Yet no one has proposed a coherent theory to explain the origin of

the powerful archetypal images that form the set of Trumps. Why were these particular

images chosen? ʳ

ʳ The origins of the Tarot are not clear. We know that cards existed in Europe as early as

the 14th century and Tarot decks definitely were in use by the 15th century since a few

cards from that time survive. What is remarkable is that the basic themes depicted on

the Major Arcana cards were already established and have remained consistent to the

present day.

The Tarot cards are the product of contributions from several major civilizations over a

period of many centuries and represent a wonderful combination of folk art and the

highest teachings of esoteric scholars. Thus we can not attribute the Tarot to the

creative genius of any historical individual. In fact the natural division of the deck into

Major and Minor Arcana, with the subsequent evolution of modern playing cards from

the Minor Arcana suggests that the Tarot may be a merging of several games or systems

of knowledge into a single creation.

Although the Major and Minor Arcana may come from the same source, it is also

possible that the Minor Arcana developed independently in several locations. The

Thoth and the Tarot (c) Douglass A. White, 2005 2

simple reason for this is that the Minor Arcana are based on the number ten displayed

with four suits. Ten is the most widely used base for the counting numbers because

people have ten fingers. In many parts of the world the year clearly divides into four

seasons due to earth's orbit around the sun. The directions also tend to form a natural set

of four because of the revolution of the earth on its axis and the convenience of building

quadrilateral architectural structures. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the

emergence of games based on four and ten in ancient China, India, and the Middle East.

Indeed we find evidence of the ancient Chinese playing games with coin-like disks and

bamboo staffs written or printed on various media such as bamboo or wooden slips and

later by block printing on paper. We also find the Indians celebrating the ten avatars of

Vishnu and four-armed deities wielding sets of four symbolic implements (such as

Vishnu's lotus, mace, conch, and discus). In the Middle East we find the ancient

Qabbalistic tradition of the Tree of Life unfolds in ten major stages with four traditional

levels of creation (Atziluth, Beriah, Yetzirah, and Assiyah). We also find in ancient

Egypt that the four sons of Horus are commonly depicted on a table before Osiris, the

god of the mature intuition. The symbolic Djed tree amulet represents the "Tree of Life"

in which the body of Osiris was found entombed. Traditionally it has four parallel

branches along the upper portion of its trunk.

* Paper Cards and the Technology of Paper Making

The practice of using paper cards of course depends on the invention and availability of

paper. We know that the ancient Egyptians developed a form of paper made from the

papyrus reed that grew along the banks of the Nile. The English word "paper" derives

from the word "papyrus", a Greek word. Since the Egyptians invented papyrus, we

would expect that this word would come from their language. Current theory about this

is that it comes from pa-per, what belongs to the house -- that is, the Egyptian royal

bureaucracy. The pa is written either with a little square glyph or a picture of a bird

with its wings spread in flight. It is a demonstrative pronoun or means "belong to",

"my" or "mine". The bird glyph also has the ideographic meaning of "to fly". The

Egyptians also used a similar sounding word, ba , for the aspect of the soul that

corresponds to our thinking mind and connects physiologically to the breath. The

hieroglyph used is also a picture of a bird. This is an excellent way to represent

invisible air, since birds fly through the air. So birds are traditional symbols of thoughts,

and thinking is the primary function of the mind. The notion of ownership is a thought

conceived by the ego-mind of a person. Thinking rides on the breath as you discover

if you practice meditation and experience transcendence. When the mind transcends

thinking, the breath automatically stops. Breathing and thinking also stop when we die.

The word ba also means a book or papyrus roll or a document. A document is an object

with our thoughts inscribed on it. Per is a house. So a ba-per can be a book-house, or

library. Per also means 'to come out', and by extension has the sense of 'speech'.

Books are a medium by which the mind can speak out.

O;/; !;

Pa Per

Pa Per Ba Per

Thoth and the Tarot (c) Douglass A. White, 2005 3

* The Book of the Dead and the Tarot Trumps

The oldest known book in world is the "Book of the Dead". Papyrus scrolls with its text

go back to the dawn of Egyptian history. Its real title is Pert em Heru , "The Coming

Forth into the Daylight". Heru is a homophone for the name Heru (Horus), the Sun God.

What is it that comes forth into the Light? What gets enlightened? The soul (conscious

mind) does. Indeed the book speaks in detail about how the ba harnessing the bull-like

creative ka energy emerges into enlightenment and freedom. The resurrected person

becomes Osiris and praises the secret Ka energy: "Homage to thee, Bull of Amentet,

behold Thoth, the King of Eternity, is with me! I am the Great God in the Boat."

(Papyrus of Ani, Plate V.) The text begins unfolding ancient secrets by explaining its title.

& Q SS

ka Amentet

"The beginnings of the praisings and glorifications (sekhu) of coming out and going into

the glorious (khut) Nether-World of the gods (Neter-khert) in Beautiful Amentet, of

coming out by day (Pert em Heru) in forms of existence (Kheperu) all (Neb) of which

pleaseth him (meri-f), of playing at draughts (Senet), and sitting in the Hall, and coming

forth as a Living Soul (Pert em Ba Ankhi)." (Plate VII; see page 276 for the glyph text.)

NQSK,GQT&

P-R-T M H-R-U

The hieroglyph for glorification and glorious is a pictograph of the ibis, the totem of

Thoth, but with a head scarf. The Aa-khu are the Great Immortal Beings of Light who

live and love forever. Khu is a secret name of Tehuti or Thoth, the creator of the Tarot.

The light being forms of the ibis have crests, but they have the same curved beak as

Thoth does. Amen means hidden, invisible. Amentet is the invisible world of the

"dead". The Aakhu or sakhus exist forever as immortals in the paradise of Undefined

Awareness. By the daylight of consciousness the gods and light beings come forth into

various forms of existence as creations (Kheperu, the scarab that symbolized creation or

becoming). The root MER means to love. Our word a mor ous comes from this ancient

Egyptian word (as also “merry” and “Mary” and “marry”. The gods come forth as

living souls and sit around in the Hall and play. The game they play is Senet. Senet

and Mancala are two of the oldest games in the world. People have played them for

thousands of years in Africa.

6 2MS K

khu S - N - T (glyph)

The hieroglyph for Senet actually looks like a playing card. It has the meaning of to

pass, a model, a copy, a likeness, or an archetype. The two little slanted lines represent

“two” or “double”, the notion of a copy, or likeness. With the card glyph often is

written another determinative -- the glyph for “going into”. I believe that this glyph

complex describes a card game. The glyph looks like the standard cartouche in which

Egyptians wrote the names of gods. They used seals (usually shaped like scarabs) to

impress the hieroglyphic names of gods onto papyrus cards. Then they played various

Thoth and the Tarot (c) Douglass A. White, 2005 4

games with them. One of them would be a game like charades. You drew a card and

whatever god's name was on it, you would create yourself to become (kheper) that

archetype. This is the origin of the game of Tarot. Each card depicts the likeness of

one of the gods. The god is [in] you and you can manifest his or her energy in your life.

* The Ancient Egyptian Game of Senet

The game of Senet probably goes back to before the first pharaohs. The earliest

example we have is from 3050 B.C. Originally Senet was played on a board with 30

squares laid out in three rows of ten squares each. The squares had numbers on them.

This immediately brings to mind the Minor Arcana of the Tarot. They had three suits of

ten pips each. A cycle through the 30 squares came to represent one month. Each

square was a day. As the game evolved, it became not just an amusement but a

symbolic means of communicating with the dead or the gods -- a kind of Ouija board.

Instead of two people playing, a single person could play with a god or demon or dead

person's spirit. Later still the game became a spiritual initiation into the realms of the

Aakhu. Each square on the board became an Egyptian deity. Thoth was Priest, Horus,

the guide. The player's secret guide was Men, the Senet Board. The deity of fecundity

and the technology of the ancient Cobra Breath technique had as the glyph for his name a

simplified pictograph of the Senet Board -- how strange. Was this a coincidence, or did

it go back thousands of years to the very beginning? The journey through the 30 stages

of the Board became the Journey of the Fool, the pawn, through life, through the afterlife,

or passing back and forth between the invisible and visible worlds. The glyph for a

pawn actually looks very much like the crown of Southern Egypt. Men (or Min) was

an autochthonous deity from Southern Egypt. The first Pharaoh of Egypt was called

Men, and wrote his name with the same glyph as the God Men -- the Senet Board glyph.

It may be that, as in chess, the pawn can become -- or even inherently is -- the Pharaoh.

Men

In Chapter 147 of the Book of the Dead (Budge, p. 291-294) the deceased passes 7 Arits

or Doorkeepers (Planets?) in the fifth division of the Tuat. The Tuat is usually called the

Land of the Dead. Actually it is the “Neter” world, the world of the gods who choose to

play in the body. In English slang this word lives as the twat of a woman. This is the

underworld in which the gods play and souls live gestating in the ovary until they are

ready to be born. (Externally it is the starry night sky.)

The Magic Circle, Tuat

1 The Magician's Pentacle

Ar-t also means an Eye. Ar-t Heru is the Eye of Horus. The Tuat is a hidden Eye that

sees the invisible world. In Chapter 146 (Budge, p. 295-298) he passes through 21 Pylons,

each guarded by a deity. This looks like the 21 Trumps plus the deceased as the Fool.

The 21 plus the 7 make 28, a lunar month. We are just two shy of 30, the solar month.

The Game Senet is about passing. When playing the game with a human opponent,

your pawns can pass the opponent's pawns or even trade places with them. When

Thoth and the Tarot (c) Douglass A. White, 2005 5

playing solo in a ritual context, the board acted as a bridge between worlds or states of

consciousness.

In the Tuat Thoth was at the first pylon, and Anubis with some assistants was at the 21st

pylon. Viewed from above the traditional Senet board looks like this.

Squares 1-10

Path of Pawns

Squares 11-20

Squares 21-30

Square 26 seems to be Un-Nefer, a title of Osiris, the Beautiful One, as he rules in Abtu.

Square 27 is Mu the cosmic waters of Nun, and represents the state of Undefined Pure

Awareness. To most people this is the Death Trump. Square 28 shows the Aakhu, or

ba souls, when the potential energy of Nu becomes actualized as viewpoints emitting and

absorbing light. Square 29 is Isis and Nebthys. They form the poles of the Kundalini

Shakti energy. Square 30 looks like Horus/Ra, Creative Source, the OverSoul. Square

15 in the middle of the sequence is Ankh, the Breath of Life.

The classic scene of the Weighing of the Heart in the Judgment Hall of Osiris (e.g.,

Papyrus of Ani) shows along the top a row of gods witnessing the proceedings. They sit

in ranks on 10 square thrones, closely resembling a row on the Senet Board. They are the

Board of Directors, so to speak. Here is how they appear in the Papyrus of Ani.

"Senet" Witness Gods Trump (proposed)

1. Heru-khuti, the Sun God; Sun

2. Tmu, (Adam), Lord of On, First Man, Tower

fashioned Shu's penis, Tefnut's womb

3. Shu, god of air and sunlight Emperor

4. Tefnut, lady of heaven as a lioness; Strength (A Lion-lady)

5. Seb (or Geb), the Earth-god; World

6. Nut, the sky-goddess; Star

7, 8. Ast (Isis) and Nebt-Het (Nebthys); Priestess, Temperance

9. Horus;

Chariot (Warrior)

xx. Hu (taste) and Sa (feeling)

Queen of Cups, Queen of Coins

Judgment Hall Scene: Weighing of the Heart

11. Osiris with table and 4 sons of Horus Magician (With 4 Kings, 2 Queens)

12. Ani before Osiris

Hanged Man (Then Horus/Chariot repeats)

13. Ammit Chimera

Devil Chimera (Transmutation of Ego)

14. Thoth oversees Ritual Procedure

Priest (Maat is his Consort)

15. Maat (Feather in Scales)

Justice (Goddess of Truth)

16. Anubis (Black Dog)

Death (Adjusts the Scale of Justice)

10. Het-Hert (Hathor);

Empress

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