The Tarot Series 7

Victor Brauner, Kabbalah and the Tarot

The Magician Triumphant: Occultism and Political Resistance in Victor Brauner’s Le Surréaliste 1947: article by Daniel Zamani (in Abraxas Special Issue No 1 2013).
Unable to obtain a visa for the USA or Mexico, Brauner spent the war years in hiding and began an intense study of the Jewish Kabbalistic tradition. His depiction of the Magician card — Le Surréaliste — was displayed in the 1947 Surrealist exhibition and is now in the Peggy Guggenheim collection in Venice. Brauner’s depiction of the Magician shows the first letter of the Jewish alphabet — Aleph — in his hat just above the lemniscate.

The Kabbalah in Theory and Practice

The Kabbalah is a Jewish mystical tradition. By the time of Cornelius Agrippa’s three books on occult philosophy in the 16th Century, it provided a filing cabinet of occult correspondences for the western mystery tradition.

Tarot and The Kabbalah

Eliphas Lévi was a 19th century French occultist and writer on various aspects of Magic. Sometime in late 1852 Lévi met a Polish emigré called Wronski. According to Lévi’s biographer Chacornac, (1926), Wronski taught Lévi the Kabbalah.

Some time later, in a flash of inspiration, Lévi concluded that the 22 Kabbalistic paths which are accessed by the 22 letters of the Jewish alphabet corresponded to the 22 Major Arcana of the Tarot pack.

Transcendental Magic by Eliphas Lévi (translated by A E Waite 1896).
“Without the tarot the magic of the ancients is a closed book, and it is impossible to penetrate any of the great mysteries of the Kabalah.

Waite’s footnote says: “There is a sense in which this statement represents the main thesis of Levi respecting the secret tradition in Israel. It must be taken therefore as his serious and considered view, but its sole foundation is that there are 22 Hebrew letters and 22 major arcana. They belong to one another as much and as little as the 22 chapters of the Apocalypse connect with either.”

Tarot trumps could be used as illuminating doors of perception. Stained glass windows for the soul.

This system of correspondences was adopted by the Golden Dawn and influenced the Rider-Waite and Thoth tarot packs.

Lévi also influenced French esoteric circles, through Oswald Wirth and Papus.
Oswald Wirth’s book on the Tarot, originally published in Paris in 1927, equates the Magician tarot card with the first letter of the Jewish alphabet, Aleph.

Leonora Carrington and the Tarot

The Tarot of Leonora Carrington, edited by Susan Aberth and Tere Arcq (2023).
“The Tarot is not meant solely for divination purposes. Each suggest navigation devices where a poetics of the unconscious is available for immediate exploration. These cards may be consulted as subliminal objects…they give access to magical environments. Because the subliminal body might be conceived as an out-of-the-body experience it also entails a liberation from the rational corporeal form. This body is able to travel through unconscious domains. Ultimately it is endowed with a projective capacity that enables an exploration of the visionary world.” (from the Introduction by Gabriel Weisz Carrington).

“While in Paris Carrington wanted to study Jewish mysticism, but discovered this path was unavailable to her as a woman and so she turned to (Dion) Fortune’s The Mystical Qabalah…Later on, in Mexico, Carrington found this book in Varo’s library and they studied it together.“

Ithell Colquhoun and the Tarot

Ithell Colquhoun, Genius of the Fern Loved Gully by Amy Hale (2020).
In 1977 Ithell produced her own set of Tarot cards which were published by Fulgur Press (2020).
“Colquhoun’s Taro deck (her preferred spelling) was created in prototype from enamel on paper and exhibited only once in her lifetime. Running from July 26- August 13 1977, the exhibition was accompanied by a short essay The Taro as Colour. …..this deck was designed for use in meditation and contemplation, not divination.”