What follows are a series of quotations, as selected by our Unknown Friend, which serve as epigraphs to each letter contained in his Meditations on the Tarot. The images of the tarot of Marseille where provided by Gornahoor, for which this author is thankful. Please note that all biblical references are taken from the Douay-Rheims translation of the bible.
Le Bateleur
The Spirit breatheth where he will; and thou hearest his voice,
but thou knowest not whence he cometh,
and whither he goeth:
so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
– John iii, 8.
On that glad night,
in secret, for no one saw me,
not did I look at anything,
with no other light or guide
than the one that burned in my heart.
– St. John of the Cross.
La Papesse
Wisdom hath built herself a house,
she hath hewn her out seven pillars.
– Proverbs ix, 1.
L’Impératrice
Behold the handmaid of the Lord;
be it done to me according to thy word. And the
angel departed from her.
– Luke i, 38.
L’Empereur
Blessed is he that cometh in the
name of the Lord.
– Luke xiii, 35.
Le Pape
But Melchisedech the king of Salem, bringing forth bread and wine,
for he was the priest of the most high God.
Blessed him, and said: Blessed be Abram by the most high God…
And blessed be the most high God…
– Genesis x1v, 18-20.
I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
No man cometh to the Father, but by me.
– John xiv, 6.
From henceforth let no man be troublesome
to me; for i bear the marks of the Lord Jesus
in my body.
– Galations vi, 17.
L’Amoureur
And catching the young man,
she kisseth him, and with an impudent
face, flattereth, saying: I vowed victims for
prosperity, this day have I paid my vows.
Therefore I am come out to meet thee,
desirous to see thee,
and I have found thee.
– Proverbs vii, 13-15.
I wisdom dwell in counsel,
and am present in learned thoughts.
I love them that love me: and they that in
the morning early watch for me,
shall find me.
– Proverbs viii, 12, 17.
Put me as a seal upon thy heart,
as a seal upon thy arm,
for love is strong as death…
the lamps thereof are fire and flames.
– Song of Solomon viii, 6-7.
Le Chariot
Then the devil left him;
and behold angels came
and ministered to him.
– Matthew iv, 11.
When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through
places without water, seeking rest; and not finding, he saith: I will
return into my house whence I came out.
And when he is come, he findeth it swept and garnished.
Then he goeth and taketh with him seven other spirits more wicked
than himself, and entering in they dwell there. And the last state of
that man becomes worse than the first.
– Luke xi, 24-26.
I am come in the name of my Father,
and you receive me not: if another
shall come in his own name,
him you will receive.
– John v, 43.
La Justice
The Son and the Spirit – this is all that is
granted to us. With respect of absolute
unity or the Father, no one has been able
to see him nor will see him in this world,
if this is not within the octernary – which
is, in fact, the only way whereby one could
attain to him.
– Louis Claude de Saint-Martin.
Who will guard the guards?
L’Hermite
Isis: “Give heed, my son Horus; for you shall
hear the secret doctrine, of which our
forefather Kamephis was the first teacher.
It so befell that Hermes heard this teaching
from Kamephis, the eldest of all our race;
I heard it from Hermes,
the writer of the records,
when he initiated me
in the rite of Black Perfection.
– Isis, Kore Kosmu.
For Trismegistus who, I do not know how,
has completed the discovery of virtually the
entire truth, has often described the power
and the majesty of the Word, as illustrated by
the foregoing quotation, where he
proclaims the existence of an ineffable and
holy Word, whose pronunciation is beyond
the power of man.
– Lactantius, Divine institutiones iv, 9, 3.
How narrow is the gate, and strait is
the way that leadeth to life:
and few there are that find it!
– Matthew vii, 14.
La Roue de Fortune
Vanity of vanities, said Ecclesiastes
vanity of vanities, and all is vanity…
What is it that hath been? the same thing
that shall be. What is it that hath been done?
the same that shall be done.
– Ecclesiastes i, 2, 9.
For us men and for our salvation he came
down from heaven: by the power of the Holy
Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin
Mary, and was made man… he ascended into
heaven and is seated at the right hand of the
Father.
– From the Creed
And I have given my heart to know prudence, and learning, and
errors, and folly: and I have perceived that in these also there was
labour, and vexation of spirit, Because In much wisdom there is
much indignation: and he that addeth knowledge, addeth also labour.
– Ecclesiastes i, 17-18.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
– Matthew v, 5.
La Force
This thing is the strongest of all powers,
the force of all forces,
for it overcometh every subtle thing,
and doth penetrate every solid substance.
– Tabula Smaragdina, 9.
Power Virgin
Merciful Virgin
Faithful Virgin
– Lauretanian Litany
Le Pendu
Amen, amen I say to thee,
unless a man be born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God…
Amen, amen I say to thee,
unless a man be born again of
water and the Holy Ghost,
he cannot enter the kingdom of God…
The Spirit breatheth where he will;
and thou hearest his voice,
but thou knowest not whence he cometh,
and whither he goeth: so is every one
that is born of the Spirit.
– John iii, 3, 5, 8.
The foxes have holes, and the
birds of the air nests: but the song of
man hath not where to lay his head.
– Matthew viii, 20.
Then shall the just shine as the sun,
in the kingdom of their Father.
– Matthew xiii, 43.
That which I had to say
about the operation of sol
is completed.
– Tabula Smaragdina, 13.
La Mort
And the woman answered him, saying: Of the fruit of the trees that
are in paradise we do eat: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the
midst of paradise, God hath commanded us that we should not eat;
and that we should not touch it, lest perhaps we die. And the serpent
said to the woman: No, you shall not die the death. For God doth
know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall
be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil.
– Genesis iii, 2-5.
Ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.
– Ezekiel xxxvii, 4.
Tempérance
Hear us Lord, holy Lord,
almighty Father, eternal God,
and deign to send your holy Angel from heaven,
to guard, cherish, protect, visit, and defend
all who are gathered together in this place.
– Liturgical Prayer.
Whosoever drinketh of this water,
shall thirst again; but he that
shall drink of the water that I will give him,
shall not thirst for ever:
But the water that I will give him,
shall become in him a fountain of water,
springing up into life everlasting.
– John iv, 13-14.
Amen, amen I say to thee,
unless a man be born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God.
– John iii, 3.
By upbringing and intellectual training,
I belong to the “children of heaven”;
but by temperament, and by my professional studies,
I am a “child of the earth”.
Situated thus by life at the heart of two worlds
with whose theory, idiom and feelings
intimate experience has made me familiar,
I have not erected any watertight bulkhead inside myself.
On the contrary, I have allowed
two apparently conflicting influences full freedom to
react upon another deep within me.
– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
Le Diable
La Maison Dieu
My soul doth magnify the Lord.
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid;
for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed…
He hath shewed might in his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the
conceit of their heart.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the
humble.
He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent
empty away.
– Luke i, 46-48, 51-53.
Because every one that exalteth himself,
shall be humbled; and he that humbleth himself,
shall be exalted.
– Luke xiv, 11.
So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the earth,
And should sleep, and rise, night and day, and the seed should
spring, and grow up whilst he knoweth not.
– Mark iv, 26-27.
L’Étoile
The just shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow up like the
cedar of Libanus…
They shall still increase in a fruitful old age:
and shall be well treated.
– Psalm 92, 12, 14.
Two things fill the mind with every new
and increasing admiration and awe…
the starry heavens above me and the moral
law within me.
– Immanuel Kant.
La Lune
And his wife looking behind her,
was turned into a statue of salt.
– Genesis xix, 26.
But David’s heart struck him,
after the people were numbered:
and David said to the Lord:
I have sinned very much in what I have done.
And the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel.
– II Samuel xxiv, 10, 15.
Our intelligence, as it leaves the hands of Nature,
has for its chief object the unorganised solid…
Of the discontinuous alone
does the intellect form a clear idea…
Of immobility alone
does the intellect form a clear idea…
The intellect lets what is new
in each moment of history escape.
It does not admit the unforeseeable.
It rejects all creation…
The intellect is characterised by
a natural inability to comprehend life…
But it is to the very inwardness of life
that intuition leads us –
by intuition I mean instinct
that has become disinterested,
self-concious, capable of reflecting upon its object
and of enlarging it indefinitely.
– Henri Bergson.
Le Soliel
When I began drawing the mandalas,
however, I saw that everything, all the paths
I had been following, all the steps I had
taken, were leading back to a single point
– namely to the mid point. It became
increasingly plain to me that the mandala is
the centre. It is the exponent of all paths. It
is the path to the centre, to individuation…
I knew that in finding mandala as an
expression of the self I had attained what
was for me the ultimate. Perhaps someone
else knows more, but not I.
– C. G. Jung.
Heart of Jesus, King and centre of all hearts.
– Litany of the Sacred Heart.
I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and
the last, the beginning and the end.
– Revelation, xxii, 13.
Under combined influence of men’s
thoughts and aspirations, the universe
around us is seen to be knit together
and convulsed by a vast movement of
convergence. Not only theoretically, but
experientially, our modern cosmogony is
taking the form of a cosmogenesis… at the
term of which we can distinguish a supreme
focus of personalising personality…
Just suppose the we identify (at least in his
“natural” aspect) the cosmic Christ of faith
with the Omega Point of science: then
everything in our outlook is clarified and
broadened, and falls into harmony.
– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
Le Jugement
The state of the brain
continues the remembrance;
it gives it a hold on the present
by the materiality which it confers upon it:
but pure memory is a spiritual manifestation.
With memory we are in very truth
in the domain of spirit.
– Henri Bergson.
For as the Father raiseth up the dead,
and giveth life: so the Son also giveth
life to whom he will.
For neither doth the Father judge any man,
but hath given all judgement to the Son.
– John v, 21-22.
Le Mat
Let no man deceive himself:
if any man among you seem to be wise
in this world, let him become a good,
that he may be wise.
For the wisdom of this world
is foolishness with God.
– I Corinthians iii, 18-19.
Folly is a condition which prevents
that which is true from being grasped.
– Plato, Definitions.
…conciousness succumbs all too easily
to unconscious influences, and there are
often truer and wiser than our concious
thinking… Personality need not imply
conciousness. It can just as easily
be dormant or sleeping.
– C. G. Jung.
Le Monde
I was present: when with a certain law
and compass he enclosed the depths…
I was with him forming all things:
and was delighted every day,
playing before him at all times;
Playing in the world: and my delights
were to be with the children of men.
– Proverbs viii, 27, 30-31.
Joy – deeper yet than woe is she!
Saith woe: Hence, go!
yet Joy would have Eternity –
Profound, profound Eternity!
– Friedrich Nietzsche.
One truly lives only when one dances.
– Isadora Duncan.