mikeh wrote: Added later: and while you're at it, you might explain what all this has to do with the tarot. At most you've shown that 4 or 5 sentences in the Sefer Yetzirah tie in with the I Ching. But so what? Nobody in the Renaissance saw those sentences as fundamental to anything. When they thought of elements, there were usually 4 of them, and 7 planets, as opposed to 6 directions and 1 central palace, and 10 sefiroth and spheres. which were sometimes 7 + 3 but not 6 plus 3 plus 1. They did have 12 zodiac signs, but that's not much to build on. The only other area I can see any connection is by way of lot books, which were based on dice, which had 6 sides and then various numbers of combinations depending on how many dice you had. Simple, non-occult divination with cards was an extension of lot books with dice. Also, geomancy was a 2 to the 4th power set of binary arrays, similar otherwise to the I Ching's 2 to the 6th power, but unrelated that I can see to lot books or tarot. That's as far as I can get. No connection between the binary/hexagramatic structure of the Sefer Yetzirah and the tarot yet.

The Tarot-philosoph Eliphas Levi and the group Golden Dawn connected the "Kabbala" to Tarot. I leave Eliphas Levi aside, but that one, what the Golden Dawn really used in their identification, was not really from Kabbala, but from a specific Sepher Yetzirah edition, which connected the zodiac to the letters No. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 .. 12 .. 14, 15, 16 .. 18, 19, a row which, if we count the first letter aleph = zero, would be "No. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, .. 11 .. 13, 14, 15 .. 17, 18", which then presents the numbers, which were involved in the zodiac identification in the Tarot row.

Tarot 4 = Aries
..
Tarot 18 = Pisces

With that Tarot was married to Sepher Yetzirah, and the common modern Tarot diviners learned this astrological contribution and used it in heir divination practice, although they mostly never had heard anything about Sepher Yetzirah.
There's some indication, that count de Mellet already had ideas about the Kabbala in his Tarot interpretation. I leave him also aside.

If one can connect Sepher Yetzirah to I-Ching, one naturally can connect also I-Ching to Tarot, if a system-maker had decided, that Sepher Yetzirah had a relevant connection to Tarot, independent from the condition, if the system-maker had just created a system on the base of wrong historical ideas and not found an old connection between the systems of Tarot and Kabbala.

In the discovery, that specific groups of hexagrams pairs from I-Ching relate in a sense-making manner to groups of
SY, there's naturally the intention to get each of the individual 32 ways connected to one of the of 32 pairs.

************

Two pairs are already clear, cause there are 2 subgroups, which contain only one element. 111111/000000 (hex 1/2)
and 101010/010101 (hex 63/64).

One of the planets is the one holy planet in the center (in six days God created the world, and at the 7th he took a pause). In the case of the Jewish background that's naturally Saturn and the related Sabbat. In the I-Ching there's no choice, that's the Yin and Yang pair and heaven and earth, coded expressed with 111111 and 000000.
Saturn in the Tarot of the Golden Dawn is given card "21 World". From the I-Ching perspective that's a rather good choice.


Hex 63/64 is at the end of the I-Ching hexagrams, as 1/2 is at the begin, a clear sign, that the I-Ching makers understood, that these both pairs present the most important hexagrams. Hex 63/64 must belong to the tree, as the number of yin and yang strokes is balanced. Now there's a specific difference between the SY and that, what later developed in Kabbala.



In Sepher-Yetzirah the first Sephira has the focus (1) followed a group of 3 (2-4) and finished by a group of 6 directions, in the later Kabbala we have at top a triade (1-3) followed by the group with 6 elements (4-9) and finished by the single Sephira Malkuth (10).
In the SY-model the pair 63/64 naturally would mean Kether, first Sephira, in the later Kabbala it's not to avoid, that the pair would mean Malkuth.

This contradiction is somehow solved with the 4-world-tree ...



... where it seems, as if the Malkuth of an upper level transmutes to the Kether of a lower level.

**************

2 pairs are identified, as next follow the 3 elements, not at the tree-group, but inside the 22 letters: the "mother letters". These are rather tricky.

**************

The Names

100100 - 011011 = Thunder (belongs plausibly to fire) - Wind (belongs plausibly to air) = missing is WATER
hex 51/57

010010 - 101101 = Water (belongs plausibly to water) - Fire (belongs plausibly to fire) = missing is AIR
hex 29/30

001001 - 110110 = Mountain (????) - Lake (belongs plausibly to water) = missing is FIRE or AIR
hex 52/58

There's the riddle of "Mountain" as the title of the hexagram 52. As we have at the other 5 places twice FIRE and twice water, so "Mountain" naturally must belong to air, to keep the balance. Which leads to the comment that "FIRE is missing".

One has in this context to think of the general attribution of the 3 Trigram-lines of I-Ching, which actually define the system.

3rd line = heaven = FIRE (is not "missing", but is the central element). Hex 52/58 focus the 3rd line.
2nd line = man = AIR (is not "missing", but is the central element). Hex 29-30 focus the 2nd line.
1st line = earth = WATER (is not "missing", but is the central element). Hex 51/57 focus the 1st line.

In the general element attributions FIRE is opposed by WATER, fire goes in its direction to the TOP and water has as his direction the BOTTOM. AIR gives harmony to the opponents and naturally takes the MIDDLE position. Well, that the basic dialectic model of thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis, and "MAN" is the natural synthesis between HEAVEN and EARTH or YANG and YIN.

I hope, the argumentation is clear enough. If not, perhaps this graphic helps:



100100 - 011011 = WATER = Mem = Tarot card 12 = Hanging Man
hex 51/57

010010 - 101101 = AIR = Aleph = Tarot card 0 = Fool
hex 29/30

001001 - 110110 = FIRE = Shin = Tarot card 20 = Judgment
hex 52/58

*************

5 pairs are identified.
The 12 pairs at the same level (level with 2 Yang + 4 Yin or 4 Yang + 2 Yin) as the 3 elements (or "mother letters") are connected to the zodiac. 12 pairs build a natural row, which you can observe if you follow the wandering of the 2 yang lines through 12 hexagrams (mirrored by the wandering of two yin lines in the 12 opposing hexagrams).



The Yang strokes wander 1/2 - 1/3 - 2/3 - 2/4 - 3/4 - 3/5 - 4/5 - 4/6 - 5/6 - 5/1 - 6/1 - 6/2 and then they are cyclical.

The relation to the Western zodiac is naturally decided, when one pair is identified. The Chinese solar year starts arounds 4th of February in the mid of Western Aquarius and the following month is given to the hexagram 110000 (yang strokes at 1+2) ....
a... and this seems to be the correct one or at least a "working" relation.

110000 - 001111 (hex 19-33) - Aquarius - Tarot card 17 Star
101000 - 010111 (hex 36-6) - Pisces - Tarot card 18 Moon
011000 - 100111 (hex 46-25) - Aries - Tarot card 4 Emperor
010100 - 101011 (hex 40-37) - Taurus - Tarot card 5 Pope
001100 - 110011 (hex 62-61) - Gemini - Tarot card 6 Love
001010 - 110101 (hex 39-38) - Cancer - Tarot card 7 Chariot
000110 - 111001 (hex 45-26) - Leo - Tarot card Strength (?)
000101 - 111010 (hex 35-5) - Virgo - Tarot card 9 Hermit
000011 - 111100 (hex 20-34) - Libra - Tarot card Justice (?)
100010 - 011101 (hex 3-50) - Scorpio - Tarot card 13 Death
100001 - 011110 (hex 27-28) - Sagitarius - Tarot card 14 Temperance
010001 - 101110 (hex 4-49) - Capricorn - Tarot card 15 Devil

************

Well, I need a pause.

Huck wrote,

what the Golden Dawn really used in their identification, was not really from Kabbala, but from a specific Sepher Yetzirah edition, which connected the zodiac to the letters No. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 .. 12 .. 14, 15, 16 .. 18, 19, a row which, if we count the first letter aleph = zero, would be "No. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, .. 11 .. 13, 14, 15 .. 17, 18", which then presents the numbers, which were involved in the zodiac identification in the Tarot row.

Tarot 4 = Aries
..
Tarot 18 = Pisces

With that Tarot was married to Sepher Yetzirah, and the common modern Tarot diviners learned this astrological contribution and used it in heir divination practice, although they mostly never had heard anything about Sepher Yetzirah.

If it's from the Sefer Yetzirah, it's an edition that no one has ever been able to find. I'd say it was the Golden Dawn's planetary assignments and order of tarot subjects grafted onto the Tarot de Marseille and the Sefer Yetzirah, distorting both. It seems to me that what you are doing is relating the I Ching to a few sentences in the Sefer Yetzirah, and also its zodiac and element attributions, and otherwise to the Golden Dawn. Well, that's OK; the Golden Dawn is part of tarot history and something Dummett discusses. I still don't see the point, but go ahead.

If it's from the Sefer Yetzirah, it's an edition that no one has ever been able to find. I'd say it was the Golden Dawn's planetary assignments and order of tarot subjects grafted onto the Tarot de Marseille and the Sefer Yetzirah, distorting both.

No, the version is inside the Kaplan book, I remember this clearly. Kaplan presents 4 versions of SY. I don't remember, which versions it had.
See here ...
http://books.google.de/books?id=18fLFow ... es&f=false
... at least at p. 219 and p. 291. The 5th letter "He" is connected to Aries.

It seems to me that what you are doing is C, and also its zodiac and element attributions, and otherwise to the Golden Dawn. Well, that's OK; the Golden Dawn is part of tarot history and something Dummett discusses. I still don't see the point, but go ahead.

To what else should I refer to? The SY is not a long book, 2000 words or so, that's not much. A few sentences are already much in this case. And the key number "32" appears in the title, so this is not a sentence of a minor importance. I use the numbers, which appear as the structure of the 32 ways. The SY uses a lot of its few words to fill the structure, naturally I don't repeat this content filling, the central messages are the astrology relations, which are indeed used in the later Tarot analogy.

So my operation is not "relating the I Ching to a few sentences in the Sefer Yetzirah". I just reduce the SY to its most central parts, where you can recognize, what the SY is essentially.

Further you precisely asked: "and while you're at it, you might explain what all this has to do with the tarot."
Naturally I present the Golden Dawn. What else should I present?
We've no evidence for an influence of the SY on early Trionfi decks.

We may suspect some kabbala fantasies, which influenced (perhaps) the production of the Boiardo poem a little bit, not more, just cause Pico was the cousin of Boiardo and around the time had an ecstasy about kabbala.

So let's proceed.

17 of the 32 pairs are explained. The rest of the hexagram pairs refer to 6 of the planets in the letter group ( numbers 1-2-3-10-16-19), to 6 of the planet spheres in the tree group (IV-IX) and the upper 3 Sephiroth (I-III).

************

Planets

The tree numbers follow in their definition the Chaldean row (Saturn - Jupiter (IV) - Mars (V) - Sun (VI) - Venus (VII) - Mercury (VIII) - Moon (IX). The Chinese simply didn't know the Chaldean row, so we can't expect a precise analogy.

Nonetheless the Chinese used a hierarchy in the lines 1-6, which "somehow" corresponds to the Western arrangement, but there's an essential difference regarding sun and moon.

6 - a line presenting old age (somehow "already weak") (yin character)
5 - the male ruler, also used as "sun" (yang character)
4 - the assistant of the ruler, somehow also the queen (yin character, married status)
------
3 - the older son (yang character, approaching marriage, approaching maturity, dangerous position)
2 - young girl, also used as "moon" (yin character, also used as "moon")
1 - a line presenting the child (yang-character)

As the I-Ching was a divination tool for the Chinese rulers and their problems to rule the world, the roles in the line texts are mainly all "male" and female aspects are forced in the background.

Comparing it to Western astrological and mythological ideas ..

6 - a lot of Saturn
5 - Sun / Jupiter
4 - Mars / Venus
3 - Hephaistos / Athena
2 - Moon and Moon goddesses
1 - Mercury (as a child god)

Ideas, how the Chinese interpreted the 6 lines are simply defined by titles and text of the 12 hexagrams, which formed the connected 6 hexagram pairs.

6th line yang - hex 23 - Tarot card 10 Fortune
6th line yin - hex 43 - Tarot card 10 Fortune
---
5th line yang - hex 8 - Tarot card 19 Sun
5th line yin - hex 14 - Tarot card 19 Sun
---
4th line yang - hex 16 - Tarot card 16 Tower
4th line yin - hex 9 - Tarot card 16 Tower
---
3rd line yang - hex 15 - Tarot card 3 Empress
3rd line yin - hex 10 - Tarot card 3 Empress
---
2nd line yang - hex 7 - Tarot card 2 Popess
2nd line yin - hex 13 - Tarot card 2 Popess
---
1st line yang - hex 24 - Tarot card 1 Magician
1st line yin - hex 44 - Tarot card 1 Magician

The connected 12 hexagrams simply define the line values, which are then combined in the 12 zodiac sign hexagram pairs (hex 19-36-46 etc. and 33-6-25 etc) and the 3 elements hexagrams (hex 51 etc and 57 etc). From these combinations of lines (1-2, 1-3, 2-3 etc) are then new ideas born to name these elements.

So the I-Ching was constructed, just by "line-additions". This "my statement" is contradicted by most I-Ching books, which attempt to explain the hexagram ideas as combinations of two trigrams. This system exists, of course, but it's more confusing than useful.

************

Planet-Spheres

The 6 hexagrams pairs, which form the group of the planet-spheres, are more comple, cause they balance all 3 yang lines and 3 yin lines, are much more complex. I think that this correspondence is correct, mainly based on complex mathematical reasons, but naturally also following the ideas given by the Sephiroth definitions.

IV Chesed - Jupiter - hex 59/55
V Geburah - Mars - hex 56/60
VI Tiphereth - Sun - hex 17/18
VII Nezach - Venus - hex 48/21
VIII Hod - Mercury - hex 22/47
IX Yesod - Moon - hex 54/53

Well, I don't explain it. If somebody would ask for the "why", and tries it by himself, he should know, that ..

22-54-48-56-17-59 form a logical row
47-53-21-60-18-55 form a logical row

... and naturally the already demonstrated sun-moon problem in the connection with the Chaldean row forms a specific situation.

*********

The upper 3 Sephiroth

hex 11-12 should be Kether, naturally
hex 32/42 and hex 31/41 are somehow Chochmah and Binah and it's not really of importance to decide, which is what ...

32/42 has somehow the quality "woman"
31/41 has somehow the quality "man"
inside I-Ching
nonetheless the fixation that of 32/42 as Binah has a logical problem
nonetheless the fixation that of 31/41 as Chochmah has a logical problem

hex 17/18 (Sephira VI) has somehow the quality "son" or "young man"
inside I-Ching

hex 53/54 (Sephira IX) has somehow the quality "daughter" or "girl"
inside I-Ching

**************

I think, it's described careful enough, that everybody can detect, that the author of SY and the author of I-Ching developed their concepts on the same mathematical background. It was probably unavoidable, that both concepts had some cultural differences.

That's another view on the math of I-Ching:



16 hexagrams have a higher importance than the other 48. The group with 48 hexagrams can be sorted according "6 Lines" and sorted to specific groups.



Perhaps it simplifies the view on the system.

*********

... :-) ... now we've transferred Dummett's Mondo and Angelo far to China.

Huck wrote:

If it's from the Sefer Yetzirah, it's an edition that no one has ever been able to find. I'd say it was the Golden Dawn's planetary assignments and order of tarot subjects grafted onto the Tarot de Marseille and the Sefer Yetzirah, distorting both.

No, the version is inside the Kaplan book, I remember this clearly. Kaplan presents 4 versions of SY. I don't remember, which versions it had.
See here ...
http://books.google.de/books?id=18fLFow ... es&f=false
... at least at p. 219 and p. 291. The 5th letter "He" is connected to Aries.

I was talking about the planetary assignments of letters to planets, which are from no known Sefer Yetzirah except Westcott's. Similarly, the correlations of planets to the Tree that you give are indeed in the Sefer Yetzirah order (the same as the "Chaldean"), but planets are not assigned to sefiroth in the Sefer Yetzirah. As far as planets, you are comparing the Golden Dawn with the I Ching, but there's no relationship to the Sefer Yetzirah. For planets, the comparison is with what the Golden Dawn probably thought the Sefer Yetzirah should have said and maybe did say, in some "lost" version.

Huck wrote,

Naturally I present the Golden Dawn. What else should I present?
We've no evidence for an influence of the SY on early Trionfi decks.

Well, earlier (viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1019&p=15486&hilit ... ild#p15486 I did a comparison of the actual Sefer Yetzirah assignments with the order on the actual Rothschild sheet, according to Dummett, which he calls "the standard Florentine order". You are doing a comparison of the actual I Ching and something like the Sefer Yetzirah with the actual Golden Dawn assignments. I just wanted to be sure about what you were doing. Beyond the workability of the comparisons, "evidence of influence" in either case is speculative. In either case, influence is possible, as the Golden Dawn knew about the I Ching, and some Florentines, by the 2nd half of the 15th century, knew about the Sefer Yetzirah. (Pico refers to "32 paths" and Lazzarelli refers to it explicitly. They had a common teacher, Alemanno.) But it is also a question of what the underlying structure says about the systems being compared, which would attract people to it. I'm still not sure what that is.

Huck wrote

The SY uses a lot of its few words to fill the structure, naturally I don't repeat this content filling, the central messages are the astrology relations, which are indeed used in the later Tarot analogy.

It wasn't those I was thinking of, but rather the ones in which the sefiroth divide into 1 + 3 + 6 and the planets into 6 + 1. That is how you get to the hexagonal structure you find in the I Ching. These are not usual divisions. (The Zodiac is fine; it naturally divides into 6 + 6, and the SY elements are naturally half of 6.)

mikeh wrote: I was talking about the planetary assignments of letters to planets, which are from no known Sefer Yetzirah except Westcott's. Similarly, the correlations of planets to the Tree that you give are indeed in the Sefer Yetzirah order (the same as the "Chaldean"), but planets are not assigned to sefiroth in the Sefer Yetzirah. As far as planets, you are comparing the Golden Dawn with the I Ching, but there's no relationship to the Sefer Yetzirah. For planets, the comparison is with what the Golden Dawn probably thought the Sefer Yetzirah should have said and maybe did say, in some "lost" version.

Well, that's right, there is no direct specific designation like "Jupiter = Chesed = letter X" in the SY.

Nonetheless the "7 planets" are indicated often enough in SY:
http://books.google.de/books?id=18fLFow ... ts&f=false

The Chaldean row of the planets seems to have been the common model of the time, and the 7-days-week has a long history. The names of the 7 days correspond to the Chaldean row by a translation of the 24-hours-astrology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_t ... f_the_week

Between the 1st and 3rd centuries the Roman Empire gradually replaced the eight-day Roman nundinal cycle with the seven-day week. The order of the days was Sun, Moon, Ares, Hermes, Zeus, Aphrodite, and Cronos, named after the heavenly bodies that presided over the first daylight hour of each day, according to Hellenistic astrology. From Greece the planetary week names passed to the Romans, and from Latin to other languages of southern and western Europe, and to other languages later influenced by them.

As the 24-hour-astrology used the Chaldean row with 7 planets and 24/3 = 3 with a rest of 3 hours, the row of the week days produces this figure ...


http://dream-prophecy.blogspot.de/2013/ ... ysics.html

Perhaps the terminus "Chaldean row" is not clear. That's just the row Saturn-Jupiter-Mars-Sun-Venus-Mercury-Moon, as for instance used in the Mantegna Tarocchi No. 41-47.

The 7 days at the Jewish side were manifested by the book Genesis and God created the world in 6 days, and had a calm day after it.

First day: God spoke light in existence and separated light from darkness.[4] The first open portion (פתוחה, petuchah) ends here.[5] (Genesis 1:3, Genesis 1:4, Genesis 1:5)
Second day: God created a firmament in the midst of the waters and separated the waters from the firmament.[6] The second open portion (פתוחה, petuchah) ends here.[7]
Third day: God gathered the water below the sky, creating land and sea, and God caused vegetation to sprout from the land.[8] The third open portion (פתוחה, petuchah) ends here.[9]
Fourth day: God set lights in the sky to separate days and years, creating the sun, the moon, and the stars.[10] The fourth open portion (פתוחה, petuchah) ends here.[11]
Fifth day: God had the waters bring forth living creatures in sea along with the birds of the air and blessed them to be fruitful and multiply.[12] The fifth open portion (פתוחה, petuchah) ends here.[13]
Sixth day: God had the earth bring forth living creatures from the land, and made man in Gods image, male and female, giving man dominion over the animals and the earth, and blessed man to be fruitful and multiply.[14] God gave vegetation to man and to the animals for food and declared all creation 'very good.'[15] The sixth open portion (פתוחה, petuchah) ends here with the end of chapter 1.[16]
Seventh day: God ceased work and blessed the seventh day, declaring it holy.[17] The first reading (עליה, aliyah) and the seventh open portion (פתוחה, petuchah) end here.[18]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bereshit_(parsha)

MikeH wrote:Well, earlier (viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1019&p=15486&hilit ... ild#p15486 I did a comparison of the actual Sefer Yetzirah assignments with the order on the actual Rothschild sheet, according to Dummett, which he calls "the standard Florentine order".

I don't understand that. You're mainly talking about the Rosenwald there, not about the Rothschild. I don't understand that neither.

You are doing a comparison of the actual I Ching and something like the Sefer Yetzirah with the actual Golden Dawn assignments.

In the question of the planets I stay rather open, if you read my texts. It's very clear, that there are cultural differences between the people in East Asia and West Asia. The Chinese had own astrologies, not the Western astrology.
These differences don't touch the question of the math.

I just wanted to be sure about what you were doing. Beyond the workability of the comparisons, "evidence of influence" in either case is speculative. In either case, influence is possible, as the Golden Dawn knew about the I Ching, and some Florentines, by the 2nd half of the 15th century, knew about the Sefer Yetzirah. (Pico refers to "32 paths" and Lazzarelli refers to it explicitly. They had a common teacher, Alemanno.) But it is also a question of what the underlying structure says about the systems being compared, which would attract people to it. I'm still not sure what that is.

Between "knowing the I-Ching" and "knowing the I-Ching" can be huge differences. Similar for "Sepher Yetzirah".

Aryeh Kaplan, who with security knew much more about Jewish culture and traditions and also more about the different Sepher Yetzirah versions, tells, that "The 32 paths correspond to the number of apexes on a five dimensional hypercube" (= 2x2x2x2x2 = 32), which, if you've studied the 32 pairs of hexagrams, definitely should be nonsense, and a sign, that he didn't understand that. The ways are based on a six dimensional hypercube (= 2x2x2x2x2x2 = 64 and the building of 32 pairs).
http://books.google.de/books?id=18fLFow ... be&f=false
In all the texts, that I've read from Gershom Scholem, whom I admire for all his good work on kabbala and its contexts, I didn't see a sign, that he understood the 32 ways in its math context.
For Crowley it seems pretty clear, that he also didn't know it. He knew the I-Ching, divined with it, made some structural exploration, which stayed at a lower level and used finally some trigrams in his interpretation of the court cards in a not very logical manner.

Huck wrote

The SY uses a lot of its few words to fill the structure, naturally I don't repeat this content filling, the central messages are the astrology relations, which are indeed used in the later Tarot analogy.

It wasn't those I was thinking of, but rather the ones in which the sefiroth divide into 1 + 3 + 6 and the planets into 6 + 1. That is how you get to the hexagonal structure you find in the I Ching. These are not usual divisions. (The Zodiac is fine; it naturally divides into 6 + 6, and the SY elements are naturally half of 6.)

1+3+6 is directly taken from Sepher Yetzirah. A common partition of later Kabbala is 3+6+1 in the various trees. 6+1 is directly taken from the book Genesis (6 creative days, 1 for a pause). I've given earlier quotes, which refer to the passages in SY. What can I do else?

6 directions naturally are based on 3 dimensions. 3 dimensions have a natural center, "the holy temple in the middle". We learned this in school with the coordinate system for 3-dimensional space. The center was then the point "0,0,0" in the middle.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinate_system

************

Added: In a common translation of Bill Heidrick ...
http://hermetic.com/heidrick/yetzirah.html

SY 1, Section Eight

These are the ten Sephiroth out of nothing:

One; The Spirit of the living God {Ruach Elohim Chiim}, praised and glorified be the name {schem} of Him who lives to all eternity. The articulate word of creative power, the spirit and the word are what we call the holy spirit.

Two; Air emanated from the spirit by which He formed and established twenty-two consonants fundamentally. Three of them are truly fundamental letters, or mothers, seven are double and twelve are simple consonants; hence the spirit is the first one.

Three; Primitive water emanated from the air. He formed and established by it Bohu {the more substantial part of Chaos, or the waters below the upper waters of Genesis} mud and loam, made them like a bed, put them up like a wall, and surrounded them as with a rampart, put coldness upon them and they became dust, as it reads; "He says to the coldness {snow} be thou earth." {Job: XXXVI; 6}

Four; Fire or Aether emanated from the water. He established by it the throne of glory, the Seraphim and Opanim, the holy living creatures and the angels, and of these three He formed His habitation, as it reads "Who made His angels spirits, His ministers a flaming fire." {Psalm CIV, 4} He selected three consonants from the simple ones which are in the hidden secret of three mothers or first elements: Aleph -- Air, Mem -- Water, and Shin -- Aether or Fire. He sealed them with spirit and fastened them to His great name {Schem, which can be spelled Shin-Aleph-Memfinal} and sealed with it six dimensions.

One - Spirit
-------------
Two - air [element]
Three - water [element]
Four - air [element]
---------
six dimensions [well, it are not really dimensions, but directions]

The 1-3-6-scheme is clearly recognizable.
Kaplan confuses there a little, giving arguments, that Ruach might already mean "air".

I am sorry for being so unclear. By "These are not the usual divisions" I meant, (a) for the planets, Western Astrology. I know that the seven are divided 1 + 6 in one passage of the Sefer Yetzirah. However it may well be that the Golden Dawn, being post-Copernican, thought in terms of the Sun plus the other six.

And (b) For the division 1 + 3 + 6, I know it occurs in the Sefer Yetzirah. In later Kabbalah, yes, there is the division 3 + 6 +1 for the sefiroth. That is a different sequence. (Not in arithmetic, no. Just in creation.) The 1 at the end is the Moon and Malkuth in later Kabbalah. But in 1 + 3 + 6 of the SY the 1 is the Spirit of the Living God, not even Kether. No Kabbalists that I know of, Jewish or Christian, divided up the sefiroth as 1 + 3 + 6 in that order. Added later: and even if they are meant to refer to the sefiroth (since there are ten) the SY does not identify any of them with planets or other "spheres". That came much later, and in a variety of ways.

Yes, I meant the Rosenwald, not the Rothschild. I will try to present that more clearly the next time I have a chance.

Below are associations between the Sefer Yetzirah letter assignments to astrological entities (1st = aleph/air, 2nd = beth/moon, etc.) and what I thought was the Rosenwald tarot order (I did this at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1019&p=15486&hilit ... ald#p15486, but in a condensed form.) I think I got the SY assignments right (on the left). On the right, working it out explicitly, I see it's the Charles VI order, assuming the blanks are filled in the Rosenwald way (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YlU6F53x-_E/U ... .35+PM.png; I am assuming that the Rosenwald Fool is on the 4th sheet, with the 10s and a Queen, all six done four times. I am defending Dummett. Pratesi has not considered that repeating the same cards on one sheet was a common occurrence, as you can see in Hoffman's book.) This difference, between the Charles VI and Rosenwald, only affects the virtues. The associations are not "meanings", just associations.

1st, Air.............. = Fool (same as GD)
2nd, Moon.......... = Bagat (he's a child of the moon)
3rd, Mercury.......,= Popess (she's a conduit to the divine)
4th, Venus..........= Empress (same as GD, beauty, mother of the god of love)
5th, Aries...........= Emperor (same as GD, forceful initiator)
6th, Taurus..........= Pope (same as GD, animal of Osiris, whose power every pharaoh or pope acquires,especially ..........................Alexander VI, according to the frescoes in his apartments)
7th, Gemini.........= Love, the conjugal pair
8th, Cancer..........= Temperance (emotions and being good at managing them)
9th, Leo..............= Fortitude (lion)
10th, Virgo...........= Justice (lack of attachment)
11th, Sun ............= Chariot (height of visibility)
12th, Libra...........= Wheel (four sides balance each other)
13th, Water..........= Time (water clocks; also, water works to dissolve things over time)
14th, Scorpio........= Hanged Man (the sting that kills slowly).
15th, Sagittarius.... = Death (shown with bow and arrows early on)
16th, Capricorn .....= Devil (as in GD, goat-god)
17th, Mars............= Tower (as in GD, destruction)
18th, Aquarius.......= Star (as in GD, figure pouring water)
19th, Pisces..........= Moon (controls the seas and estuaries)
20th, Jupiter.........= Sun (most powerful of its type)
21st, Fire............= World (destruction in End Times, unrighteous to Hell or Purgatory)
22nd, Saturn.........= Angel (saves the righteous to be with God)

To these are then added the sefiroth and the suit cards, but in the C order, as this is now part of a "memory theatre", hypothetically constructed on the model of the "memory theatre" of Camillo, occultist adviser to the Spanish governor of Milan in the 1540s. The 1st and 22nd, air and fire, are on stage; the others are then associated to the 10 sefiroth, in C order, once from 1-10 and then again from 21-11, in the front two rows of seats facing the stage. For this part, there are associations to the sefiroth like those to the astrological entities. I didn't put them in.
1st, Air................= Fool (same as GD), En Sof (without number)
2nd, Moon...........= Bagat (child of the moon), Kether
3rd, Mercury.........= Popess (a conduit to and from the divine), Hochmah
4th, Venus...........= Empress (mother of the god of love, same as GD), Binah
5th, Aries.............= Emperor (same as GD, forceful leader), Chesed
6th, Taurus...........= Pope (same as GD, animal of Osiris, whose power every pharaoh or pope acquires, especially ..........................Alexander VI, according to the frescoes in his apartments), Gevurah
7th, Gemini..........= Love, the conjugal pair, Tifereth
8th, Sun ............= Chariot (height of visibility), Netzach
9th, Virgo............= Justice (lack of attachment), Hod
10th, Water..........= Time (water clocks; also, water dissolves things over time), Yesod
11th, Libra...........= Wheel (four sides balance each other), Malkuth
12th, Leo.............= Fortitude (lion), Malkuth
13th, Scorpio........= Hanged Man (the sting that kills slowly), Yesod
14th, Sagittarius.... = Death (shown with bow and arrows early on), Hod
15th, Cancer.........= Temperance (at home in emotions, good at managing them), Netzach
16th, Capricorn .....= Devil (as in GD, goat-god), Tifereth
17th, Mars............= Tower (as in GD, destruction), Gevurah
18th, Aquarius.......= Star (as in GD, figure pouring water), Chesed
19th, Pisces..........= Moon (controls the seas and estuaries), Binah
20th, Jupiter.........= Sun (most powerful of its type), Hochmah
21st, Saturn.........= Angel (saves the righteous to be with God), Kether
22nd, Fire............= World (destruction in End Times, unrighteous to Hell or Purgatory), En Sof (Eternity)

These first two rows constitute a section of seats called "Atutti" (A). Then in the next row are the number cards from 1-10 in Batons (B); they are followed in the next row by the courts in that suit from 11-14 (only four seats). That is the B section, "Batons". Then Cups (C), Denari (D), and Espadone (E, Venetian for Spades, where Camillo was from) similarly, for 5 sections altogether, in 10 rows with 10 seats at most across.

I outlined all this in the last part of a thread I started recently on the Unicorn Terrace, viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1042. These are all historically appropriate as of 1540s Milan/Pavia/Lyons. There is some ambiguity on the place of Time and Fortitude. This chart legislates (by the power of Spain) what it does not reflect, so that by Lyons 1558 it is accurate.

mikeh wrote:I am sorry for being so unclear. By "These are not the usual divisions" I meant, (a) for the planets, Western Astrology. I know that the seven are divided 1 + 6 in one passage of the Sefer Yetzirah. However it may well be that the Golden Dawn, being post-Copernican, thought in terms of the Sun plus the other six.

According my researches on another aspect ("number riddle") of SY, which one better takes aside from the other text ...
http://tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=39 ... stcount=38
http://tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=40 ... stcount=41
... the planet identification of Golden Dawn isn't bad, just one exchange looks wrong: 1 Pagat should be Moon (is given to Mercury), and Popess should be Mercury (is Moon)

But that's a rather complicated matter.

And (b) For the division 1 + 3 + 6, I know it occurs in the Sefer Yetzirah. In later Kabbalah, yes, there is the division 3 + 6 +1 for the sefiroth. That is a different sequence. (Not in arithmetic, no. Just in creation.) The 1 at the end is the Moon and Malkuth in later Kabbalah. But in 1 + 3 + 6 of the SY the 1 is the Spirit of the Living God, not even Kether. No Kabbalists that I know of, Jewish or Christian, divided up the sefiroth as 1 + 3 + 6 in that order.

Yes, I meant the Rosenwald, not the Rothschild. I will try to present that more clearly the next time I have a chance.

Yes, there is a difference between the original SY explanation and the much later Kabbala interpretation. Somehow not a wonder, as there are maybe 1000 - 600 years between the productions.