Occult Mind, 5-6


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Cap. 5

Tarocco and Fugue

PP. 132-157


pp. 132-3, 210 aiGUPTian {or GUPTian}?

pp. 132-3 "during ... courtly ... late eighteenth-century Paris. [p. 134] At this party, the hostess, "Madame la C. d'H. who came from Germany or Switzerland," {where the deck was already known as "Tarock"} brings out a set of tarot cards ... . Suddenly, one of the court's odder polymaths ... recognizes in them ... ancient Egyptian wisdom."

{Not even a single Tarock/Tarot scene is praesent in any Aiguptian myth; these scenes are, instead, praesent in the mythology of Bharata, where formerly the GUPTa dynasty dominated. The mistaking of GYPSies (who immigrated to Europe from Bharata) as aiGYPTians is surely a deliberately-contrived deception.} {An instance of a Tarock/Tarot scene in Bharatiya mythology is the "Hanged Man", who is S`ambuka the s`udra suspending himself upside-down in order to obtain magical powers from sympathetic deities.}

p. 210, n. 5:1 "Antoine Court de Ge'belin's account of this party appears in volume 8 of Le Monde Primitif (Paris, 1781), 367. The hostess is probably Madame Helvetius [the Swiss], wife of the Encyclopedist ... ."


p. 133 "not always used for occult purposes"??

"By the late twentieth century, only a few specialist {N.B. : only specialists in occult techniques of practitioners within Bharata are at all pertinent in this highly historic context} know that tarot {WRONG NAME : it should be \tarock\} was not used for occult purposes" {as though antique use of such cards for occult purposes were unknown in Bharata or in Bod!!} ... ."

{Just as it as of yet used for "occult purposes" by Ci-gani (Citra-Gan.apati 'Variegated Group-Lord') devotees, even so the ancestors of the praesent devotees, while they were as yet in Bharata -- of whose dialects they yet speak a variety -- must have held these cards (similar to the cards employed for Bodish occult initiations) for the same practical pupose then as now : to induce the divinities figured on the cards to disclose personal details about a client undergoing a fortune's being told.}

{The word \tarock\ is apparently pure Tamil : \taroka\ "Lie, falsehood" [cf. "Mountebank" in the Figure on p. 135] and/or \taroka\ "superintendent of peons". A D.awida (Dravidian) derivation would be indicated for practitioners of the very antient Ajivika order (formerly connected with the Jaina dharma, and located in daks.ina-patha 'southern' Bharata), which was devoted mainly to fortune-telling.} {Gypsies would often, in Europe, have to praetend to be uttering only "falsehood" in order not to be suspected (and criminally accused, in ecclesiastic courts) of "witchcraft" or "sorcery" on account of their being so very accurate in fortune-telling.}


pp. 134 & 211 music-parts in "Le'vi-Strauss's ... four-volume masterpiece Mythologiques".

p. 134

"Le'vi-Strauss's ... methodological meditations harp on ... especially music, which haunts the entirety of Mythologiques, from "Overture" to "Finale," by way of "Bororo Song," "Well-Tempered Astronomy," and "The Harmony of the Spheres.""

p. 211, n. 5:4

"The four volumes of Mythologiques were published in Paris by Librairie Plon, and in English, translated by John and Doreen Weightman, were originally published by Harper and Row, but reprinted by the University of Chicago Press."


p. 135 tarocchi (Italian) / tarot (French)

"first mentioned sometime between 1440 and 1457, the latter certainly a reference to tarot as such;

it is now agreed that the tarocchi were invented in connection with the court of Filippo Maria Visconti, duke of Milan." {Yea -- but how many years, decades -- nay centuries -- earlier had this taroka card-deck already been employed (for occult purposes only!) in Tamil Nadu?}

{This dating is during the period of first arrival of Portuguese ships in Bharata : therefore, it is fairly possible that the Gypsy-Cigani missionaries came to Europe (whether from Kerala or from Tamil Nadu) aboard Portuguese ships.}

{Of course, before the Gypsy-Cigani would care to undertake any extensive migration to Europe, they would insist on assurance of their favorable reception in Europe by having their initiatory-card system already accepted amongst the nobility of Europe : therefore they, prior to any massive migration, they sent forth missionaries to introduce receptive European nobility to this system; and migrated only after the system had become widely accepted (a process requiring a number of years) in Europe.}


p. 135, table of card-sequence as of 15th century, versus card-sequence after Waite's alteration

"The "archetypal" tarot is the standard or usual deck derived from the surviving fifteenth- and sixteenth-century decks, particularly Italian ones. The Sermones is an account ... that includes a brief description of the cards from the fifteenth century.

... A. E. Waite's version of the deck ... switches Strength and Justice ...; tarot decks deriving from Aleister Crowley's Thoth deck are the most common ones that retain the original order."


p. 135 Table {Ronald Decker : The Esoteric Tarot : Ancient Sources Rediscovered ... . Quest Books, 2013. pp. 80-1 https://books.google.com/books?id=qW11TCfUCOQC&pg=PA81&lpg=PA81&dq=}

#

"Archetypal" Tarocchi


#

Sermones de Ludo Cum Aliis

A&ACS, p. 180 (Fig. 21) [GP = Garud.a Puran.am]





https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/italian-english

comparison made 19 June 2019

I

Mountebank


1

el Bagatella (Acrobat, Juggler http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=764)

1. Horse's head {cf. Siddha-artha bodhi-sattva's horse, acrobatically overleaping city-gate}

II

Papess [= #4 in S.L.C.A.]


2

Imperatrix (Empress)


III

Empress [= #2 in S.L.C.A.]


3

Imperator (Emperor)


IV

Emperor [= #3 in S.L.C.A.]


4

la Papessa (Papess)

2. Vulva (of dismembred goddess Sati, in Kamarupa?)

V

Pope


5

el Papa (Pope)

3. Barber's razor {Catholic clergy are all shaven-faced}

VI

Love [= #7 in S.L.C.A.]


6

la Temperentia (Temperance)

4. Temple

VII

Chariot [= #8 in S.L.C.A.]


7

l'Amore (Love)

3. Flame {cf. Love's Flame}

VIII

Justice [= #20 in S.L.C.A.]


8

lo Caro Triumphale (Triumphal Car)

4. Cart, Wagon

--



--


5. Man's Head (GP, p. 153) [that of god Makha]

IX

Hermit


9

la Forteza (Fortitude) [Lion : alchemic Red Lion]

6. Coral bead (GP) = p. 152 Jain 13. Blood gout [blood being red, as often is coral]

X

Wheel of Fortune


10

la Rotta (Wheel)

7. Potter's Wheel (GP)

XI

Fortitude [= #9 in S.L.C.A.] or Strength


11

el Gobbo (Hunchback) {cf. Bell-Tower operated by Hunchback of Notredame}

8. Blood-sucker [Leech? cf. cosmogony in the Kojiki] (GP) = Jain 15. Vardhamanaka ('little Vardhamana', i.e. 'little Mahavira : ["WB-E", p. 417] Ghan.t.a-karn.a 'Bell-') in (HN4U"Ghantakarna") the Tungabhadra valley containing the "single tower" at Hampi (TOI"VT") [written 20 June 2019]

XII

Hanged Man ["man hanging upside down by one foot" (1521 Ferrara) http://www.tarotforum.net/archive/index.php/t-94131.html]


12

lo Impichato [Impiccato http://www.tarotforum.net/archive/index.php/t-94131.html -- 'Hanged' (verb \impiccare\ 'to hang')]

9. Serpent (GP) {because serpents can climb trees?}

XIII

Death


13

la Morte

10. Palanquin (GP) {cf. bier for cadavre of the defunct}

XIV

Temperance [= #6 in S.L.C.A.]


14

el Diavolo (Devil)

11-12. Eyen (GP) {glowing eyen witnessed in the dark may assumedly be diabolic}

--



--


13. Human Fingers (GP)

XV

Devil [= #14 in S.L.C.A.]


15

la Sagitta (Arrow)

14. Pearl, for naks.atra Citra ('Variegated') = Jain 21. Flower, cf. Pus.ya 'Flower' for conjunction of Tri-pura

XVI

Tower [= #11 in S.L.C.A.]


16

la Stella (Star)

15. Sapphire (GP) {must be "star sapphire"}

XVII

Star [= #16 in S.L.C.A.]


17

la Luna (Moon)

16. Festoon of leaves = p. 153 Jain 23. Festoon {for halo around moon as seen in misty night-sky?}

XVIII

Moon [= #17 in S.L.C.A.]


18

el Sole (Sun)

17. Umbrella (GP) {Parasol against sunlight}

--



--


18. Earring, Bear-head [of R.ks.a-rajas (PE, q.v.) 'Bear-' whose successor Bali resisted Dundubhi who "challenged Varun.a" (PE, s.v. "Dundubhi I.4)", p. 253b)]

XIX

Sun [= #18 in S.L.C.A.]


19

lo Angelo [Gabriel blowing trumpet]

19. Conch [for blowing as trumpet] : S`ankha-nakha (PE, q.v.) 'Conch-' in court of Varun.a

XX

Angel [= #19 in S.L.C.A.] or Judgement


20

la Iusticia {cf. "the mills-of-the-gods" dispensing justice}

21. Tooth of elephant [tooth for grinding food, cf. mill pulverizing foodstuffs]

XXI

World


21

el Mondo (World)

23. Three Footsteps of Vamana 'Midgit' ascending the Tri-loka ('Triple World')

--



--


24. Tabor [small drum, typically played by midgit]

--



--


25. Circle of stars

XXII

Fool


22

el Matto (Madman)

26. Two-faced image {saying opposite things, madly contradicting own self?}

--



--


28. Fish

A&ACS = Hugh A. Moran & David H. Kelley : The Alphabet and the Ancient Calendar Signs. 2nd edn. Palo Alto (CA), 1970. [taken from ASIATICK RESEARCHES, vol. 9, facing p. 323]

"WB-E" = John E. Cort : "Worship of Bell-Ears the Great Hero, a Jain Tantric Deity". In :- David Gordon White (ed.) : Tantra in Practice. Princeton Univ Pr, 2000. https://books.google.com/books?id=gG5dDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA417#v=onepage&q&f=false

HN4U"Ghantakarna" http://www.herenow4u.net/index.php?id=62442&tt_address_pi1[uid]=1904&no_cache=1

TOI"VT" = "Virupaksha Temple". https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/travel/destinations/Virupaksha-Temple/ps47118247.cms


{The sequence of cards for the "Archetypal" decks is actually unknown (those cards not being numbered). Evidently, the true original sequence must be that described in Sermones de Ludo Cum Aliis : thus, Papess and Pope (Skt \Prabhu\ 'leader of a religious order') certainly belong together.} {One evident alteration in the "archetypal" list is the substitution, in the place of "Sagitta/Arrow" (which must be the divine arrow which demolished Tri-pura ('Triple City', a collocation of 3 ae:rial cities traversing the sky : W"T(M)"), for which is included, instead, the so-called Purgos ('Tower') of Kronos in Elusion the Levin-Stricken site of mushroom-culture.}

W"T(M)" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripura_%28mythology%29


pp. 137-8, 213 Le Monde Primitif (edited, and largely endited, by deGe'belin)

p. 137

"Le Monde Primitif is an unwieldy nine volumes of wild speculation an the ancient origins of mankind. ...

p. 138

Le Monde Primitif is a fascinating, largely forgotten ancestor of the comparative history of religion, in which the author attempts to reconstruct the ancient golden age through comparative philology and mythology."


"Volume 8 considers ... occult tarot ... : two essays, one by Court de Ge'belin, the other by "M. le Comte de M***," that is, Louis-Raphae:l-Lucre`ce de Fayolle, count of Mellet (1727-1804)."

p. 213, n. 5:17

"The identity of "M. le Comte de M." was apparently first discovered by Jean-Marie Lho^te, who explains ... this identification ... in his annotated facsimile edition of Le Monde Primitif tarot essays ... (Paris : Berg International, 1983), 144, s.v. "M. le C. de M." ... ."


p. 141 deMellet, on divination [p. 215, n. 5:27 : based on Timotheos "3:8, in the Vulgate".]

"De Mellet proposes [Le Monde Primitif, vol. 8, p. 405] that ... divination was performed, among the Egyptians, by two special priests : a Jannes, or Explainer, and a Mambres, or Permutator, who kept careful records of "their interpretations, their discoveries, their miracles" such that "their Memoirs formed a body of Science and Doctrine, where the Priests could read physical and moral learning." These diviners also served as counselors to the pharaohs ... ."


p. 147 temperament of musical scales

"perfect interval ... is described in ... one-quarter of a semitone ... interval ... known as the Pythagorean comma ... . ... One way of resolving this ..., known as equal temperament, has a serious disadvantage for close harmony ... . ... Certainly the most famous solution to the problem is the well-tempered scale, one of a number of systems that distribute the Pythagorean comma unequally, such that ... the most essential intervals can be perfect."


p. 149 fugue & mythology, according to Claude Le'vi-Strauss

[quoted from Le'vi-Strauss 1971, p. 652] "It would seem that the point at which music and mythology began to appear as reversed images of each other coincided with the invention of the fugue ... ."

"Fugue is like mythology, in that it depends on concurrent melodies ... that have their own internl rhythmic and harmonic logic yet simultaneously refer to each other ... through the scale."

Le'vi-Strauss 1971 = Claude Le'vi-Strauss (transl. by John & Doreen Weightman) : The Naked Man.


p. 150 ainigmata-canon

"Indeed, an enigma canon, in which only the subject is given and the remainder improvised by an obscurely written or even implied rule, seems to offer a convenient analogy for myths as Le'vi-Strauss describes them. {As for the factor of "retrograde motion", it is very often the case that kalendaric sequences (names of asterisms, named days of the month, etc.) are correlated between disparate two systems only through comparing them in mutually opposite sequence.}

[p. 217, n. 6:44 "An enigma or riddle canon is one that contains "neither signs nor figures nor letters marking the four voices, and often there is not even a clef indication. In order to solve the riddle ... various intervals ... must be tried. Often one must experiment with the techniques of inversion, retrograde motion, inverted retrograde motion, or with the use of the three clefs and their transpositions" : Johann Georg Albrechtsberger ..., translated in Mann [1965], 255-62."]

Specifically, enigma canons have three explicit dimensions : synchronic harmony, diachronic elaboration and development, and as a rule, a definite subject matter or focus driving diachronic exploration of the synchronic material.

To use more of Le'vi-Strauss's terminology,

the diachronic consistencies are armature, "a combination of properties that remain invariant in two or several myths";

the particular scale and its tonalities are code, "the pattern of functions ascribed by each myth to these properties"; and

the rule that "modif[ies] the discontinuity without challenging its principle" is message, the subject matter of an individual myth.""

Mann 1965 = Alfred Mann : The Study of Fugue. NY : W. W. Norton.


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Cap. 6

Demonstration/Deconstruction

PP. 158-182


p. 159 interdiscipinary abstract thought manifest in magic

"Whether one calls it magical or otherwise, moreover, any intellectual system of sufficient complexity affords ample resources for abstract thought. And the impossibility of discarding "magic" becaomes all the more apparent ... . ...

If historians hold to native disciplinary divisions, it is for ... utility ... -- and the magicians themselves might rightly lay claim to interdisciplinarity."


p. 160 magic & Polynesian mana

"Mauss in his 1902 General Theory of Magic [translated into English by Robert Brain (London : Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972)] written in collaboration with Henri Humbert, proposed that magic is first and foremost different : magicians are powerful because they are different, and those who are different have magical powers.

{Shamans ("magicians") are spiritual powerful because they have met, in their dreams, divine entities who have provided them with such powers, which thereupon are readily transferred (by the same divine entities) from the dream-world into the waking-world. This power is based in the shaman's affinity for the divine entities, and certainly not in any alleged "difference" what-so-ever.}

Mauss referred to this projection of power to ... mana ... . And it could be said ... that the history of substantive definitions of magic since that time has amounted to a progressive repudiation of this thesis.

It turns out that mana does not mean, in its original Polynesian context, what Mauss and Durkheim thought it did."

[p. 218, n. 6:6 "For an examination of the mana problem, see Jonathan Z. Smith, "Mana, Mana Everywhere ...", [2004], 117-44, esp. 125-34 ... ."]

Smith 2004 = Jonathan Z. Smith : Relating Religion. Univ of Chicago Pr.


p. 171 Derrida, on magic

"Magic haunts Derridean discourse, from necromancy of making spectres speak to the "occult" movements ..., from Saussure's "exorcism" of writing to meditations on Hermes and the Aegyptian ... hieroglyphs.

And yet ... in Spectres of Marx, Derrida ruminates on the logic of the spectre, of invocation, necromancy, summoning."


p. 173 Derrida, on magical writing

"With Derrida's most famous ... examination ... of writing, the magical can be specified -- and differentiated ... . In Of Grammatology, Derrida summarizes the traditional view of writing within what he calls (following Heidegger) the "Western metaphysics of presence" :

[quoted from Derrida 1976, 24] Writing is that forgetting of the self ... that opens the history of the spirit. It is this that the Phaedrus said : writing is at once ... the power of forgetting."

Derrida 1976 = Jacques Derrida (transl. by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak) : Of Grammatology. Baltimore : John Hopkins Univ Pr.


p. 173 PHa[W]IDRos {cf. BHaDRA-Kali (& Bhadra-pada?)}

"in the Phaedrus ... there is still some ... written language, which is merely a shadowy tomb ... . Derrida's emphasis on the "mythological effect of the return" points to just this ... magically to restore a lost presence to a language ... ." {This would be a mythology describing projected future events.}

{\PHa[W]I-DRos\ might be a contraction of \BHAVYa\ (PE, s.v. "Bhavya III.") 'about to become, future' + his projected future aira, to wit, the \Daks.a-savaRn.i\ [\daks.a\ 'dextrous (as, in writing)'] manu-antara}


p. 181 Manfred Frank, on Schelling

"an issue Derrida takes up in numerous works, especially those concerning Hegel, magic again comes to haunt a discourse ... .

The Tu:bingen philosopher Manfred Frank, in a number of scintillating lectures, ... suggests that ... Derrida completes Schelling ... on the Hegelian subject ...

toward justifying Schelling's formulations on ... post-Saussurean structural grounds.

[p. 221, n. 6:45 "Frank, What is Neostructuralism? Lectures 5 (48-64) and 14-18 (215-870 examine Derrida in the light of Saussure ... ."]

Frank does not mention, however, that Schelling found resources for this ... in Isaac Luria's ... tzimtzum [\s.ims.um\ 'contraction'] ... ."

[p. 221, n. 6:46 "Schelling encountered this material through the intellectual lineage of Jakob Boehme, via Friedrich Christoff Oetinger ... ."] {This divine "contraction" was mentioned more than a millennium earlier, in the Basilidean Book of the Great Logos (MRG, p. 73).}

MRG = Kirsten J. Grimstad & Siegfried Mews : The Modern Revival of Gnosticism and Thomas Mann's Doktor Faustus. Camden House (imprint of Boydell & Brewer), Woodbridge (Suffolk), 2002.

https://books.google.com/books?id=lo8NqC8HBvoC&pg=PA73&lpg=PA73&dq=


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Christopher I. Lehrich : The Occult Mind : Magic in Theory and Practice. Cornell Univ Pr, Ithaca (NY), 2007.