15. Devil: O Dionysos Paralogos, God Beyond Reason, I do not understand your ways.
Christian base: Out of all the cards in eight partial Visconti-Sforza decks, there survives no Devil card, nor the one after it, the Maison-Dieu. There is also none in the d'Este or Gringonneur packs. Our only evidence that there ever was an early Devil card is in a sermon against playing cards from sometime in the second half of the 15th century. (1)
But in the Cary Sheet, from around 1500 more or less, there is a recognizable devil, picking up souls and putting them in his basket like so much trash. After death the Devil claims his own. This is one of the “4 last things” of medieval Christianity. (2)
The cards on the right above are from the 16th century. A devil with bat-wings and a pitchfork and a second face on his abdomen scours the earth for his victims. The second face is probably feminine, and it, too, seems to have horns. Something like eyes are on its knees, and his feet are bird-claws. This type of image continues even in Vieville, 1650 Paris (below left). The last one above, from the so-called "Rothschild" sheet, is similar, except that the figure is now eating his victim. (3)
However this is not the last card but only the 15th. Is this demon in Hell or only Purgatory? The "Hell" panel of Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights has its Satan gobbling his victims, as on the "Rothschild" card, but they come out good as new on the other end. Moreover, black ravens and gas seem to escape them on the way down. They are thus purer coming out than before. Bosch's apparatus, reminiscent of a giant toilet, also suggests alchemical or metallurgical apparatus, for the transmuting or refining of metals. (4)
Looking at the Conver Devil, 1761 (below center), our attention is caught by his eyes, looking down and cross-eyed, as though he were trying to look inside himself. In Hell one is forever confronted with images of one's sin. Perhaps this devil is suggesting we look at our sins now, before it is too late, or that the two little devils chained below him look at themselves and so attain purification. (5)
References, Devil, Christian:
1. Sermon: http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Sermones_de_Ludo_Cum_Aliis.
2. Cary Sheet: http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/dl_crosscollex/, search "Cary Sheet 3s." "Last things": e.g. http://www.catholictradition.org/Classics/4last-things.htm.
3. Cards on right: from Kaplan, Encyclopedia of Tarot, Vol. 1, p. 125, 129. Vieville: a good image is at http://www.lepalaisdutarot.com/PalaisT/Vieville.htm.
4. Bosch's hell panel: http://www.rainfall.com/posters/classicart/6196.htm.
5. Eyes: noted by Jodorowsky, La Via del Tarot.
Greco-Egyptian perspective: I will start with a small detail. On the Noblet card (above, left), there are three dots on one wing and two on the other. On the Conver card, there are three dots on one of the small devils. What do these dots mean? In Plutarch, three is the number of the male and two the number of the female. (Aristotle says this view comes from Pythagoras.) From a Greco-Egyptian perspective, the dots thus mean that the devil is a hermaphrodite, as we could have seen for ourselves. And Conver, if he is following Plutarch, simply puts the three dots on one of the small devils to indicate that he is male. We can see for ourselves the gender of the other devil. (1)
The idea of one person having characteristics of both genders was anathema to the medieval Church. Part of the evidence against Joan of Arc, burned for witchcraft, was that she wore men's clothing and as a warrior was taking a male social role. (2)
Now let us look at the image as a whole. On the right, above, is a relief that comes from the wall of a causeway to a minor pyramid at the Egyptian burial complex at Saqqara. Near Cairo, such reliefs might have been copied by Egyptian entrepreneurs and sold in the marketplace to European traders. Its design is very much like the Marseille-style Devil card. It shows Seth, whom Plutarch calls "Typhon," holding Egypt’s enemies captive. He is not the only god doing this, as another god is right behind him. They are bringing the captives somewhere. Egyptologists say their destination is the Pharaoh, who will decide their fate. (3)
In this connection we may recall the characterization of Satan in Judaism. A Satan was an "accuser," who enumerated a person's sins before the Celestial Court. Seth, bringing the captives to the Pharaoh, is in the same role. Moreover, there is the portrayal of Satan in the Book of Job. There he acts on behalf of God, with God's full permission, carrying out the tests that God knows Job will pass. The more suffering Satan inflicts, the nobler Job proves to be. (4)
In Seth's case, he inflicts suffering on the captives, but it is all for the glory of Egypt and Pharaoh. Perhaps he is even giving them a chance to redeem themselves, by the nobility of their response to his humiliation of them. We are at the heart of the "problem of evil," one of the great mysteries. I imagine the card-makers seeing a representation of the Egyptian relief and saying to themselves, yes, that is the mystery I want to convey.
In Seth's case, he inflicts suffering on the captives, but it is all for the glory of Egypt and Pharaoh. Perhaps he is even giving them a chance to redeem themselves, by the nobility of their response to his humiliation of them. We are at the heart of the "problem of evil," one of the great mysteries. I imagine the card-makers seeing a representation of the Egyptian relief and saying to themselves, yes, that is the mystery I want to convey.
Court de Gebelin saw immediately that this card depicted Seth, whom he calls in the Greek way, "Typhon." His only mistake was in how he described the figure: wings of a bat, hands and feet of a harpy, horns of a stag. These do fit the card, but not the Egyptian image. They do not fit the description of the Greek Typhon either, which was as a giant with scales for skin and arms ending in serpents. Cartari has an illustration, later used by Athenaseus Kircher. The Marseille image combines various images: the bat is associated with darkness; the harpy with hell (e.g. in Dante's Inferno XIII); the horns with various horned gods (Pan, Dionysus, etc.), all of whom would be devils to the Church. (5)
One image the card-makers would not have seen was buried in a tomb near Thebes (below). It shows Seth defending the solar barge in its night-sea journey, against the great snake Apophis, who would eat the boat and all its passengers. The accompanying text explains that of all the notables on board, only Seth could withstand the hypnotic gaze of the serpent and beat it back. Perhaps that is why Isis would not have Seth destroyed when Horus wanted her to do so, and why Ra was so adamant in Seth's defense. Without Seth, the sun would not rise! So perhaps there is something about his cross-eyed gaze that destroys the power of evil, evil of a more absolute kind than Seth. Seth himself is not evil; he is disorder, energy, the power of destruction. He is a destructive power that also works in the service of good, as a light that dispels darkness, unlike Apophis who wishes to keep the world dark. (6)
One image the card-makers would not have seen was buried in a tomb near Thebes (below). It shows Seth defending the solar barge in its night-sea journey, against the great snake Apophis, who would eat the boat and all its passengers. The accompanying text explains that of all the notables on board, only Seth could withstand the hypnotic gaze of the serpent and beat it back. Perhaps that is why Isis would not have Seth destroyed when Horus wanted her to do so, and why Ra was so adamant in Seth's defense. Without Seth, the sun would not rise! So perhaps there is something about his cross-eyed gaze that destroys the power of evil, evil of a more absolute kind than Seth. Seth himself is not evil; he is disorder, energy, the power of destruction. He is a destructive power that also works in the service of good, as a light that dispels darkness, unlike Apophis who wishes to keep the world dark. (6)
References, Devil, Egyptian:
1. Plutarch: Isis and Osiris LVI, at http://thriceholy.net/Texts/Isis.html. Aristotle: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pythagoras/.
2. Joan of Arc: http://www.sparknotes.com/biography/joanofarc/section9.rhtml.
3. The image is in Innes, The tarot, p. 48. The information on where it comes from and when is from a recent book on ancient Egypt, whose title I have not yet recalled.
4. Satan: some good quotations from Hebrew Bible at http://www.deliriumsrealm.com/delirium/articleview.asp?Post=327; see also Judaism section of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan.
5. De Gebelin: Karlin, Rhapsodies of the Bizarre, p. 29. Seth=Typhon: Plutarch, Isis and Osiris XLI, XLIX. Harpies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpy. Cartari: 1547 edition, p. 228.
6. Seth and Apophis: Image at http://www.siloam.net/clintons/. Information: http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/apep.htm.
The Dionysian Devil: The image on the Marseille cards is reminiscent of the Fool, and of Dionysus. The Devil’s antlers’ light blue suggests a connection to heaven. Here the initiates, fresh from the two jars, are the two small figures, and the initiator is the large figure above them, carrying the torch. The ropes, on this reading, do not simply bind the devil and his victims: they lead the initiates through dark passageways, where they pass by horrible images. Such ropes, leading and tying, are visible in the sarcophagus scenes that Daimonax reproduces (1):
4. Satan: some good quotations from Hebrew Bible at http://www.deliriumsrealm.com/delirium/articleview.asp?Post=327; see also Judaism section of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan.
5. De Gebelin: Karlin, Rhapsodies of the Bizarre, p. 29. Seth=Typhon: Plutarch, Isis and Osiris XLI, XLIX. Harpies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpy. Cartari: 1547 edition, p. 228.
6. Seth and Apophis: Image at http://www.siloam.net/clintons/. Information: http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/apep.htm.
The Dionysian Devil: The image on the Marseille cards is reminiscent of the Fool, and of Dionysus. The Devil’s antlers’ light blue suggests a connection to heaven. Here the initiates, fresh from the two jars, are the two small figures, and the initiator is the large figure above them, carrying the torch. The ropes, on this reading, do not simply bind the devil and his victims: they lead the initiates through dark passageways, where they pass by horrible images. Such ropes, leading and tying, are visible in the sarcophagus scenes that Daimonax reproduces (1):
Scenes on another sarcophagus are even more disturbing. This one we know for sure was known in the Renaissance, as it is the one we saw earlier with the drunken Dionysus, a sarcophagus engraved twice by Marcantonio Raimondi sometime before 1524. In one scene, one satyr anally penetrates another while that one is screaming in pain and horror. To me this suggests the god’s entrance into us, as libido and life force, whether willed or not. And it is also the power of addiction, of comfortable and comforting patterns engraved in our bodies, residues of repressed traumas reinforced by more recent habits, fighting for dominance over us.
A scene on the other side shows a satyr inserting a wooden phallus into his or her own vagina or rectum. This scene may relate to a legend about Dionysus himself, one told by several ancient authors including Clement of Alexandria. Dionysus wanted to go to Hades, but did not know the way. A man led him to the entrance in return for Dionysus’s promise to let him penetrate Dionysus anally when Dionysus returned. By then, however, the man had died and was changed into a fig tree. Dionysus carves a branch of the tree and uses it to fulfill his promise. (2)
On the sarcophagus there is also a sleeping woman. This may refer to the sleeping Ariadne after her abandonment by Theseus. What happens next in the story, also illustrated on a sarcophagus, is that Pan lifts her blanket so that Dionysus can see her full loveliness. Dionysus is represented as a voyeur, after which he will “make her his wife,” as the phrase goes. Yet to be the bride of Dionysus was an honor. Ariadne's face is only roughly sketched on the sarcophagus, suggesting that the features of the girl whose sarcophagus this was were to have been put there. (3)
The sleeping woman of the sarcophagus shown earlier could also be one of Dionysus's rape victims, in stories related by the 5th century Nonnus. In two cases Dionysus’s lust fixes upon a girl who refuses all men and lives in the wilds. He changes the water of her favorite spring to wine. The girl, unused to wine, passes out. Dionysus can then satisfy his lust upon his unconscious victim. In the second case he takes the precaution of tying her up first. It is again the dark side of libido. (4)
A scene on the other side shows a satyr inserting a wooden phallus into his or her own vagina or rectum. This scene may relate to a legend about Dionysus himself, one told by several ancient authors including Clement of Alexandria. Dionysus wanted to go to Hades, but did not know the way. A man led him to the entrance in return for Dionysus’s promise to let him penetrate Dionysus anally when Dionysus returned. By then, however, the man had died and was changed into a fig tree. Dionysus carves a branch of the tree and uses it to fulfill his promise. (2)
On the sarcophagus there is also a sleeping woman. This may refer to the sleeping Ariadne after her abandonment by Theseus. What happens next in the story, also illustrated on a sarcophagus, is that Pan lifts her blanket so that Dionysus can see her full loveliness. Dionysus is represented as a voyeur, after which he will “make her his wife,” as the phrase goes. Yet to be the bride of Dionysus was an honor. Ariadne's face is only roughly sketched on the sarcophagus, suggesting that the features of the girl whose sarcophagus this was were to have been put there. (3)
The sleeping woman of the sarcophagus shown earlier could also be one of Dionysus's rape victims, in stories related by the 5th century Nonnus. In two cases Dionysus’s lust fixes upon a girl who refuses all men and lives in the wilds. He changes the water of her favorite spring to wine. The girl, unused to wine, passes out. Dionysus can then satisfy his lust upon his unconscious victim. In the second case he takes the precaution of tying her up first. It is again the dark side of libido. (4)
Such a rape scene is not shown in the Devil card. But perhaps the card-designers meant us to extrapolate, based on the literature about Dionysus, from the exposed penis and the bound condition of the two smaller figures. Nonnus was available in the 15th-17th centuries, although not quoted that I can find.
I mentioned earlier that the scene on the sarcophagus might be of a woman inserting the wooden phallus into her vagina. Art historian Richard Asti says this person is a "satyress," probably because of the breasts. Also, it fits the idea, advocated by Kerenyi among others, that a hieros gamos, meaning some act of sacred sex, was performed in the women-only rite in Athens. (4a)
In this connection, Cartari reports that brides were given first to the god "Mutino" as "the first fruits of their virginity." Cartari identifies this god with Priapus, son of Dionysus and Aphrodite. Documents say that Romans brides were brought to sit on the erect phallus of statues of "Mutinus Tutinus." Perhaps this is a remnant of an earlier custom, in which more was involved than just sitting. Such an activity is suggested by a drawing allegedly of a mural at Pompeii, although its authenticity is not verified. (5)
Daimonax says that it is unlikely that such statues as depicted here actually existed, because none has been found that could be used for the purpose suggested. However the numerous "Priapus" poems suggest otherwise. Cartari quotes a famous one by Horace:
Daimonax says that it is unlikely that such statues as depicted here actually existed, because none has been found that could be used for the purpose suggested. However the numerous "Priapus" poems suggest otherwise. Cartari quotes a famous one by Horace:
Not long ago I was a useless pieceThe "raised right hand" probably refers to a sickle: another such poem cited by Cartari describes "the rustic child of Bacchus"--i.e. Priapus--as "the god who's armed with the curving hook." Since the statues were made of wood, all that would have survived in the Renaissance would have been poems like this one. (6)
Of wood, a fig tree's trunk. A carpenter
Debated what to make of me. I might
Have been a stool; instead he fashioned me
A god, Priapus. Awesome now, a god,
I panic thieves and birds. No thief gets past
My raised right hand. My crotch is armed with this
Obscenely long and red protrusion. Birds
Don't bother me. A reed stuck in my head
Spooks the pests and keep them off this new
And lovely park...
Scenes of horror for women initiates are also both implied and shown at the Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii (below). On one wall, a woman draws back in horror from something she sees. On the opposite wall is the scene of the winged Nemesis whipping a candidate, which we already looked at in connection with the Justice card. She is like Job's Satan, giving the candidate her test of endurance and faith, after which will come the ecstatic epiphany. Similarly, the Orphics held that the tribulations of one incarnation are the punishment for the misdeeds of an earlier one, in which one pays the penalty and is redeemed. (7)
If the initiate was indeed subject to such scenes, if not in actuality then at least entertaining the possibility through seeing it on the wall in a dazed state, it strikes me that he is invited to reflect upon his or her own misappropriations of libido, or what too much of a good thing can lead to. Besides sexuality, there are also the substances sacred to Dionysus, namely alcoholic beverages. With all the sacred wine-drinking, there must have been an addiction problem in ancient times. Even supposing such imbibing was officially restricted to specific occasions, people would have made or bought their own wine and beer. Aeschylus, for example, was said to have always been "in his cups" when writing his plays. In that sense, horrific scenes would remind the initiate of his own excesses, or those of others, from the point of view of those to whom harm has been caused. The addict thus has at least the desire to change. Recognizing one's evil is one step. We have gone from recognizing ourselves as victims, as in Card 13, to seeing how we are also perpetrators. (8)
As with the other cards in the sequence, there is a positive side to this card. Card 14 was not only addictive wine, but also re-energizing spirit, after the depletions of 12 and 13. This energy enters at the bottom of the spinal column, the center of sexuality and aggression, the "root chakra," in Hindu terminology. It is a new wildness, free of external restraints. One early card represents the Devil as the "wild man" of European folklore, dressed only in his own abundant hair. There was also a "wild woman," mostly co-opted by Renaissance paintings of Mary Magdalene. This wild energy needs only to be given direction within, up the spine, in a way that avoids the cycle of victim and perpetrator. (9)
References, Devil, Dionysian:
1. Daimonax: http://www.bacchos.org/tarothtm/15diable2.html.
If the initiate was indeed subject to such scenes, if not in actuality then at least entertaining the possibility through seeing it on the wall in a dazed state, it strikes me that he is invited to reflect upon his or her own misappropriations of libido, or what too much of a good thing can lead to. Besides sexuality, there are also the substances sacred to Dionysus, namely alcoholic beverages. With all the sacred wine-drinking, there must have been an addiction problem in ancient times. Even supposing such imbibing was officially restricted to specific occasions, people would have made or bought their own wine and beer. Aeschylus, for example, was said to have always been "in his cups" when writing his plays. In that sense, horrific scenes would remind the initiate of his own excesses, or those of others, from the point of view of those to whom harm has been caused. The addict thus has at least the desire to change. Recognizing one's evil is one step. We have gone from recognizing ourselves as victims, as in Card 13, to seeing how we are also perpetrators. (8)
As with the other cards in the sequence, there is a positive side to this card. Card 14 was not only addictive wine, but also re-energizing spirit, after the depletions of 12 and 13. This energy enters at the bottom of the spinal column, the center of sexuality and aggression, the "root chakra," in Hindu terminology. It is a new wildness, free of external restraints. One early card represents the Devil as the "wild man" of European folklore, dressed only in his own abundant hair. There was also a "wild woman," mostly co-opted by Renaissance paintings of Mary Magdalene. This wild energy needs only to be given direction within, up the spine, in a way that avoids the cycle of victim and perpetrator. (9)
References, Devil, Dionysian:
1. Daimonax: http://www.bacchos.org/tarothtm/15diable2.html.
2. Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks 2.30, at http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/DionysosMyths2.html#Underworld.
3. Image: http://www.cnr.edu/home/sas/araia/maconiana.html.
4. Rapes: (Nonnus, Dionysiaca 42.1 and 48.240, both at http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/DionysosLoves.html.
5. Richard Asti: p. 47 of "Giulio Romano as Designer of Erotica," in Janet Cox Rearick, ed., Giulio Romano Master Designer. Cartari: digitalized Italian version, http://www.bibliotecaitaliana.it/exist/bibit/browse/autore.xq?autore=Cartari,%20Vincenzo. Search "Dio Mutino." Mutinus Tutinus: Richard W. Hooper, Introduction to The Priapus Poems: Erotic Epigrams from Ancient Rome, p. 3.
6. Daimonax and image: http://www.bacchos.org/tarothtm/15diable2.html. Poem: Horace, Satire 1.8, at http://www.stoa.org/diot.ima/anthology/horsat1.8.shtml. Another poem: Cartari, digitalized version, link in note 5. This poem is by Tibullus.
7. Images: http://www.interviu.it/turismo/pompei/vdm.jpg. Punishment: Harrison, p. 586 ff, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion - Google Books Result,
8. Aeschylus: Cartari, digitalized Italian version, link in note 5.
9. "Rosenwald" devil. Kaplan, Encyclopedia of Tarot, Vol. 2. Titian: http://www.artbible.info/art/large/500.html. Donatello: http://witcombe.sbc.edu/davincicode/magdalen-laterlife.html.
The alchemical Devil. The Devil as such is not shown in alchemical works, that I can find.. There are dragons and serpents aplenty, as in the legend of Apollo slaying the Python. O'Neill compares them to the errors that plague the alchemist's work, and also to the "repressed contents" hidden in the unconscious mind.
O'Neill finds one alchemical image that he says is "closest to the tarot," meaning I think the Marseille version of the card. It is late in the history of alchemical imagery, the 1678 Mutus Liber. It shows Neptune and two smaller figures, the young Apollo and Diana, sun and moon, inside a large drop of water being held up by two angels. Below, the soror directs our attention to the scene (image from Fabricius, Alchemy p. 27, de Rola Golden Game p. 268).
There are no cords around the young persons' necks, but all seem trapped in a drop of water, or perhaps a drop-shaped retort, which the angels are holding up for us to see. The emblem occurs early in the worldess text, constituting its second page.
What O'Neill is comparing this image to is of course the Marseille-style Devil card of the same time period as the Mutus Liber (as below center, Noblet and right, Conver). But even the15th century Cary Sheet image (below left) has the theme of trapping the sinner and brandishing the trident otherwise associated with Neptune.
O'Neill says that Neptune, as god of the seas, rules over the unconscious. The journey to the devil's lair is thus the night-sea journey of Greek myth, symbolized also by a journey to hell, as in Homer and Virgil. O'Neill gives a psychological interpretation of it:
It strikes me that throughout the sequence up to this point, the two lower figures have always been there, trapped in matter since the Fall, following the seductive advice of Satan. But now Christ has descended to Hell and can liberate them. In Dante's Paradiso, Canto XXVI, Adam describes how Christ freed Eve and himself from Limbo in the 34th year after the Incarnation. It seems to me that from an alchemical perspective, the Devil card is showing us Adam and Eve in their fallen state, which corresponds also to the Stone trapped in the prima materia. Now they are aware of their chains, and so they will be liberated. It is hotter down in the earth, as people knew from descending into mines and from volcanic eruptions. Neptune was also the god of volcanoes (http://www.greek-gods-and-goddesses.com/greek-god-poseidon.html.
Some have compared the Devil's platform on the Marseille card to a blacksmith's anvil. From that perspective, the Devil could be Vulcan, the metallurgist precursor to the alchemist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_of_the_alchemists), who was also the Roman god of volcanoes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_(mythology)). The myth of Vulcan trapping Venus and Mars in his nets was compared to the trapping of Sol and Luna in the alchemist's retort.
The upper figure is also Mercury in his devilish aspect, as deadly poison. Paradoxically, it is also Mercury that will free the subjects from their chains, like Christ in Tartatus. Thus in numerous alchemical works, Mercury, like St. George, stands triumphant over the defeated dragon.
The Pythagorean and Kabbalist Devil. For the Pythagoreans 15 = 5. It is the Pope again, the psychopomp, but in his infernal aspect. Either the Pope or the Devil rules over the vegetative soul, that which is born, grows, decays, and dies. The Devil is the Pope's underground equivalent, heating the soil in which the Hanged Man has planted them, which Death has weeded, and which Temperance has watered.
The Kabbalah had its devils as well as its angels. However they are not to be found in Reuchlin, Ricci, or Gikatilla, and are barely hinted at by Pico. What we have instead are the two sides of the Tree of Life, the left of severity and the right of love. They are combined in Tiferet, the fifth sefira up from the bottom. Tiferet is glory and beauty. But there is a false glory and beauty as well as a true one. Adam and Eve, bound to matter, are attracted to the false, that of the Tempter.
In the previous two chapters, I compared the Death and Temperance cards to Jonah's experience in the "great fish." Liberated by the grace of God, he now must go to Nineveh and preach to them of their wickedness and need to repent and praise the true God. Christ could liberate Adam and Eve in Limbo, but there was only Jonah in the belly of the fish. Jonah has to overcome his fear and show the people of Nineveh their true selves. They are the ones bound to Satan, just as he himself was in the belly of the fish.
16. Maison-Dieu: O Soter, Great Savior, deliver us from the torments you send us.
Christian base: I have left the title in French, the way it appears on the Marseille-style cards, because the meaning of the term is subject to dispute. The usual translation is "House of God." But that would normally be "Maison de Dieu," not "Maison-Dieu." The "de," in English "of," is missing. So I leave well enough alone.
In the first mention of the card, the 15th century sermon, the card is simply "the arrow," probably meaning a lightning-bolt, or "fire". Another early name was the exact opposite of the usual one: "house of the devil." As with the Devil card, there are no examples in any of the earliest decks: the Cary-Visconti, the Visconti-Sforza, or the d'Este. The only early example is the Gringonneur (Charles VI) card, which shows a tower and a ray of red from the sky but no human figures. (1)
Brian Innes, I think following Gettings, sees an early predecessor in a relief at Amiens Cathedral (although he misidentifies it as Rheims). The relief shows what appears to be a church collapsing and two figures falling down.He says that it illustrates an episode from the Golden Legend, where the Holy Family flees to Egypt and pagan temples collapse as they pass. I found the passage,, in the chapter on the "Holy Innocents," which is as follows (2):
3. Image: http://www.cnr.edu/home/sas/araia/maconiana.html.
4. Rapes: (Nonnus, Dionysiaca 42.1 and 48.240, both at http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/DionysosLoves.html.
5. Richard Asti: p. 47 of "Giulio Romano as Designer of Erotica," in Janet Cox Rearick, ed., Giulio Romano Master Designer. Cartari: digitalized Italian version, http://www.bibliotecaitaliana.it/exist/bibit/browse/autore.xq?autore=Cartari,%20Vincenzo. Search "Dio Mutino." Mutinus Tutinus: Richard W. Hooper, Introduction to The Priapus Poems: Erotic Epigrams from Ancient Rome, p. 3.
6. Daimonax and image: http://www.bacchos.org/tarothtm/15diable2.html. Poem: Horace, Satire 1.8, at http://www.stoa.org/diot.ima/anthology/horsat1.8.shtml. Another poem: Cartari, digitalized version, link in note 5. This poem is by Tibullus.
7. Images: http://www.interviu.it/turismo/pompei/vdm.jpg. Punishment: Harrison, p. 586 ff, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion - Google Books Result,
8. Aeschylus: Cartari, digitalized Italian version, link in note 5.
9. "Rosenwald" devil. Kaplan, Encyclopedia of Tarot, Vol. 2. Titian: http://www.artbible.info/art/large/500.html. Donatello: http://witcombe.sbc.edu/davincicode/magdalen-laterlife.html.
The alchemical Devil. The Devil as such is not shown in alchemical works, that I can find.. There are dragons and serpents aplenty, as in the legend of Apollo slaying the Python. O'Neill compares them to the errors that plague the alchemist's work, and also to the "repressed contents" hidden in the unconscious mind.
O'Neill finds one alchemical image that he says is "closest to the tarot," meaning I think the Marseille version of the card. It is late in the history of alchemical imagery, the 1678 Mutus Liber. It shows Neptune and two smaller figures, the young Apollo and Diana, sun and moon, inside a large drop of water being held up by two angels. Below, the soror directs our attention to the scene (image from Fabricius, Alchemy p. 27, de Rola Golden Game p. 268).
There are no cords around the young persons' necks, but all seem trapped in a drop of water, or perhaps a drop-shaped retort, which the angels are holding up for us to see. The emblem occurs early in the worldess text, constituting its second page.
What O'Neill is comparing this image to is of course the Marseille-style Devil card of the same time period as the Mutus Liber (as below center, Noblet and right, Conver). But even the15th century Cary Sheet image (below left) has the theme of trapping the sinner and brandishing the trident otherwise associated with Neptune.
O'Neill says that Neptune, as god of the seas, rules over the unconscious. The journey to the devil's lair is thus the night-sea journey of Greek myth, symbolized also by a journey to hell, as in Homer and Virgil. O'Neill gives a psychological interpretation of it:
This journey to the world of the Devil is actually a journey into the depths of the unconscious, a cathartic digging (or mining in the alchemical allegories) into repressed contents of the mind. (Tarot Symbolism p. 284)That psychological perspective is of course not the language of the 15h-17th centuries. But when I look at early alchemical works of the 15th century, I see something similar to what is in the late Mutus Liber: the two figures that I said were like Adam and Eve, standing beneath the Tree of Knowledge, with the serpent above them. They appear in both the Ripley Scrowle and the Heilege Dreifaltigkeit. Adam and Eve could be said to be our repressed ancestors.
It strikes me that throughout the sequence up to this point, the two lower figures have always been there, trapped in matter since the Fall, following the seductive advice of Satan. But now Christ has descended to Hell and can liberate them. In Dante's Paradiso, Canto XXVI, Adam describes how Christ freed Eve and himself from Limbo in the 34th year after the Incarnation. It seems to me that from an alchemical perspective, the Devil card is showing us Adam and Eve in their fallen state, which corresponds also to the Stone trapped in the prima materia. Now they are aware of their chains, and so they will be liberated. It is hotter down in the earth, as people knew from descending into mines and from volcanic eruptions. Neptune was also the god of volcanoes (http://www.greek-gods-and-goddesses.com/greek-god-poseidon.html.
Some have compared the Devil's platform on the Marseille card to a blacksmith's anvil. From that perspective, the Devil could be Vulcan, the metallurgist precursor to the alchemist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_of_the_alchemists), who was also the Roman god of volcanoes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_(mythology)). The myth of Vulcan trapping Venus and Mars in his nets was compared to the trapping of Sol and Luna in the alchemist's retort.
The upper figure is also Mercury in his devilish aspect, as deadly poison. Paradoxically, it is also Mercury that will free the subjects from their chains, like Christ in Tartatus. Thus in numerous alchemical works, Mercury, like St. George, stands triumphant over the defeated dragon.
The Pythagorean and Kabbalist Devil. For the Pythagoreans 15 = 5. It is the Pope again, the psychopomp, but in his infernal aspect. Either the Pope or the Devil rules over the vegetative soul, that which is born, grows, decays, and dies. The Devil is the Pope's underground equivalent, heating the soil in which the Hanged Man has planted them, which Death has weeded, and which Temperance has watered.
The Kabbalah had its devils as well as its angels. However they are not to be found in Reuchlin, Ricci, or Gikatilla, and are barely hinted at by Pico. What we have instead are the two sides of the Tree of Life, the left of severity and the right of love. They are combined in Tiferet, the fifth sefira up from the bottom. Tiferet is glory and beauty. But there is a false glory and beauty as well as a true one. Adam and Eve, bound to matter, are attracted to the false, that of the Tempter.
In the previous two chapters, I compared the Death and Temperance cards to Jonah's experience in the "great fish." Liberated by the grace of God, he now must go to Nineveh and preach to them of their wickedness and need to repent and praise the true God. Christ could liberate Adam and Eve in Limbo, but there was only Jonah in the belly of the fish. Jonah has to overcome his fear and show the people of Nineveh their true selves. They are the ones bound to Satan, just as he himself was in the belly of the fish.
16. Maison-Dieu: O Soter, Great Savior, deliver us from the torments you send us.
Christian base: I have left the title in French, the way it appears on the Marseille-style cards, because the meaning of the term is subject to dispute. The usual translation is "House of God." But that would normally be "Maison de Dieu," not "Maison-Dieu." The "de," in English "of," is missing. So I leave well enough alone.
In the first mention of the card, the 15th century sermon, the card is simply "the arrow," probably meaning a lightning-bolt, or "fire". Another early name was the exact opposite of the usual one: "house of the devil." As with the Devil card, there are no examples in any of the earliest decks: the Cary-Visconti, the Visconti-Sforza, or the d'Este. The only early example is the Gringonneur (Charles VI) card, which shows a tower and a ray of red from the sky but no human figures. (1)
Brian Innes, I think following Gettings, sees an early predecessor in a relief at Amiens Cathedral (although he misidentifies it as Rheims). The relief shows what appears to be a church collapsing and two figures falling down.He says that it illustrates an episode from the Golden Legend, where the Holy Family flees to Egypt and pagan temples collapse as they pass. I found the passage,, in the chapter on the "Holy Innocents," which is as follows (2):
And after the prophecy of Isaiah, at the entering of our Lord into Egypt, the idols fell down, for like as at departing of the children out of Egypt, in every house the oldest son of the Egyptians lay one dead, in like wise at the coming of our Lord lay down the idols in the temples.
In the cathedral relief, however, what fall are not idols, but people. Either the cathedral-designers have turned the idols into idolaters, or we are seeing something else, for example the Tower of Babel, which I will discuss in a moment
As an account of how the image on the card first arose, the image at Amiens is a dubious source, in that no early card shows figures falling from a tower; but many of them, like the Gringonneur, show a ray hitting the tower; hence the early name "lightning-bolt" and "fire". That part is missing from the Amiens image. However it could be the source of the detail of the two figures that we start seeing in 1660s.
Here, including the Gringonneur in the middle, are two other surviving early cards, on the left from the Rosenwald Sheet, probably of the early 16th century, and that of the Rothschild Sheet, of the same time period. (3)
The two on the right and left have in common a sun in the corner. The one in the center has a ray of fire. The one on the right is the only early one I know that has figures who are falling. It suggests an earthquake rather than a lightning bolt as the cause, and they are not falling from above.
One inspiration for the massive tower in the middle might be the image of Purgatory in Dante's Purgatorio, a mountain with a ring of fire on top. From very close to the time of the card is this fresco in the cathedral of Florence, done 1465, of which a detail is below. (4)
Some early cards tend to illustrate merely the "house of the devil" title that is sometimes given in the early lists. An example is the Catelin Geoffroy of 1557 Lyon, which shows Orpheus playing his lyre while Eurydice is being hauled back to Hades. The tower is suggested by the window at the top blowing smoke.
There is also the "Anonymous Parisian", which shows a people being thrown into a hell-mouth while devils roam for victims. The tower is perhaps on the upper left; it plays an insignificant role. (5)
Another early design is a fragment from the Cary Sheet, c. 1500. It shows a tower, people on top, round objects raining down, and an animal of some sort near the bottom (actually, I misplaced this fragment of a card; the blank space should be at the bottom of the card). There is also something long or tall in front of the middle of the tower. Another late 15th-early 16th century card, from Ferrara or Venice (2nd left below) shows a tower, the sun and two trees. A later card, by Jacques Vieville around 1650 (far right) shows a tree and no tower! So perhaps the thing on the left border of the Cary Sheet card is a tree. (6)
The globes floating down on three of these cards is probably meant to represent hail. An example is from c. 1330 Normandy, in one of a series of illuminations of the Apocalypse. Below, along with the dragon who threatens the "woman clothed with the sun", we can see similar globes. (7)
The Noblet card (original 3rd from left of the previous group of cards), of the 1660s, is the earliest I know that shows a man in the air next to the tower. (8) There are also flames and/or smoke rising up to the sun, and another man on the ground.
In the second card above, the late 15th-early 16th century card with the tower and two trees, there is a figure in the doorway. I looked for similar figures in illustrations of towers in illuminated manuscripts of the 15th and 16th century. I found one showing the Tower of Babel, with a red devil in the doorway, in a 15th century illumination to John Lydgate's Fall of Princes, a loose translation of Boccaccio's De Casibus. The image below, while seeming to reproduce the colors well, is unfortunately reversed right to left, as comparison to a printed black and white reproduction demonstrates. (9)
But in the Noblet something else seems also to be going on. There, flames go upwards, from the inside of the tower to the sun (as opposed to the other way in Conver, 2nd below on the far right (13)); in Vieville, there are no flames at all (first below, left). What could Noblet and Vieville possibly have in common?
I think the answer is in the horoscope by Schoen, and in particular an illustration that does not obviously match up with a tarot image. House 6, the House of Sickness and health, shows two standing figures looking at a third figure in bed. A dog on the floor has a sad expression. In Old French, "Maison-Dieu" meant "hospice," a place where the sick had their souls treated more than their bodies, to prepare them for death (14). The horoscope designer might have had the phrase (even at this early date) and not the image. Another possibility is that he had the phrase "Maison de Deuil," which with a "v" means "House of the Devil," but with a "u," means "House of Mourning." So he put in a picture of a man in a sick-bed, being visited by two others and his dog. It is at such times that one gets a message from one's body: death is not so far away as you think. So repudiate the Devil now and be saved.
In Jesus, the light from above, the Devil is defeated, if one chooses in time. The choice, before death, is the Christian response to the first of the “four last things.” It is the flame reaching toward heaven. The the two figures that we see outside the tower are not necessarily souls damned for eternity. One may be falling into water; Flornoy's restoration colors the bottom of the image blue (see beginning of next section). In Conver, he falls onto hard ground, but his fingers penetrate the surface as though it were water. The other may not have fallen at all, but crawled out of a door that we do not see. There is hope.
The idea of the death-bed repudiation of the devil was not uncommon in art in Schoen's time. For example, there is Bosch's famous painting Death and The Miser. A devil seems to offering the man some kind of deal, such as recovery and the opportunity to make even more money, while the angel is counseling him to consider his immortal soul. (15)
In this interpretation, "Maison-Dieu" is both the hospice and another God-House, the human body, made by God in his own image.
In these cards, however, the setting is not merely that of a hospice and the human body. In both Noblet and Vieville, balls of fire and hailstones, mentioned several times in the book of Revelation along with lightning, are falling from heaven. It is the Apocalypse, or something like it One needed to repudiate the devil on a daily basis, for Judgment was near. (16)
Similar apparatus can be seen even in the Heilege Dreifaltigkeit of the early 1400s.
Clearly the top is supposed to stay on, if the distilled substance is to be collected by the tube and sent below. On the card, however, the top is off. There has been a sudden release of pent-up energy, of repressed desires or memories, perhaps even traumatic ones. It is what lay buried and unconscious until recognized dimly at the stage of the Devil card.
What is being depicted in the manuscript is distillation, the purification of a substance by boiling in an enclosed space. The upside-down man in the flask is probably floating upward. Either that or he is condensing, again a gentle process. "Go with the flow," as the saying has it.
What is important is to use a lot of dung, the alchemists advise. One emblem that O'Neill cites, from Maier, Symbola aureae mensae, 1617) shows a man trying to run up the side of a building. The master alchemist advises the other, "Take that which is trodden underfoot in the dunghill, for if thou dost not, thou wilt fall on thine head when thou wouldst climb without steps" (quoted in Fabricius, Alchemy, p. 22, where the emblem also appears; Fabricius does not offer an interpretation). This quotation is from an Arabic manuscript translated into Latin in 1182 by Robert of Chester, de Rola tells us. De Rola says that the alchemist pointing to the ground is "a reminder that the earth shares with the Philosophick Earth or Subject the same spagyrical [i.e. alchemical] sign" (p. 114). My interpretation is that with the gentle heat and gases provided by decomposing dung, the Subject, philosophical Mercury, will be able to ascend and descend successfully. In other words, easy does it. Better yet, keep the container closed, i.e. don't let your fantasies and fears influence your actions without a lengthy time to let them settle.
As we saw in relation to the Hanged Man, Bosch had many upside down men in his Garden of Earthly Delights, where the pose seems to be that of a trance-state, although none that I see has precisely the same leg positions. William Blake, as we have seen, used this alchemical image, in depicting Thiriel, who represented air. (5)
I think there is also an alchemical significance to the small globes that are descending on both sides of the tower in most 17th century versions of the card. They are different colors, and are the flashes of color that are seen at this stage of the work, the so-called "peacock's tail." The alchemists also called them "scintilla," or sparks. Some of them will metamorphasize into stars on the Star card.
References, The Alchemical Maison-Dieu
1.. Images: Dixon, Bosch, p. 256, Folio 40 of Ms. 29, Wellcome Institute, London.
The Pythagorean and Kabbalist Maison-Dieu. For the Pythagorean, 16 = 6, the number of the animal soul. The animal moves instinctually, and can be trained otherwise only with rewards and punishments, which then become new instincts. The card is about becoming conscious of and starting to freeing oneself from the dictates of the animal soul.
The Kabbalist sefira is that of Gevurah, severity, and "old man Isaac." It is the trauma of almost being intentionally killed by one's own father that rules here. It constricts energy coming from above and directs it in very narrow channels. Yet without it there would be much more trauma, coming out of the instinctual chaos with which the human race is saddled, the curse of free will through reason.
As an account of how the image on the card first arose, the image at Amiens is a dubious source, in that no early card shows figures falling from a tower; but many of them, like the Gringonneur, show a ray hitting the tower; hence the early name "lightning-bolt" and "fire". That part is missing from the Amiens image. However it could be the source of the detail of the two figures that we start seeing in 1660s.
Here, including the Gringonneur in the middle, are two other surviving early cards, on the left from the Rosenwald Sheet, probably of the early 16th century, and that of the Rothschild Sheet, of the same time period. (3)
One inspiration for the massive tower in the middle might be the image of Purgatory in Dante's Purgatorio, a mountain with a ring of fire on top. From very close to the time of the card is this fresco in the cathedral of Florence, done 1465, of which a detail is below. (4)
The Noblet card (original 3rd from left of the previous group of cards), of the 1660s, is the earliest I know that shows a man in the air next to the tower. (8) There are also flames and/or smoke rising up to the sun, and another man on the ground.
In the second card above, the late 15th-early 16th century card with the tower and two trees, there is a figure in the doorway. I looked for similar figures in illustrations of towers in illuminated manuscripts of the 15th and 16th century. I found one showing the Tower of Babel, with a red devil in the doorway, in a 15th century illumination to John Lydgate's Fall of Princes, a loose translation of Boccaccio's De Casibus. The image below, while seeming to reproduce the colors well, is unfortunately reversed right to left, as comparison to a printed black and white reproduction demonstrates. (9)
Enlarging the two doorways, I could see that the figure in the black and white doorway of the 16th century card (2nd from above in the group of cards) closely resembles the red devil. So this center card would seem to be a "house of the devil." Like the Tower of Babel, it is human pride getting its comeuppance.
In the book illustration, the tower looks like a Moslem minaret, as it does in the relief at Amiens. To Christians, that would have qualified it as a "house of the devil." They were destroying minarets in formerly Muslim Spain, as perhaps Muslims had destroyed Christian churches there earlier. Each was the "house of the devil" to the other, and the "House of God" to themselves.
In the book illustration, the tower looks like a Moslem minaret, as it does in the relief at Amiens. To Christians, that would have qualified it as a "house of the devil." They were destroying minarets in formerly Muslim Spain, as perhaps Muslims had destroyed Christian churches there earlier. Each was the "house of the devil" to the other, and the "House of God" to themselves.
Moreover, by 1650 Europeans had gone through a century of destroying each others' churches, in the wars between Protestants and Catholics. There were more than enough "houses of the devil" and "houses of God" to go around. Hieronymus Bosch, c. 1504, in the background of a Temptations of St. Anthony, shows a church being destroyed by devils; but the scene is also like his visions of hell, or the conflagration by fire that the Bible predicted for the end-time; or so it must have seemed. (10)
Here, as elsewhere in this study, a quote from Pico della Mirandola is relevant:
Here, as elsewhere in this study, a quote from Pico della Mirandola is relevant:
It is these [the transgressors of divine law] whom the heavens, the earth, and all the unshakable justice of the universal commonwealth pursue and strike with lightning. Indeed, they are guilty of outraging the universe and insulting the divine majesty, whose image they have defiled with the filthy stain of their iniquity. (11)In one way of seeing the card, then, the ray is a lightning-bolt sent by God and the Universe to punish evil-doers. In the case of the Tower of Babel, the sin was for the builders to "make our name famous" (12), but also, considering that there had just been a great flood, to put at least some people above if it happened again. In other words, they put themselves above God and thought that by their own efforts they could make themselves safe. To a Roman Catholic of the time, anyone who refused Christian baptism and the teachings of the Church would have fallen into that category, as well as anyone who put their trust in material means of security in opposition to the Church.
But in the Noblet something else seems also to be going on. There, flames go upwards, from the inside of the tower to the sun (as opposed to the other way in Conver, 2nd below on the far right (13)); in Vieville, there are no flames at all (first below, left). What could Noblet and Vieville possibly have in common?
I think the answer is in the horoscope by Schoen, and in particular an illustration that does not obviously match up with a tarot image. House 6, the House of Sickness and health, shows two standing figures looking at a third figure in bed. A dog on the floor has a sad expression. In Old French, "Maison-Dieu" meant "hospice," a place where the sick had their souls treated more than their bodies, to prepare them for death (14). The horoscope designer might have had the phrase (even at this early date) and not the image. Another possibility is that he had the phrase "Maison de Deuil," which with a "v" means "House of the Devil," but with a "u," means "House of Mourning." So he put in a picture of a man in a sick-bed, being visited by two others and his dog. It is at such times that one gets a message from one's body: death is not so far away as you think. So repudiate the Devil now and be saved.
In Jesus, the light from above, the Devil is defeated, if one chooses in time. The choice, before death, is the Christian response to the first of the “four last things.” It is the flame reaching toward heaven. The the two figures that we see outside the tower are not necessarily souls damned for eternity. One may be falling into water; Flornoy's restoration colors the bottom of the image blue (see beginning of next section). In Conver, he falls onto hard ground, but his fingers penetrate the surface as though it were water. The other may not have fallen at all, but crawled out of a door that we do not see. There is hope.
The idea of the death-bed repudiation of the devil was not uncommon in art in Schoen's time. For example, there is Bosch's famous painting Death and The Miser. A devil seems to offering the man some kind of deal, such as recovery and the opportunity to make even more money, while the angel is counseling him to consider his immortal soul. (15)
In this interpretation, "Maison-Dieu" is both the hospice and another God-House, the human body, made by God in his own image.
In these cards, however, the setting is not merely that of a hospice and the human body. In both Noblet and Vieville, balls of fire and hailstones, mentioned several times in the book of Revelation along with lightning, are falling from heaven. It is the Apocalypse, or something like it One needed to repudiate the devil on a daily basis, for Judgment was near. (16)
The image of the tower hit by God's wrath, whatever specific other interpretations are made, also corresponds to one of Giotto's vices in the chapel he decorated in Padua. It is the vice of Inconstancy, which he represented as a woman trying to stay upright on a floor that has suddenly tilted or shaken, as though hit by an earthquake. Like the tower on the card, the building is shaking and unsteady, like a person's Inconstant faith. (17)
References, Maison-Dieu, Christian:
1. Gringonneur, Brian Innes, The Tarot How to use and interpret the cards (London:, Black Cat, 1987), p. 50. Arrow, lightning: http://it.geocities.com/a_pollett/cards26.htm.
2. Amiens, image: Innes, The Tarot,, p. 50. Minaret: e.g. http://fiveprime.org/hivemind/Tags/minarette). Innes's mistake is corrected by Jean-Michel David at http://blog.fourhares.com/10/05/2010/conversation-with-enrique-enriquez/; he recounts how he could not find it at Rheims but did at Amiens. But David is incorrect that the episode is not in the Golden Legend. It can be read at http://catholicsaints.info/the-golden-legend-the-history-of-the-holy-innocents/. As David does say, the ancient source is the "infancy gospels" of the Christian Apocrypha: Pseudo-Matthew, "Infancy Gospel of the Savior" at http://www.gnosis.org/library/psudomat.htm and the "Arabic Infancy Gospel" at http://gnosis.org/library/infarab.htm. Find "idols" in the first and "idol" (only one) in the second.
3. Rosenwald, Stuart Kaplan, Encyclopedia of Tarot, Vol. I, p. 131. Rothschild, Kaplan p. 129.
4. Dante: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domenico_di_Michelino
5. Geoffroy, Anonymous Parisian: http://cards.old.no/1557-geofroy.
6.. Cary Sheet: http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/dl_crosscollex/, find "Cary Sheet 3s." 16th century card: Kaplan, Encyclopedia of Tarot, Vol I, p. 125. Vieville, http://www.tarot-history.com/Jacques-Vieville/pages/page-2.html.
7. The Cloisters Apocalypse (Normandy, France,, c.a. 1330), folio 20r, http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/471869, 40th image.
8. Noblet: http://www.tarot-history.com/Jean-Noblet/pages/la-maison-diev.html. The dating is from Thierry Depaulis, Le Tarot Révélé (La Tour-de-Peilz, Switzerland: Swiss Museum of Games, 2013), p. 39.
9. Henry Bergen, ed., John Lydgate’s Fall of Princes, Part IV (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1927), http://archive.org/stream/fallofprincesedi04lydguoft#page/n7/mode/2up, for the black and white frontispiece. I do not recall where I got the color reproduction, but another one, not as clear but perhaps closer to the original, is at http://pre-gebelin.blogspot.com/2013/02/lydgate-mans-lot-in-life.html.
10. Bosch, St. Anthony (Lisbon): http://www.artchive.com/artchive/B/bosch/tempt_c.jpg.html. Hell panel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Earthly_Delights. (However my images are from a printed version, as the one on the web is rather low resolution.)
11. Pico, Heptaplus, Library of Liberal Arts ed., p. 137. In Google Books.
12. "make our name famous": in the Vulgate", celebremus nomen nostrum", Gen. 11:7 More critical age: as observed at http://anthro.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/scriptorium/Nicholas.html; find "critical."
13. Conver: image from the deck published by Heron, Paris.
14. Schoen: Ernst and Johanna Lehner, Astrology and Astronomy, p. 160. Maison-Dieu as hospice: Oxford English Dictionary online edition, entry for "Maison-Dieu".
15. Bosch, Miser: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/bosch/death-miser/.
16. Balls of fire, hailstones: Rev. 8:7, 11:19, 13:13, 16:8, 16:18, 16:21.
17. This association is made by Ioannis Marathakis at http://www.hermetics.org/taroocchi.html. Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org./wiki/Cappella_degli_Scrovegni_(Padua).
Greco-Egyptian Perspective: Michael Poe suggested the image of the rays of the rising sun hitting the top of a pair of obelisks as an image for this card. This first light is the "ray of hope" after the darkness of the night-sun's perilous journey. A photo I took at Karnak illustrates this concept. (I must confess that I took the photo in the late afternoon; but the sun's position is similar to that of early morning.) Poe's idea fits in well with the idea that heaven is still open to one even on one's death-bed and despite dark deeds. (1)
De Gebelin had the idea that a story repeated by Herodotus (450 b.c.e.) in his Travels in Egypt fit this card. Two brothers repeatedly steal the king's gold. One time they are surprised by traps the king set; one brother escapes the treasure chamber through a secret door, but the other dies. Nobody jumps from a tower, but otherwise the scene fits the card, as long as we imagine that the figure on the bottom is crawling through a secret door. Harder to fit the tarot is what happens after: the survivor continues to outwit the king's men, and his daughter, until finally the king decided such a clever boy should not only keep the gold but have his daughter in marriage. "Crime pays if you are clever enough," is a risky moral to put in front of an already suspicious Church. It does not fit the ancient Greeks' and Romans' idea of Egyptian morality either (2).
References, Maison-Dieu, Christian:
1. Gringonneur, Brian Innes, The Tarot How to use and interpret the cards (London:, Black Cat, 1987), p. 50. Arrow, lightning: http://it.geocities.com/a_pollett/cards26.htm.
2. Amiens, image: Innes, The Tarot,, p. 50. Minaret: e.g. http://fiveprime.org/hivemind/Tags/minarette). Innes's mistake is corrected by Jean-Michel David at http://blog.fourhares.com/10/05/2010/conversation-with-enrique-enriquez/; he recounts how he could not find it at Rheims but did at Amiens. But David is incorrect that the episode is not in the Golden Legend. It can be read at http://catholicsaints.info/the-golden-legend-the-history-of-the-holy-innocents/. As David does say, the ancient source is the "infancy gospels" of the Christian Apocrypha: Pseudo-Matthew, "Infancy Gospel of the Savior" at http://www.gnosis.org/library/psudomat.htm and the "Arabic Infancy Gospel" at http://gnosis.org/library/infarab.htm. Find "idols" in the first and "idol" (only one) in the second.
3. Rosenwald, Stuart Kaplan, Encyclopedia of Tarot, Vol. I, p. 131. Rothschild, Kaplan p. 129.
4. Dante: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domenico_di_Michelino
5. Geoffroy, Anonymous Parisian: http://cards.old.no/1557-geofroy.
6.. Cary Sheet: http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/dl_crosscollex/, find "Cary Sheet 3s." 16th century card: Kaplan, Encyclopedia of Tarot, Vol I, p. 125. Vieville, http://www.tarot-history.com/Jacques-Vieville/pages/page-2.html.
7. The Cloisters Apocalypse (Normandy, France,, c.a. 1330), folio 20r, http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/471869, 40th image.
8. Noblet: http://www.tarot-history.com/Jean-Noblet/pages/la-maison-diev.html. The dating is from Thierry Depaulis, Le Tarot Révélé (La Tour-de-Peilz, Switzerland: Swiss Museum of Games, 2013), p. 39.
9. Henry Bergen, ed., John Lydgate’s Fall of Princes, Part IV (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1927), http://archive.org/stream/fallofprincesedi04lydguoft#page/n7/mode/2up, for the black and white frontispiece. I do not recall where I got the color reproduction, but another one, not as clear but perhaps closer to the original, is at http://pre-gebelin.blogspot.com/2013/02/lydgate-mans-lot-in-life.html.
10. Bosch, St. Anthony (Lisbon): http://www.artchive.com/artchive/B/bosch/tempt_c.jpg.html. Hell panel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Earthly_Delights. (However my images are from a printed version, as the one on the web is rather low resolution.)
11. Pico, Heptaplus, Library of Liberal Arts ed., p. 137. In Google Books.
12. "make our name famous": in the Vulgate", celebremus nomen nostrum", Gen. 11:7 More critical age: as observed at http://anthro.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/scriptorium/Nicholas.html; find "critical."
13. Conver: image from the deck published by Heron, Paris.
14. Schoen: Ernst and Johanna Lehner, Astrology and Astronomy, p. 160. Maison-Dieu as hospice: Oxford English Dictionary online edition, entry for "Maison-Dieu".
15. Bosch, Miser: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/bosch/death-miser/.
16. Balls of fire, hailstones: Rev. 8:7, 11:19, 13:13, 16:8, 16:18, 16:21.
17. This association is made by Ioannis Marathakis at http://www.hermetics.org/taroocchi.html. Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org./wiki/Cappella_degli_Scrovegni_(Padua).
Greco-Egyptian Perspective: Michael Poe suggested the image of the rays of the rising sun hitting the top of a pair of obelisks as an image for this card. This first light is the "ray of hope" after the darkness of the night-sun's perilous journey. A photo I took at Karnak illustrates this concept. (I must confess that I took the photo in the late afternoon; but the sun's position is similar to that of early morning.) Poe's idea fits in well with the idea that heaven is still open to one even on one's death-bed and despite dark deeds. (1)
De Gebelin had the idea that a story repeated by Herodotus (450 b.c.e.) in his Travels in Egypt fit this card. Two brothers repeatedly steal the king's gold. One time they are surprised by traps the king set; one brother escapes the treasure chamber through a secret door, but the other dies. Nobody jumps from a tower, but otherwise the scene fits the card, as long as we imagine that the figure on the bottom is crawling through a secret door. Harder to fit the tarot is what happens after: the survivor continues to outwit the king's men, and his daughter, until finally the king decided such a clever boy should not only keep the gold but have his daughter in marriage. "Crime pays if you are clever enough," is a risky moral to put in front of an already suspicious Church. It does not fit the ancient Greeks' and Romans' idea of Egyptian morality either (2).
I looked in ancient authors for other stories about towers. I found only one that seemed to fit, in Herodotus's History, Book 3. The Persian king Cambyses, gone mad after his desecration of the Apis bull in Egypt, asked his most trusted noble secretly to murder his younger brother, out of fear that he might take power. On the way back, Cambyses accidentally wounds himself with his sword. And word comes that Cambyses' brother has taken power in Persia. Cambyses says the man is an impostor, but the noble will not back him up. Cambyses dies of infection, and the noble goes to serve the impostor. The conspirators who put up the impostor demand that the noble vouch personally for the authenticity of the new ruler before the people, from the highest tower in the city. Instead he confesses his crimes and jumps to his death. (3)
In this story the noble would be the one on the card jumping off, at the call of conscience, while his king would be the one lying down. On the Noblet and Dodal cards, both men have Egyptian-style crowns that have fallen off--or they may be hat-shaped balls of fire. These get turned into bushes by Chosson and Conver.
References, Maison-Dieu, Egyptian:
1. Obelisk: http://www.denelder.com/tarot/tarot034.html.
2. De Gebelin: In J. Karlin, Rhapsodies of the Bizarre, p. 20. Herodotus: http://www.piney.com/Heredotus2.html. Search for "Rhampsinitus."
3. Herodotus, History, Book 3 (Thalia), pp. 17f f: http://www.greektexts.com/library/Herodotus/Thalia/eng/62.html.
The Dionysian Maison-Dieu: The two figures are our two hapless initiates again. At least one may have managed to get from the root chakra, at the base of the spine, to the crown chakra, only to be dislodged from his perch. Our tower is both the spinal column and a giant phallus. On the top, the tower has blown its top off in connecting with the divine--it is like Semele experiencing Zeus's true self, an energy that annihilates her. The tower is spewing initiate. Daimonax has compared the top of the Marseille tower to the basket with the snake coming out that we saw earlier. It is the "Bacchic furor" of which Pico della Mirandola waxed poetic. (1):
In case you were wondering whether snakes really were seen as phallic symbols during the years in question, I give you the 17th century Minchiate version of the "Devil" card. I include also the Minchiate's Tower card, which is of the same "catastrophe" or "Apocalypse" school as the various early cards we looked at in the first section. Its particular design, such as it is, is one often repeated in later centuries. These cards' numbers are one less than in the Marseille decks. The Minchiate bowed to Papal pressure and removed both the Popess and the Pope; instead there is just one card, a rather feminine looking Grand Duke in the number 2 spot. (2)
Negatively, the Marseille version we have been focusing on corresponds to specific events in the myth of Dionysus. If the figure thrown from the top is like Semele, the one at the bottom is like Dionysus, crawling or being pulled from the wreckage to safety. Semele's trauma, experienced by Dionysus in utero, is repeated by Dionysus later, as well as his trauma from a former lifetime. In Euripides' Bacchae, Pentheus, King of Thebes and Dionysus's cousin, refuses to concede Dionysus’s divinity and denies his cult. So Dionysus drives the women of the royal household mad, and they go off to the mountains. Pentheus imprisons Dionysus, but Dionysus easily escapes by means of his magic. After creating illusions of lightning, fire, and earthquake, he walks out the door of his jail. Later Dionysus invites Pentheus to view the rites, even installing him in a tree to watch. There the women discover, dismember, and eat him, just as, for the Orphics, the Titans once chopped up and ate Dionysus. (3)
The initiates on the card are then the two possibilities, falling from the tree or going out the door, which the Marseille card omits but is shown on some 16th century cards. Camoin and Jodorowsky’s “restoration” puts it back. Such an addition is not without merit, because most of the early, pre-Noblet cards do show a door.
Dionysus’ next stop is Argos, where Perseus (or an ancestor) refuses him. Argos is the stronghold of Hera, Dionysus's implacable foe. Dionysus maddens Perseus' female relatives so that they eat their own infants, thinking them wild animals. The erstwhile victim of the Titans is now definitely established as a perpetrator of similar crimes. Dionysus then wages war on Argos, the city sacred to Hera. Perseus kills Ariadne and fights an enraged Dionysus. In Nonnus and the legends of Argos, portrayed also on their vases, Perseus defeats Dionysus and throws his body into a lake, forcibly ending the god’s rampage. (6)
The Noblet card, at least in Flornoy's restoration, shows the falling figure descending into water, perhaps suggesting this incident. (In the original, it is hard to tell by looking whether the color the figure is falling into is blue or green. I am assuming that Flornoy has done a proper analysis of the pigment.) In the other cards they are at least in a wetland, because the hand of one looks partially submerged, and the plants look like the clumps one sees in such places.
In the myth the lake turns out to be an entrance to the underworld, where Ariadne and D’s mother are. So also the addict, forced by circumstances to acknowledge his addiction, begins his deep underworld work, his confrontation with his oral fixations (alcohol, cigarettes, food, etc.), his mother-substitutes. Some people will be dealing with repressed trauma--including, Flornoy suggests from his experience, traumas that seem to have survived from former lives. (7)
In this story the noble would be the one on the card jumping off, at the call of conscience, while his king would be the one lying down. On the Noblet and Dodal cards, both men have Egyptian-style crowns that have fallen off--or they may be hat-shaped balls of fire. These get turned into bushes by Chosson and Conver.
References, Maison-Dieu, Egyptian:
1. Obelisk: http://www.denelder.com/tarot/tarot034.html.
2. De Gebelin: In J. Karlin, Rhapsodies of the Bizarre, p. 20. Herodotus: http://www.piney.com/Heredotus2.html. Search for "Rhampsinitus."
3. Herodotus, History, Book 3 (Thalia), pp. 17f f: http://www.greektexts.com/library/Herodotus/Thalia/eng/62.html.
The Dionysian Maison-Dieu: The two figures are our two hapless initiates again. At least one may have managed to get from the root chakra, at the base of the spine, to the crown chakra, only to be dislodged from his perch. Our tower is both the spinal column and a giant phallus. On the top, the tower has blown its top off in connecting with the divine--it is like Semele experiencing Zeus's true self, an energy that annihilates her. The tower is spewing initiate. Daimonax has compared the top of the Marseille tower to the basket with the snake coming out that we saw earlier. It is the "Bacchic furor" of which Pico della Mirandola waxed poetic. (1):
In case you were wondering whether snakes really were seen as phallic symbols during the years in question, I give you the 17th century Minchiate version of the "Devil" card. I include also the Minchiate's Tower card, which is of the same "catastrophe" or "Apocalypse" school as the various early cards we looked at in the first section. Its particular design, such as it is, is one often repeated in later centuries. These cards' numbers are one less than in the Marseille decks. The Minchiate bowed to Papal pressure and removed both the Popess and the Pope; instead there is just one card, a rather feminine looking Grand Duke in the number 2 spot. (2)
Negatively, the Marseille version we have been focusing on corresponds to specific events in the myth of Dionysus. If the figure thrown from the top is like Semele, the one at the bottom is like Dionysus, crawling or being pulled from the wreckage to safety. Semele's trauma, experienced by Dionysus in utero, is repeated by Dionysus later, as well as his trauma from a former lifetime. In Euripides' Bacchae, Pentheus, King of Thebes and Dionysus's cousin, refuses to concede Dionysus’s divinity and denies his cult. So Dionysus drives the women of the royal household mad, and they go off to the mountains. Pentheus imprisons Dionysus, but Dionysus easily escapes by means of his magic. After creating illusions of lightning, fire, and earthquake, he walks out the door of his jail. Later Dionysus invites Pentheus to view the rites, even installing him in a tree to watch. There the women discover, dismember, and eat him, just as, for the Orphics, the Titans once chopped up and ate Dionysus. (3)
The initiates on the card are then the two possibilities, falling from the tree or going out the door, which the Marseille card omits but is shown on some 16th century cards. Camoin and Jodorowsky’s “restoration” puts it back. Such an addition is not without merit, because most of the early, pre-Noblet cards do show a door.
Dionysus’ next stop is Argos, where Perseus (or an ancestor) refuses him. Argos is the stronghold of Hera, Dionysus's implacable foe. Dionysus maddens Perseus' female relatives so that they eat their own infants, thinking them wild animals. The erstwhile victim of the Titans is now definitely established as a perpetrator of similar crimes. Dionysus then wages war on Argos, the city sacred to Hera. Perseus kills Ariadne and fights an enraged Dionysus. In Nonnus and the legends of Argos, portrayed also on their vases, Perseus defeats Dionysus and throws his body into a lake, forcibly ending the god’s rampage. (6)
The Noblet card, at least in Flornoy's restoration, shows the falling figure descending into water, perhaps suggesting this incident. (In the original, it is hard to tell by looking whether the color the figure is falling into is blue or green. I am assuming that Flornoy has done a proper analysis of the pigment.) In the other cards they are at least in a wetland, because the hand of one looks partially submerged, and the plants look like the clumps one sees in such places.
In the myth the lake turns out to be an entrance to the underworld, where Ariadne and D’s mother are. So also the addict, forced by circumstances to acknowledge his addiction, begins his deep underworld work, his confrontation with his oral fixations (alcohol, cigarettes, food, etc.), his mother-substitutes. Some people will be dealing with repressed trauma--including, Flornoy suggests from his experience, traumas that seem to have survived from former lives. (7)
This is the turning point. In the women's initiation rite at Pompeii, the moment is when the candidate touches the phallus in the liknon. The winged torturer in front of her draws back and holds up her hands in fear. Daimonax identifies her with Nemesis, the winged goddess of divine vengeance, whom we first met in connection with the Justice card. (8)
The god is being reborn (9).
The addict's more mundane but no less divine moment is attending his 12-step group, hearing the testimony of others who have traveled his road, and continuing his spiritual practice, which by now is giving him new energy to withstand the strength of his addictions and transform them into moral strength.
References, Maison-Dieu, Dionysian:
1. Daimonax: http://www.bacchos.org/tarothtm/15diable3.html. Pico, Bacchic furor:
2. Minchiatte: http://www.unics.uni-hannover.de/rrzn/endebrock/coll/pages/i31.html.
3. Euripides, The Bacchae, lightning etc. lines 723-814, tree etc. lines 1401-1431. The allusion is made by Daimonax, http://www.bacchos.org/tarothtm/15diable3.html.
5. Argos: Apollodorus, The Library 2.3; Pausanias, Guide to Greece 2.22.1; Nonnus, Dionysiaca 25.104. Underworld: Pausanias, Guide to Greece 2.37.6. All at http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/DionysosMyths2.html#Perseus.
7. Pelinerage des Bateleurs, pl. 137ff. Flornoy associates the recovery of the repressed with card 13, Death, as has already been discussed. Card 16 is then about the white light that one sees, briefly here, at the end of this tunnel of darkness. It seems to me that there is more to this "recovery of the repressed" than just noticing it. There is the recognition of how it has affected one's life and that of others, along with the desire from more conscious choices--from the experiences of card 15, from new energy, first found in 14 and expanded in 15 and 16. The work of these cards runs together.
8. Image from Pompeii fresco: http://www.bacchos.org/tarothtm/15diable3.html.
9. Sarcophagus image: http://www.widdershins.org/vol5iss4/06.htm.
The god is being reborn (9).
The addict's more mundane but no less divine moment is attending his 12-step group, hearing the testimony of others who have traveled his road, and continuing his spiritual practice, which by now is giving him new energy to withstand the strength of his addictions and transform them into moral strength.
References, Maison-Dieu, Dionysian:
1. Daimonax: http://www.bacchos.org/tarothtm/15diable3.html. Pico, Bacchic furor:
2. Minchiatte: http://www.unics.uni-hannover.de/rrzn/endebrock/coll/pages/i31.html.
3. Euripides, The Bacchae, lightning etc. lines 723-814, tree etc. lines 1401-1431. The allusion is made by Daimonax, http://www.bacchos.org/tarothtm/15diable3.html.
5. Argos: Apollodorus, The Library 2.3; Pausanias, Guide to Greece 2.22.1; Nonnus, Dionysiaca 25.104. Underworld: Pausanias, Guide to Greece 2.37.6. All at http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/DionysosMyths2.html#Perseus.
7. Pelinerage des Bateleurs, pl. 137ff. Flornoy associates the recovery of the repressed with card 13, Death, as has already been discussed. Card 16 is then about the white light that one sees, briefly here, at the end of this tunnel of darkness. It seems to me that there is more to this "recovery of the repressed" than just noticing it. There is the recognition of how it has affected one's life and that of others, along with the desire from more conscious choices--from the experiences of card 15, from new energy, first found in 14 and expanded in 15 and 16. The work of these cards runs together.
8. Image from Pompeii fresco: http://www.bacchos.org/tarothtm/15diable3.html.
9. Sarcophagus image: http://www.widdershins.org/vol5iss4/06.htm.
The Alchemical Maison-Dieu. Of all the cards, this one most closely resembles a piece of alchemical apparatus, specifically the furnace, or athanor. There was one in operation in the picture from the Mutus Liber that I showed in the previous chapter, on the Devil card. A later illustration reveals that its top comes off.
Similar apparatus can be seen even in the Heilege Dreifaltigkeit of the early 1400s.
Clearly the top is supposed to stay on, if the distilled substance is to be collected by the tube and sent below. On the card, however, the top is off. There has been a sudden release of pent-up energy, of repressed desires or memories, perhaps even traumatic ones. It is what lay buried and unconscious until recognized dimly at the stage of the Devil card.
O'Neill compares the onslaught to an alchemical emblem by Fludd (Summum Bonum, 1609) of demons and their associated birds and insects attacking the alchemist at God's command, while the archangels defend it. The demons are Azael, Azazel, lSamael and Mahazael; the archangels are Raphael, Uriel, Michael, and Gabriel. In the middle the alchemist, "Homo Sanus"--sane man--can only pray. However I am not sure that this image is comparable to the Maison-Dieu. The figures in the tarot card have no such place of safety, and no archangels to protect them.
O'Neill also compares the card to an account of a thunderstorm that breaks out just as the alchemist is beginning to climb up the sacred mountain out of hell. It may force him back into the depths, from which he will have to try again and again. O'Neill uses again the images of a man falling out of a tree or off the end of a ladder (the first time was with the Hanged Man). Similarly, we have figures falling off the tower in the tarot card. But there is a bright side. O"Neill concludes
O'Neill also compares the card to an account of a thunderstorm that breaks out just as the alchemist is beginning to climb up the sacred mountain out of hell. It may force him back into the depths, from which he will have to try again and again. O'Neill uses again the images of a man falling out of a tree or off the end of a ladder (the first time was with the Hanged Man). Similarly, we have figures falling off the tower in the tarot card. But there is a bright side. O"Neill concludes
The long blackening period has ended, the decomposition is completed in the traumatic thunderstorm. The dark night of the soul is completed and the ascent to heaven begins. (Tarot Symbolism p. 284)Yet it seems to me that there is one detail suggesting that this card might be less traumatic than it looks. The figure who appears falling may be suspended in the air, or walking on his hands. His legs are positioned similarly to that in the alchemical text we saw in connection with the "Gringonneur" Hanged Man. An example is below, on the left, and the original Noblet, with its colors faded, on the right. (4):
What is being depicted in the manuscript is distillation, the purification of a substance by boiling in an enclosed space. The upside-down man in the flask is probably floating upward. Either that or he is condensing, again a gentle process. "Go with the flow," as the saying has it.
What is important is to use a lot of dung, the alchemists advise. One emblem that O'Neill cites, from Maier, Symbola aureae mensae, 1617) shows a man trying to run up the side of a building. The master alchemist advises the other, "Take that which is trodden underfoot in the dunghill, for if thou dost not, thou wilt fall on thine head when thou wouldst climb without steps" (quoted in Fabricius, Alchemy, p. 22, where the emblem also appears; Fabricius does not offer an interpretation). This quotation is from an Arabic manuscript translated into Latin in 1182 by Robert of Chester, de Rola tells us. De Rola says that the alchemist pointing to the ground is "a reminder that the earth shares with the Philosophick Earth or Subject the same spagyrical [i.e. alchemical] sign" (p. 114). My interpretation is that with the gentle heat and gases provided by decomposing dung, the Subject, philosophical Mercury, will be able to ascend and descend successfully. In other words, easy does it. Better yet, keep the container closed, i.e. don't let your fantasies and fears influence your actions without a lengthy time to let them settle.
As we saw in relation to the Hanged Man, Bosch had many upside down men in his Garden of Earthly Delights, where the pose seems to be that of a trance-state, although none that I see has precisely the same leg positions. William Blake, as we have seen, used this alchemical image, in depicting Thiriel, who represented air. (5)
I think there is also an alchemical significance to the small globes that are descending on both sides of the tower in most 17th century versions of the card. They are different colors, and are the flashes of color that are seen at this stage of the work, the so-called "peacock's tail." The alchemists also called them "scintilla," or sparks. Some of them will metamorphasize into stars on the Star card.
References, The Alchemical Maison-Dieu
1.. Images: Dixon, Bosch, p. 256, Folio 40 of Ms. 29, Wellcome Institute, London.
The Pythagorean and Kabbalist Maison-Dieu. For the Pythagorean, 16 = 6, the number of the animal soul. The animal moves instinctually, and can be trained otherwise only with rewards and punishments, which then become new instincts. The card is about becoming conscious of and starting to freeing oneself from the dictates of the animal soul.
The Kabbalist sefira is that of Gevurah, severity, and "old man Isaac." It is the trauma of almost being intentionally killed by one's own father that rules here. It constricts energy coming from above and directs it in very narrow channels. Yet without it there would be much more trauma, coming out of the instinctual chaos with which the human race is saddled, the curse of free will through reason.
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