The Secret Code of Tarot

144 Pages·2017·5.44 MB·English

The Secret Code of Tarot

Victor Paul, PhD

Illustrated by

Roxana Paul

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ISBN 978-0-9946085-7-4

Copyright © 2017 by the Rising Sun Publishing House.

All rights reserved. The illustrations, cover design, and
content are protected by copyright. No parts of this publication
may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including
Internet usage, without written permission from the Rising Sun
Publishing House except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Contents:

Introduction
Part I The Cosmic Source of Tarot Wisdom
Chapter 1 The Sacred Cow of Ancient Cosmology
Chapter 2 Two Trees in the Garden of Eden
Chapter 3 The Zodiac, the Hebrew Alphabet, and Tarot
Chapter 4 Transmutations of Elements in the Major Arcana
Part II The Major Arcana and the Four Elements
Chapter 5 Elements and Cards: the Tree of Life
Chapter 6 Major Arcana and the Tree of Knowledge
Chapter 7 Death and the Fool are out of the Circle
Part III The ‘Minor’ Universe in Tarot
Chapter 8 The Path of the Fool in the Minor Arcana
Chapter 9 The Distortion of the Divine Order
Chapter 10 The Energy Flows within the Suits
Chapter 11 The Path of Queens and Kings
Part IV The Energy Interactions in the Minor Arcana
Chapter 12 Energy Interactions within Four Suits’ Circles
Chapter 13 Energy Interactions of Queens and Kings
Notes
Bibliography
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Introduction

“As above, so below.” What comes to mind when you
read this adage of Hermes Trismegistus? You think about
ancient wisdom embodied in the Tarot system, and universal
laws that are in force both in the cosmos and in our earthly life.
Some contemporary Tarot followers move away from ancient
wisdom, not wishing to believe in the old occult, but
passionately looking for new knowledge within the Tarot
system. We have to avoid throwing out the baby with the
bathwater. The quintessence of the universal principles was
indeed wrapped up in oldest Tarot cards, and this book is
intended to provide you with a present-day, we can say
“scientific,” explanation of these universal laws. Let us
rediscover old spiritual traditions related to Tarot to understand
them in modern terms and on new ways of interpretations.
Why was knowledge within Tarot hidden behind a veil of
secrecy? For our ancestors, secrecy was a perpetual state of
life. Knowledge of religion, science, and art was secret.
Astronomical charts, mathematical formulae, and even houses
drawings in the ancient Egypt were created and used only in
the narrow circle of dedicated priests. No matter whether
knowledge was transferred orally or it was written in cuneiforms,
wax tablets, or parchments, it was always available for the
initiated only. Orders, guilds, and pseudo-secret mystical
societies like Golden Dawn used to hide its mysteries from
prying eyes. We would like to break this tradition, giving
comprehensive explanations instead of keeping secrets. Don't
be a victim of old spiritual exclusivity and secrecy - be wise to
discover what real knowledge was hidden behind the artistic
symbolism of Tarot!
Why is old knowledge so valuable even today? Because
it is eternal, embracing the cosmic (or Divine) order, and the
four elements (energies) that rule the world. Astronomical
information about the Divine order was embroidered in the
ancient sacred manuscripts written thousands of years ago in
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Babylon, Egypt, and India. You can also find this information in
the Holy Bible: the primary source that medieval Tarot creators
relied upon. Great minds from Empedocles to Helen Blavatsky
knew about the universal energy patterns that modern science
has just begun to recognize. At last, we have rediscovered that
everything is energy, energy has a frequency that creates
vibrations, and vibrations of the past drive the future, impacting
on all facets of our life.
We also comprehended that the Bible stories are not
fairy tales, but coded messages about cosmic processes and
energetic patterns that influence human life. Under biblical
allegory, mythology, and symbolism, we can find vital
information about the Great Year and the precessional cycle.
According to the Bible, as well as to modern scientific findings,
the precessional cycle creates dramatic changes on the Earth,
for example, the Great Flood. Like our “small” earthly year, each
Great Year is divided into two half-circles: the periods of
ascending and descending that are determined by the position
of our planet during its movement towards the galactic center of
light.
The Renaissance epoch was a period of ancient
Babylonian-Greek-Roman lost civilizations’ rediscovery and
expression through arts. Italian artists obtained a new vision
and a deeper understanding of biblical scenes, in what way
Tarot was created. The purpose of this book is not only to elicit
ancient knowledge that was coded in the Tarot system but also
to show you how the universal principles work in Tarot. To
unfold the secret code of Tarot we use the almost forgotten
Sola Busca Tarot, the oldest known deck of 78 cards, showing
meaningful iconography and deep symbolism.
The chapters of this book better to read in consecutive
order, starting from the very beginning of the world’s creation in
Part I. This part of the book focuses primarily on reconstructing
of the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge, getting to the
roots of the ancient cosmology and elemental energies. To
explain the Major Arcana code, we employ Le Tarot de
Marseille, a “classical” deck with well recognizable nowadays
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trumps. Part II includes an outline of the Major Arcana cards’
positions on the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge. Part III
describes the Minor Arcana cards from the energy point of view,
instead of traditional interpretations of cards’ meanings. To
illustrate esoteric knowledge of the Universe depicted
symbolically within standard patterns and designs of Tarot
cards we use the Sola Busca Tarot numbered and court cards.
Part IV shows the energies distortions within the Minor Arcana,
leading to changing of the Divine Order, and how it is restored.
The path traced by The Secret Code of Tarot takes you
from firsthand knowledge of the universal order to deeper
understanding of the Tarot system, and then to the new efficient
way of reading via consideration and assimilation of elemental
energies and their connections among cards. Comprehending
the energy essence of the Tarot cards allows you to see Tarot
in the way it had been created: as a loose-leaf book in which
every page has own sense, where no one page was lost
because all of them are interconnected to form the whole
system with the higher meaning, the book that contains 78
pages, no more no less, and every page plays its vital role in a
cosmic dance of four elemental energies.
The energy approach is universal and can be applied to
many life situations and cases. You can see clearly energy
patterns within these cases, discovering querents’ attitudes,
particular approaches to life, roles to be played, and even paths
of life. Without the energy comprehension, your approach to a
Tarot reading will likely fall short of promised results, and will
also be not as accurate as possible.
For many years Tarot followers have been looking for a
Tarot secret code, and now you will find it within these pages.
Read The Secret Code of Tarot to obtain ancient wisdom coded
in the Tarot system, and put it into practice.

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Part I The Cosmic Source of Tarot Wisdom

Over a hundred years Tarot expounders, Antoine Court
de Gebelin, Eliphas Levi, the Golden Dawn founders, and
others tried to unveil a so-called “secret doctrine.” 1 A cursory
glance shows an abundance of theories that profess to have
the explanations; however, close inspection reveals a lack of
evidence. Does the secret doctrine exist, or it was lost in the
sands of time? It exists, and it is not so much secret, but
miscomprehension of the doctrine’s roots. It comprises
knowledge of the four elements, cosmic processes, and circles
of time. This knowledge was coded in the Bible to be
understandable for few initiated, while the majority see its
superficial religious layer only.
For the medieval Tarot creators, the Holy Bible, always
available and full of the encrypted meaning, was a primary
source of information. Behind mythological biblical scenes, they
discovered cosmic information, facts too dangerous to declare
aloud at that epoch. To pass along that information to the
initiated, they created Tarot as a symbolic key to give access to
ancient knowledge. Pictographic cards as a memorizing tool
were used in the medieval monasteries and convents. That
technique applied an old oral tradition to memorize the
scripture’s fragments in a more efficient way, visualizing every
portion of information.
Chapters 1 through 4 give guidance to decipher the
vague description of the elements in the Bible and old
manuscripts, discovering correspondences between energies
depicted symbolically in the Tarot cards, the Hebrew alphabet,
and the Zodiac. In the Bible, starting from the Genesis book, we
find references to the four elements expressed in metaphorocal
stories and prophets’ visions. Reconstructing Biblical symbolism
with Tarot as a key, you expand your understanding of Tarot.
Beyond the pictographic elements of cards’ images, you will see
a universal formula, which is rich with connotations and deep
meanings.
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Recently, a wealth of substantial scientific evidence has
come forth, supporting the ancients’ understanding of elemental
energies. In this book, ancient wisdom and modern science are
married in a model of so-called “elemental geometry” that
embodies all findings into simple graphic forms. Such an
approach makes explanations understandable, and evidence
weighty for both esoteric Tarot followers and watchful eyes of
skeptics who rely on logic.

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Chapter 1 The Sacred Cow of Ancient Cosmology

The secret doctrine was embroidered in many sacred
manuscripts that contained astronomical knowledge
represented in symbolical and metaphoric forms
understandable for ancient seers and priests. They felt
comfortable in a cosmic dimension filled with myths about gods’
adventures, and they believed that earthly life was organized
according to the same universal laws. Looking at heavens, they
had seen the patterns hidden inside themselves – “as above, so
below” – a pitch of the ancient secret doctrine.
At the sky, our enlightened ancestors found
cornerstones on which they had built the sacred cosmology.
The latter was not only a useful guide for planting and cattle
breeding, giving explanations of seasonal patterns of fertility
and agricultural rules. Besides those rational things, they made
sense of other patterns of universal forces that impact on
human life. The priests have never separated secular life from
religion and believed that Kings were chosen by gods to rule in
the material world. Those patterns were embodied in the
scriptures of all religions, forming their doctrines, and explaining
rational events of the physical world by activities of infinite
powers and supernatural deities.
From the first civilization, the sun was supposed as the
primary source of light for human life in both physical and
spiritual senses. The priests have relied on the sun position in
the sky for practical and occult purposes, and they discovered
the equinoxes and solstices to mark the beginning of new
seasons. The word equinox translated from Latin means ‘equal
night’ because during an equinox the day and night are of equal
length. The word solstice means “the sun stands still,” and that
is exactly what appears to happen in the solstice points. Within
each year there are two equinox points (spring and autumn)
and two solstice points (summer and winter). Their axes form
the cross within the Zodiac circle. Two points in the Earth's
annual orbit around the Sun, at which the length of the day and
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the night are equal, are called the Vernal Equinox and the
Autumnal Equinox.
The old system of measuring the year was based upon
the equinoxes and solstices. In Babylon, the year began in the
Vernal Equinox, celebrating March 21 and indicating the period
when the sun reaches the equator northward up the Zodiac
circle (in the Northern hemisphere). The summer solstice
occurs when the sun reaches its most northerly position on
June 21. Then the sun began its descent toward the equator,
which it recrossed southbound in the Autumnal Equinox on
September 21. At the winter solstice, the sun reaches its most
southern position on December 21.
Babylonian astronomers had found that the equinoxes
were not stable, but moved westward in the opposite direction
to the motion of the Sun along the ecliptic. It was an optical
illusion because this phenomenon called “the axial precession”
nowadays is a result of the gravity forces’ influence on the Earth
axis rotation. 2 The Earth's axis traces out a pair of circles in
outer space during 25,920 years, the period called a Great or
Platonic Year. Over this period the constellations appear to
slowly rotate around the earth, and a new sign comes out on
the horizon each 2,160 years as if the Zodiac visually turns on
30° (360°: 12). It is no problem to calculate that due to the
precession the Earth was entered Taurus in the period 4,320 -
2,160 BC, at the time when historical events described in the
Old Testament books took place (see Fig. 1). 3
For ancient astronomers, the sun has always been
connected with the constellation through which it passed at the
Vernal Equinox. During Taurus Age in Egypt the sacred bull
was worshiped as Osiris, in Mesopotamia as Marduk, and in
India as Shiva. The Bible narrated of the idol of the Golden Calf,
the sacred bull that was destroyed by Moses. Symbolically, this
story meant that the Vernal Equinox point moves out of
constellation Taurus and into Aries in 2,160 BC. In that period,
Egyptian priests who were also good astronomers became
aware that Taurus was slowly drifting away from the rising sun
in spring. The priests proclaimed that the Age of Taurus was
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