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It is in Egypt that Magic attains the grade of completion as a universal science and is formulated as a perfect doctrine. As a summary of all the dogmas which obtained in the ancient world, nothing surpasses and indeed nothing equals those few paragraphs graven on precious stone by Hermes and denominated the Emerald Tablet. Unity of being and unity in the harmony of things, according to the ascending and descending scales; progressive and proportional evolution of the Word; immutable law of equilibrium and graduated progress of universal analogies; correspondence between the idea and its expression providing a measure of likeness between Creator and created; essential mathematics of the infinite, proved by the dimensions of a single angle in the finite: all this is expressed by the one proposition: “that which is above is like that which is below, and that which is below is like that which is above, for the fulfilment of the wonders of the one thing”. Hereunto are added the revelation and illuminating description of the creative agent, the pantomorphic fire, the great medium of occult force—in a word, the Astrid Light.

“The sun is its father and the moon its mother; the wind has borne it in the belly thereof.” It follows that this light has emanated from the sun and has received form and rhythmical movement from the influences of the moon, while the atmosphere is its receptacle and prison. “The earth is its nurse”—that is to say, it is equilibrated and set in motion by the central heat of the earth. “It is the universal principle, the TELESMA of the world.”

Hermes goes on to set forth in what manner this light, which is also a force, can be applied as a lever, as a universal dissolvent and as a formative and coagulative agent; how also this light must be extracted from the bodies in which it lies latent in order to imitate all the artifices of Nature by the aid of its diverse manifestations as fire, motion, splendour, radiant gas, scalding water or finally igneous earth. The Emerald Tablet contains all Magic in a single page.1 The other works attributed to Hermes,2 such as the Divine Pymander, Asclepius, Minerva of the World, See. are generally regarded by critics as productions of the School of Alexandria; but they contain notwithstanding the Hermetic traditions which were preserved in theurgic sanctuaries. For those who possess the keys of symbolism the doctrines of Hermes can never be lost; amidst all their ruin, the monuments of Egypt are as so many scattered leaves which can be collected and the book of those doctrines thus reconstructed entirely. In that vast book the capital letters are temples and the sentences are cities punctuated with obelisks and by the sphinx.

The physical division of Egypt was itself a magical synthesis, and the names of its provinces corresponded to the ciphers of sacred numbers. The realm of Sesostris was divided into three parts; of these Upper Egypt, or the Thebaid, was a type of the celestial world and the land of ecstasy; Lower Egypt was the symbol of earth; while Middle or Central Egypt was the land of science and of high initiation. Each of these parts was subdivided into ten provinces, called Nomes, and was placed under the particular protection of a god. There were therefore thirty gods and they were grouped by threes, giving symbolical expression in this manner to all possible conceptions of the triad within the decad, or otherwise to the threefold material, philosophical and religious significance of absolute ideas attached primitively to numbers. We have thus the triple unity, or the first triad; the triple binary3 formed by the first triad and its reflection, being the Star of Solomon; the triple triad, or the complete idea under each of its three forms; the triple quaternary, being the cyclic number of astral revolutions, and so onward. The geography of Egypt under Sesostris is therefore a pantacle or symbolical summary of the entire magical dogma originating with Zoroaster and rediscovered or formulated more precisely by Hermes.

In this manner did the land of Egypt become as a great volume and the instructions contained therein were multiplied by translation into pictures, sculptures, architecture through the length and breadth of the towns and in all temples. The very desert had its eternal teachings, and its word of stone was set squarely on the foundations of the pyramids. The pyramids themselves stood like boundaries of the human intelligence, in the presence of which the colossal sphinx meditated age after age, sinking by insensible degrees into the desert sand. Even at this day its head, defaced by the work of time, still emerges from its sepulchre, as if waiting expectantly the signal for its complete entombment at the coming of a human voice revealing to a new world the problem of the pyramids.

Egypt from our standpoint is the cradle of science and of wisdom, for it clothed with images the antique dogma of the first Zoroaster more exactly arid more purely, if not more richly, than those of India. The Sacerdotal Art and the Royal Art made adepts by initiation in Egypt, and such initiation was not restricted within the egotistic limits of caste. We know that a Jewish bondsman himself attained not only initiation but the rank of minister-in-chief, perhaps even of Grand Hierophant, for he espoused the daughter of an Egyptian priest, and there is evidence that the priesthood in that country tolerated no misalliance. Joseph realised in Egypt the dream of communion; he established the priesthood and the state as sole proprietors and thus sole arbiters of labour and wealth. In this way he abolished distress and turned the whole of Egypt into a patriarchal family. It is a matter of common knowledge that his elevation was due to skill in the interpretation of dreams, a science which even devout Christians now refuse to credit, though they recognise that the Bible, which narrates the wonderful divinations of Joseph, is the word of the Holy Spirit. The science of Joseph was none other than a comprehension of the natural analogies which subsist between ideas and images, or between the Word and its symbols. He knew that the soul, when immersed by sleep in the Astral Light, perceives the reflections of its most secret thoughts and even of its presentiments; he knew further that the art of translating the hieroglyphics of sleep is the key of universal lucidity, seeing that all intelligent beings have revelations in dreams.

The basis of absolute hieroglyphical science was an alphabet in which deities were represented by letters, letters represented ideas, ideas were convertible into numbers, and numbers were perfect signs. This hieroglyphical alphabet was the great secret which Moses enshrined in his Kabalah; its Egyptian origin is commemorated in the Sepher Yetzirah, in which it is referred to Abraham. Now this alphabet is the famous Book of Thoth, and it was divined by Count de Gebelin that it has been preserved to our own day in the form of Tarot cards. It passed later on into the hands of Etteilla, who interpreted it in the wrong sense, for even a study extending over thirty years could not atone for his want of common sense or supply deficiencies in his education. The record exists still among the drift and waste of Egyptian monuments; and its most curious, most complete key is found in the great work on Egypt by Athanasius Kircher. It is the copy of an Isiac tablet which belonged to the celebrated Cardinal Bembo. The tablet in question is of copper with figures in enamel, and it has been unfortunately lost. The copy supplied by Kircher is, however, exact.4 The learned Jesuit divined that it contained the hieroglyphic key of sacred alphabets, though he was unable to develop the explanation. It is divided into three equal compartments; above are the twelve houses of heaven and below are the corresponding distributions of labour throughout the year, while in the middle place are twenty-one sacred signs answering to the letters of the alphabet. In the midst of all is a seated figure of the pantomorphic IYNX, emblem of universal being5 and corresponding as such to the Hebrew Yod, or to that unique letter from which all other letters were formed. The IYNX is encircled by the Ophite triad, answering to the Three Mother Letters of the Egyptian and Hebrew alphabets.6 On the right are the ibimorphic and serapian triads; on the left are those of Nepthys and Hecate, representing active and passive, fixed and volatile, fructifying fire and generating water. Each pair of triads in conjunction with the centre produces a septenary, and a septenary is contained in the centre. The three septenaries furnish the absolute number of the three worlds, as well as the complete number of primitive letters, to which a complementary sign is added, like zero to the nine numerals. The ten numbers and the twenty-two letters are termed in Kabalism the Thirty-two Paths of Wisdom, and their philosophical description is the subject of that venerated primæval book known as the Sepher Yetzirah, the text of which will be found in the collection of Pistorius and elsewhere.7 The alphabet of Thoth is the original of our Tarot only in an indirect manner, seeing that the latter is of Jewish origin in the extant copies and that its pictures are not older than the reign of Charles VII. The cards of Jacquemin Gringonneur are the first Tarots of which we have any knowledge, but they reproduce symbols belonging to the highest antiquity. The game in its modern form was an experiment on the part of astrologers to restore the king, who has been mentioned, to reason.8 The oracles of the Tarot give answers as exact as mathematics and measured as the harmonies of Nature. Such answers result from the varied combination of the different signs. But it requires a considerable exercise of reason to make use of an instrument belonging to reason and to science; the poor king, in his childish condition, saw only the playthings of an infant in the artist's pictures and he turned the mysterious Kabalistic alphabet9 into a game of cards.

Explanatory diagram of the Astronomical and Alphabetical Tablet of Bembo

We are told by Moses that the Israelites carried away the sacred vessels of the Egyptians when they came out of the land of bondage. The account is allegorical, for the great prophet would scarcely have encouraged his people in an act of theft; the sacred vessels in question were the mysteries of Egyptian knowledge, acquired by Moses himself at the court of Pharaoh. We are by no means suggesting that the miracles of this man of God are referable to Magic; but we know on the authority of the Bible that Jannes and Mambres, who were the magicians of Pharaoh and consequently grand hierophants of Egypt, began by performing in virtue of their art wonders which were similar to those of Moses. They transformed wands into serpents and serpents again into wands, which might be explicable by prestige or fascination; they change water into blood; they produced a swarm of frogs in a moment; but they could not cause flies to appear or other parasitic insects, for reasons which we have explained already, as also the manner in which they were forced to confess themselves vanquished.

Moses triumphed and led the Israelites out of the land of bondage. It was at this period that true science became lost to Egypt, for the priests, abusing the implicit confidence of the people, allowed that knowledge to degenerate into brutalising idolatry. Such is the rock of peril for esoteric science; the truth must be veiled, yet not hidden from the people; symbolism must not be disgraced by a lapse into absurdity; the sacred veil of Isis must be preserved in its beauty and dignity. It was over this that the Egyptian priesthood failed; the vulgar and the foolish understood the hieroglyphic forms of Isis and Hermanubis as real things, so that Osiris was understood to be an ox, while the wise Hermes was a dog. The transformed Osiris masqueraded in the fantastic guise of the bull of Apis, nor did the priests hinder the people from adoring flesh intended for their kitchens. It was time to save the holy traditions; Moses established a new nation and forbade all worship of images; but the people unfortunately had dwelt long among idolaters, and memories of the bull of Apis remained with them in the desert. We know the history of that Golden Calf to which the children of Israel have been always a little addicted. Moses, however, did not wish the sacred hieroglyphics to pass out of memory, and he sanctified them by their consecration to the purified worship of the true God. We shall see how all objects which entered into the cultus of Jehovah were symbolic in character and recalled the venerable signs of primæval revelation. But we must first finish with the Gentiles and follow through pagan civilisation the story of materialised hieroglyphics and of ancient rites degenerated.

1 The legend concerning the Emerald Tablet is that it was found by Alexander the Great in the tomb of Hermes, which was hidden by the priests of Egypt in the depths of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh. It was supposed to have been written by Hewn es on a large plate of emerald by means of a pointed diamond. I believe that there is no Greek version extant, and it is referred by Louis Figuier to the seventh century of the Christian era, or thereabouts. See L'Alchimie et les Alchimistes, p. 42.

2 In his Lexicon Alchemiœ Rulandus reminds us that “the old astronomers dedicated the Emerald to Mercury”, and Berthelot says that this was in conformity with Egyptian ideas, which classed the Emerald and Sapphire in their list of metals. See Collection des Anciens Alchimistes Grecs, première livraison, p. 269 The planet Mercury was the planet Hermes and it may be that some mystical connection was supposed between quicksilver and the precious stone. This would have been in Græco-Alexandrian times, if ever, as ancient Egypt does not seem to have been acquainted with quicksilver.

3 The text says: le triple binaire ou le mirage du triangle, but it is obvious that the reflected triad cannot be termed binary. The expression is confused, but the meaning is that the first triangle equals unity, or the number 1; the second triad corresponds to the duad, or number 2; the third triad to the number 3, and so onward.

4 The reference is to Athanasius Kircher's Œdipus Ægypttacus, 3 vols, in folio, bound usually in four, published at Rome, 1652-1654. The Mensa Isiaca, being the Bembine Tablet, so called because its discovery is connected with the name of Cardinal Bembo, is in the third volume—a folding plate beautifully produced. The original is exceedingly late and is roughly termed a forgery. In 1669 the Tablet was reproduced on a larger scale by means of a number of folding plates in the Mensa Isiaca of Laurentius Pignorius. Both works are exceedingly rare. I suppose that these are the only records of the Tablet now extant, with the exception of a large copy in my possession made from the above sources.

5 Mr. G. R. S. Mead tells us that lynx in its root-meaning, according to Proclus, signifies the “power of transmission” which is said in the Chaldæan Oracles “to sustain the fountains”. Mr. Mead thinks that the Iyinges were reproduced (a) as Living Spheres and (b) as Winged Globes. He thinks, also, that (a) the Mind on the plane of reality put forth (b) the one Iyinx, (c) after this three Iyinges, called paternal and ineffable, and finally (d) there may have been hosts of subordinate Iyinges. They were “free intelligences”. It seems to follow that the Iynx was not “an emblem of universal being”, but a product of the Eternal Mind.

6 It may be mentioned that the Hebrew alphabet was divided into (a) Three Mother Letters, namely, Aleph, Mem and Shin; (b) Seven Double Letters, being Beth, Gimel, Daleth, Kaph, Pe, Resh, Tau; and (c) Twelve Simple Letters, or He, Vau, Zain, Heth, Teth, Yod, Lamed, Nun, Samech, Ayin, Tsade, Quoph.

7 The Sepher Yetzirah was first made known to Latin-reading Europe by William Postel. Publication took place at Bâle in 1547. It is said to have been reissued at Amsterdam in 1646. The collection of Pistorius, entitled Artis Cabalisticœ Scriptores, belongs to 1587. Later and modern editions of the Book of Formation are fairly numerous. It was translated into French, together with the Arabic commentary of R. Saadya Gaon, by Mayor Lambert, in 1891. An English version by Dr. W. Wynn Westcott will serve the purpose of the general reader.

8 The Tarots of this period belong to the year 1393, and it has been suggested recently in France that the artist Charles Gringonneur was really their inventor. It is useful to note this opinion, but I do not think that any importance attaches to it. The extant Gringonneur examples in the Bibliothèque Nationale have also been said to be of Italian origin and not therefore his work. The Venetian Tarots have been sometimes regarded as the oldest known form. The historical question is obscure beyond all extrication at present.

9 In face of existing evidence, the description of the Tarot Trumps Major as a Kabalistic alphabet has as much and as little to support it as the claim that they constitute an Egyptian Book of Thoth. It has been reported to me, however, that there is an unknown Jewish Tarot, and it may interest students of the subject to know that before long I hope to be able to give some account at first hand concerning it. There is little reason to suppose that it will prove (a) ancient or (b) Kabalistic; but as one never knows what is at one's threshold, I put the fact on record for whatever it may be worth in the future. Meanwhile, it is quite idle to say that our popular fortune-telling Tarots are of Jewish origin.