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THIS is a book that professes to be an absolute key to occult science. It proves to be an account of the Tarot pack of cards, which is thought by Papus-apparently a French theosophist who disguises himself under this pseudonym-to be the most ancient book in the world. Although woodcuts of the picturecards are given, together with other weird-looking diagrams and symbols, the explanation of the mysterious qualities of the Tarot is itself a mystery to the reader, the reason . that this book is intended for the exclusive use of Initiates. A little knowledge of the terms of occult science is required, a trifling and not too accurate acquaintance with some of the ancient philosophers' views of the universe is presupposed, and a parrot-like memory of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet is indispensable. Besides this the reader must be prepared to handle figures and symbols as Izaak Walton advised his angler to use his wriggling worm, as if he loved him, else the figures and the symbols will escape his mental clutch in triumph; at the best they have but the substance of a dream. Much ingenuity is shown in the explanation of the greater or major arcana, which are all picture-cards. There are twenty-two. of them, one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet, according to Papus. Beginning with the Juggler, he explains the design by still deeper symbols, connecting the figure with a so-called primitive hieroglyphic and the Kabbalah, under the head of affinities, and affirming that the position of the figure and the very shape of the hat have philosophical and religious significations. In fact, the intricate meanings attached to each card amount at last to the history of the universe, including creation and the life of man here and hereafter, from a metaphysical point of view, tempered by a sort of spiritualistic and theosophical ecstasy over the things of our work-a-day world. The letters of the Hebrew alphabet glide in amongst these phantasies like irrelevant sprites, and, amongst other absurdities, the letter he loses its vital existence, together with its aspirate, and the well-known origin of the letter aleph being ignored, it is supposed to be made up out of the letter yod four times repeated. Occult mysteries. are said to hang on these comical misrepresentations, and they will have to go in quest of other and less philological places of refuge. By the time the lesser or minor arcana are reached, where common packs of cards, with an extra picture card, are dealt with, the spirit of the Tarot should have entered into the reader, causing a stupefaction that will enable him to take the pranks the numbers play with each other as the most natural thing in the world, or out of it. For instance, a number that binds others together, apparently by its own elastic nature, is rewarded by becoming the first of a new set. By virtue of this innate self-transforming power of the fourths and sevenths, the major and minor arcana are united, and the latter are also ... marshaled amongst themselves.....-- The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, Volume 73

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