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3 Alchemical symbols and the Tarot Major Arcana

Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Qabbalah
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  • M Offline
    M Offline
    Modest
    wrote on last edited by
    #1

    I wanted to ask why the 5 elements are crammed into 22 Major Arcana keys Aleph - Air, Mem - Water, Shin - Fire, Spirit, Tau - Saturn, Earth when a more elegant solution would be to use the alchemical symbols of Aleph - Mercury, Mem - Salt, Shin - Sulphur? It looks like the Minor Arcana is already represented by the 5 element symbols - 4 elements being the cards from 1-10 and Spirit being the court cards no? Any insight into this?

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    • M Modest

      I wanted to ask why the 5 elements are crammed into 22 Major Arcana keys Aleph - Air, Mem - Water, Shin - Fire, Spirit, Tau - Saturn, Earth when a more elegant solution would be to use the alchemical symbols of Aleph - Mercury, Mem - Salt, Shin - Sulphur? It looks like the Minor Arcana is already represented by the 5 element symbols - 4 elements being the cards from 1-10 and Spirit being the court cards no? Any insight into this?

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      H Offline
      Hermitas
      wrote on last edited by
      #2

      Aleph - Mercury, Mem - Salt, Shin - Sulpher are all also already correspondences used in tarot. To say that they also correspond to Air, Water, and Fire in the five elements is also correct. A correspondence is not necessarily an exact equality; it’s a “kinda like.” And the Three Qualities are so close in nature to the Five Elements that to say they correspond is only natural.

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      • M Modest

        I wanted to ask why the 5 elements are crammed into 22 Major Arcana keys Aleph - Air, Mem - Water, Shin - Fire, Spirit, Tau - Saturn, Earth when a more elegant solution would be to use the alchemical symbols of Aleph - Mercury, Mem - Salt, Shin - Sulphur? It looks like the Minor Arcana is already represented by the 5 element symbols - 4 elements being the cards from 1-10 and Spirit being the court cards no? Any insight into this?

        M Offline
        M Offline
        Modest
        wrote on last edited by
        #3

        Yes, but Crowley's Thoth Tarot specifically labels 7 planets, 12 zodiac signs and 5 elements in the Major Arcana. My question was why he decided to label the 5 elements coming to to 24 symbols instead of 3 Alchemical symbols coming to exactly 22 symbols?

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