Example of the Application of the Tarot to the Kabbalah. The Hierogram of Adam, by Stanislas De Guaita

EXAMPLE OF THE APPLICATION OF THE TAROT TO THE KABBALAH.

THE HIEROGRAM OF ADAM, BY

STANISLAS DE GUAITA.

In asserting that the hierogram of Adam conceals the most profound arcana of the living Universe, we shall not astonish those who have made a serious study of the Sepher Bereschit. By comparing the admirable translation of Fabre d'Olivet with the pentacular revelations of the Book of Thoth, it is not impossible to strike out the supreme light of truth. Here are a few data which will aid us to reach it.

Adam אדמ is written in Hebrew, Aleph, Daleth, Mem.

א (1st key of the Tarot: The Juggler). God and man; the Principle and the end; the Equilibrant Unity.

ד (4th key of the Tarot: The Emperor). The Power and the Kingdom; the verbal Quaternary; the Multiplication of the cube.

מ (13th key of the Tarot: Death). Destruction and Restoration; Night and Day, moral and physical; Eternity and the Ephemeral; feminine Passivity; at once the gulf of the Past, the matrix of the Future.

The ternary analysis of the fathomless principle that Yod manifests in its inaccessible and synthetic unity, Adam 

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is, in fact, very analogous to the hierogram Aum, which is so famous in the sanctuaries of India.

In אדמ, Aleph corresponds to the Father, the source of the Trinity; Daleth to the Son (whom the Kabbalah also names the King); and Mem to the Holy Spirit, whose ethereal body, devouring yet fertilizing transitory forms, causes life (inexhaustible and unalterable in its essence) to blossom upon the changing hot-bed of Growth.

I have said that אדמ is the cyclic analysis of the principle, of which י (Yod) is the inaccessible synthesis.

A simple calculation of the numerical Kabbalah confirms my assertion. Let us translate the letters into numbers (Tarotic method).

א 1 ד 4 מ 13.
1 + 4 + 13 = 18. In 18, 1 +8= 9.

In Kabbalistic absolute numericals the analytical number of Adam is then 9. Now we obtain 10 by adding, to 9 the specific unity which leads the cycle back to its starting-point, and closes analysis in synthesis, and 10 is the number which corresponds to the letter Yod: this we were anxious to prove.

The hierogrammatic vocable אדמ (Adam) then represents the ninth evolution of the cycle, which emanated from י (Yod), and which closes in 10 by returning to its starting-point. Principle and end of all, the eternal Yod, revealed in its expanded form tertriune.

Let us go further still.

We have then the right (noting, however, that Adam differs from Yod, or from Wodh, as the totality of the sub-multiples differ from the Unity),--we have the right to say, pursuing our analogies,

If Adam be equal to 1,

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Adam-ah = I-ah; and Adam Eve = I-eve. He (ה) represents Universal Life, natura naturans; יה then represents Yod united to Life, and אדמה (Adamah), Adam united to Life. This is the union of the Spirit and of the Universal Soul at two different degrees (always remembering the distinction noticed above).

Lastly, in יהוה (IEVE), as in אדמ-הוה (Adam-Eve), Vau (ו) represents the fecundity of this union, and the last He (ה) symbolizes natura naturata (issued from natura naturans, increased by the mixed principle).

These four letters, יהוה (IEVE), symbolize the quaternary of Mercavah, the six letters of Adam-Eve, אדמ-הוה, the senary of Bereschith.

(Fragment of the Serpent of Genesis published in the Lotus of March 1888, p. 327, and 328 note.)