Tarot of the Bohemians: Part I. General Key to the Tarot, Giving the Absolute Key to Occult Science: Chapter IV: Analogy Between the Sacred Word and Numbers

The Kabbalistic Word and the Series of Numbers--Explanation of the Tetractys of Pythagoras--Figuration of the General Law.

NUMBERS AND THE KABBALISTIC WORD.

This sequence of numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4, representing the active, the passive, the neuter, and a second active principle, corresponds in all points with the series of the letters of the sacred name, so that the latter may be thus written--

which demonstrates analogically that--

We can prove the truth of these analogies by the identity of the action of the number 4, which becomes a unity (4 = 10 = 1), and of the second He, which represents the Yod of the following sequence.

We can now understand why Pythagoras, initiated in Egypt into the mysteries of the sacred word Yod-he-vau-he, replaced this word in his esoteric teachings by the sequence of the 4 first numbers or tetractys.

This sequence of the numbers is, in all points, identical with the sequence of the letters of the sacred name, and the tetractys of Pythagoras, 1, 2, 3, 4,, equals and absolutely represents the word Yod-he-vau-he.

The sequence of the numbers, or the sequence of the letters, therefore, resolves itself definitely into the following data--

1 Term negative or generant.

The He or the 2.

1 Term neuter or generated proceeding from the two preceding.

The Vau or the 3.

1 Term of transition individualizing itself in the following sequence.

The 2nd He or the 4.

Provided with these preliminary data, which are absolutely indispensable, let us now take our pack of cards, or Tarot, and see if we cannot find the universal law in it--

symbolized through antiquity by the Cross.