Emily E. Auger, PhD<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_5″ _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”Content Block” _builder_version=”4.16″ background_color=”RGBA(255,255,255,0)” background_enable_image=”off” custom_margin=”0px||0px||true|false” custom_padding=”0px||0px||true|false” saved_tabs=”all” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_4,3_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ background_color=”RGBA(255,255,255,0)” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”1_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”3_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_margin=”||||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px|||” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n In the centuries since Tarot was invented in fifteenth-century Italy for gaming purposes, the cards have gathered numerous occult, metaphysical, and mundane motifs, meanings, and applications.\u00a0 The numerous design alterations that mark this accrual of influences are important indicators of the lengthy path to today\u2019s popular divination and meditation deck.\u00a0 This paper offers a brief summary of just one of these influences\u2014that of alchemy\u2014on the changing appearance of just one card\u2014Temperance\u2014and its associated meanings from the fifteenth to the twenty-first centuries.<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_4,3_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”1_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”3_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.19.0″ custom_margin=”||||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px|||” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]Tarot was invented in Renaissance Italy when a fifth suit of trumps and a four-suited deck were combined for gaming purposes.\u00a0 The documents describing the sixteen trumps of what is now called the Marziano Tarot<\/em> (c. 1412-1425) are the earliest evidence for the invention of this new kind of deck (Caldwell and Ponzi, 2019).\u00a0 The designs of the earliest nearly complete extant decks\u2014the Cary-Yale<\/em> (c. 1445) and particularly the Visconti-Sforza<\/em> (c. 1450)\u2014are much closer to those passed on through cheaper printed versions, such as the Marseilles-style Tarot.\u00a0 The Visconti-Sforza<\/em> has 22 trumps and 56 pips and court cards, as do most modern Tarot decks.\u00a0 Although theories about hermetic influences on card imagery are a favorite topic of discussion among Tarot historians and users, there is no evidence that alchemy had anything to do with the invention of the fifth suit or its appearance.\u00a0 Some argument has been made for the influence of alchemy on the late fifteenth-century Sola Busca<\/em> deck, the earliest in which the pips and court cards as well as the trumps have figural illustrations, but it is, at best, applicable only to a few cards and does not constitute a case for alchemy as a significant contributor to early Tarot design in general.<\/p>\n Alchemy has been practiced in many countries for many centuries with the goal of completing the \u201cgreat work,\u201d which is defined as the discovery or creation of the philosopher\u2019s stone.\u00a0 This stone was supposed to transform baser metals into silver or gold and confer eternal life.\u00a0 The primary process by which the great work was to be accomplished was basic chemistry: \u201csolve et coagula\u201d or dissolve and coagulate.\u00a0 Essentially, alchemists sought ways to purify substances by repeatedly breaking them down, often by distillation, and then allowing them to solidify again in four primary stages identified as nigredo (black), albedo (white), citrinatas (yellow), and rubedo (red).<\/p>\n Alchemy is described in a number of ancient manuscripts that are now readily available in various internet archives and as commercial publications.\u00a0 Among these is the extraordinary Splendour Solis<\/em> (1582) attributed to Salomon Trismosin, which confirms that the alchemical process was not solely about chemistry, but spiritual development as well (Fabricius, 1976, 1994, p. 242). The second illustration in the manuscript (fig. 1) shows the magician or adept \u201cexclaiming: \u2018Let us go and seek the nature of the four elements\u2019\u201d (Fabricius, 1976, 1994, p. 242) while pointing to the round beaker associated with distillation.\u00a0 A later image (fig. 2) shows a cleansed and transformed bird.\u00a0 Joannes Fabricius (1976, 1994) tells us that \u201cthe text [accompanying the original] explains the event as symbolising the return of the soul: \u2018The philosophers say that whosoever can bring to light a hidden thing is a master of the art \u2026\u2019\u201d\u00a0 (p. 242). The subject, having been created in the nigredo<\/em> stage, is now purified and prepared for coagulation into a new unity that Carl Jung\u2014who made much of alchemy as a psychological process akin to his \u201cindividuation\u201d\u2014described as consisting of man with his anima and woman with her animus and both with their shadows.<\/p>\n Fig.\u00a0 1.\u00a0 An alchemist with flask. Image from Salomon Trismosin\u2019s Splendour Solis. 1582. Public domain image.<\/p><\/div>\n Fig. 2.\u00a0 Dragon with three heads. Image from Salomon Trismosin\u2019s Splendour Solis. 1582. Public domain image.<\/p><\/div>\n Fig.\u00a0 3.\u00a0 Cary-Yale Visconti Tarocchi Deck Facsimile and reconstructed edition created from hand-painted original produced in Milan c.\u00a0 1445.\u00a0 9.7 \u00d7 19 cm.\u00a0 \u00a9 1985 U.S.\u00a0 Games Systems.\u00a0 Illus.\u00a0 reproduced by permission of U.S.\u00a0 Games Systems.\u00a0 All rights reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n Fig.\u00a0 4.\u00a0 Visconti-Sforza Pierpont Morgan Tarocchi Deck.\u00a0 15th century.\u00a0 Facsimile edition recreated from hand-painted original produced in Milan c.\u00a0 1450.\u00a0 9 \u00d7 17.5 cm.\u00a0 \u00a9 1975 U.S.\u00a0 Games Systems.\u00a0 Illus.\u00a0 reproduced by permission of U.S.\u00a0 Games Systems.\u00a0 All rights reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n Fig.\u00a0 5.\u00a0 Jean Dodal Tarot by Jean Dodal (of Lyon).\u00a0 Marseilles-style Tarot.\u00a0 1701\/1715.\u00a0 Public domain image.<\/p><\/div>\n Fig.\u00a0 6.\u00a0 Etteilla I.\u00a0 1789.\u00a0 Grimaud edition with English titles added 1969.\u00a0 6.5 \u00d7 11.9 cm.<\/p><\/div>\n Fig.\u00a0 7.\u00a0 Oswald Wirth Tarot.\u00a0 Originally designed by Oswald Wirth with direction from Stanislas de Guaita in 1889.\u00a0 This card U.S.\u00a0 Games edition \u00a9 1976.\u00a0 7 \u00d7 13.1 cm.\u00a0 Illus.\u00a0 reproduced by permission of U.S.\u00a0 Games Systems.\u00a0 All rights reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n In 1889, the Swiss artist Oswald Wirth (1860\u20131943) designed a trumps-only Tarot under the guidance of the French occultist Stanislas de Guaita (1861\u20131897).\u00a0 This deck was informed at least in part by Etteilla\u2019s and by alchemical processes.\u00a0 It was originally published in a hand-colored limited edition and the line drawings were later included in Wirth\u2019s book Tarot of the Magicians<\/em> (1927). The text accompanying the illustration explicitly states that the cards preceding Temperance in the trump sequence represent death and decomposition; that is, the first stage of the alchemical process.\u00a0 The angelic figure on the card (fig. 7) pours the \u201cvital fluid\u201d from a silver to a gold receptacle indicating the final purification. As Wirth explains, this process is more about psychic than material transformation,<\/p>\n The jars of precious metal do not correspond to crude bodily containers; they allude to the double psychic atmosphere whose natural organism is only the earthly ballast.\u00a0 Of these concentric containers the one, the nearer (gold, conscience, reason) is solar active; it directs the individual in an immediate way and supports its energy of the will.\u00a0 The other stretches beyond the first; it is lunar and sensitive (silver).\u00a0 Its domain is more mysterious; it is that of sentimentality, of vague impressions, of the imagination and of the unconscious on a superior level.\u00a0 [\u2026] What is concentrated in the silver urn flows into the [other] where condensation is completed with the view to maintaining psychic life. (Wirth, 1927, 1985, 117-118)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In addition, Etteilla\u2019s sun motif reappears transformed into two concentric circles colored yellow and a red flower grows below the gold urn.<\/p>\n The French occultist Eliphas Levi (1896) was also influenced by Etteilla, although he derided the earlier author\u2019s work and deck at every opportunity.\u00a0 For example, Etteilla had departed radically from the conventionalized order the cards had fallen into thanks to the universal use of the printing press and Levi asserted that they should be put back in something like that familiar arrangement.\u00a0 However, Levi furthered Etteilla\u2019s project of developing correspondences for Tarot by integrating an even broader range of them taken from Kabbalah and alchemy.\u00a0 His description of the Temperance card reads as follows:<\/p>\n Hieroglyph, TEMPERANCE, an angel with the sign of the sun upon her forehead, and on the breast the square and triangle of the septenary, pours from one chalice into another the two essences which compose the Elixir of Life. (Levi 1896; 2013, Ch. XXII)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The creation of the \u201celixir of life\u201d is one goal of the \u201cgreat work\u201d and obviously Levi thought Etteilla was right to include the sun motif on his angel\u2019s forehead.\u00a0 The septenary may refer to the seven metals of traditional alchemy: lead, tin, copper, iron, mercury, silver, and gold; and \/or the seven planets of traditional astrology: Saturn, Jupiter, Venus, Mars, Mercury, the Moon, and the Sun; and \/or any number of other sets of seven.<\/p>\n Fig.\u00a0 8.\u00a0 Robert Wang, The Golden Dawn Tarot.\u00a0 \u00a9 1977 Robert Wang and Israel Regardie. Neuhausen, Switzerland: AGM AGM\u00fcller. 7.9 \u00d7 12.7 cm.\u00a0 Illus.\u00a0 reproduced by permission of Robert Wang.\u00a0 All rights reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n Fig.\u00a0 9.\u00a0 Pamela Smith (artist) and Arthur Waite.\u00a0 The Rider-Waite Tarot\u00ae.\u00a0 1909.\u00a0 Stamford, CT: U.S.\u00a0 Games Systems \u00a9 1971.\u00a0 7 \u00d7 12 cm.\u00a0 Illus. reproduced by permission of U.S.\u00a0 Games.\u00a0 All rights reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n It represents an Angel with the Solar emblem of Tiphareth on her brow, and wings of the aerial and volatilising nature, pouring together the fluidic Fire and the fiery Water\u2014thus combining harmonising and temperating [sic] those opposing elements.<\/p>\n One foot rests on dry and volcanic land in the background of which is a volcano whence issues an irruption [sic].\u00a0 The other foot is in the water by whose border springs fresh vegetation, contrasting strongly with the arid and dry nature of the distant land.\u00a0 On her breast is a square, the emblem of rectitude.\u00a0 The whole figure is a representation of that straight and narrow way of which it is said \u201cfew there be that find it\u201d which alone leads to the higher and glorified life.\u00a0 [\u2026] (p. 218)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Robert Wang presents his Golden Dawn Tarot<\/em> (1977) as an authentic rendering of the Golden Dawn deck and his Temperance card (fig. 8) is consistent with Regardie\u2019s description.\u00a0 The sun motif applied by Etteilla and affirmed by Levi appears above the figure.\u00a0 The adaptation of the placement of the angel\u2019s feet so that one rests on land and the other in water may have been inspired by the bible: \u201cAnd he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth\u201d (Revelation 10:2 King James Version<\/em>).\u00a0 The specification of \u201cfluidic Fire\u201d and \u201cfiery Water\u201d\u2014here indicated by the red and blue pitchers respectively\u2014and the literal addition of a volcano and a body of water seem to be articulations of the alchemical elements. The coloured pitchers, volcano, and water reappear in many subsequent decks.<\/p>\n Golden Dawn member Arthur E. Waite (1857\u20131942) was certainly aware of the conventions adopted by the Order.\u00a0 When he and artist Pamela Colman Smith (1878\u20131951) collaborated on the Rider-Waite-Smith<\/em> Tarot (1909), they maintained, but also elaborated on the Golden Dawn image (fig. 9).<\/p>\n A winged angel, with the sign of the sun upon his forehead and on his breast the square and triangle of the septenary.\u00a0 I speak of him in the masculine sense, but the figure is neither male nor female.\u00a0 It is held to be pouring the essences of life from chalice to chalice.\u00a0 It has one foot upon the earth and one upon waters, thus illustrating the nature of the essences.\u00a0 A direct path goes up to certain heights on the verge of the horizon, and above there is a great light, through which a crown is seen vaguely.\u00a0 Hereof is some part of the Secret of Eternal Life, as it is possible to man in his incarnation.\u00a0 All the conventional emblems are renounced herein.<\/p>\n So also are the conventional meanings, which refer to changes in the seasons, perpetual movement of life and even the combination of ideas.\u00a0 It is, moreover, untrue to say that the figure symbolizes the genius of the sun, though it is the analogy of solar light, realized in the third part of our human triplicity.\u00a0 It is called Temperance fantastically, because, when the rule of it obtains in our consciousness, it tempers, combines and harmonises the psychic and material natures.\u00a0 Under that rule we know in our rational part something of whence we came and whither we are going. (Waite, 1910, 1983, 124-25)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The \u201cgreat light\u201d or sun rises (or sets) beyond distant mountains, its appearance echoing the ornament on the figure\u2019s brow, as well as that of the sun on the Death card, which rises (or sets) between two pillars identical to those on the Moon card.\u00a0 The irises may well be a reference to Iris, who carried messages from the gods to humans on a rainbow.\u00a0 Waite\u2019s words combined with this imagery are affirmations of many alchemical associations that go far beyond the original virtue, ranging from harmonizing and tempering to the notion of eternal life.\u00a0 By way of the tremendous popularity of the Rider-Waite-Smith<\/em> deck, these motifs and their associated meanings are echoed in many contemporary versions of the card.<\/p>\n Fig.\u00a0 10.\u00a0 Aleister Crowley and Frieda Harris (artist).\u00a0 The Book of Thoth.\u00a0 1944.\u00a0 9.5 \u00d7 14 cm.\u00a0 Illus.\u00a0 reproduced by permission of Ordo Templi Orientis, University of London, and AGM-Urania.\u00a0 All rights reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n Fig.\u00a0 11.\u00a0 Robert Wang.\u00a0 The Jungian Tarot.\u00a0 1988.\u00a0 Marcus Aurelius Press edition 1990 or 2001 (?) U.S.\u00a0 Games edition with pamphlet \u00a9 2018.\u00a0 Stamford, CT: U.S.\u00a0 Games, Systems.\u00a0 7.5 \u00d7 11 cm.\u00a0 Illus.\u00a0 reproduced by permission of U.S.\u00a0 Games Systems.\u00a0 All rights reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n The robe of the figure is green, which symbolizes vegetable growth: this is an alchemical allegory.\u00a0 In the symbolism of the fathers of science all \u201cactual\u201d objects were regarded as dead; the difficulty of transmuting metals was that the metals, as they occur in nature, were in the nature of excrements, because they did not grow.\u00a0 The first problem of alchemy was to raise mineral to vegetable life; the adepts thought that the proper way to do this was to imitate the processes of nature [\u2026] The state of the great work therefore consisted in the mingling of the contradictory elements in a cauldron.\u00a0 This is here represented as golden or solar, because the Sun is the Father of all Life, and (in particular) presides over distillation.\u00a0 [\u2026] Behind the figure [\u2026] is a glory bearing an inscription VISITA INTERIORA TERRAE RECTIFICANDO INVENIES OCCULTUM LAPIDEM, \u201cVisit the interior parts of the earth: by rectification thou shalt find the hidden stone.\u201d Its initials make the word V.I.T.R.I.O.L., the Universal Solvent [\u2026]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This \u201chidden stone\u201d is also called the Universal Medicine.\u00a0 It is sometimes described as a stone, sometimes as a powder, sometimes as a tincture.\u00a0 It divides into two forms, the gold and the silver, the red and the white; but its essence is always the same [\u2026 Vitriol] represents a balanced combination of the three alchemical principals, Sulphur, Mercury and Salt.\u00a0 [\u2026] (pp. 102-104)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Harris\u2019s illustration fully articulates Crowley\u2019s description; the most influential point to observe here is that watery fire and fiery water are combined in a cauldron in a very literal representation of the combination of opposites.<\/p>\n After his commercial edition of the Golden Dawn Tarot<\/em> (fig. 8), Robert Wang published a new deck titled The Jungian Tarot<\/em> (1988) in which all of the card designs express the affinity between alchemy and individuation.\u00a0 He recreated the Temperance (fig. 11) figure herself as the philosopher\u2019s stone, or mediator, that unifies opposites\u2014shown as the now familiar fire and water, but here also intended to reference the conscious and unconscious mind.\u00a0 This unification is treated as part of the same process that requires darkness or blackness (nigredo<\/em>) before movement toward light (albedo<\/em>) or understanding (Wang, 2017, p. 192). Further, Wang (2017) associates this card with what Jung called active imagination, which involves focusing on some interior image and allowing one\u2019s unconscious mind to create a flow of additional images from it.\u00a0 Jung, Wang points out, even called the first image in an active imagination exercise by the alchemical term \u201cthe prima materia\u201d (p. 195).<\/p>\n Fig.\u00a0 12.\u00a0 Arthur Taussig.\u00a0 The Alchemical Visions Tarot.\u00a0 Arthur Taussig \u00a9 2019.\u00a0 Newburyport, MA: Re Wheel\/Weiser Books.\u00a0 12.7 \u00d7 17.8 cm.\u00a0 All rights reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n Fig.\u00a0 13.\u00a0 Image of a human body in a pentagram from Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa’s Libri tres de occulta philosophia.\u00a0 Symbols of the sun and moon are in center, while the other five classical “planets” are around the edge.\u00a0 Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Libri tres de occulta philosophia.\u00a0 1531.\u00a0 Public Domain.\u00a0 Also reproduced Alexander Roob, Alchemy & Mysticism (Taschen, 1997) p.\u00a0 536.<\/p><\/div>\n Fig.\u00a0 14.\u00a0 Johann Georg Gichtel (1638\u20131710), Theosophia Practica (Amsterdam, 1696).\u00a0 Public Domain.\u00a0 Reproduced in Alexander Roob, Alchemy & Mysticism (Taschen, 1997) p.\u00a0 559.<\/p><\/div>\n Some of the more recent and more thoroughly developed alchemy-influenced decks include the Splendor Solis Tarot<\/em>, mentioned above, and Arthur Taussig\u2019s The Alchemical Visions Tarot<\/em> (2019).\u00a0 Taussig borrows motifs and images from public-domain alchemical treatises and collages them (no source information provided) into new contexts.\u00a0 His Temperance figure (fig. 12), for example, is taken from a work by Cornelius Agrippa (1531) (fig. 14) and the design above its head is from Gichtel\u2019s Theosophia Practica<\/em> (1696) (fig. 13).\u00a0 New meanings are proposed for the cards that were apparently inspired by Jung and a wide range of cultural traditions, but rarely specify the connection with alchemy indicated in the deck title.<\/p>\n Fig.\u00a0 15.\u00a0Robert M.\u00a0 Place.\u00a0 The Alchemical Tarot.\u00a0 First Edition.\u00a0 London: Thorsons.\u00a0 8 \u00d7 12 cm.\u00a0 \u00a9 Robert M.\u00a0 Place 1995-2020.\u00a0 Illus. reproduced by permission of Robert M.\u00a0 Place.\u00a0 Deck republished as The Alchemical Tarot Renewed, 5th Edition by Hermes Publications.\u00a0 All rights reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n Fig.\u00a0 16.\u00a0 Plate from Michael Maier (1568?-1622), Symbola aureae mensae duodecim nationum.\u00a0 1617.\u00a0 Public Domain.\u00a0 Retrieved from Internet Archive.<\/p><\/div>\n Fig.\u00a0 17.\u00a0 Luigi Scapini.\u00a0 Medieval Scapini Tarot Deck.\u00a0 \u00a9 1984.\u00a0 Stamford, CT: U.S.\u00a0 Games Systems.\u00a0 7.1 \u00d7 13.2 cm.\u00a0 Illus.\u00a0 reproduced by permission of U.S.\u00a0 Games Systems.\u00a0 All rights reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n Fig.\u00a0 18.\u00a0 Brian Williams, PoMo Tarot.\u00a0 \u00a9 1994.\u00a0 New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994.\u00a0 9.5 \u00d7 15.1 cm.\u00a0 All rights reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n In his light-hearted PoMo Tarot<\/em> (1994) (fig. 18), Brian Williams (1994) presents alchemy as nascent science by replacing Temperance\u2019s familiar jugs with test tubes; he says the liquid resulting from the combination of whatever is in them is \u201cprobably some benign alchemical concoction.\u201d The card refers to \u201cthe desirability of tempering, diluting, balancing, mixing and matching.\u00a0 Swirl a little yin into your yang, or vice versa, the character seems to say, for a balanced psychosexual cocktail\u201d (p. 27).\u00a0 That said, the title Williams gave the card\u2014Neither Here Nor There\u2014sounds a little like a tongue-in-cheek answer to Waite\u2019s description of its meaning as helping us to know \u201csomething of whence we came and whither we are going\u201d (quoted above).<\/p>\n Fig.\u00a0 19 and 20.\u00a0 Left (full card) and right (detail): Raul and Gianluca Cestaro (artists), Giordano Berti and Tiberio Gonard (authors), Pietro Alligo (cards, idea, script, supervision), Tarot of the New Vision.\u00a0 Torino, Italy: Lo Scarabeo, 2005.\u00a0 All rights reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n Fig.\u00a0 21.\u00a0 Hermann\u2008Haindl.\u00a0 The Haindl Tarot.\u00a0 Stamford, CT: U.S.\u00a0 Games Systems \u00a9 1990.\u00a0 7 \u00d7 12.7 cm.\u00a0 Illus. reproduced by permission of U.S.\u00a0 Games.\u00a0 All rights reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n Fig.\u00a0 22.\u00a0 Detail of Alchemy, The Haindl Tarot.\u00a0 All rights reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n Fig.\u00a0 23.\u00a0 Alexandra Eldridge (artist) and Tony Barnstone (guidebook), The Radiant Tarot.\u00a0 \u00a9 2021.\u00a0 Website: https:\/\/alexandraeldridge.com\/ Newburyport, MA: Red Wheel\/Weiser Books.\u00a0 7.5 \u00d7 12.4 cm.\u00a0 Illus. reproduced by permission of Alexandra Eldridge. All rights reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n Fig.\u00a0 24.\u00a0 Tinker’s Damn Tarot Temperance cardDoug Thornsjo.\u00a0 Cards two-deck set Tinker\u2019s Damn Tarot and Mantegna.\u00a0 Legacy Edition [156 cards and pamphlet].\u00a0 Revised Second Edition.\u00a0 Waterville, ME: Duck Soup Productions, 2018.\u00a0 7 x 12 cm.\u00a0 Illus. reproduced by permission of Doug Thornsjo. All rights reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n Fig.\u00a0 25.\u00a0 Mantegna Alchemy card.<\/p><\/div>\n Fig.\u00a0 26.\u00a0 Ken Knutson (artist) and James Wanless (Ph.D).\u00a0 Voyager Tarot.\u00a0 \u00a9 1985.\u00a0 Merrill-West Publishing.\u00a0 9.6 \u00d7 14 cm.\u00a0 Illus. reproduced by permission of the author, James Wanless www.jameswanlessoracle.com.\u00a0 Voyager Tarot is now published by Quarto.\u00a0 All rights reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n Fig.\u00a0 27.\u00a0 Vicki Noble and Karen Vogel.\u00a0 Motherpeace Round Tarot.\u00a0 Stamford, CT: U.S.\u00a0 Game Systems.\u00a0 11.4 cm.\u00a0 dia.\u00a0 Illus. reproduced by permission of Vicki Noble.\u00a0 and Karen Vogel.\u00a0 Motherpeace \u00a9 1981.\u00a0 Website: Motherpeace.com.\u00a0 All rights reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n Fig.\u00a0 28.\u00a0 Ellen Lorenzi-Prince.\u00a0 Dark Goddess Tarot.\u00a0 2013. Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 2020.\u00a0 7.5 x 12.7 cm.\u00a0 Illus. reproduced by permission of Ellen Lorenzi-Prince.\u00a0 All rights reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n Ellen Lorenzi-Prince has aligned all the cards of her Dark Goddess Tarot<\/em> (2013) with female deities and mythological figures.\u00a0 She identifies Temperance as \u201cAlchemy\u2014Brigid Irish Goddess of Craft, Art, and Healing\u201d (fig. 28). Brigid herself is associated with fire and water in that she is a goddess of the fire and hearth and also of water and wells.\u00a0 She thus presides over both the forge and tempering of metals, and the cauldron and blending of substances.\u00a0 Brigid, like the Motherpeace<\/em> shaman, is a master of healing and transformation.<\/p>\n Fig.\u00a0 29.\u00a0 Shelley Carter.\u00a0 Temperance.\u00a0 The Triumph of Life Tarot organized by Andrew McGregor. 2017. 7 x 12 cm. Illus. reproduced by permission of Shelley Carter. All rights reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n It is the random nature of cancer that some will get it.\u00a0 Of those, some survive and some die.\u00a0 Temperance tells us to live our life with balance and grace, despite what is happening, so that, no matter the outcome, we will have made the best of our time here. (Carter in McGregor, 2015)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Carter dispenses with all the alchemy-inspired markers suggesting \u201csomething of whence we came and whither we are going.\u201d There are no paths, no suns, no hints of messages from the gods, just wings of hope aligned with the science-associations of the deck itself.\u00a0 There are, however, substitutions: an individual\u2019s face rather than an allegorical one, and, rather than irises suggesting that aid will come from the gods (if at all), there are daffodils.\u00a0 Daffodils, those cheerful harbingers of spring, are the symbol of the Canadian Cancer Society\u2019s Daffodil Campaign \u201cto fund nationwide support programs that offer comfort and connection\u2014and world-leading research to transform the future of cancer\u201d (Canadian Cancer Society website). Temperance is thus metamorphosed into a sparse and tightly focused image with one message: we can find ways to restore health and extend the lives of real individuals in the here and now.\u00a0 The elixir of eternal life may or may not ever be discovered on this or that side of the veil, but\u00a0 the Temperance card maintains its kinship with the fifteenth-century virtue in representing something that should be cultivated on the path of life, whatever its duration.<\/p>\n From the fifteenth through the twenty-first centuries, artists have sought to ornament Tarot cards with images that are meaningful to themselves and their patrons. In the fifteenth century, the theological and cardinal virtues were among the obvious choices for such illustrations, but changing cultural interests and the realization of an ever-lengthening list of card correspondences led to many adaptations and substitutions. Alchemy\u2014which synchronized personal development with both processes found in nature and the search for the philosopher\u2019s stone\u2014had a particular impact on the figure and motifs associated with Temperance. The alchemical alignment led to the card\u2019s association with cultural, as well as personal, transformation; creativity; healing; and, of course, modern science. All of these interpretations have contributed to the ongoing relevance of the card\u2014and that of the deck as a whole\u2014to modern deck users.[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”Content Block” _builder_version=”4.16″ background_enable_image=”off” custom_margin=”0px||0px||true|false” custom_padding=”0px||0px||true|false” saved_tabs=”all” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_4,3_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”1_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.16″ header_2_font=”Eczar||||||||” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”3_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text module_class=”reference” _builder_version=”4.18.0″ custom_margin=”||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Berti, Giordano, and Tiberio Gonard (authors), Raul and Gianluca Cestaro (artists), Pietro Alligo (cards, idea, script, supervision). (2005). Tarot of the New Vision<\/em> [guide book]. Torino, Italy: Lo Scarabeo.<\/p>\n Canadian Cancer Society. Website < https:\/\/cancer.ca\/en\/ways-to-give\/daffodil<\/a>>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/societyforritualarts.com\/coreopsis\/autumn-2022-issue\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/1-Splendor_Solis2.jpg?ssl=1\")
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\nThe processes of individuation, of self-study and self-exploration, as well as the idea that there are correspondences or connections between the world above and the world below and indeed between all manner of symbolic and material systems, underpin many of the hundreds and thousands of new Tarot decks created in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.\u00a0 Not surprisingly in this context, the apparent coincidence that there are twenty-two Tarot trumps in the modern deck and twenty-two illustrations in Splendour Solis<\/em> has not gone unnoticed: Marie Angelo reproduced the illustrations from this manuscript as the trumps of the Splendor Solis Tarot<\/em> (2019, 2020) adding white borders and labels to the originals. The image of the alchemist with flask becomes the Magician, the dragon with three heads becomes Temperance, and so forth.\u00a0 This dramatic example notwithstanding, alchemy is far from prevalent in today\u2019s decks, but it has brought about a deep revision of the meanings associated with the Temperance card.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>
\nIn both the Cary-Yale<\/em> (fig. 3) and Visconti-Sforza<\/em> (fig. 4) Tarot, Temperance represents one of the four cardinal virtues.\u00a0 The slightly earlier Cary-Yale<\/em> deck includes cards for the three theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity, and three of the cardinal virtues: Temperance, Strength or Fortitude, and Justice, while Prudence is absent, missing, or possibly indicated by another card.\u00a0 The Visconti-Sforza<\/em> deck does not have cards for the theological virtues, but it does have cards for Temperance, Strength, and Justice.\u00a0 In both Cary-Yale<\/em> and Visconti-Sforza<\/em> Temperance cards, a feminine figure pours liquid from one container to another: the usual assumption is that she is diluting wine with water in order to promote temperance in those consuming it.\u00a0 The same basic image, usually with a winged figure and with red and blue colors dominant, was maintained in printed decks, such as the Jean Dodal Tarot<\/em> (fig. 5).<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>
\nThe earliest Tarot deck known to have been created specifically for divination is that by Jean-Baptiste Alliette (1738\u20131791), better known as Etteilla; this deck is also the first to show what appears to be a deliberate incorporation of alchemical symbolism.\u00a0 Temperance (fig. 6) is an angel who pours a liquid from a pitcher in her left hand to one in her right.\u00a0 She has a small sun motif on her forehead, likely indicating perfection and the purity of gold, and she stands with her left foot on a round rock, suggesting the circle or alchemical symbol for salt, and her right on a triangular rock, suggesting sulphur.\u00a0 Paul Huson (2004) sees the sun motif as a reinvention of a flower found on some older Marseilles-style cards (p. 122).<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>
\nThe members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn established in London in 1888 studied the works of Etteilla, Levi, and others who emphasized correspondences with Tarot.\u00a0 One of the Order\u2019s founders, MacGregor Mathers, and his wife Moina Mathers created a new Tarot that initiates were expected to make copies of.\u00a0 Golden Dawn member Israel Regardie (1907\u20131985) (1971, 1989) wrote of the \u201cusual\u201d form of the Temperance card found in the Order\u2019s \u201cRitual of the Portal\u201d that<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>
\nAleister Crowley (1875\u20131947) (1944, 1991), also a Golden Dawn initiate, wrote more explicitly about the alchemical imagery and meanings integrated into the version of Temperance that he and Frieda Lady Harris (who falsely claimed the title Lady Frieda Harris) (1877\u20131962) created for their Thoth Tarot<\/em> in the late 1930s and early 1940s (fig. 10).<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>
\nTaking their cue from Etteilla, Levi, Waite, Crowley, and others, a number of twentieth and twenty-first century artists have created decks partly or entirely based on alchemical correspondences in Tarot. Adam McLean (2006) compiled a list of at least some of these decks including John Sandbach\u2019s Golden Cycle Tarot<\/em> (1976), Tarot de Gwen<\/em> (1979), Guido Gillabel\u2019s De Hierofant\u2019s Alchemisten Tarot<\/em> (1987), Rafal Prinke\u2019s Alchemical Tarot<\/em> (1988), Dirk Gillabel\u2019s Alchemical Tarot<\/em> (late 1980s) and Hermetic Tarot<\/em> (1990), Tarocchi di Paracelso<\/em> (1993), Robert Place\u2019s Alchemical Tarot<\/em> (1995), Full Metal Alchemist<\/em> (2004), Alchemical Emblems Tarot<\/em> (2006), and Alchemical Wedding Tarot<\/em> (2006).\u00a0 Illustrations for these, many of which were limited editions and are out-of-print, are available by searching McLean\u2019s Tarot Database, other Tarot websites, and the artists\u2019 blogs.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>
\nOf all the Tarot artists who have worked with alchemical imagery, the best known by far is Robert Place, who has created a number of alchemy-based decks.\u00a0 The earliest of these, The Alchemical Tarot<\/em> (1995), has been re-released in numerous editions.\u00a0 Place borrows and then reinvents motifs and images from numerous alchemical texts for his cards, and includes references to his visual sources directly in the guidebook for those curious enough to backtrack on his research.\u00a0 For example, his image of Temperance (fig. 15) reinvents a plate from a book published in 1617 (fig. 16).\u00a0 Rather than the usual Tarot Temperance figure pouring liquid from one container to another, here, as Place (1995) explains, the \u201cwater of life flows down from the heavens [\u2026] and rises as steam in imitation of the natural process called precipitation.\u00a0 [\u2026] Within the opening can be seen the Tree of Life, with five branches each bearing a five-petalled flower.\u00a0 These represent the five senses of humankind, as well as the four elements plus spirit, or the quinta essential<\/em>\u201d (p. 104). Place acknowledges the significance of the Rider-Waite-Smith<\/em> deck to alchemical Tarot by means of a visual quotation: a path leading off into the mountains where a sun is rising.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>
\nWhile many contemporary artists are not particularly concerned with the deep accrual of meanings\u2014alchemical or otherwise\u2014informing modern day Tarot imagery, like Place, at least some take the study of history very seriously.\u00a0 For example, in Luigi Scapini\u2019s Medieval Scapini Tarot Deck<\/em> (1984) Temperance (fig. 17) is informed by the careful study of at least three historical decks: the figure stands on the brink of a cliff like that in the Visconti-Sforza<\/em> card and she stands with her feet on two stones as does Etteilla\u2019s figure.\u00a0 Here, however, one stone appears to be square, rather than triangular, and the other round.\u00a0 Possibly, this adaptation was intended to make a stronger connection to the philosopher\u2019s stone, which is sometimes represented by a circle inside a square.\u00a0 In addition, as in the Wirth<\/em> card, she pours liquid from a silver to a golden pitcher and a red flower grows beside her.\u00a0 The mountains in the background may suggest the Rider-Waite-Smith<\/em> card, but where Waite may or may not be implying an association between the card and Christian notions of resurrection and eternal life, Scapini states this meaning literally by incorporating the image of John the Baptist baptizing Jesus with a dove above them.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>
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\nWaite and Smith\u2019s extraordinary Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot<\/em> is also behind every single image of the Tarot of the New Vision<\/em>, a deck designed so that viewers are looking at the back of the Rider-Waite-Smith<\/em> figures and beyond.\u00a0 Recognition of the deep connection that has evolved between Temperance (fig. 19) and alchemy is apparent in the incorporation of an athanor; that is, a coal oven used to heat a distiller (fig. 20).\u00a0 As the authors of the deck\u2019s guidebook explain, \u201cThe contents of this distiller, when evaporating, rise in accordance to the differing weights of the substances in them.\u00a0 They end up as deposits in the three vases on the left\u201d (Berti, et al., 2005, p. 45). Other motifs from the original card are also included or suggested: the triangle inside the square and the irises are plainly visible, while the path implies the unseen mountains and sun and the glow around the figure\u2019s head suggests the forehead sun motif.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>
\nHerman Haindl indicates his understanding of the connections between the Temperance card and alchemy by actually renaming the card \u201cAlchemy\u201d (fig. 21).\u00a0 Rather than representing the elixir of life by the mixing of fire and water, he incorporates the alchemical image of the hermaphrodite as a symbol of the ultimate unity, that of male and female.\u00a0 Thus, he places a male face on one side of a diagonal line and a female face on the other (fig. 22) (Pollack, 1990, p. 124-25).<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>
\nA number of artists have emphasized a direct association of alchemy with human artistic creativity; thus, Alexandra Eldridge reinvents the Temperance figure (fig. 23) as an invisible spirit who pours liquid from two goblets\u2014one with red and one with blue jewels around the rim\u2014into a cauldron that floats above the ground.\u00a0 In the guidebook, Tony Barnstone explains the meaning of the card with reference to the search for truth through balance and moderation, going beyond notions of temperance as a virtue to alchemy by making it about blending extremes to establish unity.\u00a0 He quotes Jung on the importance of integrating opposite aspects of one\u2019s self to become whole.\u00a0 The \u201cCreative Practice\u201d section is subtitled \u201cVisual Alchemy\u201d and includes quotes and exercises identifying art-making as alchemy, as the blending of opposites, and the turning of base matter into gold (Eldridge and Barnstone, 2001, p. 44-45). The red and blue jewels on the goblets are likely a restating of the watery fire and fiery water, a visualization also used with considerable dramatic effect in Doug Thornsjo\u2019s Temperance and Alchemy cards for his Tinker\u2019s Damn Tarot<\/em> (fig. 24) and Mantegna<\/em> (fig. 25) decks respectively.\u00a0 The pearls on the Tarot card, like the phoenix on the Mantegna<\/em> card, speak of creative transformation as processes in nature, real and mythical.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nJames Wanless, like Crowley and Harris, actually retitles his Voyager Tarot<\/em> (1985) Temperance as \u201cArt\u201d (fig. 26), and like Eldridge and others, he merges the card\u2019s accrued alchemical meanings with creativity: he understands creativity to be an alchemical art involving the dissolving of the old to create something new.\u00a0 He reinvents the alchemical references to the combining of fiery water and watery fire as a description of how new ideas come from the unconscious to consciousness like lightning or fire and the \u201cwater feelings\u201d are what bring those ideas into material being.\u00a0 He further associates the cauldron, which some contemporary Tarot artists use instead of pitchers, as a potential limitation insofar as ideas may be contained and not acted on (Wanless, 1986, p. 25-26).\u00a0 Even in this radically redesigned card, there are many references to the Rider-Waite-Smith<\/em> version.\u00a0 The rainbow suggests irises: the rainbow was the path Iris is said to have travelled when delivering messages from the gods to humans.\u00a0 It arcs above a photograph of mountains and a basketry design suggestive of the sun, both of which are motifs in the Rider-Waite-Smith<\/em> card.\u00a0 New additions include mercury or silver overflowing from cupped hands to gather around a moth or butterfly\u2014a creature that aptly and appropriately symbolizes metamorphoses and transformation.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>
\nAlchemical associations have expanded the possible meanings of the Temperance card as cardinal virtue to include an emphasis on balance or moderation and also all kinds of transformation, including creativity, and by association, healing.\u00a0 For example, Vicki Noble (1983) not only identifies the Motherpeace<\/em> (1981) Temperance card (fig. 27) with alchemy, she links it with shamanic traditions.\u00a0 The card image depicts a fully initiated shaman in control of all opposites and thus able to transform imbalance into the balance necessary for healing.\u00a0 Noble cites Crowley\u2019s identification of this card with Art as an important suggestion for how the energies that might otherwise be harmful can be used or unified so that they are part of life rather than destruction (pp. 107-108). The references to fire and water are maintained by a volcanic-looking mountain and a cresting wave; the dancing figure also has one red and one blue anklet.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nIn a further alignment of Tarot with healing and modern-day science, Andrew McGregor of The Hermit\u2019s Lamp store in Toronto, Ontario, organized The Triumph of Life Tarot<\/em> (2015). Numerous artists created and contributed cards to this deck, which he then marketed: all profits went to cancer research.\u00a0 The Temperance card for this deck was created by Shelley Carter, who also organized the collectively created Elora Tarot<\/em> (2013).\u00a0 In that earlier deck her daughter appears as the High Priestess; in The Triumph of Life Tarot<\/em> she is a Rider-Waite-Smith<\/em>-inspired Temperance (fig. 29): a winged-angel whose clothing is marked by the triangle in a square and stands with one foot on land and one in the water.\u00a0 The interpretation of the card Carter offers in the downloadable pdf reads<\/p>\nReferences<\/h2>\n