Part Ii

THE MAJOR ARCANA

Here, the Seal’s parallel with history turns controversial.

Mention Tarot cards to most people, and the subject instantly conjures up images of fortune tellers in gypsy garb laying out cards on tables to divine people’s love lives. In fact, Tarot cards did not come into use for divining the future until the end of the 1800’s, during the post-Civil War spiritualism craze. Prior to that time, they were used only for playing games.

Though the cards are thought to have come into existence after the Black Plague of the mid-1300’s, which killed half the population of Europe, their first documented appearance did not come until 1418, when two prominent Italian families, the Sforza’s and the Visconti’s, commissioned the creation of two hand-painted decks bearing likenesses of their own family members. That the cards had been used before that is a matter of record, but what the earlier cards looked like is unknown. Many hand-painted decks followed, and with the invention of the printing press the cards came to be created as often as books. Their use for playing games became a popular pastime of royalty, and for such frivolity they were often condemned by the clergy as “instruments of the Devil” long before their invocation for telling fortunes. How exactly the cards came into being in the first place; for what purpose they were originally intended; and how they came to be used for playing games are all mysteries. It is interesting to note, however, that that the cards came about at the very time the courts of Europe were ransacking monasteries for manuscripts which ultimately, in part, would jump‑start the Renaissance. That the cards have a Christian origin is evident from the Christian imagery that is displayed on some of them.

Altogether, the Tarot deck consists of 78 cards, 52 eventually evolving into our modern playing cards. 4 others that are intermingled with them (the so-called “Knight” cards) show stylized versions of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, giving the cards a Christian origin. The final 22 cards, known as the major arcana, show a gallery of 22 enigmatic images which supposedly portray the 22 incarnations of THE FOOL, portrayed by the first card, card 0, on his path to some sort of spiritual enlightenment or reward.

For our purposes, we shall only be concerned with the major arcana, also known as the “trump” cards.

On the following pages is a facsimile of these cards from the Marseille deck, one of the most popular versions of the Tarot.

Regardless of how the cards came into being, or what they were originally intended for, they will be shown in the coming pages to have had a direct bearing on the Seal and its portrayal of America’s past.

THE CARDS AND THE HEBREW ALPHABET

Exactly where the cards came from, and who created them, are unknown, but the 22 cards of the major arcana have a legendary basis in the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, in the sense that they supposedly portray pictorially the meanings of the Hebrew letters.

Originally, the Hebrew alphabet consisted only of consonants. Hebrew words had vowel sounds, but they were not portrayed by letters. Instead, they were handed down in communities to make the language more puzzling to outsiders. This is why Gentiles have been mispronouncing the name of the Hebrew God for over two thousand years. Originally spelled with only four letters, JHVH in English, Gentiles have been mispronouncing it as “JeHoVaH.” Actually, the Hebrews pronounced it “JaHVeH.”

On the following table is the original Hebrew alphabet, and beside each letter is the name of the card with which it aligns:

THE CARDS AND THE SEPHIROT

Besides the Hebrew alphabet, the cards also have a legendary basis in the 22 paths of the Hebrew sephirot or “Tree of Life,” which is alleged to be a pictorial representation of the Torah. The origin of the sephirot, like the cards, is unknown, but it was embraced by alchemists and Jewish Kabbalists from the Twelfth Century forward.

In this illustration, the distribution of the cards to the paths is not intended to show precisely how they are supposed to be distributed to this symbol, only that they can be:

THE MAJOR ARCANA AND THE SEAL

The significance of the cards of the major arcana or “trump” cards to the Seal’s portrayal of history is that, when the 22 cards are aligned with the 22 intervals into which the Seal divides American history, a match is achieved between either the images on the cards or their meanings and the trends of history in the intervals to which they correspond.

This alignment is illustrated below, with the cards placed alongside the intervals with which they align, as portrayed on the Great Seal:

THE "TREASURE" AS A GUIDE TO HOW THE LAST FOUR INTERVALS SHOULD BE DISTRIBUTED TO THE EAGLE SIDE

In the foregoing parallel of cards to intervals, the last four cards correlate with the last four intervals portrayed by the Seal --- a.k.a. the four intervals portrayed by the remaining side of the Seal --- in this way:

Interestingly, two of these cards, THE MOON and THE SUN, mirror components of the Treasure of Treasures, the MOON card being suggested by the moon to the Phoenix’s left and the SUN card by the sun to its right. The third card, JUDGMENT, is suggested by the glory above the Phoenix’s head, and the final card, THE WORLD, traditionally the card of “rewards,” is reflected in the Phoenix itself rising from its ashes. This gives the the Treasure an automatic link to the intervals with which those cards align:

BOOK PG III-18rescnd [tbl w Treasure] (2).jpg

At the same time, as indicated previously, the Treasure bears a striking resemblance to the Obverse side of the Seal:

Here, the moon on the Treasure translates to the arrows of war; the sun becomes the olive branch of peace; the glory above the Phoenix is equivalent to the glory above the eagle; and the Phoenix rising from its ashes is transformed into the soaring eagle. The parallels are demonstrated in the following illustrations:

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This simultaneous parallel of the Treasure’s components with (a) the cards of the arcana and (b) components of the eagle permits the same four cards to be represented on the Seal:

BOOK PG III-26rescnd [tbl w eagle (2).jpg

Thus, the alignment of the 22 cards of the major arcana with the 22 intervals into which the Seal divides American history results in the 4 intervals after 1993 portrayed on the eagle side aligning with the following cards of the arcana:

This parallel of the cards with the Treasure of Treasures of Paracelsus in turn allows the 4 intervals to which they correspond to be represented on the Treasure thus:

And by extension, the one-to-one correlation between features of the Treasure and components of the eagle side of the Seal in turn allow these intervals to be portrayed in this way on the Seal:

With all the elements so assembled, this is how the four intervals represented by the cards can be portrayed on the Seal --- thanks to the Treasure of Treasures:

BOOK%20PG%2064new%20(original)_edited.jp

What is remarkable about these alignments is that they would not be possible if the MOON and SUN cards of the arcana did not just happen to align with the very two intervals that correlate with the moon and sun components of the Treasure. If the MOON and SUN cards had corresponded to intervals before 1993, the moon and sun of the Treasure would not have aligned with them, and there would have been no way to show a correlation between those intervals and the eagle side of the Seal.

BOOK PG III-33rescnd [tbl w Treasure] (2).jpg

HOW THE CARDS HAVE BEEN FOLLOWING AMERICAN HISTORY:
AN OVERVIEW

A detailed review of how the 22 cards have been describing trends of history in the intervals would extend this site at least 22 pages.

Highlights of the parallels are as follows:

Skipping forward:

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Proceeding, and skipping forward again:

BOOK PG 86nu-nu-nu-nu [Card 15 w pix] (2).jpg

All 22 intervals and the cards which correspond to them are presented below in reverse order. Beside them are synopses of the ways in which the cards have portrayed trends of history in those intervals:

Acceptance of the accuracy of these cards in pictorially or descriptively depicting the intervals is essential to accepting the significance of the following alignment:

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This alignment of the JUDGMENT card with the interval between 2017 and 2029 produces the only instance in history in which various elements come together to assign a specific timeframe to the concept of "judgment."

The notion of "Judgment" or of a "Judgment Day" was first proposed by the ancient Zoroastrians and Egyptians and was later adopted by Jews, Christians, and Moslems. According to these belief systems, "judgment' is supposed to be a time when the world will be judged worthy or unworthy of some great, undesignated reward to follow. Those who are worthy will inherit it --- those who are not will perish.

If this interval is the time of "judgment" foreglimpsed by the world's religions, the fact that people in this interval have been divided according to their degree of respect for others, rather than for the religious affiliation, would suggest that "judgment" --- at least in the context of thi 12-year-interval --- is more about how people treat one another than about what religious beliefs they endorse. During the height of the pandemic, some people refused to wear masks, despite the fact that they were recommended by medical experts to combat the disease, seeing it as an infringement upon their personal freedoms; others, meanwhile, had no problem sacrificing freedoms if it helped to keep others safe. When Trump made fun of a handicapped man on national television, many --- most being self-proclaimed evangelical Christians --- looked the other way and voted for him anyway. Others, meanwhile, were morally outraged, that someone could be so disrespectful.

RECAP

Altogether then, the 22 cards of the Tarot major arcana have been following the 22 intervals of the Seal in this way:

PART III

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BIBLE

For PART III, return to the HOME page, then go to PART III

PART II