[54] In face of existing evidence, the description of the Tarot Trumps Major as a Kabalistic alphabet has as much and as little to support it as the claim that they constitute an Egyptian Book of Thoth. It has been reported to me, however, that there is an unknown Jewish Tarot, and it may interest students of the subject to know that before long I hope to be able to give some account at first hand concerning it. There is little reason to suppose that it will prove (a) ancient or (b) Kabalistic; but as one never knows what is at one’s threshold, I put the fact on record for whatever it may be worth in the future. Meanwhile, it is quite idle to say that our popular fortune-telling Tarots are of Jewish origin.
[55] The interpretation of Lévi seems to hesitate between several fields of symbolism, and what follows at this point suggests that the Golden Fleece is an allegory of metallic transmutation by means of alchemy. It was so regarded by many of the later disciples of this art. According to Antoine Joseph Pernety, the Golden Fleece is the symbol of the matter of the Great Work; the labours of Jason are an allegory concerning the operations therein and of the signs of progress towards perfection. The attainment of this Fleece signifies that of the Powder of Projection and the Universal Medicine. See Dictionnaire Mytho-Hermétique and Les Fables Egyptiennes et Grecques, both by Pernety, and in particular vol. i. of the latter work, pp. 437-494.
[56] Among several bearers of this name, I suppose that the reference is to him who, by tradition, was either the disciple or son of Orpheus, commemorated by Virgil. None of his poems are extant, so that the argument seems to fail. The antiquity of the Orphic poems—Argonautica, Hymns, etc.—is another question, and the conclusions of criticism on the subject are well known.
[57] Almost any of the demonologists will serve at need. The Jesuit Martinus Delrio, who wrote Disquisitionum Magicarum Libri Sex has plenty to say about Lamiæ and Stryges. There is also Joannes Wierus, the pupil of Cornelius Agrippa, whose famous work on the Illusions and Impostures of Sorcery—Histoires, Disputes et Discours—was rendered from Latin into French, in 1885.
[58] I do not know how this fable originated and the question is not worth the pains which would be necessary to elucidate it. It is narrated by Éliphas Lévi as matter of historical fact; but there is no question that M. Edouard Schuré, who owes so much to the occultist who preceded him, would have been glad to include it in his romantic biography of Pythagoras, if it had not been too mythical even for his purpose. He is content as it is to suggest that the sage of Samos had studied Jewish monotheism during a stay of twelve years at Babylon.
[59] The authorship of the Golden Verses is of course a debated point; and it is an old suggestion that their real writer was Lysis, the preceptor of Epaminondas and an exponent of Pythagorean philosophy about 388 B.C., his master being referred to the beginning of the sixth century B.C. I should add that Éliphas Lévi has presented the Verses in a metrical form of his own, which reflects the originals at a very far distance. I have not followed this rendering but have had recourse to that of Mr. G. R. S. Mead.
[60] Among the appendices to the second part of the Zohar there is a short section on physiognomy, and it embodies some very curious materials. We learn, for example, that if a man who has certain specified characteristics of colour and feature should turn to God, a white blemish will form on the pupil of his right eye. He who has three semi-circular wrinkles on his forehead and whose eyes are shining will behold the downfall of his enemies. A man who has committed an adultery and has not repented is recognisable by a growth beneath the navel, and thereon will be found two hairs. Should he do penance, the hairs will disappear but the swelling will remain. A man who has a beauty-spot on his ear will be a great master of the Law and will die young. Two long hairs between the shoulders indicate a person who is given to swearing incessantly in an objectless manner. It will be seen that these details belong to a neglected part of the science, and I am a little at a loss to know how Éliphas Lévi would have pressed them into his service, if he had been fully acquainted with the work which he quotes so often.
[61] It happens that the hypothesis of reincarnation was personally unwelcome to Éliphas Lévi, and he did not know enough of Zoharic Kabalism to realise that it is of some importance therein. The traditions concerning the teaching of Pythagoras must be taken at their proper value, but there is no question that, according to these, he was an important champion of what used to be called the doctrine of metempsychosis, understood as the soul’s transmigration into successive bodies. He himself had been (a) Æthalides, a son of Mercury; (b) Euphorbus, son of Panthus, who perished at the hands of Menelaus in the Trojan war; (c) Hermotimus, a prophet of Clazomenæ, a city of Ionia; (d) a humble fisherman, and finally (e) the philosopher of Samos.
[62] In memoria æterna erit justus.
[63] Éliphas Lévi has forgotten that the word “ineffable” means something which cannot be expressed; he intended to say that, according to the Kabalists, the efficacious name was hidden.