Book Reviews

The History of Tarot Art

Holly Adams Easley and Esther Joy Archer
Bellevue, Wash.: Epic/Quarto, 2021. 256 pp., casebound with slipcase, $50.

Many have spoken of the occult revival of the 1960s. Fifty years later, it seems more accurate to say that the occult revival merely started in the 1960s, because it has continued in full force since then.

The History of Tarot Art illustrates this trend. It surveys the art of the Tarot from the earliest exemplars in the fifteenth century to the edgy creations of today, showcasing a burgeoning range of decks that elude any comprehensive account, particularly in the last fifty years.

The book begins with the fifteenth-century Visconti Tarot, which had its origins in the ducal court of Milan, and proceeds to the Sola-Busca Tarot, from a slightly later era, and the only deck of the period to have surviving exemplars of all twenty-two cards of the Major Arcana. As the authors point out, the Sola-Busca deck influenced many of the images of the Minor Arcana in the most famous Tarot of the English-speaking world: the Rider-Waite deck.

 Another chapter describes the sixteenth-century Tarot of Marseille, whose crude, woodcutlike images are often believed to deliver the most accurate version of the archetypes behind the cards.

The authors go on to explore the cards’ occult dimensions, which came to public attention in the eighteenth century with the French savant Antoine Court de Gébelin and were developed in the nineteenth century by another French savant: Éliphas Lévi.

Further chapters discuss the familiar Rider-Waite deck, created in 1909 by the British occultist A.E. Waite and the illustrator Pamela Coleman Smith. The authors contend that Smith was enough of a force in its creation that it should be renamed the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. Another chapter discusses the expressionistic Thoth Tarot, designed by another British occultist, Aleister Crowley, in collaboration with Lady Frieda Harris (a Co-Mason).

The later part of the book will be of greater interest to Tarot lovers, who will for the most part be familiar with the well-established decks discussed in the first chapters.

The authors introduce us to the New Agey Aquarian deck; the Morgan-Greer Tarot, with its richly saturated colors; the Motherpeace deck, with its round cards; the Druidcraft Tarot; and the bizarre Deviant Moon deck, whose figures resemble hungry ghosts as conceived by Tim Burton. The authors also spotlight other decks, such as the alluring Spacious Tarot, which “invites you to explore the depths of yourself and the archetypes found in tarot through the lens of the natural world.”

The contemporary decks and images are evocative and for the most part well-chosen. But even the authors’ best efforts cannot hide the fact that there is a lot of bad Tarot art in the world, as revealed in the last chapter, “Contemporary Tarot,” which samples some representative decks from the past decade. They are of uneven quality. Many are whimsical, such as The Golden Girls Tarot, featuring characters from the popular eighties sitcom; others, like the Fifth Spirit Tarot, portraying “a cast of people who do not adhere to traditional gender binary,” are earnest but ineptly executed.

 As the authors note, “it wasn’t easy to narrow down 600 years of tarot art into just a handful of influential decks for this book,” but they have done an admirable job, describing the multifarious images in a cheeky but well-informed style. As a bonus, pockets in the rear flyleaf provide the full array of the cards of the Sola-Busca Major Arcana. This handsome and well-designed book will attractively adorn the coffee tables of many Tarot lovers.

Richard Smoley

             

             

           

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The Elements of the Cosmos: Numbers and Letters as Archetypes

Scenza
Self-published through Amazon, 2020; 124 pp., paper, $12.95.

Esotericists know that number is fundamental to the universe as we perceive it. Most important are the simple counting numbers up to ten, which constitute a set of archetypes on which our world is patterned.

There are many books on sacred number and geometry, several of them of extremely high quality, although they are usually quite detailed. For a simpler, briefer exposure to this topic, readers can consult The Elements of the Cosmos by Scenza (Peter Tourian).

The book is broken into two halves. The first deals with the numerical archetypes up to ten, showing briefly and clearly how these constitute the basis of known reality. He writes, for example:

Symbolically, the Monad bridges the gap between simplicity and complexity through the Dyad, resulting in the multiplicity represented by the Triad. However, every completed system is also a starting point for a new system, as represented by the Tetrad. The sum of these four processes [1 + 2+ 3 + 4], the Decad, is a new unity. (emphasis in the original in all quotations)

The author goes on to relate this process to the Pythagorean tetraktys and the Tetragrammaton, the four-lettered Hebrew name of God.

The second part of the book focuses on the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet and their symbolic meanings. Like many authors on the subject, he bases his interpretation to some extent on etymology: dalet (ℸ), for example, comes from the Hebrew for door. “It is indeed a door, if not the door through which all manifestation occurs.” He also gives some attention to the connection between the actual sounds of the letters and their meaning.

Zayin (ז) is the seventh letter and thus associated with the number seven: “Like the Monad, [the Heptad] was called ‘virgin,’ in the sense that no other number within the Decad enters into it evenly (e.g., as 2 enters 4, or 3 enters 6) . . . Finally, of all the quantities between 1 and 9, the Heptad is the only number which cannot divide 360 evenly, the number of degrees in a circle. Hence, while it is possible to draw exact polygons based on every other single digit, it is never possible to draw a perfect heptagon.”

This last statement is not correct. In fact, a perfect heptagon can be drawn, although the formula (which can be easily found online) is more complex than for the other basic geometric figures.

As the author notes, the system on which this book is based comes from the Brotherhood of Light, or Church of Light, founded in 1932 by C.C. Zain (Elbert Benjamine, 1882–1951). This organization, which still exists, is a continuation of the nineteenth-century Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, founded by Max Theon (Louis Bimstein, c.1848–1927); many of its members came from the Theosophical Society.

As I have argued in my National Lodge course on the Tarot, I believe there are direct connections between the twenty-two regular polygons that can be inscribed in a 360-degree circle, the Hebrew letters (originally derived from the Phoenician alphabet), and the Major Arcana of the Tarot.

Although this book does not make such a correlation (and does not discuss the Tarot at all), it does point up the affinities between the simple counting numbers and the Hebrew letters, and gives an excellent introduction to sacred number in general. It is an extremely useful, intelligent, and concise introduction to its topic.

Richard Smoley

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The Ethics of Oneness: Emerson, Whitman, and the Bhagavad Gita

Jeremy David Engels
Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2021. 265 pp., paper, $27.50.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of the nineteenth-century’s great American philosophers, and Walt Whitman, whose poetry was beloved by so many in that day and this, are connected by Jeremy David Engels in his latest book, The Ethics of Oneness: Emerson, Whitman, and the Bhagavad Gita.

As Engels notes in his introduction, “Neither Emerson nor Whitman makes a case for oneness. Oneness is. The one, the oversoul, the all: this is an a priori for Emerson, and the mystical root center of Whitman’s poetry.”

Certainly Engels touches on a subject that permeates many religious and spiritual presentations in today’s world, but I’ve often wondered whether those who speak of it so vociferously really know what they’re talking about.

In his famous essay “The Over-Soul,” Emerson mentions “that Unity, that Over-Soul, within which every man’s particular being is contained and made one with all other.” In developing ideas like this, Emerson drew upon the Eastern philosophies he found in the Bhagavad Gita. Indeed his embrace of these philosophies resulted in his dismissal from giving commencement addresses at Harvard Divinity School.

Learning to recognize that oversoul in one another becomes our task, and it can be aided by Emerson’s interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita. As Engels put it, “If we are devoted to oneness, we will talk to every person we meet as though they are an avatar of the divine, a walking, talking god on earth who is sacred and demands the utmost reverence.”

How do we mesh our idea of oneness with that of diversity, which society makes so much about today? Emerson and Whitman diverge in this regard. Emerson’s view of oneness was found “through the lens of nondualistic advaita Vendanta,” Engels points out. Whitman was the more mystical of the two men. His philosophy of oneness “was much closer in spirit to Bhedabheda Vedanta, a philosophy that charts a middle path between Vedantic dualism (dvaita) and nondualism (advaita) by incorporating elements of both.” 

Engels adds, “Whitman recognizes and celebrates diversity—and this leads to a second divergence from Emerson,” for whom “oneness is an ontological state to be discovered, whereas for Whitman oneness is also an ontological reality that individuals can and ought to reproduce through their speech and action in the broken, zugzwang world that we have created for ourselves.” (Zugzwang is a situation in chess and other games wherein one player is put at a disadvantage by his obligation to make a move.)

Emerson has opinions, as many of his essays elucidate quite clearly, especially in essays such as “Self-Reliance” and “Fourierism and the Socialists.” Engels observes that “Whitman’s poetry is inclusive and cosmic in a way that Emerson’s rhetoric is not.”

To speak of oneness—a divine oneness—requires humility and inclusion. Whitman “rhapsodizes a ‘spirituality’ and ‘theology’ that is common to ‘humankind’ (and not just ‘mankind’); his is a oneness of the ‘All’ that rests on ‘the idea of All.’” Whitman “styled himself a prophet of cosmic democracy,” notes Engels, in that the “purpose of democracy is to facilitate rapport . . . of being at one with the universe and all beings.”

That’s a big pill for most of us to swallow, especially in this time of political separation and conflict, and Engels does not avoid that question in his chapter “Democracy.”

“Diversity is real, but absolute separation is an illusion,” he reminds us. “We are one.” Most importantly, we need to be aware that “the ethics of oneness cannot be an ethics of sameness,” he adds. “Whitman is at his best when he refuses to collapse differences into sameness, when he recognizes that others’ experiences are incommensurate even though they share the same divine scaffolding.”

Legislated diversity, as promoted today, often seems ironically to exclude many differences, some of which are even the targets of a new-found discrimination. Whitman, given his metaphysical ideal of oneness, may not have approved of this tack, as his “philosophy of oneness did not actively seek to erase differences; instead it sought to sanctify all lives in order to avoid the active exclusions and dehumanization of whole groups of Americans,” writes Engels.

Engels addresses the New Thought movement that arose during the lifetime of Emerson and Whitman, especially its spiritual engagement with Emerson and thus with the Bhagavad Gita. Emerson, says Engels, “taught a ‘law of mutuality’ that boiled down to the basic lesson: ‘There is but one.’”

New Thought is steeped in Emerson’s philosophy and Transcendentalism. In a 1959 talk, for example, Ernest Holmes, founder of the New Thought movement called Science of Mind, quoted him as saying, “There is one mind common to all men.”

Oneness can be a difficult concept to grasp in this dualistic level of consciousness. As this book suggests, oneness must be seen as harmony among differences, much like playing a piano, on which eighty-eight different keys with eighty-eight different tones, when played in synchrony, create a beautiful harmony. Engels does a masterful job of showing us how these two great nineteenth-century philosophers—one a mystical poet, the other a prolific essayist—created new ways of looking at early American life from the point of view of Eastern spiritual traditions.

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Clare Goldsberry’s latest book, The Illusion of Life and Death, will be published in 2021 by Monkfish.

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Compiled by C.V. Agarwal and Pedro Oliveira
N.p.: Olive Tree, 2021. 590 pp., paper, $35.

Annie Wood Besant’s life would be worth chronicling even if she had never discovered Theosophy. Chafing under the restrictions on a conservative English minister’s wife, the young Besant set out on her own, becoming a writer on radical causes, a famed and controversial orator for Britain’s National Secular Society, and an advocate for legal birth control. This final stance nearly ended with her incarceration, as she was tried for obscenity for assisting in the publication of a text on the subject, and was only released on a technicality.

Only emboldened by the experience, Besant threw herself into the labor movement, organizing the so-called “matchgirls’ strike” over work and health conditions at a major London match manufacturer. In 1888, Besant was elected to the citywide London School Board, topping the candidate list, even though few women had the vote in England at that time.

One year later, Besant was asked to review The Secret Doctrine for a London newspaper, and her fascinating life was transformed yet again.

In Annie Besant in India, C.V. Agarwal and Pedro Oliveira examine in detail Besant’s life following her first exposure to Theosophy and the meeting with H.P. Blavatsky that came shortly thereafter. Besant joined the Theosophical Society just three weeks after meeting Blavatsky, and within three years was representing the TS at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.

The last four decades of Besant’s life were devoted to the twin causes of Theosophy and India. In addition to assuming the presidency of the TS in 1907, Besant became a vocal advocate of Indian home rule, spending time in internment for her stance. She served as president of the Indian National Congress, and was a valued associate of Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. She founded the Central Hindu College, which became the heart of Banaras Hindu University, a major institution that exists to this day. And, of course, she mentored Jiddu Krishnamurti.

An exploration of Besant’s India period is overdue, but Annie Besant in India is only partially successful. It is telling that Agarwal and Oliveira say they “compiled” the text rather than wrote or edited it, since it consists primarily of lengthy excerpts from other sources: Besant’s own speeches and journals, the recollections of other Theosophists, newspaper coverage, and testimonials about Besant.

These texts are well worth collecting, and Agarwal and Oliveira have provided a great service. The book is essentially a compendium of research on Besant, which will be of great use to scholars and students. However, while there is some original text to tie these pieces together, there are too few of them, and they rarely dig into the details. There is a great deal of material documenting the split between Adyar and the supporters of William Q. Judge, for instance, but Agarwal and Oliveira do little to explain it beyond the document dump. The controversy over C.W. Leadbeater is barely explored.

Even so, Agarwal and Oliveira have accomplished something of great importance with Annie Besant in India. Besant’s life was exceptional and varied, and hard to encapsulate. (A two-volume biography from the 1960s went so far as to break her eighty-five years on this earth into nine “lives.”) It has been a generation since the last significant Besant biography. Annie Besant in India will be invaluable to whoever writes the next one.

Peter Orvetti

Peter Orvetti is a political writer and editor residing in Washington, D.C.

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