Masonic & Occult Symbols Illustrate

was invented by a great international assemblage of esoteric scholars in Egypt....” It adds: “Tarot and I Ching really have a lot in common....” What is even more intriguing is that the Tarot is really the ancestor of the standard playing card deck that is used today. For instance one book on the Tarot reveals: “Even the common playing cards we know today are derived from the ancient tarot and vary widely due to their centuries of use as instruments of gambling.” Stewart Farrar, a witch, indicates: “The Tarot consists of seventy-eight cards, and is clearly the ancestor of the bridge-player’s pack. Fifty-six of them are divided into four suits—Cups (corresponding to Heart), Swords (Spades), Wands (Clubs), and Pentacles (Diamonds). Each suit has the Ace to Ten and the Knave— in between the Page and the Queen. (The Knight is sometimes called the Prince, and the Page the Princess.) The four suits represent the four occult elements—their usual allocation being Cups for Water, Swords for Air, Wands for Fire, and Pentacles for Earth....”

In The Occult: A History we are told: “Apart from the Greater Arcana [in the Tarot deck], there are also the fifty-six cards of the Lesser Arcana, the four suits that have become the ordinary playing cards of today, with its rods, (or wands), cups, swords and shekels (or pentacles) changing into clubs, hearts, spades and diamonds. It is worth observing in passing, that we have here two rod-shaped objects—wands and swords—and two circular objects—cups and money—and since one of the commentators mentions that wands and money were used in mediaeval methods of divination, it would not be inaccurate to see them as related to the yarrow stalks and coins of the I Ching. Each suit has a king, queen, knight and knave, as well as cards