I wrote "I suppose this sort of error is easier to make when a word is being written around the circumference of a circle rather than horizontally" -- but it turns out that the same "error" also appears on Waite's Temperance card, which features a Tetragrammaton in the folds of the angel's robe just below the neckline.
So this is clearly not a mistake but a deliberate modification. What does it mean? Is it a superstitious avoidance of writing the Name of God directly, analogous to the way some Orthodox Jews write G-d rather than God? But even the strictest Jews have no objection to writing the Tetragrammaton, only to pronouncing it.
A more sinister explanation is suggested by Manly P. Hall's Secret Teachings of All Ages.
The black magician cannot use the symbols of white magic without bringing down upon himself the forces of white magic, which would be fatal to his schemes. He must therefore distort the hierograms so that they typify the occult fact that he himself is distorting the principles for which the symbols stand.
Can Waite have been a black magician, though? I've always considered him a Christian and his cards inspired. Still, a distorted Tetragrammaton seems uncomfortably close to an inverted cross.
I have no answers to offer here. I'm just raising the question.
1 comment:
A yod a lot of times especially handwritten looks like a shorter vav such that they can be confused. Maybe this is some attempt at preventing that?
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