MICHAEL J. HURST
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http://www.geocities.com/cartedatrionfi/Mendicant/Serapis.html |
The legendary Tarot Temple of Serapis is one of the more colorful fabrications that has been created about Tarot. It provides an example of the kind of stories that have been told of Tarot for the last 220 years, which explains why most of what is “known” about Tarot just ain't so. This fiction is still being promoted by some authors as Tarot history, and since the history of Tarot includes so much occultist bullshit, there is a sense in which the Serapis temple of initiation is Tarot history, or at least an informative example of what has passed for Tarot history. A “Certified Tarot Grandmaster”, Den Elder, has the following introduction to the tale on her Web site.
Michael Poe... will be a familiar name only if one was on Prodigy about a decade back. Although he and I often argued on such subjects as Atlantis and Reincarnation, we also were pretty good friends and wherever he is today, I wish him well and success. As I’ve had previous permission to repost his works, I hope this permission still holds true and he won’t mind me plugging his work for him. The only changes will be one of spelling corrections.The Tarot by Michael Poe... these several notes were posted several times on Prodigy from Jan. thru May 1993 and again later.
They’ve also been spotted a couple places around the web. Last I knew, these are extracts from a larger work that Michael had been working on, and if this book on Tarot and/or Egypt is/was ever published... I for one, would snap it up!
Again these are separate notes written under three to four, separate subjects...
Alia iacta est! Den Elder
This is followed by Michael Poe’s account. The entire text can be read at Den Elder’s Web site.
http://www.denelder.com/tarot/tarot034.html
Below are some excerpts from Den Elder’s presentation of Michael Poe’s story, with comments intercut.
Bernard Bromage, in his book which I can't recall the exact title of, (it was years ago) but is something like The Secret Wisdom of the Egyptians (I'll look it up). Basically the book is uninteresting as it relates to how ancient Egyptian traditions really worked
(Bromage was an occultist friend of the infamous Aleister Crowley. It appears that the book in question was The Occult Arts of Ancient Egypt.)
But there was, in one paragraph, something that struck my eyes. In discussing, I believe, the Tarot he says (and despite not remembering the title, I do remember the sentence) "The Tarot, of course, originated from the Temple of Serapis in Naples Italy."Well, here is something specific. Now to find a picture or reference from another source on a Temple of Serapis in Naples. Ancient Egypt did expand their temples outside of Egypt, and had temples and sanctuaries in Greece, Italy, France, Germany, Great Britain, Spain and other places.
To make a long story longer, it took about five years before I finally found a reference to the Temple of Serapis in Italy. (More about the Serapis/Bull cult later). The reference referred to the excavation report done early this Century; that the temple is now pretty much at water level, that the illustration on the wall were destroyed by WWII, the big war. That means that if Tarot came from a chance find, it would be in the excavation report, if it came from illustrations on the walls, it would still be in the report.
A friend of mine was in Naples and took a picture of the temple, and indeed it was a wash with water and the illustrations were definitely not there. Was Bromage right? Did there exist a pre-tarot illustrations in either wall form or chance papyrus? If true did it include the minor arcana as well? If only the major arcana, what was it supposed to portray at that period of time? Perhaps the path of the initiate as supposed today? And whose initiate; a Roman/Egyptian one or an Egyptian one?
Where indeed is the excavation report? It was printed in Italian, but is there illustrations or photos of the illustrations? Is there a reference to cards or a papyrus or manuscript? Are there English translations? How did the tarot get from a 3-5th Century temple to a 13-14th Century cards? We know that the Italians were interested in retrieving Greek and roman statues and works during that period; was that why and when the transition was made? All of these things depended on finding the excavation report. And if the report confirmed it, then did it mean that even earlier versions existed in Egypt? Lo and Behold this could take forever (like this note is).
But finally, viola! The French Institute of Archeology in Cairo found the report for me and sent me a translation of the illustrations found on the wall.
This presents Poe's long and diligent search for the truth, starting from a vague hint, leading to a rare document in a foreign language, allegedly held by an actual institution. If you want to see a really great example of this motif for establishing verisimilitude, read the beginning of Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose. Of course, Eco's fabrication was in the service of setting the stage for a novel, not deceiving the credulous. This is a standard part of creating a fictional historical basis for a story.
The report, translated and sent to me from the French Institute of Archeology of Cairo, consisted of, among other things not particularly germane here, of descriptions of the illustrations, and a statue standing in the entrance.
At this point, we have about 500 words from Poe introducing the alleged report. This detailed background narrative makes the report seem almost real, but what we don't have, and what Poe never provides, are the most basic elements that would identify the alleged report. After five years of searching for this information, one might expect Mr. Poe would want to document his incredible find. Instead he merely relates the search, giving essentially no information about the document itself. Not one word identifying the author of this extraordinary document! No date, no title, no reference or index number to the Institute's holdings, not the name of the translator nor the librarian who located it for him, no publication or transmittal information, nor the organization for which it was written (in Italian)... nothing. If it was an excavation report, which excavation? When was it conducted, (early in the twentieth century is not very informative), who directed it, and again -- who authored the report? Poe doesn't waste a single word on such details, so the alleged report remains an anonymous phantom, a ghost which constitutes the sole witness and testimony for his subsequent discussion. Thus, before Poe even begins his substantive discussion, the attentive reader is already alerted to the fact that Poe is a con artist, and we're being cleverly played.
There are 20 illustrations that were on the wall prior to their destruction during WWII: Assuming for a moment that the Major Arcana card number 0, which is the Fool and generally interpreted as the initiate starting out on his journey it would follow that, given the sequence of illustrations on the Temples walls, that indeed the 0 card would be the initiate of Serapis.
Does the IFAO have any record of the document Poe describes, the translation of it, or any communication with Mr. Poe? I would think that someone who considered Poe's story credible enough to put on the Web, i.e., Den Elder, might want to check that out. It has all the appearances of an outrageous hoax, to which a Tarot Grandmaster has affixed her imprimatur. Perhaps at least a word of warning would be in order, stating that nothing in Mr. Poe's story can be substantiated -- at least nothing beyond the fact that there are ruins in Naples, about which Poe's fiction revolves.
The first study of the site was probably conducted by Napoleon's archeologist, F. Mazois. Robert V. O'Neill found one reference to the work of Mazois that quoted him as saying that he did some investigations there; however the local officials were so protective of the site that he dared not even write it up. O'Neill could not find any suggestion that Mazois ever wrote an excavation report on the so-called Serapis temple. For the record, the so-called ancient Egyptian temple ruins in Naples have been described by archeologists as a Roman marketplace, and there appear to be no reports of any walls standing prior to World War II, much less any illustrations. According to O'Neill, there were no walls in a 1828 painting of the site by Silvestr Shedrin. If there had been any such illustrated walls, of course, they would have been prominantly noted by everyone who observed the site, and featured in any paintings of it. Likewise, O'Neill notes that there do not appear to have been any walls in 1750, when excavations were first authorized by Charles of Borbone. Finally, if the alleged temple were old enough to have actual Egyptian motifs suggested by Poe, (rather than centuries-later Roman variations), then the walls would have probably been gone at least since the earthquakes associated with the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, in 79 C.E. (O'Neill's observations were posted to a TarotL discussion of Poe's essay.)
Card One: Magician: Found at the entrance to the Temple, just inside was a partially damaged statue of the God Khnemu, & in front of him, an alter. The God Khnemu is the only god in ancient Egypt that is shown (even at that, rarely), & applies in this case, with one hand pointed towards the sky, and the other towards the earth. Khnemu is the god of the Nile, & since in the major arcana water represents the flow of consciousness it follows that the flow starts from Khnemu, the Nile (at least for Egyptians it would). The ritual equipment would have been placed on the altar.
So the idea is that one of the twenty-two trumps (the Fool) represents the initiate, one (the Magician) represents the statue of Khnemu, and the other twenty trumps represent the twenty images on the temple walls. In his post to TarotL, O'Neill also noted that the statue and altar Poe described do not appear in the oldest archeological decriptions of the site nor in the published illustrations. So we have no actual reference for those two trumps. The others?
The descriptions of all the images are very similar to eighteenth and nineteenth century occultist descriptions of Tarot cards, and the framing narrative of the temple of initiation is also reminiscent in themes and some details with the corresponding occult "histories" of Tarot. (Since the alleged ancient temple pictures and the nineteenth century Tarot are so similar, this not only proves the ancient Egyptian basis for Tarot, but also the exquisite, almost perfect transmission of the Secret Tradition over the millennia. Miracle of miracles!) These "ancient" details of the Serapis temple, however, don't match early Italian Tarot decks, even though they do match the subsequent (350-years subsequent!) French occult interpretations of Tarot. Poe was apparently so blinded by occult lore that he failed to grasp the fact that early decks don't match his descriptions. (Or perhaps he knew that, but didn't care... maybe he was just a storyteller, spinning a yarn to beguile the unwary.) The real question remains, is there such a report?
[Description of remaining cards deleted.]
Now, although all of the above scenes are for initiates, this could mean two things:In a word, no. At least, not according to the descriptions provided by Poe. If the images were real and if the descriptions were accurate, they could conceivably have inspired the French occultists, (350 years after the Italian invention of Tarot), to reinvent the deck so as to match these descriptions. But although the fifteenth-century Italians did a lot of creative things with Tarot, none of them were similar to Poe's descriptions.1. This is a "storyboard" set of illustrations of one, albeit, long and very involved type of initiation.
2. This is a "storyboard" set of illustrations of a series of steps and initiations of any initiate of Serapis and could conceivably take a lifetime to achieve.
It is important to note that this room does not have one illustration of Serapis himself in it! He shows up on the outside of the temple in illustrations! The excavation report concluded that this room was either a special place of initiations or a special place of worship. During the 10th-16th centuries, when the Europeans were rediscovering Greek and Roman statues, books, etc., this temple could very well have been recovered and uncovered. In fact the illustrations were partially still open to view before the excavation! I have traced several temples of Serapis, and have been trying to get notes on their illustrations as well. Two temples of Serapis in Egypt, one during the Greek/Ptolemaic period, and one of the 19th dynasty also show like illustrations, getting more and more Egyptian as the temples got older.
Did the Egyptians actually have tarot cards of the major arcana? Not likely, as papyrus would be pretty much impossible to shuffle!! But here is the initial result of my study, it took years to find this material.
Did the temple of Serapis inspire the Italians to make the Major Arcana of the Tarot?
It certainly contained the elements & the interpretation! Perhaps Bromage, who is rarely right, was right about this one.
A rhetorical ploy, feigning skepticism on unstated and irrelevant matters to enhance the weight of hiss credence in this tale: If Poe is a skeptical scholar, as he implies, then the fact that he is persuaded by this particular story seems significant.
Further studies on Serapis temples that I did seem to keep the illustrations in order, but we do have a big gap between the temple & the first known cards!
"Further studies" suggests evidence that could be studied, and specifically evidence of the alleged images and their sequence in other temples. However, there is no evidence cited, nor temples identified. This is another rhetorical trick. Poe quickly passes from the unsubstantiated confirmation suggested by "further studies" to the remaining, far less significant problem of a "gap" in evidence. This achieves two rhetorical goals simultaneously. First, by briefly alluding to the further studies and then immediately -- within the same sentence! -- passing on to another question, he distracts the reader's attention from the obvious question:
What further studies?!
What did he look at or analyze that confirmed the sequence of illustrations, or even their existence?!! What other temples? He's not telling us the essential information, but instead only asserting that there is some such additional support. Second, by focusing on the alleged gap as a residual problem, he implies that the first problem, demonstrating the existence of the ancient images, has been adequately addressed and dispensed with. There is only a gap if we have actually established the ancient Serapis Tarot temple. If there is no evidence for the ancient Serapis Tarot images, there can be no gap between that and the existing evidence of the 15th century invention of Tarot, or the existing evidence of the 18th century invention of occult Tarot with characteristics like those he describes.
Mr. Poe may not be a Certified Tarot Grandmaster like Den Elder, but he had demonstrated that he is a Bona Fide Bullshit Artist.
The tradition of Serapis starts from an early age, from the 1st dynasty of about 3,100 bce with Keken-Ka as the first master of the tradition. In the XVIII Dynasty Amenhotop enhanced the tradition, as did XIX dynastic Khawmwese, XXVI dynastic Amen-em-apt, XXXth dynastic Nectanebus, the last native king of Egypt, who ordered the spread of Egyptian temples throughout the known world.
During the Roman period, Psoiphis and Chaeremon were leaders in the tradition.
We have possible other sources of the ancient origin of Tarot, including the ancient book, "78 phrases of Ra", The Book of Gates ( it has 21 gates).
More rhetorical sleight of hand, in the form of passing references to allegedly related corroborating evidence. If in fact they offer some support for the primary thesis, then that support should be developed and explained. If they don't, they have no place.
[Deletion.]
Now, is the word Tarot actually Egyptian or a derivation of an ancient Egyptian word or words? It very well could be. Ta and ro or rot, are two Egyptian sounds.
[Deletion.]
So you see, if Egyptian, it could mean "Journey of the Road" or "Journey of Time" or any number of things!! It could mean "The Glorious Road". Or it all could be just a be a coincidence!!!! It's up to you.
These faux Egyptian etymologies are a standard part of the occultist tradition dating back to eighteenth and nineteenth century French Freemasons who invented occult Tarot. Another common gimmick is throwing out a handful of wildly speculative and wholly unsubstantiated fantasies and saying, "take your pick", as if history was merely a matter of uncritical invention and whimsical selection.
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So far, there hasn't been found any evidence of wood, stone, papyrus, or any other form of the major arcana for use in divination. Note that many of the arcana of the Temple of Serapis are common motifs, and as such, can be found in clay, stone, papyrus, etc.; but never has been found in a group, incomplete set or not. Perhaps to the Egyptians, the Major Arcana was not a form of divination but the initiate's initiation or life cycle.
Divination was used in ancient Egypt, by both priests and people alike. I have various types of divination by bowls, by oracles, by dreams, by ceremonies. There is even divination by casting stones into a certain type of decorated bowl of water. There is divination by using a particular set of the popular Senet game. But, alas, none yet by Tarot.
This is the same rhetorical trick seen above, in which one assumes that the primary thesis has been established, and then admits the absence of evidence for an ancillary point. This gives the impression of a legitimate search for evidence, and reinforces the assumption that the central point has been demonstrated. In fact, there is no evidence of the Tarot sequence of images prior to the fifteenth century, and no evidence of any use of Tarot for divination prior to the eighteenth century, some three hundred years after its invention.
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RESOURCES: I am familiar with the Church of Light organization in Los Angeles. They are no help in assistance, as all of their information is of Greek/Roman period and doesn't go any further back, and I already have the Greco/Roman period down.
[Deletion.]
The Church of Light, on the other hand, uses adapted to modern symbolism, not ancient ones. The Tower card would never have been done in ancient Egypt like the Church of Light did it. In essence the Church made up a Neo-Egyptian religion incorporating ancient symbols and modern thought, when they just could have used the ancient symbols as is.
[Deletion.]
In fact, the Church of Light Tarot deck uses symbolism described by eighteenth and nineteenth century French occultists. The iconography of their deck was created by Otto Wegener, and published in an 1896 book by R. Falconnier.
The Church of the Eternal Source, also in Los Angeles, on the other hand, is a very Egyptian mystery oriented organization, but centers around the Old, Middle and New Kingdom, using the original papyrus and temple inscriptions for their mysteries and initiations. But still, in both cases, their knowledge is limited by what has been published and available. The translations and the original documents about such things are either not published, or published in limited editions and not available in most libraries. The French Institute of Archaeology in Cairo has the most complete library of all published and unpublished material related to ancient Egypt. I use them extensively.
Michael Poe obviously fancies himself quite the scholar, and presents these criticisms of other Etyptophiles as evidence of his skepticism and critical superiority. But we can judge Poe's scholarship from his writing. For example, if Poe had in fact obtained a copy of a translation of an archeological report, that report had a name, a date, an author, publication or transmittal data, etc. If there was a translation, then there was a translator and a date. And if it's in the archives of the IFAO, then it has some identifying reference or file number, catalog index, something the Institute uses to uniquely locate it. How is it that Poe, who does all this research at "the most complete library" in the world, would not bother to cite his source for this great and unique find in any identifiable manner? Why would he not, at least in passing, mention who wrote the report, when the original observations were made, and so on? Surely that information was right up front, on the cover and title page of the report; and citing sources is perhaps the most characteristic element of scholarship. Poe is obviously not a scholar -- he is a bullshit artist, even if he was telling the truth about using the Institute extensively.
The report itself is his finding, the documentation of his thesis, and yet Poe fails to identify it in any useful way. He doesn't even bother to quote from it, but instead offers a paraphrase in the context of Tarot cards. That is part of the beauty of such bullshit -- Poe offers no useful identifying information to even request a copy. However, although he did make it pointlessly and painfully difficult to search for the alleged report, from his description of some of its contents one could look for it. This is one traditional element of such fantasies that Poe failed to include: the loss or destruction of the document to preclude such rebuttal. And since the IFAO's holdings are listed online, O'Neill searched for anything that looked like it might be the report in question. It appears not to exist -- what a surprise.
In his book, Tarot Symbolism, O'Neill includes a section on making up fantasy Tarot histories. Starting on page 51, he spends three pages creating and analyzing such a fable as an example, from which he draws some helpful hints on making up "history". People like Poe who desire to create such stories, would do well to observe his guidelines.
1. Make the story awe inspiring, including elements of epic scope and archetypal motifs. "This elicits a psychological response in the reader which makes the story appealing." The ancient Egyptian Tarot temple story certainly qualifies as an example of this.
2. Make the story "long ago and far away. Nothing can be disproven by existing facts." Bomb damage of the last surviving ancient temple of Serapis is an example of playing this card. Providing zero identifying details for an alleged document is a variation of this: While claiming that the document exists, Poe makes it difficult, if not impossible, to verify or refute. Anyone who looks for the document and fails to find it must have looked in the wrong place, and since the document isn't clearly identified, that sounds plausible.
3. Include many and varied occult references. By including assorted occult motifs, "the story will appeal to the reader familiar with other occult themes." The Serapis Tarot temple certainly qualifies here. Poe's passing reference to "the ancient book, "78 phrases of Ra", The Book of Gates ( it has 21 gates)", is a similar bogus occult connection.
4. Include many and varied details, "that make the story seem factual." These are the incidental details, related to the central story but not particularly salient. The idea is, "Damn! If he knows all those details, then the story must be true. After all, they are not essential for the central story, so why would he make them up?!" Poe's got this one covered too. (The background narrative introducing the unidentified report is his best example of gratuitious, nonessential information, but it fits better under #6.)
5. Keep the story "internally consistent", and not in dramatic "conflict with mythology, occult wisdom, or history." Generally speaking, that's important—however...
5*. Include a few slight variations of the traditional versions. This is a valuable trick, related to #3 and #4: adding detail to demonstrate authenticity. This "proves" that you aren't just repeating old stories. The "new" story must be based on a specific (albeit fictional) document (or whatever), which explains the minor variations from other, later retellings. Poe seems fairly effective at balancing the internal consistency with the need to include some novelty.
6. Include many and varied details of the framing story -- how the mystery came to be revealed to the author. This might include years of research amid musty stacks or in foreign archeological sites, perhaps discovering a secret code, it might rely on a revealed tradition of Secret Doctrine, or perhaps a personal revelation of blinding illumination. "Such an appeal to some secret source of wisdom, inaccessible to the reader, also seems to make occult stories convincing." Poe's framing is good, detailing the search, the elusive document detailing ancient temple walls, pieces of its history, etc.
