figures
The Triangle and the Pyramid
the tetractys, the delta
A number made visible. Count the points and then find what else in the picture comes in threes.
Six works here carry a triangle, and in this material a triangle is almost always a count rather than a shape.
The plate of Pythagoras of Crotona makes the method explicit. Hall writes that “Pythagoras taught that 10, or the unit of the decimal system, was the most perfect of all numbers”, and the figure above the seated man is the tetractys, ten dots arranged as a triangle, so that a number can be looked at. Hall adds a second voice: “Theon of Smyrna declares that the ten dots, or tetractys of Pythagoras, was a symbol of the greatest importance”. Whether or not the attribution holds, the principle it describes is what the plates keep doing.
Waite does the same thing in one clause. Of the angel on the card of 1909 he notes “on his breast the square and triangle of the septenary”, and the arithmetic is the whole gloss: three and four, side by side, making seven. The shapes are there to be added.
The rest of the triangles in the archive are at the tops of things. One stands white above the Tree of the Sephiroth where the roots gather under the crown. One holds the Name above Hall's throne. One sits gold over the spheres of the Divine Comedy with a rose inside it. None of the three is named in Hall's chapters, and all three are recorded here as observed rather than read. A triangle at the apex of a diagram is doing something, and in this archive nobody has yet written down what.
Contested
Three of the six are unread. Hall attributes a claim to Theon of Smyrna at second hand and the archive holds the attribution, not the source. Hall is also writing about Pythagorean teaching rather than quoting it, and no text by Pythagoras survives to check him against.
Sources
- Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, : Hall's text and plate captions, 1928. Transcribed here, not yet read against a printed folio.
- Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, : Waite commissioned the 1909 designs and wrote the key to them, so his account is the closest thing the deck has to an author's statement.
Where it appears
Across the archive · 7
Plates that carry the symbol, tagged by eye and not yet decoded: first where it is the central motif, then where it plays a secondary part. Each opens in the viewer; the key and the notes come with the entry.
Central motif · 2
Pythagoras of CrotonaJ. Augustus Knapp, colour plate, 1928Pythagoras holds a white pyramid; above him the tetractys, the triangle of ten points; a sphere, a lyre and a checkered pavement design around him; by eye. Hall's caption is about the man and his school, not the objectsHall, 1928 “All too lightly the world has passed over the achievements of the first "philosopher" to whom it is indebted for so many of the basic theorems of mathematics, music, and astronomy.”
Fac ex mare & fœmina circulum, inde quadrangulum, hinc triangulum, fac circulum & habebis lap. PhilosophorumMatthaus Merian, attributed, for Michael Maier, 1618the geometer setting his compass to the circle, the square and the triangle, the man and the woman inside them: the figure the site's mark is drawn fromMichael Maier, 1618 “Fac ex mare & fœmina circulum, inde quadrangulum, hinc triangulum, fac circulum & habebis lap. Philosophorum.”
Secondary motif · 5
The Key to Dante's Divine ComedyJ. Augustus Knapp, colour plate, 1928the golden triangle with the rose over the spheres; the Triangle secondary, by eyeHall, 1928 “As the soul climbs the seven steps of Purgatory it is cleansed of the seven mortal sins, and it then ascends through the seven spheres of the Ptolemaic universe.”Central motif: the Heavens
The Ancient of the AncientsJ. Augustus Knapp, colour plate, 1928the Name in a triangle of light above the throne, hexagrams on the pillars; the Triangle and the Divine secondary, by eyeHall, 1928 “In the Zohar His robes are said to be white, but they are here shown as red to signify that the garments of Divinity partake of the nature of cosmic activity.”Central motif: the King and the Queen
Grand Rosicrucian Alchemical FormulaUncredited, after the Musaeum Hermeticum, colour plate, 1928the Name in a triangle at the heart of the sun; the Triangle and the Divine secondary, by eyeCentral motif: the Sun and the Moon
The Tree of the SephirothJ. Augustus Knapp, colour plate, 1928an inverted tree, its trunk rising into a white triangle where a crown sits upon the roots; the foliage spreads downward with nine sun-like globes among the leaves and a white radiant one at the heart; four overlapping circles of white, blue, red and green at the foot; the Heavens as the central motif, the Crown and the Triangle by eyeHall, 1928 “The tree has also been accepted as symbolic of the Microcosm, that is, man.”Central motif: the Heavens
Temperance (XIV)Pamela Colman Smith, 1909a winged angel in white, a sun sign on the brow and a triangle within a square on the breast, pours water between two cups, one foot on the land and one in the pool; irises at the water's edge; a path leads to mountains and a crown of light; the Angel as the central motif, the Vessel, the Triangle, the Sun and the Crown by eyeWaite, 1911 “All the conventional emblems are renounced herein. So also are the conventional meanings, which refer to changes in the seasons, perpetual movement of life and even the combination of ideas.”Central motif: the Angel and the Wing
On the same plate
