>I'm a bit confused about why the Hebrew alphabet shows up so often in occult
>or mystical contexts that are essentially non-Jewish. Some packs of Tarot
>cards have Hebrew letters on the cards, and I've also seen Hebrew letters in
>diagrams in books that were occult but didn't specifically mention the
>Kabbalah. What could the Hebrew alphabet possibly have meant to non-Jewish
>users of Tarot cards? If an allusion to the Kabbalah, how would they have
>known of the Kabbalah, which isn't even widely familiar among Jews?
>
>pat sloane
>
OK, I suppose the ball's in my court now. I don't know why or how, but odds
and ends of kabbalistic terms - mostly nonsense, passed on several times and
totally distorted - do crop up in medical incantations (see Oswald Cockayne,
ed., Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, Being a
Collection of Documents... Illustrating the History of Science in this
Country Before the Norman Conquest, 3 vols. Rolls Series 35 (London, 1864,
repr. 1965, passim. Given the dates of Cockayne's stuff (mostly 11th c.) it
can't be kabbalah properly speaking. I found some beauts in Spain. Martin de
Arles y Andosilla, tractatus de superstitionibus, written ca. 1510 (ed. Jose
Gon~i Gaztambide, Pamplona, 1971, p. 46), has the following incantion:
"+On+Coriscion+Matatron, Caladafon, Coroban, Ozcozo, Uriel, Uriel, Yosiel,
Yosiel, Michael, Azariel, Raphael, Daniel; ya, ya; uba; Adonay Sabaoth
Heloim." I suppose pseudo-Hebrew, especially in Spain, was supposed to carry
some sort of magic power. I do remember Edward Peters noting that Jews were
supposed to be powerful magi.
About Tarot cards and present-day California, I have no contribution. I
suspect the relationship between Madonna's studies and genuine kabbalah is
probably similar to the relationship between the Travant and the Mercedes.
Both cars, but there the similarity stops... but this is pure prejudice.
Esther Cohen
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