The Tetragrammaton: The Blueprint of the Tarot

The Tetragrammaton is a four character name of God. it is: YOD - HE - VO - HE

Papus did a very thorough examination of this in his work The Tarot of the Bohemians. I am greatly in his debt, a lot of my work is based on this work and I am presenting this in a very abbreviated form, with a little of my own spin on it.

**I included some episodes and a video to flesh some of these ideas out at the bottom of this post.

This is not a card spread, even though it might look like it. This is they key to understanding how the cards relate to each other, and how the Minor Arcana and Major Arcana relate to each other. (I will explain the Vulgar Arcana in depth later).

Let's take a look at how the blueprint works! Here is the TAROT it lays out the cyclical mechanics of the tarot cards. The T starts at the 1st position and moves to the A at the 2nd position, which then goes to the third position, and then the O in the 4th position. However it is not complete, and finally ends back at the 1st position with the final T. TAROT. This is the basic mechanics of the Major and Minor Arcana of the tarot cards. Let us examine how many layers we can add to this.

Here is the blueprint with the Tetragrammaton layered onto it. YOD - HE - VO - HE. Since the Tetragrammaton only has four letters, in order to keep it's cyclical nature we must layer another dimension onto the blueprint. We will add a verb, or action layer. This will help us understand the context of the cards as we move forward.

The YOD position is the active position, the HE (1st) is the passive position. The VO is the Neuter or equilibrium position. The HE (2nd) is the Transitionary position. Meaning that an aspect of the card in the Transitionary spot, will become the YOD position of the next cycle.

So, for example, in the first cycle of the Major Arcana, we have:

1. Magician, who is agile and masterful in the (YOD) position

2. The High Priestess, who is educated and wise, in the (1st HE) position

3. Empress, who is a mixture of mastery, and wisdom, in the (VO) position

4. Emperor (2nd HE). He exhibits the same attributes as the Empress except he is far more active, rather than passive.

The next cycle would then start with 4. The Emperor now in the (YOD) position and so forth.

Another way the blueprint emerges is the masculine, feminine, equilibrium (or neuter) and the transitionary (whatever ends up here becomes the Masculine / active of the next cycle).

The key to the Minor Arcana transfers the blueprint to the suits. Wands (masculine, active), Cups (feminie, passive), Swords (Equilibrium, neuter) and Coins (transitionary). Now if you wonder how the Major and Minor Arcana relate to each other using this blueprint, the Coins would transition to the Major Arcana and the The World card of the Major Arcana would be the transitionary spot that would transition to the Minor Arcana. (again the Vulgar Arcana will be addressed and how it relates to this blueprint later)

Drilling down and sort of modifying the masculine / feminine / neuter layer it is easy to see how this blueprint related or is easily translated to the face cards of each suit of the Minor Arcana.