The BOTA

Tarot The tarot (, first known as '' trionfi'' and later as ''tarocchi'' or ''tarocks'') is a pack of playing cards, used from at least the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play card games such as Tarocchini. From their Italian roots, ...

(also spelled BOTA, B.o.t.A., or BotA) was created by

Paul Foster Case Paul Foster Case (October 3, 1884 – March 2, 1954) was an American occultist of the early 20th century and author of numerous books on occult tarot and Qabalah. Perhaps his greatest contributions to the field of occultism were the lessons ...

, founder of

Builders of the Adytum The Builders of the Adytum (BOTA, also spelled B.O.T.A., BotA, or B.o.t.A.) is a school of the Western mystery tradition based in Los Angeles which is registered as a non-profit tax-exempt religious organization. It was founded by Paul Foster Case ...

(BOTA), and artist

Jessie Burns Parke Jessie Burns Parke (December 2, 1889 – March 6, 1964), a notable American artist of the Boston School (painting), has become best known for creating the art for the cards in the Builders of the Adytum (B.O.T.A.) tarot card deck. An oil painter an ...

. Although it is based upon, and for the most part closely resembles,

Arthur Edward Waite Arthur Edward Waite (2 October 1857 – 19 May 1942) was a British poet and scholarly mystic who wrote extensively on occult and esoteric matters, and was the co-creator of the Rider–Waite tarot deck (also called the Rider–Waite–Smith o ...

's 1909 Rider-Waite deck, Case changed what he said were mistakes or "blinds" on the part of Waite. The BOTA Tarot is available as standard-sized full deck and a larger version containing only the Major Arcana (trump cards; often called "tarot keys" by Case) are black and white, since Case believed that every student needed to color their own deck. After his death, the Major Arcana became also available in color. Each of these cards has a border of a particular color, which is the color that is associated with the card in the writings of Case. Every trump card has a

Hebrew letter The Hebrew alphabet ( he, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewis ...

written on it in the lower right corner, which is the letter that is associated with the card in the writings of Case. In contrast to some earlier occult tarot decks, which place the Fool card last in order, and associate it with the second-to-last Hebrew letter, (such decks order the last Hebrew letter, , before ), the BOTA deck places the Fool card first in order, and therefore associates it with the first Hebrew letter,

aleph Aleph (or alef or alif, transliterated ʾ) is the first letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician , Hebrew , Aramaic , Syriac , Arabic ʾ and North Arabian 𐪑. It also appears as South Arabian 𐩱 and Ge'ez . These letter ...

. It also orders before , in the correct order of Hebrew letters.

Differences from the Rider-Waite deck

All of the illustrations on the cards of the BOTA deck differ in at least some minor way from those of the Rider-Waite deck, but some cards contrast much more than others. The card that contrasts the most between the two decks is the Death card. In the Rider-Waite deck, the Death card depicts the personified figure of Death as an armored knight on a horse, carrying a banner; whereas in the BOTA deck, this figure is depicted as a bare skeleton with a scythe, with a red sky in the background, being based upon the Death card of the

Marseille tarot deck The Tarot of Marseilles is a standard pattern of Italian-suited tarot pack with 78 cards that was very popular in France in the 17th and 18th centuries for playing tarot card games and is still produced today. It was probably created in Milan befo ...

. In the Rider-Waite deck, the Sun card depicts a nude child on a horse, carrying a dull-red banner, whereas in the BOTA deck, the card depicts two nude children standing in a field, being again based upon the Sun card of the Marseille deck. Various more subtle elements of symbolism also differ between various cards in the two decks.

The "tarot tableau" spread

In his book ''The Tarot: A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages'',

published the

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

letter attributions of the Golden Dawn for the first time. Also made public was Cases's "tarot tableau", a spread (pattern for laying out all of the tarot cards) which Case said revealed certain relationships and dissimilarities among them. This tableau was used by the American branch of

Alpha et Omega The Alpha et Omega was an occult order, initially named the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, co-founded in London, England by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers in 1888. The Alpha et Omega was one of four daughter organisations into which the ...

when Case was the "praemonstrator" (chief instructor) of that order's Thoth–Hermes lodge in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. The tarot tableau is an arrangement of the 22 major arcana cards into 4 horizontal rows that span across 7 vertical columns. On the top row there is only the Fool card, in the center of the row. Rows two through four consist of seven cards each, arranged in sequential order, such that cards 1 through 7 are on row two, cards 8 through 14 are on row three, and cards 15 through 21 are on row four.

Use in meditation and intuition

, although an organization devoted to

mysticism Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in u ...

(specifically

Western esotericism Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas a ...

), has repeatedly emphasized that tarot cards are primarily a tool for meditation, not

fortune-telling Fortune telling is the practice of predicting information about a person's life. Melton, J. Gordon. (2008). ''The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena''. Visible Ink Press. pp. 115-116. The scope of fortune telling is in principle identical w ...

. Case invented a new, non- magical definition for the word "divination": "the use of spiritual intuition to find solutions to problems". After explaining the BOTA method for tarot

divination Divination (from Latin ''divinare'', 'to foresee, to foretell, to predict, to prophesy') is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic, standardized process or ritual. Used in various forms throughout histor ...

in his book titled ''The Tarot: A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages'', Case specifically explained the differences between this particular type of divination and

. Case then closed with the warning: "Finally, let me reiterate the thought that this is not to be used for vulgar fortune telling, or to amuse a party of friends. If you yield to the temptation so to abuse this information, you will pay for it in the loss of all power of true divination, and probably in the loss of ability to control the higher rates of psychic vibration."

Correspondences to the Qabalistic Cube of Space and Tree of Life

''The Tarot: A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages'' was the first published book to apply almost all of the tarot attributions to the "

Cube of Space The Cube of Space is an occult concept popularized by the occultist Paul Foster Case. The Cube of Space associates the center point of the cube, its three axes, six sides, and the 12 edges of the cube with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet.The T ...

" diagram. There are 22

Major Arcana The Major Arcana are the named or numbered cards in a cartomantic tarot pack, the name being originally given by occultists to the trump cards of a normal tarot pack used for playing card games. There are usually 22 such cards in a standard 78-car ...

tarot cards, which Case corresponded to 22 components of the Cube of Space. The is the source of the link between the Cube of Space and the Hebrew letters. The ' itself does not directly mention a "cube of space", nor any kind of cube. Case based the Cube of Space upon two verses in the : the first, in chapter 4, associates six Hebrew letters with six cardinal directions (up, down, east, west, north, south); the second, in chapter 5, associates 12 Hebrew letters with 12 diagonal directional arms or boundaries (different translations use different terms), which Case interpreted as the 12 edges of a cube. Case associated his Cube of Space with the

Tree of Life The tree of life is a fundamental archetype in many of the world's mythological, religious, and philosophical traditions. It is closely related to the concept of the sacred tree.Giovino, Mariana (2007). ''The Assyrian Sacred Tree: A History ...

of (). He based that association upon paragraph 95 of the . That paragraph does mention a tree, though does not specifically name it the Tree of Life; it states that a tree is inside the twelve diagonals that are mentioned in the ''Sepher Yetzirah''. Because the Tree of Life consists of 10 , Case associated the three "mother" letters (, , ) and seven "double" letters of the with ten corresponding . Until the publication of Case's ''The Tarot'', most English-speaking occultists had never heard of Case's Cube of Space concept, nor any alleged correspondences between tarot and the Tree of Life diagram,Townley, Kevin. ''The Cube of Space: Container of Creation'' though the latter correspondence have become common in modern times (e.g., many tarot decks feature a Tree of Life diagram on the jacket of the Fool). Until the mid-1990s, there were almost no other books in print which even mentioned the Cube of Space. The ones that do (sometimes in different terms such as "the Qabalistic Cube") defer to Case's writings on the subject.Hulse, David Allen; ''New Dimensions for the Cube of Space: The Path of Initiation Revealed by the Tarot upon the Qabalistic Cube''.

References

Bibliography

Writings of Case and others regarding the BOTA Tarot deck: * Case, Paul Foster; ''The Book of Tokens: Tarot Meditations'' * Case, Paul Foster; ''The Tarot, A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages'' * Case, Paul Foster; ''Highlights of Tarot'' * Davies, Ann; ''Inspirational Thoughts on the Tarot'' * Hulse, David Allen; ''New Dimensions for the Cube of Space: The Path of Initiation Revealed by the Tarot upon the Qabalistic Cube'' * Jayanti, Amber; ''Living the Tarot'' * Lotterhand, Jason C. ''The Thursday Night Tarot'' * Townley, Kevin; ''The Cube of Space: Container of Creation'' * Townley, Kevin; '' Meditations on the Cube of Space''

External links

''Joyous World''
examples of the Qabalah and tarot

Entire Major Arcana, colored and on some Keys explained. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bota tarot deck Divination Tarot decks