Letter, Musical Pitch, and Color in the Work of Paul Foster Case Alison Deadman

Spring 2006 Letter, Musical Pitch, and Color in the Work of Paul Foster Case Alison Deadman Summary derived from certain traditional occult inter- pretations of the Hebrew letters. These are n his published works, the author of esoteric given in an ancient volume of Qabalistic I books and founder of the occult society The wisdom. The name of the book is the Sep- Builders of the Adytum, Paul Foster Case, her Yetzirah, or Book of Formation. From it makes references to and gives examples of a are taken all occult attributions of the He- system that correlates color, musical pitches, brew alphabet given herein, with the excep- and the letters of the Hebrew alphabet; how- tion of the attributions of the sun, moon and ever, nowhere in his available writing does he planets to the seven letters technically explain why these particular colors, pitches, known as “doubles,” because each of them and letters belong together. By analyzing has a hard and a soft pronunciation.4 Case’s correspondences and piecing together the various hints that he gives about them, this This article suggests a logical derivation for article demonstrates that he was using a sys- the system Case used to correlate each letter of tematic application of a logical theory that has the Hebrew alphabet with both color and pitch. at its root the division of the Hebrew alphabet into mother, double and single letters; the divi- The Sepher Yetzirah sion of the color spectrum into primary, secon- he Sepher Yetzirah is a short book (be- dary, and tertiary colors; and the division of Ttween 1,300 and 2,500 words, depending 1 the musical scale into twelve equal half-steps. on which version one consults5) that, as Aryeh Kaplan explains, “Is without question the old- Introduction est and most mysterious of all Kabbalistic 6 aul Foster Case (1884-1954) in his The texts.” References to the Sepher Yetzirah date P Tarot: A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages2 back as early as the first century C.E., but the assigns each Tarot card (or “key” as he terms origins and authorship are not known and most them) of the major arcana to one of the 22 let- likely date back before the first century refer- ters of the Hebrew alphabet, to a particular ences. musical pitch, and to a specific color. In the The Sepher Yetzirah does not assign colors or 3 Tarot deck he designed the assigned color musical pitches to the Hebrew letters. It is provides an external frame for the pictorial rather concerned with examining the mystical glyph, and the appropriate letter of the Hebrew aspects of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alpha- alphabet is printed in the lower right-hand cor- bet, which it divides into three groups: Three ner of each key. Case does not explain the mother letters (Aleph, ); Mem, m; and Shin, colors and pitches, nor does he elaborate on how they are derived or assigned to specific keys. The only hint that he gives is in the chapter entitled “Construction of the Tarot” About the Author where he tells us enigmatically that: Alison P. Deadman, Ph.D., is associate professor of In addition to the clues afforded by the music at East Tennessee State University and art- numbers and titles of the major trumps, or ist/clinician for the Yamaha Corporation of Amer- Keys, and by the associations of ideas sug- ica. She is also a long-time esoteric student. For gested by the letter-names, we find others further information see her website: www.etsu.edu/music/faculty/deadman.html. Copyright © The Esoteric Quarterly, 2006. 9 The Esoteric Quarterly #);7 seven double letters (Beth, b; Gimel, g; Table 1. Associations between Daleth, d; Kaph, k; Peh, p; Resh, r; and Tav, Tarot Keys and Hebrew Letters t); and twelve single letters (Heh, h; Vau, w; Zain, z; Cheth, x; Teth, +; Yod, y; Lamed, l; Key Letter Nun, n; Samekh, s; Ayin, (; Tzaddi, c; and Qoph, q). The Sepher Yetzirah also seems to 0. The Fool Aleph ) create a mystical cube from the letters, assign- ing each to an edge (single letters), a face (six 1. The Magician Beth b of the double letters), an internal dimension 2. The High Priestess Gimmel g (mother letters) or the central point (the re- 3. The Empress Daleth d maining double letter, Tav) on the so-called “cube of space.” Case makes mention of this 4. The Emperor Heh h cube in The Tarot, but only briefly; he pro- 5. The Hierophant Vav w vides a diagram indicating the position on the 6. The Lovers Zain z cube assigned to each of the 22 Keys of the 7. The Charriot Cheth x Tarot and thus each of the 22 letters of the He- brew alphabet, but tells his readers that “No 8. Strength Teth t more than hints of this cube symbolism can be 9. The Hermit Yod y given in this introductory text, but we have 10. The Wheel of Fortune Kaph k thought best to include the figure of the Cube of Space, since careful study will reveal to dis- 11. Justice Lamed l cerning readers many clues to a deeper under- 12. The Hanged Man Mem m standing of the Tarot symbolism.”8 Few au- 13. Death Nun n thors have written about this diagram or its meaning. David Allen Hulse gives a summary 14. Temperance Samekh s of the symbolism of a cube in his New Dimen- 15. The Devil Ayin ( sions for the Cube of Space saying that: 16. The Tower Peh p To Plato, this simple shape represented the 17. The Star Tzaddi c element of earth. To every initiated Mason, the cube is the ultimate symbol for the soul, 18. The Moon Qoph q polished and shaped by constant spiritual 19. The Sun Resh r work. In the emblematic language of al- 20. Judgment Shin # chemy, the cube is the body, whereas the sphere is the spirit.9 21. The World Tav t The Cube of Space, like the better-known Qa- balistic diagram, the Tree of Life, can be inter- preted as a map of the soul’s journey toward The Major Arcana and unity with the Divine. The three-dimensional the Hebrew Alphabet nature of the Cube makes it the more complex n the “Introduction” to The Tarot, Case sug- of the two glyphs and perhaps this is the reason Igests that the Tarot originated around 1200 that so little has been written about it. C.E. but dates the modern revival of interest in The combination of geometry, sound, and it as an esoteric science (rather than an exoteric number (Hebrew letters are also number- parlor game) to Eliphas Levi’s Dogma et Ri- 11 symbols) that is found within the Sepher tuel de la Haute Magie of 1854. Quoting Yetzirah was fundamental to both the Pythago- Levi, he makes clear that the Tarot is “an eru- 12 rean and Hebraic traditions.10 dite Kabalistic book,” and states that it makes use of “the relatively simple system of num- 10 Copyright © The Esoteric Quarterly, 2006 Spring 2006 bers and letters afforded by the Qabalah, or represented by Mem, is the first mirror. Wa- Secret Wisdom of Israel.”13 ter reflects images upside down, and this idea is carried out by the symbolism and title The scheme that Case uses to relate the He- of Key 12, which is a symbol of reflected brew alphabet to the major arcana of the Tarot life, of life in image, of life in the forms is identical with that used by the occult society taken by the occult “water,” or cosmic sub- known as The Golden Dawn.14 Case had been stance.18 a member of this society from 1918-1922,15 and as such had sworn an oath not to reveal Letter-Color Associations: any of their teachings; however, he had been Moina Mathers and the Golden studying the Tarot long before joining the Golden Dawn. In the 1919 preface to his In- Dawn Color Scales troduction to the Study of Tarot, Case says of owards the end of The Tarot, Case makes the attributions of the Hebrew letters “I worked reference to the Qabalistic Tree of Life. out this system some T 16 This glyph consists of ten twelve years ago.” circles or sephiroth con- He makes clear in The As someone who began his nected by 22 paths. Case Tarot when discussing states: his attribution of the career as a professional mu- seven planets to the sician, it is perhaps not sur- The paths connecting the seven double letters, prising that musical pitch ten circles are those of the which were also twenty-two letters and identical to the system was important to Case. A their corresponding Keys. espoused by the typescript document from Each of these paths corre- Golden Dawn, that he sponds also to the mode of did not consider he 1922 entitled The Life- consciousness attributed to was breaking any oath Power written by Case its letter, and each path is by revealing things related to the color makes clear that he is draw- 19 mentioned in this book. that he had worked out ing on the work of Edward on his own prior to his The teaching of the involvement with the Maryon (1867-1954) for his Golden Dawn included the 17 Golden Dawn. Table pitch-color associations. Qabalistic Tree of Life. 1 illustrates the Maryon’s book Marcotone: The Golden Dawn was Hebrew letters founded in 1888 by a associated with each The Science of Tone-Color group of three Masons, key of the major ar- expounds his theory of a William Wynn Wescott, cana.

Load more