FRANZ BARDON INITIATION INTO HERMETICS
CHAPTER 1 : 1st Tarot card analysis.
Bardon begins with the interpretation of the first tarot card. This card is significant to the lessons that follow and help in understanding Bardon's meaning and terminology, yet I have never seen this card appear elsewhere except his book. Notice the magus face resembles Bardon himself. Not only is it his own interpretation, but it may be his own tarot card illustration, again making it significant to his lessons. This is his Magus card, so those of you who follow the Rider Waite based tarot will notice right away that he places it as the first card rather than The Fool card. If memory serves me right, I believe Waite was the first to have placed the fool as the first card. Previous to that, the tarot did start with the magus, and as Bardon explains, this is the first initiation, mastery of the elements. One could also see why Waite chose to begin with the fool, if we think of how we begin as fools embarking on this spiritual journey, into areas unknown to us. Waite also chose the fool because it was more in correspondence with Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, also corresponding to the first path between Keter and Hokmah on the Tree of Life. Bardon's kabbalistic correspondences are also different from the modern correspondences we get from Golden Dawn and Crowley.