Le Tarot des Bohémiens

India and Egypt are still littered with precious debris that reveals the existence of this ancient science to archaeologists.

We are now in a position to affirm that the dominant characteristic of this teaching was synthesis, gathering the sum of acquired knowledge into a few very simple laws.

If we have almost entirely lost this Synthesis, it is due to several causes that are important to enumerate.

In antiquity, science was transmitted only to men who had been tested by a series of trials. This transmission took place in temples under the name of mysteries, and the scholar took the title of priest or initiate (1). Science was therefore secret or occult; hence the name Occult Science given by contemporaries to this ancient synthesis.

Another cause of the limited dissemination of these high teachings was the length and difficulty of the journeys one had to undertake to reach the most important centers of initiation.

However, when the initiates felt the moment approaching when all this knowledge might be lost to humanity, they made every imaginable effort to save the synthesis from destruction. Three great means were employed for this purpose:

1. Secret societies, a direct continuation of the mysteries;

2. Religious cults, a symbolic translation of the high teachings for the masses;

3. Finally, the people themselves, who became the unconscious guardians of the science.

Let us see what each of these groups has done with its deposit.

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(1) See Iamblichus, Porphyry, and Apuleius.