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The Jews, by repudiating hieroglyphic figures pictographic or symbolic characters used in ancient Egypt, devoted themselves entirely to cabalistic writing a mystical script believed to hold secret meanings. From this, they moved to the common writing everyday script used for general communication of the Egyptians, which the great Hermes referring to Hermes Trismegistus had brought to light more than three centuries earlier. I am following the chronology of the Book of Thoth a legendary Egyptian text of wisdom often linked by Etteilla to the Tarot here.
However, as is known, through the passage of time, this writing changed. The letters changed according to the distribution of the Jews and the places where the Tribes lived. Finally, the letters changed according to their Great Men, who adapted the letters and the writing to the new accents of the People. This continued until finally the Jewish People were totally dispersed. They gathered in groups, sometimes in one country and sometimes in another. They fixed themselves to a language, a script, and common letters that held dominance because they were said to come, and indeed could have come, from the greatest Prophets, such as Moses, Ezekiel, Daniel,
Isaiah and others. Let us place ourselves two centuries before our Era, that is to say, toward the year 3800 of the World original: "l'an 3800 du Monde"; a date based on chronological calculations from the Bible.
In those times, all the minor Gods were very fashionable. They poured in from all countries into the flourishing center of the world, Rome. As I have said elsewhere, before the period of great idolatry, these were not considered Gods. Instead, they were considered Talismans objects engraved with symbols to attract good fortune or protection or good-luck charms.
Once the bulk of idolatry had vanished, one can say to the honor of Christianity, the hieroglyphs and the Cabalistic writing were still preserved. However, both were so disfigured that people were somewhat right to treat all of it as fantasies and their authors as charlatans. The problem was that people confused these objects, as well as the time periods and the men involved.
Across several centuries, and even until now, people would depict a hieroglyph and surround it with characters. This is especially what the...