Between Celestial Geometry and the Tarot

Linking through Numerology

The ancients would throw bone dice called Atralagi in sets of 5. The possible combinations of these add up to 56, the same as Minor Arcana of the Tarot The meaning of each possibility was listed on four sides of a pillar forming 4 suits of 14 possibilities. This versus the 52 of 4 suits of 13 cards of the standard French-suited playing card deck that is common today - not including a variable amount of jokers which brings up the total cards to 53-58 (54 with jokers is perhaps the most common. A deck with 4 Jokers can be used identically to the Minor Arcana.) However, it should be noted that 52 is the number of week in a year - an astrological significance remains therefore. Other variations exist such from the 36 cards of the German/Swiss varieties (take note of this for a later discussions of decans.) Although a Tarot Deck has original purpose for the playing of games, it alone has a reputation as primarily a tool for divination even though all card varieties could be used as such. The ancients would also use Tessarae which are the same as standard modern 6-side dice. A throw of 3 of these dice results in 56 possibilities. A throw of 2 of the dice results in 21 possibilities (identical in number to the Major Arcana if you consider that The Fool (0) is unnumbered.) Medieval Kaballists understood these links and assigned virtues to the 56 throws. (Dr. John Opsopaus, The Pythagorean Tarot, p. 25 -26)

It was determined (in A Mythonomic Introduction to Numerology, part 1) that the 366 days of the year or parts of the day could be simplified to 360. Thus a day could be divided into 360 segments of 4 minutes each (compared to 3.9344~ minutes if simplified) leaving a remainder of less than half of a minute.) The 366 day year when simplified to 360 days could, and usually would, have the 6~ day remainder be subject to an ‘out-of-calendar’ religious period to keep things the calendar straight. This is similar to the 365 day calendar year and the February 29th leap year making up the remainder. This remainder is an inherent ‘imbalance’ to the calendar system.