Four WINDS

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Coming Soon to this page - THE FOUR WINDS

56 minor tarot of East Wind, 56 of the South Wind, 56 West Wind and 56 of the North Wind.

56 x 4
Lotteries both

ANCIENT

and
MODERN

This book exposes coincidences between the fifty-six minor arcana of the Marseilles tarot (later Waite and Golden Dawn minor arcana) and this series of 56 times four Winds divination figures - called "lotteries" in 1635. Wither insisted in 56 rather than 50, I argue because then these lotteries could be chosen with just one Four Winds spinner used in conjunction with 56 playing cards.

The designs were originally in Gabriel Rollenhagen’s Nucleus Emblematum (1611) and Emblematum Centuria Secunda (1613). Wither added 4x6 figures to the 4x50 originals, adding cryptic poetry in English, plus his own method of Four Winds divination by two cardboard spinners. Wither's also commissioned the alchemical frontispiece (above). These four sets of 56 can be combined with the 88 'Triumphs' (4x22 sets) of Tarot of the Four World