Tarot Card Comparisons: The Babylonian Tarot-Kerub of Disks- Human-Headed Bull

The Babylonian Tarot- Kerub of Disks/ Human-Headed Bull, has no comparable card in the Thoth Tarot. It is an extra card of the Court Cards, that is unique to the Babylonian Tarot.

The peoples of Mesopotamia, believed the Human-Headed Bull to be a powerful guardian Spirit, whose likeness was a colossally carved image that decorated the Stone Royal Gates of a city or the Gigantic Palace gates.

These pared colossi, never failed to impress those who entered the gates; with forward staring eyes or with heads turned inward, as if scrutinizing the mortals within.

These giant images, represent the genii of holy places, something a Shaman would call the "spirit of the place".

The obvious image of these powerful spirits was meant to convey intelligence and power.

The Assyrians, called these impressive creatures aladlammu; the feminine form of this creature was called apsasu. It is believed that the Sumerians name them gud-alim and the Akkadian name was kusarikku-naming them after the extinct Mesopotamian Bison.

The Lammasu or Lumasi represent the zodiacs, parent-stars, or constellations. They are depicted as protective deities because they encompass all life within them.

In the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh they are depicted as physical deities as well, which is where the Lammasu iconography originates, these deities could be microcosms of their microcosmic zodiac, parent-star, or constellation. Although "lamassu" had a different iconography and portrayal in Sumerian culture, the terms lamassu, alad, and shedu evolved throughout the Assyro-Akkadian culture from the Sumerian culture to denote the Assyrian-winged-man-bull symbol and statues during the Neo-Assyrian empire. Female lamassus were called "apsasû".

The motif of the Assyrian-winged-man-bull called Aladlammu and Lamassu interchangeably is not the lamassu or alad of Sumerian origin which were depicted with different iconography. These monumental statues were called aladlammû or lamassu which meant "protective spirit".

In Hittite the Sumerian form LAMMA is used both a name for the so-called "Tutelary deity" identified in certain later texts with Inara and a title given to various other tutelary or similar protective gods. In the Enûma Eliš they are both symbolized as the zodiacs, parent-stars, or constellations and as physical deities as well as was in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Human-headed winged bull, otherwise known as a Šedu from Khorsabad. University of Chicago Oriental Institute. Gypsum (?) Neo-Assyrian Period, c. 721-705 BCE

The lamassu is a celestial being from Mesopotamian mythology bearing a human head, bull's body, sometimes with the horns and the ears of a bull, and wings. It appears frequently in Mesopotamian art. The lamassu and shedu were household protective spirits of the common Babylonian people, becoming associated later as royal protectors, were placed as sentinels at the entrances. The Akkadians associated the god Papsukkal with lamassu and the god Išum with shedu.

To protect houses, the lamassu were engraved in clay tablets, which were then buried under the door's threshold. They were often placed as a pair at the entrance of palaces. At the entrance of cities, they were sculpted in colossal size, and placed as a pair, one at each side of the door of the city, that generally had doors in the surrounding wall, each one looking towards one of the cardinal points.

The ancient Jewish people were influenced by the iconography of Assyrian culture. The prophet Ezekial wrote about a fantastic being made up of aspects of a human being, a lion, an eagle and a bull. Later, in the early Christian period, the four Gospels were ascribed to each of these components. When it was depicted in art, this image was called the Tetramorph.

This all may sound as something generated by superstition or the delusions produced by desert heat: However, I have had personal experience with the "spirit of the Place", the Kerub formed by a collective of intelligences.

In  the high desert of S.E. Montana, I lived in a "tee-pee" (Black foot design) for about 5 years. I had another tee-pee just for meditating.  During this time of sabbatical from the interference of capitalistic culture, I made a mother-drum from an Elk hide that I procured myself-(using a muzzle loading rifle), and prayed to the animal's "genii" in the method of the Indigenous Americans; inhaling its spirit as it died.

Forming a hoop of steamed-form- curved Mountain Ash, whose spirit granted me the right to a limb; from the land I resided on. I laced the raw hide on the hoop, lacing a hawk foot (from a naturally dead hawk), rock crystal and feathers into the lacing; all from the place.

Once done and properly smoked, I began drumming and meditating on the "Spirit of the Land"; Non-stop trance drumming and singing for a few days. What happened next was not a delusion of fasting nor dehydration for I drank water and ate of the Elk and local tubers and vegetation (squaw potatoes and Yucca)  when needed. The Spirit of the Place came to me, and united with me, I walked outside the "tee-pee" and literally called "down" dry lighting to strike the Red-Hill peeks in the Four directions (called Scorio hills)... it may have come up from them. To be sure this wasn't a coincidence, I did it again another four times.

I have to tell you, this is indeed a "Power Moment" of Shamanism!

 You may not have had such an experience but you can if you find a unspoiled land with good water and go about the ritual of drum building, as I have described. But if you have not the same experience fear not. Your experience will be uniquely yours and the Genii of the land's. However, you must drink of the water and eat of the place, in a sense of gratitude and honor, fearing nothing and living in trust of the Genii, or I am certain it will treat you as any "blind human", who speaks in the babel of language, rather than the Spirit language of "I" sight.

I have been blessed with many unique"abilities" as the I Am of Me has always worked for many "alive's", with "Grand Mother River"; the flowing Liquid-Light intelligence of this Planet's Life (the Rivers of life are seen as Ley-Lines), for it is a Soul Memory that has never left me. She has  called my Soul- Husband (in the True Anglo-Saxon sense of "keeper of her property") in true Magnetic fashion she gave me her "water sight", thereby making me a "water witch".  Therefore I knew of " Moon-Water-Womb and Phallus-Sun-planet" harmonic  electromagnetic rhythm since I was but a "wee lad".  You will find your own "knowing" if you dare to try.

I also knew this "Spirit of the Place" to be a guardian, for once, we were visited by a man, who was a brutal alcoholic wife beater and whose soul was dead to him and as most people whose toxicity is high (usually due to chemical poisoning from our industrial empire), he happened to be allergic to bee stings. 

One day, he was becoming brutally enraged at his wife, for being with us "nut cases" as he was jealous of her work with myself and others who came for Sabbatical. So I began drumming near a camp fire, a protection rhythm; the smoke formed into giant thumb-sized hornets who group up and went after him, chasing him from the land, never to be seen again.  She and others witnessed this kerub-magic moment, so again I was not "just imagining" such. The Spirit of the Place would go on to protect all who came to the place, under welcome as long as they didn't defame the land nor woman; who to the Spirit of the Place, were sacred womb-man.

There is a Kherub/kerub of the natural land whose collective of planet, plant, insect and animal minds, become a powerful intelligent presence. If it accepts you as "keeper of the land"; you always hear the harmony of the place. By listening to it's rhythm, one could hear the "sour note" of imbalance and then go about re-balancing the place, which would otherwise take the Spirit of the Place hundreds of years. Therefore the Genii of the Land will honor you as you honor it's place, for when we walk the land as Elohim Malachem ("Lords or Ladies of the Elementals"), the elements know us and seek our company.

Bless you from all four directions for reading this, and may the genii/kerub of the place, where you live, awaken to your presence and bless you with the True Prosperity that only our Lady Earth can provide.

Thank you for your interest, comments and supportive donations. May you live long and prosper.