Pushkin touches on another very important aspect in the occult context of the story. This is an aspect of occult genesis. All the characters in the story are connected with each other either by direct kinship or by mysterious spiritual ties, and all these connections go back to the old countess. They are all connected by a card game, a secret hidden in the game itself, and this secret is possessed by the old countess. She inherited this secret from St. Germain himself, who, as Pushkin says of him through the mouth of Tomsky, "pretended to be an eternal Jew, the inventor of the elixir of life and the philosopher's stone" (270). He was a great initiate, possessed of occult knowledge, in the words of the occultist Leadbeater, "an incarnate teacher of wisdom." One of his incarnations, Leadbeater argues, is Christian Rosicrucian. Saint Germain is the founder of Freemasonry. In women's Freemasonry, he is called the head of all true Freemasons. His portrait hangs in the boxes in a place of honor. The Countess was apparently initiated into Freemasonry by St. Germain. In any case, Pushkin unequivocally ascribes such a dedication to her.

The mystery of the three cards is the great mystery of life: three, seven and ace symbolize the main arcana in the secret Egyptian knowledge. In sum, they make up the number 21, which is the number of earthly perfection: the number 7 multiplied by 3. In the secret knowledge, this number symbolizes success, satisfaction with one's position, the presence of material goods - this is exactly the material success that Hermann strives for. The Holy Book of Thoth, as the occultists themselves claim, the oldest book on earth, contains this secret knowledge, symbolically expressed in the form of the Great Arcana of the Tarot. Everyone who has ever seen a deck of playing cards knows what these symbols are. The well-known interpreter of the arcana, Vladimir Shmakov, writes: "Many tens of centuries ago, the white race now reigning on earth received from its predecessor this great heritage, this great synthesis of man's knowledge and the Divine Revelation accessible to his genius. She appreciated it, and this Monument of Divine Wisdom formed the essence of all Initiations" [85]. Therefore, only the initiated can possess this great knowledge. "Only occultists and Kabalists," writes Blavatsky, "are the true heirs of Knowledge and Secret Wisdom" [86].

The origin of this knowledge is not very clear to the occultists themselves. "In the midst of the stormy waves of the all-consuming ocean of time," writes Shmakov, "stands immovably the great Monument of the long past. Where he came from, where his homeland was, what superhuman genius gave him the strength to resist everything – we do not know, and probably will not know. But its fabulous antiquity, in comparison with the pitiful fragment of history known to us, should already inspire a reverent attitude towards it... in this Monument the beginnings of all the threads of all the deeds of mankind during its entire planetary life are hidden in inscrutable ways" [87]. From this vague explanation only one thing is clear, that the source of this knowledge is superhuman genius. Who is this genius? What is his name?

The Book of Enoch, which was once part of the canon of the holy books among the early Christians, tells the story of how a group of angels led by an angel named Semeiza leaves heaven and settles on earth, where they begin to reveal the secrets of heaven to people, teaching them the occult sciences. The main theme runs through the entire book, like a refrain: there will be no forgiveness for the fact that they revealed the heavenly secrets to people ahead of time. This story is very similar to the story of the fallen angels. However, occultists do not hide this. Blavatsky in the second volume of The Secret Doctrine directly says that these secrets were revealed by Satan. He was "the Keeper of the Gates in the King's Temple: he stood in front of Solomon. He held the keys of the Sanctuary so that no man could enter it except the anointed one who possessed the Secret Teaching of Hermes" [88]. Its adepts, the high spirits of the Dhyan Chohans, were the "Builders," the "Guardians," the "Fathers," and the "first instructors of mankind."

Their first disciples were the first initiates. "It is now understood," writes Madame Blavatsky, "why the very first Initiates and Adepts, or 'Wise Men,' who are said to have been initiated into the Mysteries of Nature by the Almighty Intelligence Himself, represented by the highest Angels, were called 'Serpents of Wisdom' and 'Dragons,' and also why the first physically completed couples, after they had been initiated by the Ophis. V.S.), manifested by the Androgynous Logos into the Mystery of Human Creation through the tasting of the fruit of Knowledge, gradually began to be accused by the materialistic spirit of posterity of committing sin and disobeying the "Lord God" at the instigation of the Serpent" [90]. The serpent, in the understanding of occultists, is "the greatest Light in our plan" [91]. Therefore, it is quite "natural," Blavatsky concludes obviously, "to consider Satan, the Serpent in the Book of Genesis, as the true creator and benefactor, the Father of Spiritual Humanity" [92]. Hence, by what Christians understand as the Fall, occultists mean initiation. Although the Fall was essentially a spiritual initiation, only a wrong initiation (from the wrong spirit), so it painfully perverted man's nature and led him to a spiritual catastrophe.

There are as many arcana as there are letters in the Hebrew alphabet (22 letters). Each of them is even named after these letters. Hermann pulled back and instead of an ace pulled out a queen whose numerical value is 12. But the sum of the numerical values of three, seven and queen is 22. Symbolically, this expresses the mastery of complete knowledge contained in the 22 arcana. Occultists believed that the combination of different letters, subject to a certain pattern, was able to exert an incantatory effect on spirits. Therefore, the study of the arcana was at the same time a training in the art of incantation. Magic has the property of technology – the performed action and spell leads to the fulfillment of what was planned or ordered. This is the art of those of little faith, those who believe not in God, but in technology, in spirits. "Having little true faith, he had many prejudices" (288), Pushkin characterizes Hermann's faith. Therefore, he believed in the magical power of three, seven and ace.

What are three, seven and ace in the arcana system? The first three arcana symbolically express the inner Divine life, which expresses itself in three aspects. The third aspect, according to the Kabalistic interpretation, is the "Divine Manifestation" or "the Universe as such is the real world, or God made visible." "Arcanum III is the doctrine of the Divine Nature inherent in the One Homogeneous Cosmic Spirit" [94]. But this means that God is not a person if He and the universe are identical. Pushkin expresses his attitude to such total pantheism in the fact that he does not call all his characters, with the exception of Lizaveta Ivanovna (more on this later), by name. If we learn the names of the characters, it is only from the dialogues, Pushkin himself calls Countess Anna Fedotovna a countess everywhere, Pavel Tomsky - Tomsky, and Hermann is not a name, but a surname, and Pushkin writes it with two "n" - Hermann. By this, Pushkin wants to emphasize that the characters have not formed a personality – they are impersonal. Since the God in whom they believe is impersonal, then man cannot have a personality, but only the race to which he belongs. And Pushkin conveys this clan affiliation with the surname of the characters. But the old countess does not even have a surname - he leaves to her only a title of nobility. Nobility is the main thing in a decanter. There was nothing else left in this half-dead man.

The first six arcana represent the indissoluble unity of the Divine life and its manifestation. Two turners (triangles), intersecting in the opposite direction, form a well-known symbol – the Star of David, which symbolizes this unity of the six arcana. The Seventh Arcanum "is a great break, the fall of the primordial man; each monad loses its connection with the Whole, begins to live only in its own individual relative world" [95]. The Fall is understood by occultists as falling away from the impersonal One Spirit into individual life. This is the acquisition of some semblance of an independent life. Here personality is sharply opposed to impersonal unity. But such a falling away from unity is only a dialectical moment in the evolutionary development of man, and it is connected with his immersion in matter. When a person passes through this immersion and makes an evolutionary exit from the fall into matter, he again finds perfection in impersonal merging with the deity.

In fact, these three arcana are the main milestones on the evolutionary path of man: the first testifies to the emanation of the Deity in the prerequisites of this evolutionary process, the second to the beginning of this evolution, and the last to its completion and the acquisition of perfection. Therefore, these three arcana are the main keys to the secret knowledge, which gives powerful power over all planes of existence. This knowledge makes a person the ruler of life.

Particular importance is attached to these symbols in the organization of Masonic lodges and Masonic initiation. "Seven Freemasons form a lodge of Freemasons," says Forster Bailey. "The old Hermetic statement 'as above, so below' always defines the principles of divine expression on the physical level. Without exception, all the world's Scriptures speak of the government of the universe, consisting of the Trinity and the seven: God, the Three in One, the One in Three and His regents, the seven spirits before the throne, according to the Christian Scriptures. Freemasonry also certifies them, and this form of government is seen reflected in our lodges in the form of three chief officers and seven masons who make up the lodge" [96]. This is what the three cards in Pushkin's mythological system correspond to. But for most of his contemporaries, this was no secret, because at that time the entire educated society read mystical literature.

The Countess unites all the characters in this quest to gain power over the world through the card table. Money at the card table is only the equivalent of such power. Entering the circle of cards is joining the upper elite that rules the Universe. The card table is also an image of a new economy, in which the stock exchange, where only monetary speculation takes place, becomes the center of the entire civilization of this kind. Hermann is obsessed with the idea of getting rich. This obsession pushes him to a terrible moral fall: he is ready to pledge his soul (to take upon himself someone else's contract with the devil) and sacrifice eternal bliss. But the more Hermann gives himself over to this desire for wealth and power, the more consistently and maximalist he tries to realize it, the more and more the absurdity of such a task becomes clear. With his obsession, the intensity of passions, he seemed to reveal in this aspiration what was not noticeable without such intensity. With such an artistic device, Pushkin shows the senselessness of such aspirations – they lead a person to a moral and spiritual catastrophe. Pushkin reveals the inner essence of this cheating power over the world – it is not power at all, for it is only allowed by the One who really has this power. Therefore, this game of power, which is achieved by cheating, hypocrisy and blood, ends in the disintegration of man and the collapse of this limited and illusory world.

All the threads of the mystery being played are reduced to the countess. The sign of Venus ♀ is the Crux Ansata, the key to the ancient mysteries, the key to initiations. In ancient Egypt, a candidate undergoing initiation rituals held a Crux Ansata over his head at all times. Crux Ansata is also an attribute of Hermes, who possesses secret knowledge. In this sense, the mystical role of Hermann (Hermes) is understandable, demanding that the countess be initiated into this mysterious knowledge. Interestingly, in ancient times, the symbolic image of each planet contained the image of Crux Ansata, it was supplemented only by the image of a crescent moon and a circle in various combinations. The evening star (Venus) – another name for Lucifer – was the center in the astrological circle. Blavatsky writes that Pythagoras called Venus another Sun, that all teleologians agree on the unity of the Sun and Venus, that the ancients called Venus "the mother of all gods." In some occult treatises, the idea is developed that life was brought to earth from the planet Venus [98]. Venus occupies such an important place in the occult genesis. But in Masonic mythology, Venus also occupies a central place. Masons themselves trace their descent from Cain, and Cain, according to their teaching, descended from the relationship of Eve with Lucifer.

The countess is a widow. Her husband, as her nephew Tomsky relates, "was the family of my grandmother's butler. He feared her like fire" (269). This is a very important characteristic of the countess - she could subjugate any man. Pushkin draws attention to her widowhood with one very important (more on this later) detail. When Hermann enters the countess's house, he sees two portraits on the wall: a man "about forty years old, ruddy and stout" and a young beauty "with an aquiline nose" (282). She is at that venerable age when widowhood is not surprising, but, nevertheless, she is a widow. Why is this detail so important in the context of the myth built by Pushkin? The thing is that the Freemasons called themselves "widow's children". According to another Masonic myth, they originate from the connection of the builder of the temple of Solomon Hiram with the Queen of Sheba. When Hiram was killed, the Queen of Sheba was widowed.

The Countess unites everyone on a clan basis – she is, as it were, the founder of this kind of player. Tomsky is her nephew, Hermann, although this is said in the form of gossip (but Pushkin does not have anything accidental), the illegitimate son of the countess. Lizaveta Ivanovna, her pupil, is almost an adopted daughter. Even Chekalinsky, this inveterate gambler, who devoted his whole life to mastering the art of playing cards, the most mysterious character in the story, who came to St. Petersburg from nowhere, is connected with the countess by some secret ties, perhaps even kinship. Pushkin has a mysterious hint at this connection. Chekalinsky "was a man of about sixty years old" (292). But the countess "went to Paris sixty years ago" (270). In Paris, she communicated with Saint-Germain himself.