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.

"Grandmother," Tomsky says of this meeting, "still loves him without memory and is angry if they talk about him with disrespect" (270). Of St. Germain, Tomsky says that he "had a respectable appearance and was a very amiable man in society" (270). But Chekalinsky "was a man of the most respectable appearance" (292). Pushkin characterizes him as a person unusually amiable in his treatment and courteous. "Chekalinsky," writes Pushkin, "stopped after each throw to give the players time to give orders, wrote down the loss, politely listened to their demands, even more politely bent an extra corner bent by an absent-minded hand" (292). It is important to record this hint at direct kinship, not only spiritual, because the Kabbalistic tradition is a tribal tradition. And since this story is about the mystical heritage of the Russian nobility, this family feature in this context emphasizes the ironic nature of the heritage, because the nobility was proud of its ancestral origin. Pushkin seems to answer this proud claim of the nobility:

"Behold, what kind of family are you – your father is an eternal Jew, dedicated to St. Germain, and your mother is a prostitute who gave birth to you in the West, so that you are no longer Russian at all both in your spiritual and even clan origin." If we take into account that the name Lucifer (Venus) is also among the substitutable meanings, then this answer will sound even more categorical, directly in the Gospel: "Your father is the devil" (John 8:44). But this is only an associative circle of Pushkin's images and thoughts, and it would be wrong to believe that Pushkin creates this circle intentionally and meaningfully. On the other hand, this circle of associations is quite clearly revealed by the analysis of the material. And it becomes clear that this very material of the Masonic myth was well known to Pushkin.

Cultural

aspect