Russian to English Translation Help

July 6, 2020 7:51 AM

Does anyone here read Russian and can help me translate the text in this image? I think it's a tarot card, but I'm not sure.
posted by stinkfoot to Writing & Language (4 answers total)

Best answer: Google Translate will translate images (badly) via camera. Here's what I get from it:

Macrocosm and Microcosm
Here, the double trident of Salomon, presented by the two Elders of Kobbala: Macroprosofusam and Microprosophus; God of Light and God of Reflection; Myuoserd and Revenge; White Peva and Black Neva (Cm. The transcendental magim.") On the surface of the great Sea of Eternity, the gozas and furnaces of the Sayed One will rise Dreensytschogo, whose reflection is overturned in Beyuna. The reflection of God is all that is in nature, but human mistakenly accepts a shados as an entity (ubstantion). Just as the Universes are a reflection of the Ancient Ones, so is the the whole body is a reflection, or an inverted reverse, of the human spirit, and an aoy triangle appears to be the mourning of the spiritual and material elements that make up the humanity's dryness. N peaks of persoerno-triugal nickname, image) of the smallest deum of weakness by the mouth of the Most Holy One, they will rush down to the Louis of the Seven Bringing Hierarchs, who centered in the back nature of Demiur, or Peacekeepers. And1 peaks of the druoo of the trio, drawn by the eyes and the mouth of the turned face, seven rays rise, mingling with Reality on the line of the Sorion between the shadow and the essence style. The seven Exhalations of July of the Great Face become the Faces of the Cosmos, and their reflection corresponds to the division into human and nature. The Seven Forces are one in the source and in essential nature, but their divergence occurs in Nature and - the looseness of plurality. The diverging streams then converge at the focal point - Malam Like - which lions - with a miniature picture of the forces and land of nature. In the secret dokriyu of the Hindus, the Seven Divine Divisions CuMeauupyiomca Manmpou us CEMO cAoo0: A-UM NA-WI PAD-ME HUM.

I wouldn't use that translation for anything mission-critical, obviously! But it might give you a sense of what it is, at least.
posted by limeonaire at 8:23 AM on July 6, 2020 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Cool, I didn't know we had the technology!
posted by stinkfoot at 8:36 AM on July 6, 2020 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Searching for just the image, using Google image search, I found a site selling Masonic regalia that offers a large poster of the image, a rare book seller that shows the image as the cover of the slip jacket for Manly P. Hall's book, short title, The Secret Teaching of All Ages, full title An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy: Being an Interpretation of the Secret Teachings concealed within the Rituals, Allegories and Mysteries of all Ages. According to Wikipedia, the book was a big success in the 1920s, an era of renewed interest in mysticism. A photo of Hall. An illustration of Hall.

An early biographer of Hall described the book: "The result was a gorgeous, dreamlike book of mysterious symbols, concise essays and colorful renderings of mythical beasts rising out of the sea, and angelic beings with lions' heads presiding over somber initiation rites in torch-lit temples of ancestral civilizations that had mastered latent powers beyond the reach of modern man."

Based on the Amazon site, the book is still in print. Whether your image and Russian words are related to the book, I don't know. You could get the book and learn more about Hall's effusions.

The illustration titled "Macrocosm and the Microcosm" was by J. Augustus Knapp, who did many similar paintings. Together Knapp and Hall made a Tarot deck, so your impression isn't far off.

This is a lot of stuff but it's quarantine and doing the research filled a little of the day. Thanks.
posted by tmdonahue at 12:21 PM on July 6, 2020 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Though the text is obscure, Google is obscuring it a little more. :) "Salomon" should be Solomon; "Kobbala" is Kabbalah; Demiur is Demiurge; the "dokriyu" of the Hindus is doctrines. The final line also got mangled; it's the Tibetan Buddhist mantra om mani padme hum.
posted by zompist at 7:11 PM on July 6, 2020 [1 favorite]