Symbols of the Sola Busca with Mario Garza (Symbolic Studies) and Dylan Saccoccio
One of the biggest mysteries of the occult is the tarot, especially the fact that there is no "official" version. Mario Garza of Symbolic Studies and Dylan Saccoccio of the Spirit Whirled series join us tonight to decode the Sola Busca deck, one of the most ancient, and strangest, of all arcana. This is likely to be too big for one show, so if you enjoy it and want more, let us know!
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In this episode
Core themes
An Odd Venetian Deck Examined
Chance introduced the Sola Busca as one of the oddest tarot decks, sharing little with the modern tarot beyond its numbering. When he asked when it originated, the answer given was about 1490, and Chance called the artwork a serious commission. Mario said he believed the deck held many secrets that had never been discussed, and that anyone who studied it could still find new ones. The group worked through the trumps in order, with slides comparing each card to its Rider-Waite counterpart. One guest said he understood that only one complete early deck survives, so some odd details might be damage.
Philology and Priestly Wordplay
Dylan traced Taurus and its relatives in Greek, Latin and French to a shared root tied to height and rank. Across the evening, guests hunted through Latin and Greek for hidden meanings, treating card names, ribbons, spears, shields and flags as possible wordplay. One speaker, drawing on a book about Mesopotamian star lore, suggested that ancient priests prized several meanings in a single word. One guest cautioned that without the original names for each object, the group might be missing symbolism that would have been obvious to viewers of the time.
Sun Cycles and the Nero Question
One guest put forward the hypothesis that the deck might encode the Neros cycle and a lineage of messiah figures, while saying it would take much more work to prove. Several speakers read the card sequence as a calendar, with the sun turning hostile as autumn arrived and barren landscapes appearing on many cards. The panel also discussed Peter Mark Adams's view, relayed on air, that the deck was made with malefic intent and might encode methods of controlled reincarnation. The speaker relaying it said he was open to that idea if reincarnation was real.
Phoenician Purple and Mithraic Echoes
The group noticed Phoenician purple on nearly every card, which led one speaker to the murex shell dye and to the odd shell shapes on later cards. Dylan argued that under the Justinian code wearing Syrian purple would have been punishable unless the wearer was royal. One speaker suggested the Venetian merchant families behind the deck may have opposed the Vatican. Gabe argued that green, white and red on national flags showed the imprint of Mithraic orders, and said he would track down the researcher behind that claim and share it on Telegram.
Mario on Death, Orion, and Scorpio
At card thirteen Mario argued that the spear, shield and helmet formed a hidden scythe, which he tied to the Death card. He noted that other Death cards showed severed heads and suggested the oversized head here encoded Orion being stung by the Scorpion. He said it was the first card where he believed he had found something he had not read elsewhere. Peter Mark Adams's link between the card and the star Algol, the eye of Medusa, was relayed on air, and speakers also raised Cato the Elder and the constellation Ophiuchus.
Quotes
“So tonight we're going to be talking about the Sola Busca Tarot, which is one of the most odd decks you could probably ever come across that definitely shares very little in common other than the numerical structure with the tarot that you'll see in the modern age.”
“First, what Dylan mentioned about this coming from a Venetian family is very interesting. I think just the fact that the artwork was commissioned at all, you know, this is not a small task in terms of when this came out.”
“I really want to talk about card 16, because there's a Phoenix in it, and the tower card and the Phoenix correlation. But if you guys are down, I'll put another one on the calendar and we can revisit this, because I really had a lot of fun tonight and I appreciate you guys.”
“I think it's going to be fascinating getting to the core archetypes in our realm, the abstractions that somehow find their way through the mind and through the logos, and we can see the reflection in nature, maybe too.”
“This deck is really, really mysterious. And there's just so many secrets encoded within it that I think have yet to really be revealed. So that is the most exciting thing to me, that anybody can pick up this deck, and if you start studying, you can come across secrets that have not been talked about basically ever.”
“I actually think that this is a precursor to the death card. I think this is one of the ones where you can make a direct correspondence, in my opinion. And I think actually, this spear along with the shield and the helmet is making a subliminal scythe.”
“Why is this head so large? It's larger than the main figure's head, right? And so what I think it's encoding potentially is the mythology of Orion, the great hunter, being stung by a Scorpion.”
“Actually, honestly, Slick brought it back to my attention. I look at this deck fairly often. Every single time we go through a new sign, I'm pulling out the cards that correspond to that sign. So I do handle the Sola Busca regularly, but Slick made some memes about it.”
“And what's curious is this purple Phoenician looking ribbon. I mean, if you were to look at the Justinian code during these times, you would be put to death for wearing Syrian purple like that. So the fact that this guy could be wearing that doesn't make any sense unless he is royalty.”
“Taurus in Greek, Latin, French, Taro, Tiro, Tyrant, Tarrit, Taur. They all share that same radical symbolism, which pertains to height, actually. And so it's usually things that are higher, because rank and where you are in power in life is based on height at the deep core.”
“I like not having the pressure of having to be prepared. Like I didn't know anything about this deck. I've seen a couple of them before, but other than that, it was cool. It was fun talking to you guys.”
“So one thing I've learned in heraldry, and this is vague, but I do believe that when you have the white, the red and the green, you are seeing the imprinting of Mithraic orders. Mithraic underground orders have been known to leave an impression on the flag of the nations that they've altered their history.”
“That's something I could pull the receipts on. It'll take me a while. I forget the fellow's name. He's really quite savvy on the Mithraic fellowships and how they relate to the Zoroastrian brotherhoods and the fact that they are diametrically oppositional in a certain light.”
Dylan Saccoccio is the author of the Spirit Whirled series, The Real Universal Empire, and the Tale of Onora. After chasing language back as far as possible, he now explores other avenues to prove cultural diffusion of the ancient universal empire of priests, navigators, masons, and merchants. Find his latest of many hundreds of articles on Substack.
See all Dylan episodes→Kyle and Serena Denton are community herbalists creating wild-crafted and organic plant medicines out of Milwaukee since 2015. I have used their teas and tinctures on an almost daily basis for years now. Kyle is a great friend of InnerVerse and has appeared on the channel more times than I can count. These products work, not in the allopathic "pharma-medicine" way, but in a terrain-support, consciousness bolstering plant-teacher sort of way.
