Those who were initiated in the Egyptian Mysteries understood how to interpret the sign:
(The sign for the Tarot).
They also understood how to read the Book of Thoth, that consisted of 78 cards in which all the secrets of the world from the Alpha to the Omega were recorded. One could learn to read these cards if one understood how to connect them and place them in the right sequence. They depicted in pictorial form the life that dissolves in death in order to spring forth again to life renewed.
He who was able to connect the right numbers with the right images could read in this Book. This numerical wisdom and this pictorial wisdom were taught from times immemorial. They continued to play a major part in the Middle Ages, for instance in connection with Raymond Lull (Raimundus Lullus). Today not much remains of this teaching.
Rudolf Steiner, Lecture in Berlin, 17th December 1906.
(GA 265, Dornach 1987)