earthair
Because I want to reread this at my leisure, I'm going to do us all a favour and edit Naomi's quote so it passes the forum rules regarding swearing and doesn't just get deleted 
Apologies to NN for editing you, but you did ask why your posts get deleted and now I think I can see why...
Apologies to NN for editing you, but you did ask why your posts get deleted and now I think I can see why...
I am glad you like most of it and I get your attraction to Corvus and Falconidae. I am really interested that you like The King of Blades but not Abrasax.
The King of Blades is very personal because it is my face and m1thr0s' face merged. I had just graduated when I started on the deck and had bailed out of the concept art field - just couldn't stand working in it, but I needed models and couldn't afford live models all the time, so I used a lot of people I knew and took photos of myself naked and all kinds of stuff to try to get the more complex poses down.
Here are the two photos I used
http://imgur.com/WEVWTFc
http://imgur.com/2d57Rzq
This was the second version face of the *original* Prince of Blades:
http://abrahadabra.com/projects/the-mutational-alchemy-tarot/mini-037-prince-of-blades/
He was an early creation, done in 2007 - he had the face of one of the members of my coven members. At this point in time I had just sort of "discovered" m1thr0s not just as a friend and an ooey tantric alchemist who moderated the Satanist subforum on Eric's Occult Forums, but as a *supreme hottie*, the King of the Rakshasas himself, (There is No God but Man!) with a six demon bag of very overpowered mirrors, that WORKED, they actually WORKED. Oh my gosh I had it bad. And this was before I knew he could make me levitate. So the guy whose face I had placed on Prince of Blades had a crush on me. We got in a big fight because he kept insulting m1thr0s behind his back to me and I couldn't deal with his face anymore. He was also the [redacted] nephew of my totally awesome webmaster so it was a crazy situation at the time. So I repainted it with another made up face which didnt look like anyone but it was overworked, i couldn't bring the image back to life.
Now ----there is all of that but I did NOT want to redo another card. We had finished saving close to enough to print from m1's art sales, and then the issue of shipping came up which was over a $1000 with UPS which I had to secure a loan for. m1thr0s said he wanted to redo the Prince of Blades as we were about to go to print. I dug in my heels - well yes I was upset at the card but I didn't want to do more work and I was already busy trying to reformat the cards for the printer's specs. But I knew the TwinStar was going to make me redo the card, and it had to be Abrasax, he would be the last one. Abrasax is crucially important to the conversation going on with Abrahadabra which is central to a branch of Mutational Alchemy, specifically Tetragrammaton. After a decade of playing with Mutational Alchemy, one learns to pay [redacted] attention when the tetractys wants something. And so I consented.
Of course we would end the deck with Abrasax, and I did a lot of research, as I too am uncomfortable with the idea of "farm animals" as occult symbols, something I had to sort of retrain my mind with as I had been "Media Poisoned" as well. History is quite clear: Cybele the Great Mater is a sow, Hathor is a cow, Amun-Ra is a ram, Baphomet is a goat and so on - they were not viewed as so pedestrian then. On the card The Prince of Blades has the head/colors of a rare heritage breed from Italy thought to be alive around the time of Abrasax's popularity as a symbol in Italy, and those colors Red or White and Black are traditional for Yin and Yang and the third, the child of Mystery, Jen in Trigrammaton. I actually tried to source some live birds but they are not exported from Italy they are considered a national treasure. Also, as an aside, I didn't think "oh I'm also going to give him a huge [redacted *insert word 'penis'*] because he's a huge ['penis'] and that's ironic" i was just trying to get the proportions right from the foreshortening perspective. Well anyways the whole effect is PRETTY SILLY, I understand your reaction and i lol'd alot, because it was exactly the reaction I pictured as I flipped through the deck for the first time "AAAH gaaah get it out of my eye!!!". There's nothing that can be done about it now, but you can blame m1thr0s, but don't be too hard, he did mean well and most people really like it (especially our target audience which is 20-30 yo males in the USA).
Finally to the others suggesting we simplify the deck, you are dealing with two professional occultists and magicians deeply involved in a highly specialized branch of Hermetic Alchemy called Mutational Alchemy. Beyond that we have utmost reverence for The Great Work and the abode between the worlds. In our view the Earth is in a state of emergency and I have wept countless nights for it as I communed with her. The most unimaginable suffering and yearning for death are mine, to return to the holier place, but a worse fate - to allow HIM to manifest here alone in this rat trap is worse.
The practice we've only just begun to outline is the 9th limb of Yoga nothing less. You may not know the history of The Abrahadabra Institute or m1thr0s, but you don't need to know that to understand that this is a very complicated deck, and was never advertised as simple. I would be the first to tell people the THOTH is a better deck to begin with, despite what Fr. Novum reports to me that it is *friendly*. I told him "I have no idea if it is friendly to other people or if it's just you" as he has crossed the Abyss and has nothing but reverence for the tetractys and the realm beyond Ain Soph. Do the brothers think that is so common? I have only promised that all who want to work with it may, to their own peril. Our work always comes first. I don't want to "sell" it to anyone who doesn't already see its necessity- that would be dangerous for me to do anyways. I have everything I need. I live in luxury, happiness and marital bliss. There are always other ways to make money. I can tell you right now I would be killer on the stock market. It would be MUCH easier. I am surrounded by people who adore me and I have no need of followers. I need less of that and more focus on the commands of Ra Hoor Khut.
There are no degrees or secrets here, except those which are hidden behind a wall of understanding itself as well as the division. Even this can be rectified using certain tools. But the fact of the matter is is that both of us know exactly what we are doing and why. We're not associated with the OTO or the Golden Dawn. I will not apologize to Aleister Crowley or his fans for whatever I might say that I believe is the truth. I do not believe this is a game, this world and the situation it now finds itself in. The state of the world's knowledge is so mediocre compared to the world both I and m1thr0s are painfully aware of. Crowley is a lot stronger than many of his fans would believe, and quite active as well. There were alot of problems with the Thoth, starting with his disdain of women. He was human as are we all. His priestess - you'd have to be blind to ignore the tension and in-auspiciousness of Harris and Crowley's partnership. She was more righteous than he would admit then. However, it was a better alchemical marriage than some others.
We're an open book with regards to methodology so there is no need to guess at what we did. The hexagrams are NOT positioned according to the Hidden Diamond Sutra. (Even the THOTH deck classifies as a sutra - and we are AGAINST Buddhism in the conventional sense, as we are AGAINST all religions purporting to solve the *Raising of the Foundation* by circumventing it)
The hexagrams in this deck are positioned according to The Tree of Life and the Proximity Principle, as well as an arrangement called The Early Heaven Arrangement. The only term which is not well known is The Proximity Principle. You need to be able to understand all three of these items to "get" the Twin Trees Primordial Arrangement which is how the deck is constructed and I can point you to all three sources which are very carefully documented.
The Proximity Principle
http://abrahadabra.com/the-proximity-principle/
The Early Heaven Arrangement
http://mutationalalchemy.com/?attachment_id=755
Trees - The RED one is the Primordials, the combination of the Early Heaven and the Tree of Life using The Proximity Principle, this is the one the MAT is based on. There is also a Temporals Arrangement.
http://mutationalalchemy.com/?page_id=434
- HOWEVER COMPLEX THE HEXAGRAMS MAY SEEM -
You do not NEED to understand every little symbol for them to affect you. The I Ching especially is a Biofeedback system as illustrated HERE:
http://abrahadabra.com/dna-iching/
The Hidden Diamond Sutra has been found in ONE book which is so expensive I cannot afford a copy, (over a grand) and it's basically just a footnote it says "This is what happens when you connect all the paths together" it is out of print, I always forget the name of the guy off the top of my head, he is a Kabbalist though, and was presented two years after we found it independently as a group on the old Abrahadabra Forums. I have been told it is in Duquettes work it is NOT, I spent a good afternoon looking through my collection to see if I had somehow missed the [redacted] thing because someone (FRATER NOVUM) told me it was in there. Well I did find it but the diagram is different and has nothing to do with the Tree of Life. If you knew how to USE the hidden diamond you would understand why it is so valuable. If you were able to analyze symbols to identify their occult properties you could understand it. You do not need to know how to use it in order to have it affect you.
And we have a study guide so you ARE able to analyze it appropriately with or without a natural analytical ability. As hermeticists and alchemists interested in the Royal Science of Tetragrammaton *any* meditation formula which can be done in 4-4 time is very valuable - the Hidden Diamond not only has that it's also got five unicursal hexagrams in it. More importantly IT CROSSES DA'ATH. I have been looking for a way to control Da'ath since I was a a teenager, and so has m1thr0s. Neither of us are idiots, and m1thr0s spent about three months solid studying the diamond when it first presented itself - another year where he was not glued to it. I have watched this pattern repeat itself over and over again with regards to him as he solved the arcane mysteries I needed resolved for myself *personally*. We do all of this stuff for ourselves *personally* and yet there is no need to fear sharing it with everyone else who was looking for these same answers.
http://abrahadabra.com/•-the-daath-hack-•/
That will tell you everything you ever need to know about the Hidden Diamond IF you actually use it and see for yourself.
If you can count to ten you can be a Mutational Alchemist, it's as easy as that. And this deck is very much intended for use with Mutational Alchemy. It's a starting point. If you are not interested in Mutational Alchemy you have to accept the fact that it may not be for you. I am trying to fashion a road to the light, and there is no other motive.
There was a time I said to myself that no one from Aeclectic Forums would ever buy a deck as our market was elsewhere. This was based on my own experience with a frustrating and restrictive forum I can never remember my screen name here and when I finally do I just find my posts removed for some [redacted] reason. It hasn't encouraged me to buy a membership and it doesn't suit my style of discussion clearly. That doesnt mean i cannot enjoy the front end and I do so. But I didnt think that the membership body would at all be interested. That hasn't proven to be true but it still doesn't take away from the fact that it was never designed to please the *people*. I do know how to do that when I want to, but as it stands it's a grueling endeavor which accomplishes little. If my intention was to do that I would still be in concept art you know.
The work stands on its own merits and we have done our best to work with people who have been terrorized by new thought zanies so that they can validate the system for themselves and use it FOR FREE. There never has been a time when The Abrahadabra Institute charged for access to the Abrahadabra Proofs or the information on the TwinStar or Twin Trees or the countless other mirrors and proofs that have been unveiled over the years as core to this praxis.
The truth of the matter is no one can touch this deck mechanically yet. There will be other decks in the future which will surpass it, some by The Abrahadabra Institute itself. As an artist I will be the first to admit that there are better artists out there and there will always be a matter of *taste* where tarot art is concerned. My *facteur* is quite colorful and you rightly said so, garish, but this is *facteur* and does not at all reflect the framework of the deck itself. If you are interested in the art but want to discard the system, I sympathize as I had to approach m1's system from the outside once before, but it is not necessary to know all the hexagrams or even some of the symbols be affected by them. They are changing you at an often imperceptible level that cannot be prevented or blocked as soon as you look at them - even for a second. These are part of your DNA, part of your human heritage, as is the 16 court cards and the three, four, 5=6 and nine elements.
As I have said and will say again ever more - I and m1thr0s know exactly what we are doing and why. Those who do not understand that can only be assailed by their consternation if there is some kind of internal conflict already between them and their trues selves.
