THE EMPEROR,STAR & JUSTICE

AbstractConcept

I can only imagine the "weirdness (for lack of a better word) of discovering from a spiritual entity being channelled through you that Tzadi is not the Star. particulalry if you were intimate with the Tarot in its earlier form.
 

Fronterance

I just have to laugh now because this is very confusing. Apparently, Crowley COULD NOT MAKE UP HIS MIND about The Emperor and The Star!

In The Book of Thoth p.268, he switched the path, but not the number! You have all these paths up at the top: 0, 1, 2, 3 and then all of a sudden 17 The Star. Then, at the bottom of the tree you have 4 The Emperor sticking out like a sore thumb amongst the higher numbered paths.

But, then if you look at this image: http://www.thelemapedia.org/index.php/Image:Treeoflife0.gif which is a Crowley diagram (very pretty!), the numbers are actually back to normal... YET, this diagram is the same one in The Holy Books and in THAT book, the numbers are sticking out like a sore thumb again as in the Book of Thoth.

To make matters more confusing, on the actual Thoth deck of cards, the Emperor is IV... NOT XVII.
 

AbstractConcept

I always thought that diagram was done by Hymenaeus Beta. I think you need to grab a copy of Lon DuQuette's Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot just for his explaination and understanding of this comfusingly complex debacle.
 

Fronterance

>sigh<

Really? I've heard conflicting reports about that book. As much as I respect the man, I realize now that he isn't as educated as I once thought he was. I guess you don't need to know everything to be a great magician because I don't doubt he can whip up demons and all that stuff. His Enochian is very impressive, too. But, his understanding of Tarot/Qaballah as explained in Chicken Qaballah was very unimpressive! And his own Tarot deck is similarly strangely hollow, despite all the effort he put into putting every possible correspondence he could think of onto each key.

One thing I know for sure, that Thoth book of his is padded with Duquette fanboy "extras" (Say, did you know Crowley was a mountaineer?!) and it's way overpriced. I own 4 Duquette books, but they're like the romance novels of occult books: entertaining, but ultimately not very filling. Maybe I'll just read a little bit in the store and see if I like it. I will especially look for the part about the Emperor.

Thanks for the recommendation!
 

AbstractConcept

Well, opinions do vary, but I think it's great decoder of Thothy goodness. Certainly much better than the other Thoth related books, which are nothing more than "this card means this" books, don't go into the esoteric symbolism at all.
 

Fronterance

AbstractConcept said:
Well, opinions do vary, but I think it's great decoder of Thothy goodness. Certainly much better than the other Thoth related books, which are nothing more than "this card means this" books, don't go into the esoteric symbolism at all.

What I noticed about Chicken Qaballah, for instance, was that he didn't tell the real secrets of the tarot, but instead concentrated on the sleeping princess fairy tale metaphor. That's nice, but it hardly scratches the surface. Once the real meanings and interplay of the major arcana are explained, the "this card means this" crap is actually very useful to just get the big picture into your little mental filing cabinet (ie. Kabbalistic Cycles). But, without the bigger picture, the "this card means this" crap is pretty much useless. I have my doubts that DuQuette really gets into the deeper esoteric symbolism of the Tarot, but I will give it a look-see before I judge it. Does it mention the Tableau? The Cube of space?
 

Aeon418

Fronterance said:
I just have to laugh now because this is very confusing. Apparently, Crowley COULD NOT MAKE UP HIS MIND about The Emperor and The Star!
Might I suggest that you take a look through a few of the threads related to this subject. The Star / Emperor swap has been debated quite a few times here. A simple search within the Thoth forum will bring up the appropriate threads.
 

Aeon418

Fronterance said:
What I noticed about Chicken Qaballah, for instance, was that he didn't tell the real secrets of the tarot, but instead concentrated on the sleeping princess fairy tale metaphor. That's nice, but it hardly scratches the surface.
Why would the real secrets (whatever that's meant to mean) of the Tarot be revealed in a beginners book on Qabalah? In the Chicken Qabalah, DuQuette is merely trying to introduce the system to novices in a painless way.

It's like someone who complains that Spot the Dog doesn't have the same depth as Shakespeare. It's not supposed to!
 

Alta

Aeon418 said:
Might I suggest that you take a look through a few of the threads related to this subject. The Star / Emperor swap has been debated quite a few times here. A simple search within the Thoth forum will bring up the appropriate threads.
Here is one such thread.
 

Fulgour

Childish Shenanigans (not legitamate insights)

Aeon418 said:
People often seem to think that Crowley had evrything worked out regarding the New Aeon right from the word go. But this isn't the case at all. Crowley's diaries reveal that he is trying to work things out and experiment with new ideas. Crowley was a pioneer in unknown spiritual territory.
Try this: If you put the letters of the alphabet with the cards
(in the golden dawn order) BACKWARDS then IV & XVII will be
in each other's position... that's all Crowley was really "seeing"
and he made the "switch" just to try and show up Waite's bit,
swapping VIII with XI ~ Crowley had nothing better to offer...