Is it OK to use the Thoth deck w RW interpretations?

smw

It's not that For example, the Ten of Cups. Crowley hated that card, not because it doesn't mean emotional completion anymore, but because completion is not a fantastic thing to begin with: to him "change is stability", and completion is fixed, static, ultimately just a way to be at odds with the ways of nature: the true completion in the water suit is perhaps the Six of Cups, Pleasure, because it's dynamic.
Thus what the GD still considered a card of perfect and unrivalled success just became "Satiety", a very neutral term, indicating a mechanistic way of filling yourself and then feeling empty, and so on, only because you have a weird idea of being emotionally fulfilled.

if you don't mind me asking, I might be muddled- is your term of emotional completion similar to perfection? I am looking up the meanings for this card and it seems to do with the illusion of perfection and the hunger for it, with the destructive forces of Mars always present to attack this... maybe leading to spoil and excess?

edited to add there seems to be a reference in LMD'S understanding Thoth to this descent being necessary for completion..
 

Eremita90

if you don't mind me asking, I might be muddled- is your term of emotional completion similar to perfection? I am looking up the meanings for this card and it seems to do with the illusion of perfection and the hunger for it, with the destructive forces of Mars always present to attack this... maybe leading to spoil and excess?

Uhm, I wouldn't know, I've never seen Crowley's Ten of Cups as a card of excess, at least in terms of intensity. It is excessive, in my view, not because it is too much, like the Seven, but because even though it is sated (is that even a word?) it is sated in a lowly, somewhat petty way. I mean, like the Seven it has mistaken pleasure as something for its own sake that is only found outside, like the Eight it is kept going by not being satisfied by what it has, and like the Nine it is sort of filled by it anyway, meaning that it does not look for something higher. Also, it is all this on a lower level (Malkuth) which doesn't have the strength of the other Sephiroth, so there is like a vicious circle in it: you are so unfulfilled that you feel fulfilled by random, low pleasures that, as soon as you obtain them, you find unsatisfactory. You could say that it is Love without Will in its worst aspect, and without any mitigating influence (the seven, at least, partakes of Tiphareth).
As for Mars, I see it more as the cause of the transience of the card: all the tens are instable, and to me Mars is the force that guides the transition from Water to Air by destroying the little power that Pisces still has, almost vaporizing it into Air.

At least, this is my take on that card.

PS: I just realized that I didn't answer your question :D yes, I mean perfection, but only because this card doesn't see past its immediate pleasure

edited to add there seems to be a reference in LMD'S understanding Thoth to this descent being necessary for completion..

Well yes, every card is necessary to get to the completion of manifestation and to start a new cycle again. If you look at the Thoth as a string of cards that goes from the Fool to the Ten of Disks it is quite easy to see the various passages.
 

Zephyros

But then, if I think about it deeply enough, I realise that some of what Waite and Smith were encapsulating isn't my belief either, they just made it easier to read their deck perhaps, without realising where it was coming from.

Not really, they just made it easier to misunderstand it. Readers or the RWS, for the most part, don't understand what they're seeing, and they make stuff up.
 

PathWalker

Not really, they just made it easier to misunderstand it. Readers or the RWS, for the most part, don't understand what they're seeing, and they make stuff up.

Yes, I can see your point there :)
 

Zephyros

It goes even further than that. People may scoff at an overadherence to tradition, meanings of symbols and color scales, but there are good reasons for them being there, which go beyond arbitrary meaning. The color scales, for example, work on a person's psyche whether consciously or unconsciously, they instantly evoke emotion, even if you don't necessarily know what you're looking at. It is difficult to say how they were arrived at, but probably scrying or visions were involved.

Although it may be an unfair criticism, I would say that the Thoth is far more advanced in terms of the technology of putting points across in a more precise way, differentiating between the different ideas very well. You don't need to know why Debauch makes you queasy, but it still does, in a specific way for specific reasons. With the RWS you rarely have a leg to stand on.
 

Richard

Not really, they just made it easier to misunderstand it. Readers or the RWS, for the most part, don't understand what they're seeing, and they make stuff up.
Yes, there is the tendency to interpret the pictures as whatever comes to mind. For example, the Seven of Swords image is supposed to represent any kind of "unstable effort," but the picture may lead us to think of stealing or being sneaky, which is just one example of "unstable effort." As Waite carefully explains in Pictorial Key, "The design in uncertain in its import, because the significations are widely at variance with each other."
 

Eremita90

Yes, there is the tendency to interpret the pictures as whatever comes to mind. For example, the Seven of Swords image is supposed to represent any kind of "unstable effort," but the picture may lead us to think of stealing or being sneaky, which is just one example of "unstable effort." As Waite carefully explains in Pictorial Key, "The design in uncertain in its import, because the significations are widely at variance with each other."

The same is true for the Seven of Pentacles, I think. I've seen all kinds of references to having sown the right seeds or finally resting after work, while if I remember correctly Waite talks about the guy as if he was looking at the pentacles as the objects of his desire, which is easier to connect with the idea of Success Unfulfilled, although maybe he wanted to emphasize the patience needed (and again, if I remember correctly in Liber T they made reference to patience as a good virtue when it comes to this card, but I'm not sure, I should check it out)

Edit: I just realized that I lied about the Seven of coins. My trusty dusty PKT says "A young man, leaning on his staff, looks intently at seven pentacles attached to a clump of greenery on his right; one would say that these were his treasures and that his heart was there"

Edit2: Also, I mistook Liber Theta for the old Liber T :D I need to study everything all over again *God please kill me*
 

Zephyros

That's an interesting card. Personally I believe it shows Adam toiling after being exiled from Eden.
 

smw

Uhm, I wouldn't know, I've never seen Crowley's Ten of Cups as a card of excess, at least in terms of intensity. It is excessive, in my view, not because it is too much, like the Seven, but because even though it is sated (is that even a word?) it is sated in a lowly, somewhat petty way. I mean, like the Seven it has mistaken pleasure as something for its own sake that is only found outside, like the Eight it is kept going by not being satisfied by what it has, and like the Nine it is sort of filled by it anyway, meaning that it does not look for something higher. Also, it is all this on a lower level (Malkuth) which doesn't have the strength of the other Sephiroth, so there is like a vicious circle in it: you are so unfulfilled that you feel fulfilled by random, low pleasures that, as soon as you obtain them, you find unsatisfactory. You could say that it is Love without Will in its worst aspect, and without any mitigating influence (the seven, at least, partakes of Tiphareth).
As for Mars, I see it more as the cause of the transience of the card: all the tens are instable, and to me Mars is the force that guides the transition from Water to Air by destroying the little power that Pisces still has, almost vaporizing it into Air.

At least, this is my take on that card.

PS: I just realized that I didn't answer your question :D yes, I mean perfection, but only because this card doesn't see past its immediate pleasure



Well yes, every card is necessary to get to the completion of manifestation and to start a new cycle again. If you look at the Thoth as a string of cards that goes from the Fool to the Ten of Disks it is quite easy to see the various passages.

thanks for the reply :) lots to think about here - when I am less woozy.. (just been to the dentists, horror)
 

Eremita90

That's an interesting card. Personally I believe it shows Adam toiling after being exiled from Eden.


Which is an interesting take! And it is also consistent with the traditional description of the decanate. for the third of Taurus I believe it was all about "servitude and humiliation".

@smw:eek:uch :D