got enough symbols?

SunChariot

The crowned one said:
Keep in mind symbols are emotionally based and mean something different to each individual. If you were tortured as a child by a someone with a teddybear ( as a extreme example) pictures of Teddy bears may not be pleasant to you, and a symbol of one will mean something negative, for someone else it might recall a happy childhood and mean something positive.

Actually that is my belief too, and that very much formed how I read. I use personal symbolism rather than universal ones whenever I can. Or course sometimes some of our personal ones are also universal as we have been influenced by the society we live in, but I prefer to make use of personal symbolism when reading.

Like the pattern in a card is just like a dress I had as a child, so the readings is talking about the querent's childhood kind of thing. Anyway, for some reason it does work in readings.

Bar
 

teomat

I know loads of people read with the Thoth, but with the wealth of symbolism in it, I kinda feel that it's not really a reading deck as such but more as a book that you study over time.

I sometimes use it for daily draws, not really as an indication of what the day will bring, but more as something to meditate on, do research on the symbols and just generally think about.

From the little I know about it, it seems as though Crowley poured every thought on esotericism he could think of into the deck, to create some kind of universal system or theory. To use it to determine if 'Jane' should apply for a new job seems somehow shallow (absolutely no offence intended to Thoth readers!! :D).
 

rebecca-smiles

SunChariot said:
Hope that doesn't confuse things more. LOL
Bar

No it makes it a lot clearer :)

Teomat said:
From the little I know about it, it seems as though Crowley poured every thought on esotericism he could think of into the deck, to create some kind of universal system or theory.

Thats exactly what i feel! i'm not convinced that symbolsim from didfferent cultures can be mixed and matched quite so easily, especiallly given that many of the symbols have little cultural relevance to the uk, where the deck was created. why did he use tibetan symbolism, but nothing from british culture and tradition? why use tibetan symbolism and classical symbolism when one system would have done?

i know cultures do not exist in a vacuum; they learn and approriate from each other over time. but crowley, although he obvjously knew much about the symbols he used and the cultures they came from, he seems to have lumped a lot together. Religious scholars don't do now what he did then; they are careful to understand each culture and symbol in its own context. is crowley sujesting that these systems and symbols are the same or mean the same thing? or that they are universal? if we put so many diffrent cultureal references together, so many histories and context, doens't it all become a blur, a mish mash, and ever more subjective?

i'm not sure why he used so many symbols. like in my first post, a symbol is meant to convey a lot in breadth and depth of meaning, a short hand for meaning, but with all these symbols i keep getting the feeling he has trodden rather rough shod over the intention and use of symbols by using so many!

I don't mean to be dis respectful; just testing my own reservations and lack of understanding here ;)
 

Sophie

rebecca-smiles said:
Thats exactly what i feel! i'm not convinced that symbolsim from didfferent cultures can be mixed and matched quite so easily, especiallly given that many of the symbols have little cultural relevance to the uk, where the deck was created. why did he use tibetan symbolism, but nothing from british culture and tradition? why use tibetan symbolism and classical symbolism when one system would have done?
If you look at the Emperor card - the lamb and flag are directly from British tradition and culture (heraldry).

He did it because he was an anarchic and inquisitive man, with a towering intellect, an ego to match and a desire to create a new spirituality. He was also a synchretic genius, and if you spend time with his deck and book, you'll start seeing that. But as I said, both demand personal engagement - and beyond the intellectual. Not everyone has that inclination, and it's not an obligation :D
 

rebecca-smiles

Hello again fudu. i have been trawling the threads here on thoth, and i'm wondering...maybe rather than reading what he says about the cards i should leave that for now, and just use the cards. maybe i would be better off just reading the bits of the book of thoth that are not orientated towards individual cards and some other book that got recomended..dur-sumut.

it might put what you are saying (i know what you mean but without reading something of his i'm not gonna get it am i) into perspective, but without giving me information overload on the cards. It's too much, much too fast.

Thankyou for your encouragement! :)

Edit: i just found this brilliant post by fire maiden.

Click Me!
 

Scion

rebecca-smiles said:
Why all the symbolism? I mean, there isn't just a bit of symbolism is there? there is loads and loads in each card.

I find it hard to see how this is going to enhance the meaning of the card, given the initial reason for having symbols in the first place: to convey a lot of meaning with one small thing. A symbol is shorthand for something that it represents.

True, each card has more than one meaning, however deep and expansive. But if many symbols are needed to convey the meaning of a card, then surely that in some way defeats the object of using symbolism?
Hey Rebecca,

I'm posting because I have a take that no one else has presented in the thread and I think it might help a little as you work with the Thoth

You're right of course about Crowley's ruthless syncretism, which is both a product of his post-Victorian Orientalism and his desire to synthesize every interesting idea he encountered into a single coherent theory of transcendant experience. This deck (much like the Waite-Smith) was not built for divination; in fact, divination was treated as a slightly tacky sideline by these old school magicians. The Tarot was a kind of doorway into gnostic experience, and these two monolithic decks were purpose-built to help adepts achieve something special. Certainly more special than does he love me? and will I get the promotion?.

What's astonishing is that for all that mystical hoohah, these decks work beautifully for divination. Much in the same way that you could drive a Ferrari in traffic or hunt rabbits with a platinum-plated submachine gun. Possible, but not necessarily the most efficient use of their architecture. All those symbols are supposed to tear your head open and stuff it with starlight; like qabalistic contemplation, it is intentionally too complicated for a sane person to comprehend totally, and so it whips you towards types of knowledge that aren't always rational. Incidentally, Waite-Smith was created with the same intentions along different lines, it's just that Waite was so incessantly subtle and coy about the mystical side of things and Crowley liked to waggle his gnosis around. What's most exciting (to me) about the Thoth is that anyone can pick it up and start to interact with it, and even if they just play on the margins of its symbols, they can sense the scope and scale.

With that in mind, Crowley created a deck that would yield it's riches asymptotically, the more you saw, the more it spoke. A person who could retain the 777 tables in their heads while looking at these cards would experience blinding numinous flashes of gnosis. No small feat form a design standpoint. And fascinating from an esoteric standpoint. As Teomat says, it's something you return to afresh, with no end in sight. Unlike 99.999999999999999% of the folks making decks for the past 30 years, Crowley had no interest in market share or accessibility, which is probably why folks keep coming back to it (and being repelled by it, natch). To be fair, more recent designers have a different aim; for the most part, they aren't trying to give you a way to experience the various godheads. So it isn't fair to hold them up to the standards of the past, or to expect the past to mirror their concerns.

So actually, all those symbols are not noise, they're the signal. In theory, it's something akin to the Ars Memoria, in that learning and internallizing these towering esoteric edifices allows one to get a little closer to the warp and woof of fabric of the universe. As you explore and learn and experience the Thoth over the next 5, 15, 20, 30 years, because of the way those symbols are arranged, you'll discover strange, supple fascia will develop between areas of your knowledge and allow you to access information that you cannot possibly know empirically. The Thoth can change the way you organize areas of thought and modes of behavior. It's worth poiinting out that the Ars Memoria were supposed to help you remember the Iliad and fathom Almighty YHVH, not keep track of a casserole recipe. It's just that the system was so powerful that it could do both. The reason Ars Memoria and the Thoth (and any other great esoteric deck for that matter) has all those symbols wedged in is because there is simply too much damn universe to fit into 78 images. Every millimeter was essential and carefully executed.

Of course, all this is very high-faluting when you have someone asking a question about their lovelife and you just need to read, but then, you don't need to know all that stuff to get a simple answer. The thing to remember is that Crowley says repeatedly in his books that no one should look to another living being as a guru or a leader. Every person finds their own Magick. And as Crowley says more than once, "the secret of life is concentration."
rebecca-smiles said:
i guess it is too early for me to internalise the symbolism, it is just so daunting! i guess it is hard, too to experience the deck through symbols when the symbolism is so remote.
It is hard. That's good! Why should it be easy? You're talking about the artefact of a life that invoved 50 odd years of pushing the envelope of magickal potential and the human psyche for better or worse... Not only is it not supposed to come easily, for most people it just won't come at all. As Crowley says elsewhere, many people will not find it "pleasurable or profitable." I bet you in 3 weeks you'll be familiar with symbols that are completely opaque today. Crowley talks about this too, about the necessity of living with the Tarot until it becomes part of the fabric of your experience. That every person finds their deck in the cards... not by throwing out what they can't be bothered to find out, but by making their own subjective discoveries in a process of exploration that won't be over til they join the worm buffet.

I do think that the Book of Thoth can be hard going when you're first starting out. Because Crowley is writing at the end of a very complicated overeducated life, he assumes you know his topics, and he expects you to keep up. On the other hand, his cards are right there in your hand. The best thing about working with them directly is that every time you find a symbol that reappears on a few cards, a symbol that plants an ember of curiosity... you'll go find an answer. And so on. And so on. Until there are more threads than gaps in the web of your Thoth familiarity. Things will slip through, but things will stick too.

My only advice is that you shouldn't dismiss the things you don't understand yet, and to urge you to keep reminding yourself that you'll understand more and more as you get to know them. It's a rich, beautiful deck that will just keep paying back as much investment as you'll make.

Scion
 

Debra

Scion said:
Waite was so incessantly subtle and coy about the mystical side of things and Crowley liked to waggle his gnosis around.

Yep. Scion is right (as often!), and especially on this.

My take is less laudatory, though.

I see the esoteric symbolism in the Thoth and the RWS both as a symptom of their elitism. We all sometimes take life only superficially, but to experience its depths--to actually appreciate existence in and of itself--doesn't require near as much hoo-ha as these fellas would have you believe. In my view, they were trying to erect, in the phallic sense of the word, an alternative to the immensely phallic Christian background of the time. When the Pope or some protestant equivalent seemed too restrictive or repressive or wrong-headed, their solution was: become a hierophant, intimate "mysteries" that only "initiates" can appreciate.

With no offense intended to anyone, my personal view is that this is an intellectual scam. It's like much postmodern writing--lots of words, hard to understand, message seems complex but can be boiled down to something simple.

I also think rebecca-smiles is correct in saying that the "mix and match" approach to symbolism is off. Some things transfer and some don't; I can see this very clearly when I look at how much of the Christian iconography in tarot bypasses me completely because I wasn't raised Christian. "Yeah, yeah"--but a cross really does mean something different to me, and even when I think "renewal and rebirth" the cross doesn't evoke that for me. A phoenix does, though....or a seed.

Of course the AESTHETIC experience of "feeling" or "appreciating" complex symbols and their relations may be of great value, as Fudugazi suggests.

But is there a greater truth there? I'm skeptical.
 

Sophie

Great post, Scion, and makes me even more enthusiastic about my Thoth, even though I doubt I'll ever reach Crowley's exacting standards. But I can try ;)

Debra, as a former Thoth-sceptic myself, I can see where you are coming from!
Debra said:
I see the esoteric symbolism in the Thoth and the RWS both as a symptom of their elitism. We all sometimes take life only superficially, but to experience its depths--to actually appreciate existence in and of itself--doesn't require near as much hoo-ha as these fellas would have you believe. In my view, they were trying to erect, in the phallic sense of the word, an alternative to the immensely phallic Christian background of the time. When the Pope or some protestant equivalent seemed too restrictive or repressive or wrong-headed, their solution was: become a hierophant, intimate "mysteries" that only "initiates" can appreciate.
That's more than probable - it's certain, since they (well Crowley at any rate) announced as much. In fact he did found a new religion, which hasn't quite taken over Christianity, but it's only a few decades old after all ;). What I fail to see is why this elitism is a bad thing. "Elite" has become a dirty word in our age. Possibly because in some countries it is associated with money and abuse of power. That was not the case in Crowley's age, when "elite" was associated when learning and inner value. Crowley was permanently broke, as we know, and had little in terms of power. Waite lived modestly off his translations and some small family independence. He had even less power than Crowley, who at least had a few disciples around him.

Their elitism is that of the mind and the imagination. Is that a bad thing? If that is so, then throw out all the authors and artists of that era - the Prousts and the Virginia Woolfs, the TS Eliots and the James Joyces - they were all elitist in the same way, set high standards and didn't compromise intellectually, aesthetically or spiritually. They were not catering for people who like to be spoonfed their literature, and Crowley and Waite were not catering for people who like to be spoonfed their esoterica. That's why I wrote it's not for everyone. Some people don't want to work that hard with their tarot, and even those who do take a break fairly often, with less complex decks! It's a choice we have to engage with that kind of intellectual-spiritual complexity, just as it's a choice we have to read Ulysses or To The Lighthouse. Rather than comparing the Thoth or RWS to post-modern literature, I would compare them to the literature of their age, which was experimental, synchretic - and complex.


With no offense intended to anyone, my personal view is that this is an intellectual scam. It's like much postmodern writing--lots of words, hard to understand, message seems complex but can be boiled down to something simple.
Why? Or rather, how so? What makes it a scam? I'm not saying you are wrong - I just would like to see in what way - apart from labelling them elitist - you see these decks, with their elaborate synchretic symbolism, as scams.

I also think rebecca-smiles is correct in saying that the "mix and match" approach to symbolism is off. Some things transfer and some don't; I can see this very clearly when I look at how much of the Christian iconography in tarot bypasses me completely because I wasn't raised Christian. "Yeah, yeah"--but a cross really does mean something different to me, and even when I think "renewal and rebirth" the cross doesn't evoke that for me. A phoenix does, though....or a seed.
Well, it's only off if you don't look beyond what you already know. I had no clue what Dorjes were before I picked up a Thoth (see 2 of Wands). I do now, because I went looking. Within the overall composition of the deck - aesthetic and esoteric - these symbols work together because they hit off each other, and build both momentum and power together, the way Ulysses' multiple references and stylistic twists hit off each other and build up momentum (if you hate Ulysses, this comparison will fall like pea in a well :D). For all his ambition, Crowley chose symbols that have some relation to each other, and which, in his view (you might disagree), were universal in vocation. To come back to our famous Dorjes, though you may not know them because they don't belong to your cultural references, you will feel their power by looking at the 2 of Wands - and that was part of the plan in designing that deck. It is not just a collection of jumbled symbols put together any old way - it's a very designed deck: Lady Harris was using the principles of art from the Steiner school, which are meant to stimulate the imagination. That means that the deck can be used - for meditation or divination or magic - without having in-depth knowledge of the spiritual meaning of Dorjes (or any other symbol you might pick).

Of course the AESTHETIC experience of "feeling" or "appreciating" complex symbols and their relations may be of great value, as Fudugazi suggests.
Well, it's more than an aesthetic experience. To borrow from Jodorowsky, it is closer to the psychomagical.

But is there a greater truth there? I'm skeptical.
The truth can only come subjectively as you work with the deck. Of course, you have to be sufficiently interested or intrigued to go down that route in the first place.

Having said all that many readers regularly use the Thoth who are not big Crowley-heads or experts on Thelema by a long stretch (I'm not that either, btw!), and whose knowledge of symbolism is competent but not vast. They are simply smart and curious people, who take the deck on its own merits, and happen to be very good readers too. It's one of those decks, which the more you use, the more you get out of, including in divination - I think because it was so well designed by Lady Harris.

That said, for those who don't like the complexity - or the scam-like nature! - of the Thoth and the RWS and their descendents, there is always that ultimate working man's deck, designed over time by simple craftsmen to be a game and only marginally esoteric: the Tarot of Marseilles.


Rebecca - you might get some inspiration from this thread, where LB details his struggles and ultimate success with a thoroughly unfamiliar and complex deck full of symbols and references he didn't understand when he started with it.
 

Debra

Fudugazi said:
Or rather, how so? What makes it a scam? I'm not saying you are wrong - I just would like to see in what way - apart from labelling them elitist - you see these decks, with their elaborate synchretic symbolism, as scams.

Well, my friend, not to start a fight, but part of this is because I find it unbelievable that a superior, tall, dark and handsome non-human being named Aiwass materialized in Crowley's room and dictated to him The Book of the Law, and I doubt it was merely a psychotic delusion although I suppose it's possible. In short, I suspect invention rather than discovery.

Humans are stunningly inventive and creative, even for those of us less than brilliant, but for all of us and in reality there's a difference between invention and discovery. Some of these fellows--the esoteric tarots originators--claim to have discovered roads to truth that require participating in extremely complex rituals, symbols, etc. along the way, like God and the Universe are locks requiring extremely detailed decoding. I cannot imagine this to be true, nor can I understand why one would WANT it to be true except insofar as it "closes out" those less learned, devoted, etc.

I don't mean that the decks themselves are scams, but that the purported depths they reveal through esoteric symbolism are unreliable. I think--and FEEL--that the "truth" of the universe is much more like an experience and much less like a system of numerology although I have had dreams of sacred geometry myself. I "knew" that my dreams had a sacred quality because of the FEELING which is just the same one that people experience with elemental physical activities: eating when you are very hungry; drinking when you are very thirsty, touching another person when you are very lonely, stretching when you are cramped. There can be great beauty in elaborate systems but beauty is not the same as truth, and for me really there's more beauty in truth, which looks more like a person in love or a real person laughing than like the ethereal Aiwass with a mystical number and in exotic dress. The scamishness of it is the down side of the hierophant--set up a cult, get a cult following, and the next thing you know, you've got a stake in what you invented. Anyway, my two cents and so I look at the swirls and colors and dancing figures on the Thoth deck and although I see beauty, and especially in some of those dancing majors!, there's not a one--object or person--that I'd want to hold in my actual hand or keep in my actual heart.
 

rebecca-smiles

Scion said:

No point in quoting folks, just read the whole damn thing again.

rebecca applauds Scion!

No matter how long your posts, they are ever pithy.

This is what i was trying to figure out. i could see what he was doing in your first paragraph, and struggled to find an adequate reason for it. no point in putting in the woman hours if it is only to find i have a bunch of 'stuff' that remains 'stuff.'

Now though, i am begining to see the light that this is a worthwhile pursuit; as long as it all adds up to something more than 'stuff' i'm game.

And yes, i'm already getting quite a peculiar sense of coherence in the hierophant from symbols i'm sure weren't meant to cohere!

Many thanks to you.