Upside-down M solved [maybe]

After reading Waite's Holy Kabbalah and the rituals from his Fellowship of the Rosy cross I'm inclined to shift my position yet again. I felt very sure the upside down M represented Melchizedek, and I still think it's a strong candidate, but now I think there's an even stronger one.

Part I. of Book VIII. in The Holy Kabbalah is called "The Mystery of the Shekinah." I'll quote part of it as it explains where I'm coming from.

"We have next to consider her relation to the letters of the Tetragrammaton. The He which is above, meaning the first He of the Sacred Name, is the symbol of Shekinah in transcendence, while the He final represents the Shekinah below, or in manifestation, connected with the idea of Malkuth, understood as the world of Assiah. According to one account, she has been in manifestation so as long as the world was created. She is, however, above and below at one and the same time - there encompassed by twelve sacred legions of the supreme Hayoth, or Living Ones, here by the twelve sacred tribes of Israel. The Yod and the He constitute the Father and the Mother: these are Jehova and Elohim. She is the Mother Matrona above, and Matrona or Mother below."

The story goes about how Matrona (He final) was the wife and sister of Vau in Daath, but at some point she got separated and ended up in Malkuth (the Fall). In the frontispiece diagram she's illustrated at the bottom, He Final in Exile. In the FRC, this story figures prominently. It's Shekinah in manifestation that leads and guides the initiate all the way into the grade of Tiphareth. An important FRC doctrine is about how Shekinah in exile will eventually be reunited with the beloved in Daath, at which point all of manifestation will be restored to an Eden-like state.

In the Waite-Smith tarot, I believe Shekinah in manifestation is illustrated by the Empress. She wears the crown of twelve stars, commonly associated with the twelve tribes. On the Ace, M probably stands for Matrona. It's not upside down to conceal anything, it actually reveals everything. It's upside down because she's reflected from above in to creation. The four suits of the minors represent the four elements of creation, and Matrona in creation is "that which lies behind." It turns out, in this theory at least, it does have a connection with He, but He final.

Abrac said:

On the Ace, M probably stands for Matrona. It's not upside down to conceal anything, it actually reveals everything. It's upside down because she's reflected from above in to creation.

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I think this is as good an explanation as any, although I don't think it is the end of the matter. In reading Waite's many books it becomes clear that he rarely sees a symbol as one static thing. Rather he relates each symbol to a number of related concepts. Without a doubt, I think that Mother, Mary, Matrona, and Mar (bitter sea - Mater Dolorosa) are all related, as is his beloved "Mystery" (discussed dozens of times in the books you mentioned) and are all part of a theme that relates to the Graal cup.
http://www.tabulamundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/cup-of-stolistes.gif

The main reason I tossed out Mystery was because with Waite everything's a mystery. If it means Mystery, what Mystery does it refer to?

Of course I tend to think Waite had something very specific in mind. Reading his FRC rituals has opened my eyes to how specific his symbolism was. He tended to speak hypothetically a lot. He explored everything from every angle but when it came down to his personal beliefs I think he was more focused. It's hard to say sometimes exactly what he believed because he doesn't often share it. His FRC rituals open a wide door on what he himself believed and taught. Quite a bit of it appears to have been pulled from the Zohar, through the filter of his mystic leanings.

I reject the idea of Mary completely. It carries the idea of "mother," but I don't see anything in Waite's ideas that has anything to do with the Virgin Mary. I know that won't stop people from seeing it that way, that's just not how I see it.

Abrac said:

The main reason I tossed out Mystery was because with Waite everything's a mystery. If it means Mystery, what Mystery does it refer to?

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It is Mary as the womb/grail in which Christ came into this world, which he does refer to on occasion. I mention Mystery because it is often capitalized when Waite uses it because he does mean for it to be a central mystical concept that is behind the Secret Tradition. I don't have time to look up all the references right now. Mystery encompasses death/rebirth, the sacred marriage (Mystery of Sex - incarnation), the loss and restitution, the addition of Shin to the Tetragrammaton, and, most especially, the Mystery of the Eucharist.

"There stands forth that which from Christian time immemorial has been termed the Mystery of Faith, the grace not less visible because it is veiled so closely, and this is the Real Presence of Christ in the material symbols of the Eucharist." --Hidden Church of the Holy Graal.

"I testify, therefore, that the
true mystery of the Eucharist resides in the assumption
by the Divine Life of the veils of Bread and Wine, and
that even as once in time and somewhere in the world
that life assumed the veils of flesh and blood, which
became the Body of the Lord, so here and now daily
on every worshipful and authorised altar over the wide,
wide world do those unspotted elements become again
that sacred vehicle, so that he who communicates in the
faith of spirit and of truth, receives that which is not
less truly the Divine Body than the especial polarisation
of elements which was born in Nazareth of the sacred
and glorious Virgin. Moreover, I am very certain that
the one mystery was operated as if in the terms and
valid forms of the other by the invocation of the Holy
Spirit and the utter consecration of the elements."
--Hidden Church of the Holy Graal.

Here we have:

• he testifies to [rare, strong statement of belief]
• true mystery of the Eucharist [Mystery of the Eucharist is often written by him in caps]
• bread and wine [wafer & cup]
• born of the sacred and glorious Virgin [Mary]
• invocation of the Holy Spirit [dove]
• consecration of the elements [Aces]

"I desire to add with all veneration and homage that this root-mystery of redemption
is that which lies behind the devotion to the Mother of
God, which has ascended to such heights in the Latin
Church." HCHG

"The four Hallows are therefore the Cup, the Lance,
the Sword and the Dish, Paten or Patella these four,
and the greatest of these is the Cup. As regards this
Hallow-in-chief, of two things one : either the Graal
Vessel contained the most sacred of all relics in Christen-
dom, or it contained the Secret Mystery of the Eucharist." HCHG

"The Graal at its highest is the simulacrum or
effigy of the Divine Mystery within the Church." HCHG

Thanks for the explanation, I see where you're coming from. I know he makes references to Mary. I can understand how it could be seen that way on one level. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with anyone else's viewpoint. I guess I'm just trying to put all the pieces together in a way that will eventually lead me to understand it in the way Waite understood it. Everything I've unearthed to this point leads me to believe he saw it more Kabbalistically. The FRC rituals are strongly Christian oriented, but behind it all there's still the Tree of Life and Kabbalistic doctrine.

The Graal and Kabbalism were not separate things to Waite:

"We may say that the supersanctified Mystery
of Faith located in the House of Doctrine is like the
Supernal Sephiroth of Kabalism separated from the
Sephiroth below by the serpent spirit of the world ;
but if we chance to be Kabalists we shall remember
that Daath remains as a channel of indirect communica-
tion without break or intermission. We must not say
that the removal of the Great Palladium signifies the
complete denudation of the official Church, but we
may " remember of this unstable world " and the spirit
thereof. When we say that the House of Doctrine is
voided, we must not mean that the official Church
has ceased to be holy in its teaching, or that the King
of Castle Mortal is the Judas spirit of Rome. Seeing
that the Graal Castle is the House of the Great Experi-
ment and that King Fisherman is the custodian of the
hidden knowledge concerning it, we may, however,
regard the higher Perceval as the mystic spirit and the
chivalry of sanctity. The question that he ought to
have asked concerned the Greater Office of the Eucharist.
This would have caused the Mystery to manifest." HCHG

"I have set aside in succession every school of tradition
in Christian times as an exclusive mouthpiece of the
tradition in its root-matter ; the most catholic of all
is the literature of spiritual alchemy, and it occupies a
very high place, being especially a strong contrast to the
scheme of symbolical Masonry, which is a legend of
loss only. I think that the alchemists had the matter
of the whole work, by which I mean the Scriptural
Mystery of being born again of water and the Holy
Spirit." HCHG

In this quote we have the inner, hidden Mystery of the Eucharist - the "communication of Christ" - "the Descent of the Comforter within" [i.e., Holy Spirit]:

"The desire was to behold in the Eucharist that which the faithful
believed to repose in the Eucharist. Beyond the know-
ledge of the outside world there is another knowledge,
but it abides in concealed sources which are outside all
reach of the senses, and in simple Eucharistic terms it
is called the communication of Christ. In the deeper
speculation behind the E-piclesis[?] clause, it is the Descent
of the Comforter within." HCHG


"[The Grail Romances] represent that Mystery
which is implied in the Hidden Voice of Christ and of
the Holy Spirit."