Book of Thoth Study Group: Part 1 - Section 1

Aeon418

rachelcat said:
Wow. I'll have to think about this for a while. Interesting way to express the Buddhist concept of emptiness. There is no ONE. There is just everything, which is empty of separate self-existance, so really there's just nothing. Emptiness is form; form is emptiness. There are so many different ways to tell the same truth!

It's also pretty cool when you start to relate these ideas to those expressed within the Book of the Law. Nuit = Not = Nothing. Hadit, the secret core of every Star is One with Nuit.

1:1 Had! The manifestation of Nuit.
2:1 Nu! the hiding of Hadit.

rachelcat said:
Ok, not to be a total smart-ass (or to jump too far ahead in the study thread), BUT it also looks like C. says 0 = 1 (that is, Fool = Aleph). Hmmm.

Remember that the Fool is an hermaphrodite, male and female in one. 0 is the Ain, the Not, Nothing, or Negative. The 1 is the first positive. In this one card are the first pairs of opposites. Non-existence and existence. Neither has any meaning without the other. 0=2

Aeon418

fools_fool said:
Granted, it is limiting. But isn't that the idea? We are discussing Crowley, are we not? "Magical expansion" does, of course, refer to the expansion of consiousness, but for Crowley, the way to do this was through sex magic.

One only has to consider that the OTO, the primary vehicle for the dissemination of "Crowleyism"(Thelema)throughout the world, is an organization entirely dedicated to the practice of sex magic.

-fof

This is starting to go off topic, but I'll answer it anyway.

Sex Magick is just another technique for raising energy. Other techniques that accomplish the same thing are Ceremonial Magick, Yoga, Tai Chi, etc.,etc.
The difference with Sex Magick is that it is a very direct way to raise this energy. It doesn't matter whether you call this energy Prana, Chi, LVX, or whatever, it's all the same thing. But sex is the most effective and easiest way to build it up.

But, and here's the sting in the tail, most people on this planet couldn't use it even if they wanted to. Why ? Well most cultures at the present time are sex negative in their attitude. We are raised amid doctrines that tell us that sex is shameful, sinful, and dirty. Even if we don't consciously believe this it is still stuck in our minds to some degree. That subconscious sense of sin acts as a short circuit. The whole guilt complex has to be rooted out of the mind first.

Imagine a world where meditation was considered sinful and dirty. If you tried to use meditation for the raising of Prana with that sort of subconscious conditioning in your mind you would have the same problem.

And just to correct two points. Thelema is not Crowleyism.
And the OTO does not teach sex magick. It holds the secret, but you have to work it out for yourself. If you have a copy of DuQuette's Thoth book I suggest you read pages 76 - 78.

AbstractConcept

This thread is like re-watching mself exploring tarot and qabalah 18 months ago. It is a really good feeling knowing that everyone else seems to be experienceing the same hurdles that I did. And that they are understanding the concepts.

"0=2 has nothing to do with gematria. It was merely Crowley's mathematical expression of the Universe - everything, out of nothing via pairs of opposites. Put all the opposites back together and you end up with nothing again. It gets rid of the idea that there has to an original "ONE" who created everything."
Totally like what Eric Idle sings at the end of The Life Of Brian!

Everything came from One, but One came from Zero (nothing) and nothing isn't even a thing... THAT is something worthwhile meditating on.

Ventrue

well, seems kinda stagnant, is it time to move on the section 2?

Ven

rachelcat

No wait! No wait!

There's more to section 1! I have some notes and some questions (of course). Plus, we haven't even confronted the dreaded double loop in the zodiac!!

First the little history lesson. I think it's interesting that C. asserts that Levi knew the "correct" (0 = aleph) Hebrew letter attributions but was concealing them. Basically, that way he can claim Levi as an ancestor but disagree with his conclusions.

Is it true that C. is claiming 0 = aleph was first revealed in the cipher manuscript?

Where did the GD astrological attributions come from? Mathers?

G : D means Golden Dawn.
What does R.R. et A.C. mean?
What does A : A mean?

With all this talk of Secret Chiefs, did GDers have contact with Blavatsky and Olcott?

While C. says Mathers was a fraud who claimed but didn't actually contact the secret chiefs, he says he himself actually DID. But then he also says even if all of it is lies, the attributions are inherently true.

Now the double loop.

The best explanation for all this is in DuQuette's book. This is what I came up with:

The two loops are not the same. With the 8-11 loop, C. keeps the traditional numbers for Strength and Justice (Lust and Adjustment) and switches the letter and signs to accomodate a Leo lion (beast) for Lust and Libra scales for Adjustment. The letters stay with their signs--teth for Leo and lamed for Libra.

With the 4 - 17 look, C. keeps traditional numbers for Emperor and Star and switches the letters but not the signs. Emperor remains Aries but switches to tzaddi. Star remains Aquarius but switches to he.

So it's not all that "self-evident." . . .

Who first came up with the signs attributed in order to the 12 "single" letters of the Hebrew alphabet? It's in Papus's The Qabalah. Is it in Sepher Yetzirah?

Ok, last question. What does the the Universal Hexagram mean? I have read other threads about it, but I can't seem to pick up the meaning . . .

I hope I haven't bored you too much. And I hope I haven't stirred up a historic bruhaha. All speculation welcome!

Ventrue

A:A: stands for Argenteum Astrum I believe, which is supposedly the interior organization of the OTO, although has no formal connection to it so that is just me making assumptions...heres a wikipedia thread http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argenteum_Astrum

As I understand it the Secret Chiefs aren't a group of fat guys, they are the Immortals.

http://www.angelfire.com/in4/alchemy2084/secret_chiefs.html

another link i found with quotes from "Confessions of A.C." "The Book of the Law", and "Book of Thoth" I'm not sure if what it talks about is legitimate or just assumptions but its interesting.

Ven

Grigori

Ventrue said:
A:A: stands for Argenteum Astrum I believe, which is supposedly the interior organization of the OTO, although has no formal connection to it so that is just me making assumptions...heres a wikipedia thread http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argenteum_Astrum

A:A: doesn't mean Argentum Astrum apparently, but its often assumed that is the case. Duquette and Booth both tell us they know it is not, but neither tells us what it actually is,.... Either they don't know that, or they don't want to share

*mutters something incoherrant but decidedly filthy*

AbstractConcept

R.R et A.C = Rosæ Rubeæ et Aureæ Crucis (Ruby Rose & Golden Cross).

Abrac

rachelcat said:
With all this talk of Secret Chiefs, did GDers have contact with Blavatsky and Olcott?

I haven't read anything that would indicate the GD was in personal contact with Blavatsky, but the concept of Secret Chiefs, or Hidden Masters is ancient; its origin is usually attributed to India. From what I've read (The Great Beast-The Life and Magick of Aleister Crowley; John Symonds; Mayflower Books; 1973), Blavatsky wasn't very impressed by western "lodge-type" occultists.

-fof

Aeon418

rachelcat said:
I think it's interesting that C. asserts that Levi knew the "correct" (0 = aleph) Hebrew letter attributions but was concealing them. Basically, that way he can claim Levi as an ancestor but disagree with his conclusions.
Is it true that C. is claiming 0 = aleph was first revealed in the cipher manuscript?

In Levi's, "Dogme et Ritual de la Haute Magie, (translated and published in English by A.E.Waite under the title Transcendental Magic) the 22 chapters of the first part are each attributed to a Hebrew letter. Strangely the contents of the chapters doesn't correspond with the Hebrew letters given by Levi, except the last chapter.

Within the Golden Dawn it was widely accepted that Levi had written the "Dogme" under an oath of secrecy. Therefore he had introduced "blinds" into the text to mislead the uninitiated.

The Golden Dawn Cipher Manuscripts:http://www.hermetic.com/gdlibrary/cipher/

Threre's a section in the Cicero's "Essential Golden Dawn" that talks about the origin of the Cipher Manuscripts. If anyone is interested I'll quote it.

rachelcat said:
Where did the GD astrological attributions come from? Mathers?

I'm not sure. It was probably Mathers, but it could have been Westcott. Both had the knowledge which they probably picked up in their researches at the British Museum. (Access to old and rare manuscripts must have been easier in those days.)

rachelcat said:
What does A : A mean?

Erm..... Alcoholics Anonymous ?

Just kidding. Supposedly it means Argentum Astrum. But Crowley never said so in any of his writings. He only refers to the Third Order as the Silver Star or S.S. But Crowley never once said that A.'.A.'. means Argentum Astrum. So who knows?

rachelcat said:
With all this talk of Secret Chiefs, did GDers have contact with Blavatsky and Olcott?

I don't think there was ever any direct contact with Blavatsky. But I'm pretty sure that some of the founding members of the Golden Dawn were involved in the Theosophical movement. Both Mathers and Westcott I think? I seem to remember that there was some animosity between the TS and the GD because the GD was poaching their members.

rachelcat said:
Who first came up with the signs attributed in order to the 12 "single" letters of the Hebrew alphabet? It's in Papus's The Qabalah. Is it in Sepher Yetzirah?

I think the attribution first appears in the Sepher Yetzirah. But here's more controversy for the pot:

...Qabalistic teachings have stated for centuries that the attributions of Tzaddi have been wrongly understood. This idea did not originate in 1904 E.V. One is reminded especially of the charming allegory in the Sepher ha-Zohar, attributed to Rabbi Chananya, explaining why Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, yet "God" (that is, Elohim) commenced creation with the letter Beth (the first letter of Berashith, the first word of the Hebrew original of The Book of Genesis). This story can be read in many translations and reproductions; but its gist is that each of the letters (beginning with Tav) processed by God's throne one-by-one, each asking to be the letter wherewith Creation was commenced. Each argued its case; but the Lord had a good reason to skip past each of them, until Beth eventually won the honor by being the initial letter of berakha, "blessing." Since shy little Aleph hadn't yet gotten a chance to be heard, it was awarded a special place in the scheme of things; but that would digress us further from the main point of the present digression, which is this: The letter Tzaddi sought to be that force whereby the world was created because it is the initial of Tzedekim, "the righteous," and because it is written, "The righteous Lord loveth righteousness." In rejecting Tzaddi for this particular honor, God is quoted as saying:

Tzaddi, Tzaddi, thou art truly righteous, but thou must keep thyself concealed, and thy occult meaning must not be made known or become revealed, and therefore thou must not be used in the creation of the world.

The true "occult [that is, hidden] meaning" of this letter was not then to be disclosed! Even at such an early date, it was thus recorded in the primary foundation literature of the Qabalah that the true significance of Tzaddi was not what it was suspected to be.

James A. Eshelman

rachelcat said:
Ok, last question. What does the the Universal Hexagram mean? I have read other threads about it, but I can't seem to pick up the meaning . . .

Crowley never gave an exact definition but it probably relates to the union of the Microcosm (the rose) with the Macrocosm (the Hex)

Book of Thoth Study Group: Part 1 - Section 1

Aeon418

Aeon418

AbstractConcept

Ventrue

rachelcat

Ventrue

Grigori

AbstractConcept

Abrac

Aeon418