Golden Dawn Tree vs. Crowley's?

Zephyros

After having more or less of an idea about the different Sephiroths, I'm preparing to investigate the paths according to their letter, origin and destination, and of course visually through the Thoth, using the BoT. My question is what do I investigate, in terms of the change Crowley made. Do I concentrate on "pure" GD and place the Emperor between 2 and 6, or the Star? I take it as a matter of course that I use the Leo/Libra interchanges, so should I proceed that way with this?

I know the double loop is a thorny issue, but I guess before I understand the "why" I had better start with the "what."

Here is my tree, on the two respective paths I put all the attributions on, for use later.

ETA: Disregard Gimel as the Empress, just found that mistake, as well as some paths missing.
 

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Richard

I just use two Trees to avoid clutter, one for the basic GD, another for Thoth. The card numbers for the Trumps are a PITA, so I just use the path numbers. It's easy enough to remember which Trump goes with which sign, planet, or element. (However, the GD Trump number can always be found by subtracting 11 from the path number.) In the attachment, GD is on the left, Thoth on the right. I don't think there are any mistakes, but I could be wrong.
 

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Zephyros

Thanks, that sounds like a good idea. I'm on the Priestess now, and after writing down thoughts I like to take a few days to think about them, so I'll get to the "hot spot" later on. Novice that I am, I can already tell there are huge differences because of it. I'll probably just write two entries in my notebook for each path, and see how it goes.

I'm in no hurry, so although I'm not an expert by any means, I've gotten down enough so that I have a better knowledge of what I don't know.
 

Aeon418

I don't understand why you need two Trees. :confused:

No matter which way you cut it Heh is still assigned to the 15th path and Tzaddi to the 28th. If you intended to change the letters around I could understand. But Tarot cards are just an attribution to the paths/letters.
 

Zephyros

I don't understand why you need two Trees. :confused:

No matter which way you cut it Heh is still assigned to the 15th path and Tzaddi to the 28th. If you intended to change the letters around I could understand. But Tarot cards are just an attribution to the paths/letters.

I guess because when I look at a Tree I see mainly pictures, illustrating the letters. I suppose I don't understand. Let me get this straight: When Justice and Strength were interchanged, the ordering of the cards themselves was switched, but with the Star/Emperor change, they didn't? I suppose that's the source of my confusion, if ה is the Star, shouldn't it be on the 15th path? and if צ is the Emperor, shouldn't it be on the 15th? Heh is a feminine card while the Emperor is male, the switch seems to change the balances considerably, but how is this shown on the Tree? And why, despite the change, is the sequence of the cards with the Emperor still at number four and the Star at 17.

Gah! :confused:

Like I said, I don't even understand what was done, let alone why.
 

Ross G Caldwell

Like I said, I don't even understand what was done, let alone why.

This thread
http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=52816
should help explain all that ( ;) )
(start at the end (last few posts, including mine), not the beginning)

The order of the Hebrew Alphabet, and their places as the Paths on the Tree of Life, never changes. All that the Golden Dawn or Crowley ever changed was the attributions of cards to those letters.

The Golden Dawn Cipher Manuscript, their founding document, switches Justice and Strength because they saw Justice as better represented by Libra=Lamed and, Strength with a lion as Leo=Teth. Crowley, you will note, keeps the Tarot de Marseille numbering of those cards (with the Lust card at the magickally important number of XI), but gives the Golden Dawn Hebrew Letter attributions - Lust is Teth, and is therefore out of order Hebraically in the deck, just as the Emperor and Star are for him.

But this is only in Tarot, not in the alphabet or the Tree of Life itself.

Heh is always and immutably the path between Chokhmah and Tiphereth. With Crowley's ordering, the CARD (along with its astrological sign) that mediates the Path of Heh has been changed from the Emperor to the Star. That's all.
 

Richard

The SY associates Heh with Aries and Tzaddi with Aquarius.

ETA. The Justice-Strength interchange did not disturb the natural correlation of the simple letters with the signs of the Zodiac.
 

Ross G Caldwell

The SY associates Heh with Aries and Tzaddi with Aquarius.

Crowley moved the sign with the card, so that Heh became the path of Aquarius and Tzaddi that of Aries. His justification was that Aries and Aquarius are on either side of Pisces, so that, like the previous Golden Dawn switch of Leo and Libra (on either side of Virgo), two "loops" are made, symmetrically, on opposite sides of the Zodiac.

Since this discovery was both unexpected and symmetrical, he regarded it as proof that the same Masters that were behind the Cipher Manuscript were also behind the "Tzaddi is not the Star" riddle.

Since he believed in reincarnating masters, the same masters who wrote the SY could also change the doctrines of associations if they so wished, especially since the doctrine in question - the Precession of Equinoxes, moving from Pisces to Aquarius (and before that from Aries, the age when the earliest Secret Doctrine was written down) - is implied in the switch.
 

Ross G Caldwell

The SY associates Heh with Aries and Tzaddi with Aquarius.

ETA. The Justice-Strength interchange did not disturb the natural correlation of the simple letters with the signs of the Zodiac.

Indeed. Teth is Leo, and Lamed is Libra. The author of the Cipher Manuscript only switched the cards of the Tarot to better match the obvious symbolism of Justice and Strength (a woman with a lion).

Crowley's problem was different. He was told that the Hebrew letter itself was not a particular card - not that an astrological sign wasn't a particular card, or letter.

So when he finally got a solution he liked, the Heh-Tzaddi switch, he decided for symbolic reasons to keep the astrological associations of the cards, as being more obviously natural, not unlike Justice being Libra and Leo being Strength (in the Tarot de Marseille at least, which they regarded as the true tradition).
 

Aeon418

Since he believed in reincarnating masters, the same masters who wrote the SY could also change the doctrines of associations if they so wished, especially since the doctrine in question - the Precession of Equinoxes, moving from Pisces to Aquarius (and before that from Aries, the age when the earliest Secret Doctrine was written down) - is implied in the switch.
It could also tie in with Crowley's unique understanding of Dispensationalism. To Crowley Thelema was a new dispensation. The "next step" in the unveiling of the divine. As the prophet of that dispensation he might have reasonably thought he had the necessary authority to make such changes. The usual argument against the switch is 'tradition'. But tradition seems to have been of little or no importance to Crowley at times.