Grigori
Ross G Caldwell said:
Ah thanks Ross! So I take it Crowley equated Uranus with the abyss then, or am I misreading? It is on the same line as Saturn/Binah which confuses me.
the universe card and the hidden tree of life
Ah thanks Ross! So I take it Crowley equated Uranus with the abyss then, or am I misreading? It is on the same line as Saturn/Binah which confuses me.
Ross G Caldwell
similia said:
You're reading right - Herschel=Abyss=Da'ath (the un-sfira)
I personally don't like the attribution... but since Uranus was discovered at the end of the 18th century, during a period of revolution, overturning, disintegration of the old order, astrologers do tend to attribute these qualities to it.
Also, I don't know if Pluto should be considered a planet (or simply a planetoid). I think this debate is still open.
Aeon418
The snake is identified as Heru-Ra-Ha by Crowley in The Book of Thoth. Heru-Ra-Ha is a double god composed of a visible and active solar force called Ra-Hoor-Khuit, and a passive and hidden aspect called Hoor-paar-kraat (Harpocrates). The two coils of the snake could relate to the active and passive nature of Heru-Ra-Ha.similia said:
It's interesting to note what Harris has to say about this card:
I think that description fits in nicely with the dual nature of Heru-Ra-Ha. The active Sun god aspect, Ra-Hoor-Khuit, might to symbolised by the coil receiving the direct beam from the Solar Eye.
The passive aspect, Hoor-paar-kraat, would therefore relate to the feminine, lunar coil. Hoor-paar-kraat is the child on the Aeon card. As Harpocrates he is often described as a baby/child in an egg of blue. The egg is the egg of Spirit, which is usually symbolised as a black oval. I think you can see both in the second coil. The five pointed star that surrounds the egg might relate to the pentagram. The symbol of the four elements ruled over by the fifth element, Spirit.
wizzle
Theory 1
I followed Crowley's instructions to find something like 10 planets. If you get out a magnifying glass you will see a cluster of 7 stars right at the head of the snake. Under that cluster are 3 big stars. I'm guessing this might be the zodiac. And the way the stars are arranged, they make a pretty fair crown if you turn the card upside down. Now, a crowned snake is a very common symbol for wisdom and one of Kether's symbols is the crown. So I'm postulating the snake itself might be the tree of life, with it's head as kether. Or, alternatively, it's the lightening bolt, with the zodiac serving as the ToL, the large stars representing the supernals.
Theory 2
The ToL is represented by the 4 circles around the central figure, rather after the manner of Mather's rendering of the ToL as a circle. The stars around the circles might be the 231 doors. Anyone care to count?
Similia....
I see Crowley beat me to the theory that Daath = Uranus. Drat. But, GMTA and all that. After the manner of AC and based on this brilliant independent insight, perhaps I should award myself some sort of advanced grade in my own society. You can be my #1 man.
I followed Crowley's instructions to find something like 10 planets. If you get out a magnifying glass you will see a cluster of 7 stars right at the head of the snake. Under that cluster are 3 big stars. I'm guessing this might be the zodiac. And the way the stars are arranged, they make a pretty fair crown if you turn the card upside down. Now, a crowned snake is a very common symbol for wisdom and one of Kether's symbols is the crown. So I'm postulating the snake itself might be the tree of life, with it's head as kether. Or, alternatively, it's the lightening bolt, with the zodiac serving as the ToL, the large stars representing the supernals.
Theory 2
The ToL is represented by the 4 circles around the central figure, rather after the manner of Mather's rendering of the ToL as a circle. The stars around the circles might be the 231 doors. Anyone care to count?
Similia....
I see Crowley beat me to the theory that Daath = Uranus. Drat. But, GMTA and all that. After the manner of AC and based on this brilliant independent insight, perhaps I should award myself some sort of advanced grade in my own society. You can be my #1 man.
lukedra
i'm also lazy and there's so much i need to study its hard to take in and analyese it
Okay i'm going to be hounest i didn't study much to put up a decent argument for why i think each part of the tree of life is in which part of the card. As similia would know i'm a very fire type and also very young hence i'll get distracted and focus on something else very quikly. Plus i also think i'm not pure.
So i have decided to post what i think let you guys look at it and think about it. If you have any questions or anything please feel free to exspress them and i will do my best to reply.
first off kether is located in eye. its the eye of destruction it is the end hence also the begining
chokmah is in the first loop of the snake where the golden light is shining. it is the first created by kether
binah is in the second loop of the snake where the black egg is. it gives birth to all the others.
chesed is in the head of the golden lady. the mind thinks its god be all and end all when its not.
geburah is on the snakes head where she is stomping on it. i'm writting this pritty late at night and can't remember any of the reasons i had for this
tiphareth is in the womans woomb. here's something cool i'ld like to point out here, the closer to kether you are the more lines connecting the points of the tree stand out for example the woman's arm conecting kether tiphareth would be the same line as the priestess on the tree. now the angel herself can't leave the abysis so she needs an exstention to touch kether. she uses a moon thingy and the priestess is part moon.
now netzach, hod and yesod are in the mobius strip in each of the three strips with netzach in the upper right one, hod in the lower and yesod in upper left.(these had me stumped for quite a while which was which in the end i went on feeling and couldn't provide much of an argument if i tried).
and the whole green blue light is malkuth. Kinda the earth itself.
I saw this in a reading, i didn't just sit there and go hey i'm going to think i'm pure and try to put up a argument and i would personly love someone to put up a great argument to prove my suggestion is flawed and why a certain one can't be. It would proberly give me the enthusiasm to accutally write up a decent argument for each one. i know these are pritty bad and skimmed but i am pritty new to the thoth and this is what i saw first time i got this card in a reading which so hapened to be my first reading with the cards.
Okay i'm going to be hounest i didn't study much to put up a decent argument for why i think each part of the tree of life is in which part of the card. As similia would know i'm a very fire type and also very young hence i'll get distracted and focus on something else very quikly. Plus i also think i'm not pure.
So i have decided to post what i think let you guys look at it and think about it. If you have any questions or anything please feel free to exspress them and i will do my best to reply.
first off kether is located in eye. its the eye of destruction it is the end hence also the begining
chokmah is in the first loop of the snake where the golden light is shining. it is the first created by kether
binah is in the second loop of the snake where the black egg is. it gives birth to all the others.
chesed is in the head of the golden lady. the mind thinks its god be all and end all when its not.
geburah is on the snakes head where she is stomping on it. i'm writting this pritty late at night and can't remember any of the reasons i had for this
tiphareth is in the womans woomb. here's something cool i'ld like to point out here, the closer to kether you are the more lines connecting the points of the tree stand out for example the woman's arm conecting kether tiphareth would be the same line as the priestess on the tree. now the angel herself can't leave the abysis so she needs an exstention to touch kether. she uses a moon thingy and the priestess is part moon.
now netzach, hod and yesod are in the mobius strip in each of the three strips with netzach in the upper right one, hod in the lower and yesod in upper left.(these had me stumped for quite a while which was which in the end i went on feeling and couldn't provide much of an argument if i tried).
and the whole green blue light is malkuth. Kinda the earth itself.
I saw this in a reading, i didn't just sit there and go hey i'm going to think i'm pure and try to put up a argument and i would personly love someone to put up a great argument to prove my suggestion is flawed and why a certain one can't be. It would proberly give me the enthusiasm to accutally write up a decent argument for each one. i know these are pritty bad and skimmed but i am pritty new to the thoth and this is what i saw first time i got this card in a reading which so hapened to be my first reading with the cards.
Grigori
Thanks so much for starting this thread LukEdrA and everyone for contributing so much. I guess I'm no more pure than before, but now when I see this card I have an awareness of the ToL being a feature, that I didn't have previously.
I like the assigments of the sephiroth as you gave them LukEdrA. They do make sense to me there also. (And now I'm off to clean Wizzle's house... I'm told its one of the privledges of my new high ranking in her not-so-secret society
)
I like the assigments of the sephiroth as you gave them LukEdrA. They do make sense to me there also. (And now I'm off to clean Wizzle's house... I'm told its one of the privledges of my new high ranking in her not-so-secret society
)tink27
similia
To continue with the post on the first page, could it be possible that the planets (tree of life) represents the fertilization of the egg in preparation for what Crowley called the New Aeon? Is this the purity he speaks of?
tink
To continue with the post on the first page, could it be possible that the planets (tree of life) represents the fertilization of the egg in preparation for what Crowley called the New Aeon? Is this the purity he speaks of?
tink
Grigori
tink27 said:
Thats an interesting idea. Given that The Universe card is the "end" or culmination of the Majors, as well as attributed to both Earth and Saturn, it could apply to the "culmination of processes" generally.
To personalize the ToL as a symbol that applies to us as individuals, and the various components of our nature, you could take the appearance (
) of the ToL on this card to further emphasize the completed development of the individual (which sounds very new aeon-y to me, in a pop culture way at the very least). How to apply this to ideas relating to the new aeon I don't know enough to comment. Hopefully someone else can offer some insight.A slight aside, but your connecting of the idea of "fertilization of the egg" together with "purity" puts me in mind of The Hermit rather than The Universe. It being the illustration of the fertilization of the orphic egg, as well as attributed to Virgo. This may be an "old aeon" definition of "pure" though, and not applicable in this case, for the reasons Ross outlined earlier.
Aeon418
This may seem off topic, but it might be worth reading what Crowley has to say about the Ace of Disks in The Book of Thoth.
Old Aeon: Spirit is the opposite of matter (earth).
New Aeon: Spirit is within Matter.
Old Aeon: Spirit is the opposite of matter (earth).
New Aeon: Spirit is within Matter.
Sophie
I've not much to contribute, as I'm hard at work on something else, but I wanted to say how enjoyable I've found this thread - thanks, LukEdra for starting it - and if that's how you are when you're lazy, I'd love to read you when you're not
I was also much struck by this, from Ross:
I was also much struck by this, from Ross:
An almost perfect example of visual metonymy - the substitution of the name of one thing to represent something else associated to it - here, the Serpent for the Phallus for the Tree (in fact, it's a double - Crowley must have been delighted with himself!).Ross G Caldwell said:
You mean eating from the Tree, I take it? - tasting of love, sex, death without shame. This reminds me that I've always been puzzled that eating the fruit was described as sin, and even Original Sin. How can it be a sin, if Eve and Adam had no shame and no knowledge of sin? It's like a trick that God played on them, in order to bring them into full humanity, or rather, into historical humanity. This is where we see Crowley as a dreamer, a fabulous visionary, trying to change the nature of humanity, or return it to what it was before it entered history, by reversing that trick - in other words, the New Aeon, which as Aeon 418 reminds us is Spirit within Matter, is a search for Origin - a form of what we call in French la nostalgie des origines, only more sanguine than mere nostalgia (coming from Crowley it would have to be).Ross said:
And the representation of the Universe is that Origin, symbolized by the woman and the snake - the Tree - "In The Beginning", the moment when creation started, but before history, when there was no shame and no fear of death. It is a circle back to that Berechit ("in the beginning"), when the breath of God created everything - that is, it created sex, the ultimate creative urge - and "saw that it was good". But eating from the Tree - which brought shame - also brought death, which completes the creation cycle. So is Crowley trying to achieve the impossible? Creation without Death? Or does he want another go at the Woman and the Serpent - The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil - only this time, shame does not ensue?Ross said:
