Greater Arcana Study Group—The Star

Abrac

The vault of Christian Rosenkreutz looked roughly like this; it’s not complete but gives the general idea.

Vault of C.R.

The main things of interest to me are the seven sides and seven angles encircling the Altar; and the walls each eight feet high. Originally C.R.’s tomb would have been underground below the Altar. In the Golden Dawn vault, the tomb was above ground but I’m not exactly sure how everything was arranged.
 

Abrac

I ran across something intriguing in Waite’s The Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross, 1924. First, backtracking to his earlier book on the same subject, The Real History of the Rosicrucians, 1887. Without going into all the details, in the chapter “Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz,” there’s a diagram illustrating a narrative in the text of the Chemical Wedding concerning seven ships sailing in formation. This diagram is from the original German. A is out front, followed by B, C, D, E, F & G. Waite uses this same illustration in his 1887 book.

Now the good stuff. :) In his 1924 book, Waite uses this diagram. It only has seven stars total, but each star has eight points. Christian Rosencreutz is said to occupy the center ship, No. 3. I find it quite interesting that Waite uses this diagram for his later book.
 

Abrac

In the following quote notice the connections with the High Priestess and the Star. Waite is describing a process of manifesting in humanity a higher archetype of the Divine Feminine and the transformation of the world. We can see this process in action in the Star. In the PKT Waite says: "She is in reality the Great Mother in the Kabalistic Sephira Binah, which is supernal Understanding, who communicates to the Sephiroth that are below in the measure that they can receive her influx." The Star illustrates the process of the Divine Feminine communicating her attributes to the bodies [land] and souls [sea] of those prepared to receive them, resulting in the elevation of mind/intelligence [Bird of Hermes, i.e. the Hidden Wisdom]. Reference to "sea" rather than water seems to point to humanity as a whole, not the individual, as the ultimate end of the process. :)

"We are proposing unto ourselves a lofty and desirable end, though our hearts are fixed upon a time that is distant, a land that is very far away, and what may seem unto us a strange people. We are speaking of the world’s end and of the millennial age. Our eyes are looking for the remote manifestation of 'the exquisite and celestial Rose of Beauty, joined on to the prolific stem,' for the realization of 'Venus-Urania, or Heavenly Beauty,' whose every look and thought shall be 'hallowed in the hallowing light of the Supreme Lord'; for her who has been transfused by the 'electric or magnetic flame which is the Life diffused throughout the Universe'; for the Virgin, the Bride, and the Mother, the true Woman of the Future, of whom every Idealist in his confession of the life to come shall aver [assert or affirm], with the seer of old:

'I preferred her [wisdom and understanding] before sceptres and thrones, and esteemed riches nothing in comparison of her; neither compared I unto her any precious stone, because all gold in respect of her is as a little sand, and silver shall be counted as clay before her . . . In her is an understanding spirit, holy, one only, manifold, subtle, lively, clear, undefiled, plain, not subject to hurt, loving the thing that is good, quick, which cannot be letted, ready to do good, kind to man, steadfast, sure, free from care . . . a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty . . . more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of the stars.'—[Apocrypha, Wisdom of Solomon, Ch. 7]

Her archetype has been fabled in heaven by the mycologists [those knowledgeable in hidden properties of fungi, probably more specifically, mushrooms] of the whole world, as 'a virgin-spirit of most ineffable loveliness.' She was 'the Astrean Maid [Greek goddess Astraea] of purest light, clothed in the Sun, and mantled in the shining stars. The moon and silver spheres of Heaven were beneath her feet; she was crowned with all the brightness, majesty, and knowledge that her celestial essence merited or required. She was the Minokhired and Mayo-Khratî, i.e. "Divine Intelligence" of the Zoroastrian and the Zend. She was the Shekinah of the Jews, in whose shining, central, circumambient [encompassing on all sides; surrounding], flame-like glory, God was wont to manifest His presence when He created: she was the Eros or Divine Love which, impregnated by Heaven, produces all things.'

For the translucent symbol which the mythology of the past has erected in the heaven of mind must return to earth, because there is the field of its realization. What we have borrowed from the beauty of womanhood must revert again to womanhood, and invest her with all its glory. The perfection which we have fabled in the sky must be actualized here on earth. The Celestial Virgin indeed must bear a child, and that child is indeed the Woman of the Future."—Azoth, or, The Star in the East, p. 81​
 

Gofannon

The vault of Christian Rosenkreutz looked roughly like this; it’s not complete but gives the general idea.

Vault of C.R.

The main things of interest to me are the seven sides and seven angles encircling the Altar; and the walls each eight feet high. Originally C.R.’s tomb would have been underground below the Altar. In the Golden Dawn vault, the tomb was above ground but I’m not exactly sure how everything was arranged.

I accidentally stumbled into a Golden Dawn vault once and although my memory is a little sketchy it did indeed resemble the diagram of the C.R. one. Inside was brightly coloured and contained seemingly every alchemical symbol one could think of.

Regarding Tiphereth moving to Da'at it's about crucifixion, the joining of wisdom and understanding. Please take a look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2vfDb9WGoU

Regarding the Ibis and Thoth, don't forget to look at the female counterpart of any Egyptian God, in this case Seshat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seshat The Tarot to me seems to be more about the goddess than the god. Making spirituality strictly male seems to be a Christian thing.
 

Abrac

Thanks for the links, I'll check 'em out.

I don't really have an opinion with regard to god or goddess. Waite considered them both important. In the paragraph immediately following the above quote he goes directly into the manifestation of the Divine Male archetype. The female one caught my attention in relationship to the Star.

The subtitle of Waite's Azoth, or, The Star in the East is:

Embracing the First Matter of the Magnum Opus, the Evolution of Aphrodite-Urania, the Supernatural Generation of the Son of the Sun, and the Alchemical Transfiguration of Humanity.

He felt the evolution of humanity would involve a transformation of both the male and female.
 

Gofannon

Very interesting about the odd number of points on the stars and the central star being in the position of Da'ath rather than Tiphareth in the b/w version.

BTW, Waite did have grade orders higher than 8=3. They just don't appear in the recently published book and may not have been actually practiced in the FRC. I don't have copies of them as they are in private hands, but I've seen a few small quotes.

"Thus, the smoke arises from Binah, which is in the heart, considered to be an understanding heart. It rises to Chochmah, which is like the brain.
...Zeir Anpin rises and unites Chochmah and Binah and becomes Da'at to them, the secret of a heart that understands knowledge..."
Zohar
 

Abrac

Found an amazing bit of information in Waite's Azoth that relates directly to this card. He starts the paragraph with this sentence:

"Concerning that star of our life, which is the ungenerated [uncreated; eternal] soul of man. . ."​

Then he takes a tedious stroll through a lot of obscure poetic references that don't add much, so I'll skip ahead:

"Then does the keen and crisp light of those untold and innumerable luminaries [speaking of celestial stars] speak unto the light which is within us as sister may speak unto sister, with a familiar confidence, which assumes a common knowledge, concerning the things that have been, and that past which is not of mortality. Blessed be the starry radiance, blessed be its silver speech, and blessed be the unknown capacity of the responding soul, because the soul does indeed answer; the Star of our interior Mercury [Spirit] is sublimed [uplifted] towards the stars of the zenith, and there follows, in the language of the alchemists, "a supercelestial conjunction and union between the astra of the firmament and the astra of inferior things"! This conjunction is termed the Ilech supranaturale, or "primal Ilech of the stars" [cf. Alchemy Dictionary]. The dateless origin of our interior being, the divinity of our extraction [lineage], the eternal pedigree [source] of the Spirit, seem part of those lessons from Nature which she imparts to those who have created a scheme of correspondence with her own interior mystery. The communication is full of import, and it is among the precious title-deeds of our inheritance."​

This communication between the stars celestial and the star within reminds me of Waite's language in the PKT where he says the woman (Binah) "communicates" to the scene below. The Ibis takes on new meaning in light of Waite's statement, "And blessed be the unknown capacity of the responding soul, because the soul does indeed answer; the Star of our interior Mercury [Spirit] is sublimed [uplifted] towards the stars of the zenith." In the image, the Ibis is right on the border with the stars and its head is intermingled with them.

What really blew me away are the last two sentences; compare them with Waite's description of Temperance in the PKT:

". . .when the rule of it obtains in our consciousness, it tempers, combines and harmonizes the psychic and material natures. Under that rule we know in our rational part something of whence we came and whither we are going." :)
 

Abrac

I ran across an interesting piece of information in Waite's Lamps of Western Mysticism [1923] that shines additional light on the symbolism of the Star. The same information is in Studies in Mysticism [1906]. Waite talks about the symbolism of the "star of Venus" but doesn't identify it as an eight-pointed star; however the star of Venus is virtually always an eight-pointed star.

In the following quote Waite is discusses a book entitled The Mystery of the Cross [1732], by a certain mystic Douze-Tems. I apologize for the lengthy quote but usually it's impossible to quote Waite with context.

"I must confess perhaps to some personal predilection derived from strange ways of reading, if I express the opinion that it is probably from the later Kabalists that Douze-Tems drew part at least of the intellectual generosity which is one of his most attractive characteristics. There is nothing to shew that he knew them at first hand, but there were many treasures of learning then available in Latin books which presented Jewish theosophy as an eirenicon [means of reconciliation] between the Law of Moses and the Law of Christ, and which sought at once to lay the foundation of lasting peace in Israel and to heal the many dissensions of the several sects in Christendom. From sectarian bitterness Douze-Tems was wholly free, and though certainly not a Catholic he speaks invariably with an enlightened indulgence towards the Latin Church and its mystery which, at his period, was exceedingly rare in those who did not belong to it. As the work is so little known and in no sense readily accessible, I must not permit it to be inferred that its Rosicrucian and Kabalistic connections make The Mystery of the Cross beyond measure obscure and difficult. On the contrary, it is a manageable treatise which, supposing discrimination in the student, is full of wise guidance and ministries at the initial stages of the life within. It has, in an unusual degree, that seal of conviction which I have already mentioned; in spite of certain limitations that are sufficiently obvious, it is the work of a man who has been in those high places of which he discourses, and there will be the less disposition to challenge his claim to the use of one daring statement which appears in his first lines: Absque nube pro nobis [for us there are no more clouds, or veils]. It is drawn from one of the memorials of the Rosy Cross. What was that mystery which for him had ceased to be clouded and of which he claims to have written both “within and without”—that is to say, with a plain external sense and yet with an inward meaning? Who was this pilgrim through eternity who could cite yet another maxim: Dulcia non meruit qui non gustavit amara [They are not entitled to the sweet who have not tasted the bitter]—which bitterness is actually the experience of that cross, the mystery of which he unfolds? He says further, with the Rosicrucian Masters who went before him: In cruce sub sphæra venit sapientia vera [At the cross one approaches the realm of true wisdom]. Here there is no opportunity to discuss questions of symbolism, but the simple planetary figure of the star Venus represents, for those who used it after this concealed fashion, the crucifixion of love issuing in [leading to] that wisdom which is not of this world, and is love itself in resurrection. Those who are acquainted with symbolism may be disposed to regard the apparently obscure allusion as one of the keys which open the closed entrance to the particular palace of Douze-Tems; for, in its final understanding, the work of the mystic can only present itself to the mind as a part of the work of that love which produced the whole universe in consequence of an infinite clemency. In this case, the bitterness which is inseparable from the Cross of advancement is the essential acerbity [bitterness] of election, whereby that which is gross is transmuted, and this realised, the darkness of all the Carmels [a mountain of initiation] is indeed no longer clouded."​

By bitterness Waite's not talking about asceticism or severe self-denial, but the unavoidable struggles that confront a person on the path of return. He says the star of Venus represents a crucifixion of love, leading to wisdom that's not of this world, which, as he explains it, is love resurrected. This is something I haven't encountered in Waite before and I'm not sure what to make of it, but the imagery in the Star seems to reflect it. The tree, the hill it's on and the Ibis all make more sense now. Earlier in this thread I contemplated the idea there might be some crucifixion symbolism at play here and there does seem to be. The mount that the tree's on represents the ascent on the path of initiation. The tree stands for the cross, or mystical crucifixion. And the bird is love resurrected, or the higher wisdom attained. :)

*Edit to add: After thinking about this, the idea of "crucifixion of love" seems to follow Waite's "Christ-life formula" which plays an important role in the higher grades of the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, being:

Adeptus Minor = Life and crucifixion
Adeptus Major = Death and Burial
Adeptus Exemptus = Resurrection
Adeptus Exaltatus = Ascension

Wisdom and love can be thought of as almost interchangeable. The crucifixion of love being symbolically the crucifixion of Christ and his love (wisdom) on one level, the human level; and then resurrected to a new level, the cosmic level. All this being symbolic of transformations occuring within the initiate him or herself.