The Moon and Harris's Dung beetle

thorhammer

Hey, mate :) Still following on with your posts, though not adding much. It's mostly internal, I've got to say. But I did want to point out something here:
rachelcat said:
While I can understand the symbols of a waning moon and menstruation as the ending of a situation without the potential being fulfilled, this still needs a feminist revision!!! And many “new” decks have done just that. <snip> But the disgust factor still seems a bit high here.
One of the modern decks that have revised this with an extreme feminist take also has a high disgust factor, for some (not me, I must add). It's Thoth-based (ish), too . . . The Wheel of Change. How's that for turning the tables?

I don't think that the Moon in the Thoth is disgusting image-wise; Crowley's discussion of it is, though, as intimated by ravenest and similia above, this could be hype to build the anticipation for the initiation depicted. Not that it isn't a huge thing, but Crowley is trying to summarise the preparation for and lead up to the ritual, I think. He's telling a scary story, complete with sounds, sights, tastes, smells and touch. Master-storyteller, I think ;)

\m/ Kat
 

rachelcat

Yes, I meant the disgust factor in Crowley's description, as in HE'S disgusted. Otherwise, if you're going to go there, well, it's just a human bodily function.

And well, the Wheel of Change sure doesn't pull any punches, huh? Might as well get it out in the open!
 

Yygdrasilian

...begins with the first step.

Could be the use of the harlequin beetle is meant as a kind of pun - as in any Fool (the harlequin) who embarks upon a Hero’s journey out of the depths of Malkuth, is as tiny and insignificant as a mere insect (the beetle); at least, in comparison to the bigger scheme of things.

Yet, “every man and woman is a star” - so perhaps this mortal coil, in this life, is the bug offering my spark of starlight up to The Gateway of Resurrection.
 

Aeon418

A matter of perspective

rachelcat said:
Yes, I meant the disgust factor in Crowley's description, as in HE'S disgusted.
Yes and no.

Remember that this card represents the Portal of Initiation. To be able to see it you have to be outside the portal and are therefore un-initiate. To the un-initiate this is the fearful entrance to the Path of Darkness. From the outside the mysteries are abominations, blasphemy, sacrilege, and filth. But to the initiate the mysteries are very, very different.
 

Teheuti

Found It!

In the entry for 11 May to 2 June of 1923, Crowley, in his magical diary, writes: "Beetle in Pisces a crab-louse." He is referring to XVIII [The Moon card].

Now, FH did not paint it like the crab-louse that we see today through high magnification as these are little red squatly-round creatures, while the head-louse is more elongated. But the crab-louse fits with his identification of the card with the vulva/fish/glamour/feminine principle.
See The Magical Diaries of Aleister Crowley, p. 36.

Mary