Color attributions in the Hierophant

I am delving back into the Thoth and am trying to understand the Tree of Life, slowly but surely. Last night I did a reading using the Tree as the layout... without going into specifications of the reading, I had a really interesting experience that I want to relay and get feedback on.

At the end of the reading I drew a Shadow card, which is something I do when I'm reading with other decks, just a technique I've picked up. I drew the Hierophant. At that point of the reading I was really exhausted and burnt out on trying to understand the Hebrew letters and their significance on individual cards as related to the tree of life, because I have no background in Kaballah. (the astrology comes much easier to me and in the past I've relied heavily on that to interpret the Thoth cards). I decided not to add the Hierophant to my interpretation of the reading, partially because I thought maybe adding a shadow card was too much in the moment and partially because I don't usually use it when reading with the Thoth anyway.

Then I had this dream: I was in a candle store and someone showed me these muddy reddish-orange candles. They said "you were looking for red candles, there you go!" I told them the candles weren't red at all. They said "yes they are, they're red like the Hierophant card." Of course when I woke up I looked this up. Lo and behold, red-orange is assigned to the Hierophant, on the Knight Scale. In addition, Crowley says "The symbolism of the Wand is peculiar, the three interlaced rings which crown it may be taken as representative of the three Aeons of Isis, Osiris and Horus with their interlocking magical formulae. The upper ring is marked with scarlet for Horus...." So there is the red in the red-orange.

OK, actually I will go into what I drew, but I will keep it succinct. Kether - five of wands. Chokmah - The Emperor. Binah - Queen of cups. Chesed - ten of cups. Geburah - The Magus. Tipareth - Ace of Swords. Netzach - Six of Swords. Hod - The Emperess. Yesod - The lovers. Malkuth - Princess of cups.

My initial interpretation, with a very rudimentary of the tree of life, based mostly on what DuQuette has to say, is this: The divine masculine and divine feminine is out of balance. The Queen of Cups is too passive in Binah, she only acts as a mirror to the Emperor. Because of this, Kether has not reached its potential, the fire energy of Leo is being constrained by Saturn. The goal of the reading is to take the Empress out of Hod and restore her to Binah, where she can stand as an equal to the Emperor. The rest of the cards support this, more or less. I'm still working on this and have some ideas of the astrological significance (which is really cool in this reading, especially the way the Empress and the Six of Swords landed). I just need to write it down and continue processing it.

If I was reading in a "standard" RWS system deck, I would translate this to "I need to bring a more assertive version of Cups energy into my life, listen to my subconscious and my emotional self." I've been working to build Fire energy for the past two years, so the second part is this is maybe it's time to start working with Water. I pulled a clarifying card and asked "how do I take the first step to bring this all into balance?" I drew the Ace of Cups, further reinforcing this interpretation.

Some musings on the Hierophant - is the sword in the card echoed in the Lovers and the Ace of Swords? If so, the symbolism is significant. I've had a hard time pinning down exactly what it is, and whether the sword is a piece of the imbalance or of bringing things into balance. The Hierophant as the nail that anchors the microcosm to the macrocosm, or connecting what's happening below the Abyss to the consequences above the Abyss... and the Hierophant as my personal Holy Guardian Angel... aiding me in bringing this all into balance and transcend the Abyss? The Hierophant connects Chesed to Chokmah in the tree, what does this mean in relation to my meaning? And getting back to the original issue, the color attribution. I have no knowledge of the significance of the colors, this seems like a theme of study for the OTO and I'm not currently doing that. SO - what is the significance of the Knight Scale? Red - orange vs. the scarlet of Horus (because in my dream I was definitely searching for RED and was told that red - orange WAS red)? And maybe suggestions as to a good reference for the significance of color in OTO teachings?

http://www.angelfire.com/ab6/imuhtuk/gdmans/hodos/hodosch.htm

You have to navigate through the crap that Angelfire puts in the way, but it's worth it. It's GD, not OTO, but it was recommended by a Thelemite.

All the colour theory IMO is required for a fuller comprehension of Thoth and that would include all the colour columns in 777 as well, but the magical weapons column in 777 might not be required in tarot ... unless you asked a question like you did about the image of the sword in those cards. )

The sword image in the cards you mentioned; see it as the same sword and what that is supposed to represent (on one level a magical weapon) but it is applied and used differently in the cards you mention. Its the same sword but its application changes.

In regard to the significance of colours in the Thoth deck and the concept of colour 'scales' , this is a hard source to beat:

http://www.koyotetheblind.com/library/Libers/liber777 (revised).pdf

go to p.75 (of the text) starting at COLUMN XV: THE KING SCALE OF COLOUR

through to p. 86 - its all in there

Before anyone else misunderstands me I should specify that I said OTO but I meant Golden Dawn. Big disclaimer: up until about a month ago my interest in / knowledge of ceremonial magick was about zero. I'm just beginning to learn about these societies and embarrassingly I seemed to have mixed these two up.

These links are really helpful, thanks!

Oh, okay, no worries .

My usual reference for G.D. is ( that is, the one that I usually use) :

http://www.originalfalcon.com/pdf/complete_GD_pgs_1_34.pdf

There is a slight problem due to the fact that the GD color scales are based on the (incorrect) theory that all colors can be mixed from red, yellow, and blue. The correct primary colors are magenta, yellow, and cyan. This apparently was recognized by the artist who produced the designs for Nick Farrell's Golden Dawn Temple Tarot, which deck I covet for that very reason. *sigh*

I think that the GD color scales should be revised to reflect the new discoveries in color theory. I tried to do this with Queen and King scales for the Tree of Life, but got stuck with doing rough color approximations instead of elegant combinations. Aaaarrrggh!

I am of the opinion that the Thoth is unsuitable for studying color scales. This isn't because they aren't exact, but because of the process used in creating the cards. Harris mixed colors from all over, expanding on the scales, using for example two different suitable colors to make a third. Esoterically this makes sense, but compare it with the BOTA, that uses more basic colors, and you see how the Thoth defies color study by its sheer complexity.

closrapexa said:

I am of the opinion that the Thoth is unsuitable for studying color scales. This isn't because they aren't exact, but because of the process used in creating the cards. Harris mixed colors from all over, expanding on the scales, using for example two different suitable colors to make a third. Esoterically this makes sense, but compare it with the BOTA, that uses more basic colors, and you see how the Thoth defies color study by its sheer complexity.

Click to expand...

I think your observations also apply to some extent to the Rider-Waite, which tends to defy color analysis. Frankie Albano tried to 'correct' this with P. F. Case's color symbolism, but this may have been somewhat ill conceived. Mary Greer is of the opinion that the Waite did not strictly follow the GD in many respects, and I am in agreement with this. Waite apparently was not happy with the GD ceremonial magic, and this reticence may have applied also to the GD color scales, which, to a large extent, were associated with GD ritualism.

Being, as always, the Fool (Le Mat), I am still interested in the magenta, yellow, cyan color scheme as it applies to the GD Tree of Life.

I just can't think of "magenta" without thinking of Rocky Horror and myself in a dress, so that's one branch of esoteric minutiae that is all but closed to me.

LRichard said:

There is a slight problem due to the fact that the GD color scales are based on the (incorrect) theory that all colors can be mixed from red, yellow, and blue. The correct primary colors are magenta, yellow, and cyan. This apparently was recognized by the artist who produced the designs for Nick Farrell's Golden Dawn Temple Tarot, which deck I covet for that very reason. *sigh*

I think that the GD color scales should be revised to reflect the new discoveries in color theory. I tried to do this with Queen and King scales for the Tree of Life, but got stuck with doing rough color approximations instead of elegant combinations. Aaaarrrggh!

Click to expand...

I thought the GD scales are based on the Kabbalah and not 'reality' and primary RYB is the supernal triad ? I thought out vision (still) works on RYB ... is that now defunct.

I remember those old threads but not the exact content or reasoning. I thought MYC was primary lighting colours and was ' additive coloring' ( adding light to a black stage) ... or is it subtractive coloring (adding dark to a light page ) and they are the primaries used in printing ?

I thought vision colour worked with RBY as 'primary gunas' working a duality / triplicity principle that generated 4 natural (elemental) colours in our perceptive world ?

[ ie. There are 3 ‘primary’ colours; red, blue, yellow. There are 4 ‘natural’ colours; red, blue, yellow green : fire, water, air, earth.

We have 3 sets of colour receptors; black and white, blue and yellow and red and green. These three combine to give hundreds of possible hues like purple and magenta.

Within the eye the retina has two types of light sensitive cells called rods and cones. Cones absorb red blue and yellow but do not work well in detecting colour in low light. Rods have ‘sacrificed’ colour reception to work as ‘night vision’ and detect black and white.

Signals travel from the retina along the optic nerves to the visual cortex for sorting and sending to the three relevant parts of the brain to analyse the signals in respect to three qualities; movement, colour, distance. These three parts of the brain send their processed information back to the visual cortex where it integrates the information.

Light – singularity, passes through two types of receptors to make three dimensions of colour, in a duality (or polarity) black / white, blue / yellow, red green, to process through the visual cortex to three parts of the brain and back again to make it possible to observe the four ‘natural colours’ and their combinations.

Is this 'old hat' and I am in the slow lane going up hill while being passed by wizing electrons, quarks and mystical particles ? ]