Zan and BC's Excellent Thoth Adventure: The Fool

Le Fanu

Le Fanu said:
For me, the Crowley Fool is suspended and rotating and (if it made a noise, this card would hum at very high frequency) he looks as if he is capable of spinning in all directions like as astrolobe
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Aeon418 said:
This brings to mind the Mundane chakra of Kether, the Rashith ha-Gilgulim. The Primum Mobile - the first swirlings. He is a whirling swastika (aleph) manifesting out of the Void.
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I have no idea what this is so, thus here we have proof that if you just look at the image and feel you can get near to intended meanings! ;)
 

zan_chan

Aeon418 said:
Does anyone remember a silly 80's tv show called Monkey? The intro to that show is the card Fool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&v=5iUMWy4hqAg

:laugh:
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Finally! Something I can both relate to and understand! Thank you for that, Aeon! But now you have to promise to post pseudo Japanese TV intros for the next 21 trumps as well... :p
 

sapienza

:laugh: That is funny. I feel like I just had a ride in a time machine as well.
 

firefrost

Le Fanu said:
For me, the Crowley Fool is suspended and rotating and (if it made a noise, this card would hum at very high frequency) he looks as if he is capable of spinning in all directions like as astrolobe.

I think the sense of suspension is so strong in this card, which gives me the feeling that any direction is possibly. There is also something (about the expression? The stance? The cheekiness?) which makes me think he is up-for-anything, spiritually, sexually, you name it. At the same time, the open stance makes him vulnerable.

I see that in my Thoth notebook I wrote of the Fool "alert, wide-eyed, multisexed, highly sexed, wild & compulsive, striking lucky with his swag-bag"
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This I can understand! My own thoughts about the Fool way back when I first got the deck still stand with me. This is the only Fool I've ever seen that has attitude. Looking at the picture, yes, he looks vulnerable but is he bothered? No! His horns show his devilment and with the tiger biting his leg, it's as if he's saying 'Bring it on, see if I care.' A bit like his creator, really.

****

Interlude over, back to the Thoth Intelligence! :)
 

Bat Chicken

You all have me thinking! Thank you! :) Allow me to think aloud a little...

Aeon418 said:
Take a blank sheet of paper. Pick any point on that sheet and draw a little circle around it. Congratulations, you've just re-enacted the legend of the Fall. By the act of ring-fencing one point of undiferentiated consciousness everything magically springs into existence. All of a sudden "point of view" exists. I and Not-I. Experience is now possible.

Now rub out, dissolve the circle and return to Eden. ;)

(Or expand the circle into infinity. It's the same result either way.)
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I understand completely what you are saying here Aeon and I have no argument in principle. It is a good way of looking at the Universe at the 'point' of creation. I get it! :D Point taken... LOL! However, I think actually comprehending before the 'point' - the NOthing - is what I still feel is impossible. Until your experiment here is done, I cannot experience it, but the very act of it is SOMEthing - not nothing. Catch 22. I know I cannot 'think' my way out of this one...

Just avoid the comment bombs for me next time, eh? :laugh:

Wendywu said:
I tend to think of the Fool as sometimes making the mess, sometimes not but each time being certain at his core (in his true Self) that he follows the Path of Return and will achieve unity with God (whatever you perceive your God to be) eventually.
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He certainly makes all the mess possible, doesn't he! :) Part of the experience?
I sometimes used to think back in my university days about that idea of choices. A friend of mine was a PhD candidate in Astrophysics and we used to sit down in the telescope room and he'd just ask questions like "Do you think everything is predetermined?" I remember thinking what if the Universe is an infinite multiverse and every choice springs into motion another universe where events occur based on that choice? It is a terribly linear look at that question, but, then the idea of a Return is inevitably linear - or circular - but Time is a part of the equation. This Fool - is he outside Time still? Or is he Aeon's 'point'?

Le Fanu said:
For me, the Crowley Fool is suspended and rotating and (if it made a noise, this card would hum at very high frequency) he looks as if he is capable of spinning in all directions like as astrolobe.

I think the sense of suspension is so strong in this card, which gives me the feeling that any direction is possibly. There is also something (about the expression? The stance? The cheekiness?) which makes me think he is up-for-anything, spiritually, sexually, you name it. At the same time, the open stance makes him vulnerable.
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"Suspension" - That word is key. I want to think about that a little more and go back to it! Any direction - time or space... Love it... :) Sounding like the Fool is the 'point'...

In terms of sound - I wish Mi-Shell were here to discuss the idea of the SOUND of creation.

Aeon418 said:
Does anyone remember a silly 80's tv show called Monkey? The intro to that show is the card Fool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&v=5iUMWy4hqAg
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I have actually never heard of this! :laugh:
I loved this line:
With our thoughts we make the world
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Now off to read DuQuette... :)
 

Aeon418

Bat Chicken said:
However, I think actually comprehending before the 'point' - the NOthing - is what I still feel is impossible.
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It's not impossible at all. In fact Crowley's entire system of mystical and magical training is aimed at gaining experience of varying degrees of No-thing.

I think where we may be having problems is the definition of "No-thing".
It does not mean absence-of-anything. It actually refers to a non-dual state. In that state no separate things can exist because separation implies duality.

Have you read Crowley's essay, BERASHITH: An Essay in Ontology? It really is required reading if you want to understand what Crowley means by Zero.
 

Bat Chicken

Aeon418 said:
It's not impossible at all. In fact Crowley's entire system of mystical and magical training is aimed at gaining experience of varying degrees of No-thing.

I think where we may be having problems is the definition of "No-thing".
It does not mean absence-of-anything. It actually refers to a non-dual state. In that state no separate things can exist because separation implies duality.

Have you read Crowley's essay, BERASHITH: An Essay in Ontology? It really is required reading if you want to understand what Crowley means by Zero.
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You're right - I am doing exactly that.
Where can I find this essay?
 

Aeon418

You've already read this. The Book of Thoth, p.12-13.
This picture represents the Tree of Life, which is a map of the Universe. One must begin, as a mathematician would, with the idea of Zero, Absolute Zero, which turns out on examination to mean any quantity that one may choose, but not, as the layman may at first suppose, Nothing, in the "absense-of-anything" vulgar sense of the word. (See "Berashith", Paris, 1902).
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This quote should also serve as a warning, because it is typical of Crowley's writing style. It is very rare that he repeats himself. But he references himself constantly, and expects you to follow those refereneces.

Crowley is not a reader-friendly author. He expects the reader to do a lot of the spade work for him/herself. And if they can't be bothered he would have probably thought they were procrastinating dilettantes, and to hell with them!
The Book of Lies, chp.52

THE BULL-BAITING

Fourscore and eleven books wrote I; in each did I
expound THE GREAT WORK fully, from The
beginning even unto The End thereof.
Then at last came certain men unto me, saying:
O Master! Expound thou THE GREAT WORK
unto us, O Master!
And I held my peace.
O generation of gossipers! who shall deliver you
from the Wrath that is fallen upon you?
O Babblers, Prattlers, Talkers, Loquacious Ones,
Tatlers, Chewers of the Red Rag that inflameth
Apis the Redeemer to fury, learn first what is
Work! and THE GREAT WORK is not so far
beyond!
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