got enough symbols?

Debra said:

Well, my friend, not to start a fight, but part of this is because I find it unbelievable that a superior, tall, dark and handsome non-human being named Aiwass materialized in Crowley's room and dictated to him The Book of the Law, and I doubt it was merely a psychotic delusion although I suppose it's possible. In short, I suspect invention rather than discovery.

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I suspect you are right, and it is invention - or rather, magical imagination. I think the same of Levi and his elaborate worlds (and words!). But I don't see that diminishes the value of the experience to call this a creative, rather than a revelatory, experience. I think all religions are created - certainly Wicca was, as were Christianity and Islam, though the latter two founded on an older religion (and for all we know, Moses wrote those tablets himself!!!).

I don't mean that the decks themselves are scams, but that the purported depths they reveal through esoteric symbolism are unreliable. I think--and FEEL--that the "truth" of the universe is much more like an experience and much less like a system of numerology although I have had dreams of sacred geometry myself. I "knew" that my dreams had a sacred quality because of the FEELING which is just the same one that people experience with elemental physical activities: eating when you are very hungry; drinking when you are very thirsty, touching another person when you are very lonely, stretching when you are cramped. There can be great beauty in elaborate systems but beauty is not the same as truth, and for me really there's more beauty in truth, which looks more like a person in love or a real person laughing than like the ethereal Aiwass with a mystical number and in exotic dress. The scamishness of it is the down side of the hierophant--set up a cult, get a cult following, and the next thing you know, you've got a stake in what you invented. Anyway, my two cents and so I look at the swirls and colors and dancing figures on the Thoth deck and although I see beauty, and especially in some of those dancing majors!, there's not a one--object or person--that I'd want to hold in my actual hand or keep in my actual heart.

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I can't see a dressed-up magician without giggling - I tend to like my rituals simple and spontaneous - so I have sympathy with that view. However, I don't necessarily think that tarnishes the experience - creative, spiritual, magical, whatever! - that lies behind the symbols and the elaborate system (or scam). Perhaps it is a question of differing sensibilities. Mine runs with Keats: "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. As a lover of all things literary and imaginative, I see more truth in invention than in many a "reality" or "truth" I am peddled every day.

Such an interesting discussion on a remarkable tarot deck!

Crowley certainly didn’t suffer fools gladly, expecting everyone to be educated to his level, and he gave the opinion that if you weren’t you had no business practicing or studying magick!

I think it is wise to approach his work including the Thoth deck with some caution as Crowley filled his work, rituals etc. with many occult blinds to trip up those who were, in his mind, unworthy.
The Thoth does as Scion rightly says, ‘stuff your head with starlight’......I love that!
It can also blow circuits, especially when used in meditation; some minds are just not ready for it.

Years ago when I was studying with the Servants of the Light (S.O.L) a British mystery school founded by Dion Fortune her self a member of the Golden Dawn, I asked a stupid question about the Thoth deck.

I asked if it could be used for foreseeing the future.

Some of the teachers were old fashioned serious British occultist, many were very out of step with the world that had emerged after WW2 and Tarot decks were little known outside the secret schools of esoteric learning.
I had only seen 2 in my life, now they are so popular they can be bought in almost any bookshop.
So looking back I can excuse my stupidity, but unfortunately they didn’t!

I was told “Why used a hammer to crack a nut?” and then I was promptly ignored!

Afterward, a kindly elderly gent took me aside and explained that the Thoth deck was like a complete universe in poise, powerful and demanding, so perhaps I should start with the RW deck in stead?

If I seem to be rambling on a bit here it’s just my way of expressing a point.
That today magick, the tarot, meditation and so on is commonplace, and has, some would say been trivialised.
So many decks are lightweights in comparison to Crowleys deck.
So when we come across something like the Thoth deck, I think it is wise to be cautious, and yes read/study the symbolism if you wish, it won’t hurt to put some ground work in, but it won’t necessarily help you understand it any better either.

As Scion said not only is it not supposed to come easy, for some it won’t come at all.
And I would add, for some it isn’t supposed to come at all, even with years of study about symbolism, that’s how Crowley built his deck.
I may impress others with what you can relate re-symbolism but all that says is that you hold facts in your head rather well, it won’t guarantee that the deck will open up to you.
Put down the book as someone else here said?? and meditate on the cards that is the way Crowley intended them to be used.

Debra said:

I find it unbelievable that a superior, tall, dark and handsome non-human being named Aiwass materialized in Crowley's room and dictated to him The Book of the Law, and I doubt it was merely a psychotic delusion although I suppose it's possible. In short, I suspect invention rather than discovery.

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Debra, i totaly agree with your first post that he was elitist and set up something in the image of the hierophant; the church *again* but that was the culture he was in, the time he was in, and different paths can get you there.

But speaking from that simple way that you mention (i grew up with much simpler magic myself) what does it matter if he imagined Aiwass, or halucinated him? what does it matter if he even intentionally invented him? invention/creativity is key to putting something forth, and is no less powerful if the intent is clear. i don't really care for whether the Aiwass guy was anything at all; what crowley produced as a result is the only thing that matters, not how it got here; either it stands up to exploration and use or it doesn't. if he made the guy up he can keep him- and i'll keep the deck

The problem is i can see the value in both ways, see both sides;

i'm a sucker for information; i love reading, v's i learn much better when i just do, allow, create. my dad the intellectual who valued tradition (i think he still believes in the Empire and he's not even old!) and intuitiveness, simplicity, DIRECT learning, direct knowing was my mum's forte. i see so much value in both; the simple way, and the elitist way; i don't think one way is better or more valid or authentic than the other; on another thread i have been talking with fudugazi on left brain/right brain and i can do both equally well, but i never get one properly done before i rush off to the other!

my frustration with the deck comes from this division of my labour; i don't want to learn either way in a way that is unproductive or works to the detriment of the other:

One thing my mum mentioned last night was that if she *taught* her magical students *before* they did the guided meditation, then the things that they see there they were expecting to see; they cannot credit their own spirituality, the reality behind this one with that being or symbols occurance. but if she just takes them there then more often than not they will all encounter the same symbol, one that they have never come across, and be amazed that they all experienced it. In this way they experience the encounter as real, as contactable, of deeply meaningful rather than just an image they have been told about and then imaginatively leaned upon with no real substance.

This is one of my concerns about the thoth: if i book read now i wont appreciate it on more than an intellectual level. i am in no way intimidated by having to put in some hard slog to learn something; i just don't want i learn in a way where i only get half the experience.

i think fudu and scion have given good advice about picking up stuff out of curiosity as i go along; and i am about to abandon my 78 weeks with the thoth and take up with the marseilles instead. the intensive thoth learning can come later, when i have experience the symbols and then looked them up. the simple way, and the elitisim together, but in the right order, i think.

sul said:

Such an interesting discussion on a remarkable tarot deck!

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Eh up mum! I was just talking about you, i was writing while you posted!

Hi Beck, you always find the most stimulating people to talk to xx.

teomat said:

From the little I know about it, it seems as though Crowley poured every thought on esotericism he could think of into the deck, to create some kind of universal system or theory.

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Yes, sounds like Crowley, and if you’ve guessed this much, then you are much more insightful than you think.

rebecca-smiles said:

Thats exactly what i feel! i'm not convinced that symbolsim from didfferent cultures can be mixed and matched quite so easily,

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Quite so, think about language, our everyday language.

I am English, when I am talking to someone who is American are we talking the same language?
On the surface of it.....yes but give it a few hours of conversation and it soon becomes very apparent that we are most defiantly NOT talking the same language, and I can not emphasise this more...WE ARE NOT.
Anyone English, Irish, Scot or Welsh will agree.

Now extrapolate this and apply it to symbolism.
Do you see what I see?
If you rely upon mere intellect to study symbolism, then I very, very much doubt it.

Wow. Mom and daughter. I suppose you'd say "mum and daughter." Both insightful. Thanks!

As an interesting aside to this discussion, mystery schools and occult orders often have their beginnings on the inner planes (as some call it) long before there ever becomes an ‘outer’ school or order.
The individual/group may through their studies and meditations over a period of years, make an inner world contact, which they continue to work with again, often over a long period of time.

Occasionally the inner contacts bring about the idea that an ‘outer’ school or group is needed to make available the teachings, and a new mystery school/occult order is born.
Sometimes the groups founders wait years steadfastly doing their inner work until the right person comes along to ‘front’ the public face of the school/order.

This is what I believe happened with the S.O.L. Although William Butler is the official founder of the school, years after Dion Fortunes death, to my mind I always feel it is Dion Fortune who founded it on an inner level years before, although I must add I cannot state this as fact, I always feel it is her school.
She seems to have been waiting for W.B, as though she knew he was coming and that she knew he had all the right qualities to head such a task.

This is why I feel meditation with tarot is so important yet inner work nowadays seems to be under valued or perhaps just not popular/fashionable?
Is just me or do people seem to rush into intellectual discussion with the imagery of a deck with little or no inner work with it?

The Thoth deck (along with some others) works powerfully in meditation and opens doors within the mind, and consciousness, not to mention the body!
Here I feel book learning is woefully inadequate, with meditation you ‘experience’ a deck, those rich in symbolism act upon the consciousness and a kind of gnosis is reached where learning via the mind is bypassed and you seem to just know.....I think the Gnostics called this divine knowing?
Perhaps someone may correct me on this?

Sorry if I have strayed off topic, I rarely post on any forums so once I get going I do have a tendency to ramble on!
Perhaps a meditational study group/thread would be worthwhile with the Thoth, and people posting their results would make insightful discussion?

I'm going to second (or third, or twelfth) the studying tactic. Taking time to read the book and get to know each card individually will help you sort out all the symbols and find the meaning in them and how they fit together. Or, if it really is and overload, just focus on a few for now and incorperate more as you get more used to the deck.

I do agree with you on the symbol overload, though.

It's best when the system is in harmony, i love when there is great art and energy in my cards.
Symbol are easyiest to read when the are a coherent whole because fragmentation of the data is what make the card difficult to read.

It's great when i can tell that i see my life and the life of the peoples around in my deck
That's is like creating another universe.
Tarot and Oracle card are verry powerfull magic
Someone should never make that assumption that a great Oracle is only a second rang warrior.

Art is incredible
and Crowley was a really weird man hehe
Omeada Lusvam