Book of Law Study Group 1.57

Aeon418

RLG said:
As for fiery energy, we have this from Liber 231, regarding the Star card:

"Transformed, the holy virgin appeared as a fluidic fire, making her beauty into a thunderbolt."

I was just thinking of this myself, and here's why.

One of the usual complaints about the Tzaddi swap is that it does not fully match the 8/11 swap on the other side. But here's the problem. To fully match that swap the Star must become card 4. The Emperor must become card 17. Unfortunately the card numbers as they currently stand are very important.

The reference to the Thunderbolt hinges upon the star being related to the number 17 because the Thunderbolt is symbolically represented by the Hermetic Cross, which is composed of 17 squares.

On the subject of the Lamb as the Messiah. Wasn't that the symbol of the last Messiah? And a symbol already dealt with in Liber 418:

The figures on the wheel are darker than the wheel itself; in fact, they are stains upon the purity of the wheel, and for that reason, and because of the whirling of the wheel, I cannot see them. But at the top seems to be the Lamb and Flag, such as one sees on some Christian medals, and one of the lower things is a wolf, and the other a raven. The Lamb and Flag symbol is much brighter than the other two. It keeps on growing brighter, until now it is brighter than the wheel itself, and occupies more space than it did.

It speaks: I am the greatest of the deceivers, for my purity and innocence shall seduce the pure and innocent, who but for me should come to the centre of the wheel. The wolf betrayeth only the greedy and the treacherous; the raven betrayeth only the melancholy and the dishonest. But I am he of whom it is written: He shall deceive the very elect.

For in the beginning the Father of all called forth lying spirits that they might sift the creatures of the earth in three sieves, according to the three impure souls. And he chose the wolf for the lust of the flesh, and the raven for the lust of the mind; but me did he choose above all to simulate the pure prompting of the soul. Them that are fallen a prey to the wolf and the raven I have not scathed; but them that have rejected me, I have given over to the wrath of the raven and the wolf. And the jaws of the one have torn them, and the beak of the other has devoured the corpse. Therefore is my flag white, because I have left nothing upon the earth alive. I have feasted myself on the blood of the saints, but I am not suspected of men to be their enemy, for my fleece is white and warm, and my teeth are not the teeth of one that teareth flesh; and mine eyes are mild, and they know me not the chief of the lying spirits that the Father of all sent forth from before his face in the beginning.

RLG

Aeon418 said:
I was just thinking of this myself, and here's why.

One of the usual complaints about the Tzaddi swap is that it does not fully match the 8/11 swap on the other side. But here's the problem. To fully match that swap the Star must become card 4. The Emperor must become card 17. Unfortunately the card numbers as they currently stand are very important.

Dwtw

I would have to disagree with that. The cards as Crowley has them are in the TdM order, but the GD attributions make Tet/Leo switch with Lamed/Libra. So BOTH the letter and sign are switched. To match that, both the letter and sign of Heh/Aries and Tzaddi/Aquarius must switch.

But AC's switch does not match that, since he only switches letters and not signs. That's the typical argument against the switch, as you have noted.

The fact that the cards don't have to switch makes what you have to say below moot, but I agree that it is important to consider the roman numeral of the card. The role of the thunderbolt is important on the 5 x 5 magic square.

Aeon418 said:
The reference to the Thunderbolt hinges upon the star being related to the number 17 because the Thunderbolt is symbolically represented by the Hermetic Cross, which is composed of 17 squares.

On the subject of the Lamb as the Messiah. Wasn't that the symbol of the last Messiah? And a symbol already dealt with in Liber 418:

Yes, it was a symbol of the last messiah, which is related to one interpretation of the Star as the 'Star of Bethlehem'. Obviously when the Tarot was created, the Aeon of Horus had not arrived, so I'm not sure why you bring up Liber 418. There is also a clear description of the Wheel of Fortune in Liber 418, but Crowley did not use the iconography of raven, wolf, lamb, in his card. We might well ask why this is the case.

I'm the first to admit that it is not immediately obvious how to reconcile the Star with Aries and the Emperor with Aquarius, but I don't think it's impossible.

And unlike other suggestions as to what to do about the Heh-Tzaddi switch, the template I proposed takes into account ALL the tarot cards mentioned in the verse, including one that I don't think anyone has noticed before, La Fortezza. Thus we have to look at the Tzaddi change, if it is even necessary at all, in a broader context.

Now one other alternative is that the Star remains Aquarius, but is then plugged into my formula, so that the Star (and not the Emperor) is the complement of the Empress. Then the 'love of the dove' is symbolized by Star and Empress, and we might note that this makes it overtly feminine, as opposed to the masculine love of the serpent, symbolized by the Tower and Lust cards. One may consider, in this case, that the Star card contains the Star of Venus, the eight-pointed star of Inanna.
These two cards certainly seem compatible, though they do not appear conceptually as neat as the Empress and Emperor.

Litlluw
RLG

Aeon418

RLG said:
I would have to disagree with that. The cards as Crowley has them are in the TdM order, but the GD attributions make Tet/Leo switch with Lamed/Libra. So BOTH the letter and sign are switched. To match that, both the letter and sign of Heh/Aries and Tzaddi/Aquarius must switch.

Remember that we are starting from the Golden Dawn sequence. Even though Crowley reverts to the TdM ordering, he still has to swap two Roman numerals on two cards to do it. (VIII & XI). This gives us the first loop. But if Crowley had followed the exact same procedure in the Tzaddi case, he would have to swap the Roman numerals on cards IV and XVII.

In this case the Emperor would have become card XVII/Heh. The Star would have become card IV/Tzaddi. This would have provided the second loop to balance the first. But, as we already know, the traditional numerals for the Star and Emperor have vital significance and can't be changed. So how do you make the loop without changing numerals? You move something else instead. And thus we've come full circle to our bugbear topic of letters and signs.

Tzaddi is not the Star. Ok, but why? Tzaddi is the Fish hook, and it was Jesus who said "I will make you fishers of men". His entire cult is infused with fish symbolism. From doing miracles with fish, to making disciples of fishermen. This all relates to the last dispensation, so obviously it has to go. But Jesus was also the sacrificial Lamb of God. To insist on associating Aries with Nuit/The Star is odd because in verse 58 Nuit informs us "nor do I demand aught in sacrifice. Verse 59 tells us that their is no blood in her incense. The blood of the Lamb is starting to stick out like a sore thumb. How apt that Aries the sacrificial ram/lamb should be relegated to the card of the Fisher King, the Emperor. Arguments that "tradition" says otherwise are a little bit strange. Is tradition infallible? Not subject to change? Does Sepher Yetzirah have primacy over Liber Legis?

RLG said:
Yes, it was a symbol of the last messiah, which is related to one interpretation of the Star as the 'Star of Bethlehem'.

Have you read J. Daniel Gunther's, "Initiation in the Aeon of the Child" ? This whole issue of the Star and the Messiah is covered in great detail in chapter 5 of that work.

Aeon418

I believe this is from the Zohar.

The letter Tzaddi enters and says: O Lord of the world, may it please Thee to create the world through me, inasmuch as the righteous [Tzaddikim] are sealed with me, and Thyself, who art called Righteous, art indicated by me, as it is written, “For the Lord is righteous, he loveth righteousness” [Psalms 11:7], and hence it is meet to create the world through me.

The Lord made answer: O Tzaddi, thou art Tzaddi, and thou signifiest righteousness, but thou must be concealed, thou mayest not come out in the open so much lest thou givest the world cause for offence.

For thou consistest of the letter Nun surmounted by the letter Yod [representing together the Male and the Female]. And this is the mystery: When the Holy One, Blessed be He, created Adam, He created him with two faces [Male and female combined, back to back–see Midrash Tehillim 139 and Berakhoth 61a]. In the same way the Nun and the Yod in the Tzaddi are turned back to back and not face to face, whether the Tzaddi is upright or turned downwards.

The Holy One, blessed be He, said to her further, I will in time divide thee in two, so as to appear face to face, but thou wilt go up in another place [in the letter Teth].

She then departed.

RLG

Aeon418 said:
Remember that we are starting from the Golden Dawn sequence. Even though Crowley reverts to the TdM ordering, he still has to swap two Roman numerals on two cards to do it. (VIII & XI). This gives us the first loop. But if Crowley had followed the exact same procedure in the Tzaddi case, he would have to swap the Roman numerals on cards IV and XVII.

In this case the Emperor would have become card XVII/Heh. The Star would have become card IV/Tzaddi. This would have provided the second loop to balance the first. But, as we already know, the traditional numerals for the Star and Emperor have vital significance and can't be changed. So how do you make the loop without changing numerals? You move Hebrew letters instead. And thus we've come full circle to our bugbear topic of letters and signs.

Dwtw

The tarot sequence used by the Golden Dawn is irrelevant to the discussion. Crowley's sequence has one loop around the sign of Virgo but an unequal loop around the sign of Pisces.

As you noted, AC reverts to the TdM sequence, and has to swap numerals to do it, but he's swapping them back to where they belong in the first place.

The issue isn't what came before the Book of Thoth, the issue is whether there is a 'double-loop' after AC switched Tzaddi and Heh. And there clearly isn't , because he is not switching the zodiac signs as well.

The only reason that the double loop even comes up is because Crowley used it to justify his change. But the justification is spurious. So if you advocate for the change, that's fine, but using the double loop as the reason is fallacious. Crowley should have used other evidence. One of my problems with his arrangement is that he gives virtually no explanation as to why it is preferable, other than the flimsy suggestion that 'Tz' is phonetically related to the word Tzar, etc.

Also, if your argument were taken to its logical conclusion, then the Star would be card IV, and be associated with Tzaddi and Aquarius. But if 'Tzaddi is not the Star', then this would accomplish very little, and not even make a 'double loop' except in comparison with the GD tarot sequence.

Now as to whether or not Aries is appropriate to the Star, I am merely offering some suggestions as to how the two might fit. I'm not suggesting that Aries is exclusively the lamb of God; that may only be one aspect of the symbolism. Nor do I think the prior aeon needs to be enshrined as the rationale for Crowley's tarot. But Christian symbolism certainly is imbued in the original tarot of 15th century Italy.

Allocating Hebrew letters and their associations is a hijacking of the tarot in the first place, since the tarot was not designed to be a kabbalistic document, despite what occultists might think. We and others before us are transforming it into such a document. Thus AC changed the Last Judgment into the Aeon, and changed the names of the Virtues, which had too much Christian symbolism associated with them. I think he would have gotten rid of the Hanged Man too, if he could have gotten away with it; instead he disparages it as a symbol of the old aeon.

You mention the Sefer Yetzirah and whether it should take precedence over Liber AL. I don't believe it should, but I also think you need to make a strong argument as to why one would selectively separate two letters from the zodiac signs they are associated with. You still haven't shown me an example of where this has happened in the kabbalistic literature.

I should try to be clearer about this subject. There are three main ways to accomplish the instructions in verse 1:57.
Tzaddi is not the Star because Atu XVII is called something else, such as 'The Stars, or The Not'
Tzaddi is not the Star because it is some other card, such as The Emperor.
Tzaddi is not the Star because Tzaddi-final is.

The first answer is the most parsimonious, and the one I prefer. It is enshrined in Liber VII, chapter 5, verse 5.

The second answer is also possible, and I offered a rationale for it that takes into account the entire verse, and ignores the spurious 'double-loop' argument.

(A sub-category of answer number 2 is to switch just the letters, as AC did. This leaves a double-loop in the letter-sequence but not the zodiac sequence).

The third answer hasn't been dealt with, but is the second most parsimonious, as it only changes one letter. Since the verse says 'all the old letters' are aright, BUT Tzaddi, then if we switch only Tzaddi with some other letter, a good candidate would be Tzaddi-sofit.

The fact is, whether or not the Star was mentioned in Liber AL, the two cards of Emperor and Star would still be related by the AThBaSh method of kabbalah, since Heh is the 5th letter from the beginning of the alef-bet, and Tzaddi is the 5th from the end.

One could legitimately swap the first 11 letters with the last 11 letters in this sequence. How that affects the Tarot would be something worth exploring.

But of most particular significance is the Emperor-Star connection, because these are the letters of the signs Aries and Aquarius.

Aries is the Vernal point in the tropical zodiac, and Aquarius is almost the Vernal point of the sidereal zodiac. so the connection between these two is evidence of the change in Aeons, a change which bookends the era of Pisces the Fish, with which Jesus is associated.

So as others have noted, it may be that this swap of Emperor and Star is an adumbration of the Age of Aquarius.

Tzaddi as the fish-hook is well-positioned as Aquarius, catching and pulling along the Fishes of Pisces as the Vernal point moves backward into Aquarius in the near future.

So if you want to just swap two letters, Heh and Tzaddi, that's fine, but the 'double-loop' argument is not convincing as a proof. We have to find that elsewhere.
If you really want a double-loop, then ALSO switch the letters Lamed and Tet, but leave the signs in place.
so Lust is still Leo, but now allocated to lamed. Adjustment is still Libra, but now allocated to Tet. Then you would have a real double loop. But I'm not so sure the results would be to everyone's liking.

The answer I originally proposed involves four cards:
Emperor - Aquarius - Tzaddi - 90
Empress - Venus - Dalet - 4
Lust - Leo - Tet - 9
Tower - Mars - Peh - 80

The first card equals 90, the letter Tzaddi.
The next cards equal 93: they are the three horizontal paths of the Tree of Life, and the value of the word Thelema.

Together, these cards are equal to 183. This sum is 3 x 61, and is the value of all the foreign letters in the Book of the Law.

Litlluw
RLG

Aeon418

RLG said:
The tarot sequence used by the Golden Dawn is irrelevant to the discussion.

Huh? Are you seriously trying to tell me that Crowley didn't believe the Golden Dawn scheme to be the initiated Tarot doctrine? Everything that Crowley did stands on the shoulders of the Golden Dawn. To say it is irrelevant is absolutely bizarre! It's the foundation of this entire topic.

This whole "loop" problem stems from the Golden Dawn scheme, and Crowley's desire to make it conform with the traditional TdM order.

RLG said:
A you noted, AC reverts to the TdM sequence, and has to swap numerals to do it, but he's swapping them back to where they belong in the first place.

Yes, but in the process he takes the letters out of sequence. This is what the Golden Dawn tradition was meant to "correct". But by reverting back to TdM order a loop was created. But this loop can't be counter balanced in exactly the same way because the numerals of the Emperor and the Star can't be changed for very important reasons.

RLG said:
Also, if your argument were taken to its logical conclusion, then the Star would be card IV, and be associated with Tzaddi and Aquarius.

That's what I already said in my previous post.

RLG said:
But if 'Tzaddi is not the Star', then this would accomplish very little, and not even make a 'double loop' except in comparison with the GD tarot sequence.

Nope. Starting with the Golden Dawn sequence, a loop is created by going back to TdM. A like-for-like counter balance at the other end with IV & XVII is not possible. Endless complaints that the swaps are different are totally irrelevant. By the very nature of the numeral problem, the balancing swap was always going to have to be of a different kind. There is no way around this. If you can't accept this then you will have to either:

A) Use the Golden Dawn sequence - VIII Strength, XI Justice. (No loops, but the Tarot sequence has been disturbed.)

or

B) Use the TdM order which leaves two letters out of sequence. Unless you fancy assigning Lamed to Strength and Teth to Justice.

or

C) Come up with a different swap. Unfortunately any swap you come up with will still be open the same stone throwing that is directed at Crowley's, because of the numeral problem.

RLG

Dwtw

The GD Tarot sequence is irrelevant simply because when AC talks about a 'double loop', he is referring merely to his own sequence, and not the GD's, (which he changed back). I made no claim that he wasn't initiated in that tradition, but that also is irrelevant. It simply muddies the water by bringing the GD sequence into the discussion. It's good historical information, but it doesn't relate to what Crowley finally decided on.

It is true that AC simply switched back the order of the cards VIII and XI, but kept the associations from the GD. But at that point, the GD sequence stops being a part of the discussion of double loops. Where the original loop came from is hardly consequential to the fact that Crowley had one 'loop' in his sequence, and falsely claimed to have created a counter-balanced loop at the other end of the zodiac. His other loop is not zodiacal, but not alphabetic.

If he had not reversed, or returned, the GD sequence, then he would not have had a double-loop at all, let alone a single one. so it was AC's decision to create this loop in the first place. The GD solution was to avoid a loop in the letter-sign arrangement, and simply swap the positions of two cards, which tarot enthusiasts have been doing for centuries, as witnessed by the endless variety of trump sequences in the earliest tarots.

One question on this tack is why AC chose to switch back to TdM sequence. It would seem to be evidence that he felt that TdM sequence was important, possibly because of the roman numerals on the cards. This is bolstered by the fact that he did not switch the order of Emperor and Star. But he did switch their letters, which created a pair of Hebrew-letter loops. By not switching the signs, however, he did not complete the other loop as well.

I am constantly surprised that the double-loop of the Heh-Tzaddi switch engenders a lot of discussion, since it is so simply and obviously flawed. If you want a true 'double loop' that involves both letters and zodiac signs at each end, then the Emperor has to be Aquarius-Tzaddi, and the Star has to be Aries-Heh.

Now, if you ignore the whole spurious double-loop thing, then you have free reign to rearrange any letters and signs that you want. But we're speaking here of the contents of AL 1:57, which enigmatically talks about only a select few tarot cards.

And I'd still love to see where the older kabbalists separated Tzaddi from Aquarius, or separated any other zodiac signs from their Sefer Yetzirah associations.

I'm hardly the first person to suggest that a true double loop is only accomplished by making the Emperor both Tzaddi AND Aquarius. Where I differ is by offering a textual exegesis that supports it. You are free to disagree, of course.
And I've even suggested that an alternative is to have Tzaddi and Aquarius remain with the Star, so that the combination of Empress and Star exemplifies the 'love of the dove'. This of course would require no change to Tzaddi, but could be accomplished by re-naming the Star as the Stars or the Galaxy.
In that case, you would have only one loop to worry about, the one AC created by switching the trumps back to TdM sequence.

But you know, no matter what the attributions are, you can always arrange the cards in alef-betical order ;-)

Litlluw
RLG

Aeon418

RLG said:
The GD solution was to avoid a loop in the letter-sign arrangement, and simply swap the positions of two cards, which tarot enthusiasts have been doing for centuries, as witnessed by the endless variety of trump sequences in the earliest tarots.

Centuries? Show me one other deck prior to the Golden Dawn that swapped the positions of Strength and Justice.

RLG said:
I am constantly surprised that the double-loop of the Heh-Tzaddi switch engenders a lot of discussion, since it is so simply and obviously flawed. If you want a true 'double loop' that involves both letters and zodiac signs at each end, then the Emperor has to be Aquarius-Tzaddi, and the Star has to be Aries-Heh.

Nice try, but wrong.

This is why I keep harping on about the Golden Dawn sequence. Crowley's initial swap was a pair of Roman numerals. (VIII, XI) This incidentally brought the sequence back into the TdM order. But the next swap must also involve a pair of Roman numerals to make it a true double loop. To balance the hebrew letters and signs the TdM order has to be broken again if it is going to be a like-for-like swap.

Any other kind of swap, including yours, that does not involve swapping IV for XVII is of a different kind, and doesn't match the first one. And so is open to the same kind of criticism and scorn that you seem to delight in pouring on A.C.'s "spurious" effort.
So it's worth pointing out that A.C. never mentions a double loop in the letters. (Let me know if you find a quote.) After all, the alphabet is linear not circular. His explanatory comments focus on the circle of the zodiac.

RLG said:
And I'd still love to see where the older kabbalists separated Tzaddi from Aquarius, or separated any other zodiac signs from their Sefer Yetzirah associations.

You mean the associations that must be correct simply because they are old, and were copied by subsequent scribes from older manuscripts? So what makes the originator of the Yetzirah right and Liber Legis wrong? You can flip a coin on that one. Maybe Liber Legis is correcting a flaw in the correspondences.

Gasp! How can something so old and "traditional" possibly be wrong. It's simply unthinkable, isn't it? Well .... erm... no.

Your right that the zodiac associations have stayed the same from Yetzirah to Yetzirah, but others have been changed. But how come these changes are fine, but Crowley's change is not allowed? The argument would seem to be that because the zodiac associations have never been changed before, they cannot be touched now. The planetary associations are fair game, but nothing like that has ever happened with the zodiac ones............ so it can never ever happen now or in the future.

So this is what it boils down to. It never happened in the past, so it can't happen under any circumstances, period! Huh?

RLG said:
I'm hardly the first person to suggest that a true double loop is only accomplished by making the Emperor both Tzaddi AND Aquarius. Where I differ is by offering a textual exegesis that supports it. You are free to disagree, of course.

I do disagree. Because any "true" double loop involves swapping IV and XVII. And, as we all know, that can't be done. Any other swap, yours included, is of a different kind.

And that's even before we get to the problem of Tzaddi is not the Star.

RLG

Aeon418 said:
Centuries? Show me one other deck prior to the Golden Dawn that swapped the positions of Strength and Justice.Nice try, but wrong.

Dwtw

You mistakenly characterize what I said. I was merely pointing out a general tendency to switch around the order of the Trumps in the early years of the Tarot. I never mentioned the Strength-Justice swap specifically. I don't think that particular one was done before the GD.

Aeon418 said:
This is why I keep harping on about the Golden Dawn sequence. Crowley's initial swap was a pair of Roman numerals. (VIII, XI) This incidentally brought the sequence back into the TdM order. But the next swap must also involve a pair of Roman numerals to make it a true double loop. To balance the hebrew letters and signs the TdM order has to be broken again if it is going to be a like-for-like swap.

You (or I) have no way of knowing whether AC was swapping only roman numerals or whether he was deliberately reinstating the TdM order. The historical record is silent on this. So when you say it is coincidental, that is a conjecture. It seems doubtful it could possibly be 'incidental' when there is no other reason for switching VIII and XI back except to restore the TdM order. It certainly wasn't due to the Hebrew letters and signs, since they were in the proper alef-betical and zodiacal order in the GD tarot.

There is no reason to swap the numerals on other cards to match this return to the TdM order. You insist on the GD sequence as if it is foundational when it isn't. The GD switched the order to begin with! If anything is foundational when it comes to the Trump sequence, (as it relates to Thoth), it is the TdM. AC was only switching it back to the TdM, so why in the world do you insist that some other numerals have to be swapped to match what he returned to the original TdM order in the first place? That seems pretty silly.

But of course you're absolutely right in one sense; if you want to make TWO switches from the GD order, then yes, you'd have to swap both VIII-XI and IV-XVII. Why didn't AC do this? Because then he would have a TdM order modified in a different way, and would be no better off than the GD sequence left us.

Aeon418 said:
Any other kind of swap, including yours, that does not involve swapping IV for XVII is of a different kind, and doesn't match the first one. And so is open to the same kind of criticism and scorn that you seem to delight in pouring on A.C.'s "spurious" effort.
So it's worth pointing out that A.C. never mentions a double loop in the letters. (Let me know if you find a quote.) After all, the alphabet is linear not circular. His explanatory comments focus on the circle of the zodiac.

Talk about heaping scorn; it would seem you take a certain delight in it yourself. As for swapping XVII and IV, I've already dealt with that.

You're right, AC doesn't talk about a double loop in the letters, ONLY the zodiac. The question is whether the zodiac follows the letters or not, because it is the letters which were switched, remember?

Since, as you rightly point out, AC talks only about a 'double loop' in the Zodiac, please show me where he accomplished this, because as I see it, Aries and Aquarius are still in their normal sequence in the Thoth Tarot.

Aries/Emperor comes before Taurus/Hierophant, and Aquarius/Star comes before Pisces/Moon. No change there.
Or am I missing something?

Aeon418 said:
You mean the associations that must be correct simply because they are old, and were copied by subsequent scribes from older manuscripts? So what makes the originator of the Yetzirah right and Liber Legis wrong? You can flip a coin on that one. Maybe Liber Legis is correcting a flaw in the correspondences.

Gasp! How can something so old and "traditional" possibly be wrong. It's simply unthinkable, isn't it? Well .... erm... no.

I have merely asked you to back up your assertion that the attributions were changed around all the time by the older kabbalists. But you have yet to give any evidence for your statement.

I never said that tradition rules above all else, or that things can never be changed. I said that if one is going to change such a long-standing tradition, one should have good evidence for that.
I also never said that the writer of the SY was 'right' and the author of Liber AL was 'wrong. Really, if you're going to put words in my mouth, then there is no point in trying to have a creative dialogue.

And I hardly think that a scribe got the zodiac associations wrong when they simply go in zodiacal order through all 12 simple letters of Hebrew. Hard to mess that up, really.

But you touch on an important point, that Liber AL may be correcting a flaw in the correspondences. The question is, which flaw, in which correspondence. And that of course is what we have been discussing.

Aeon418 said:
You're right that the zodiac associations have stayed the same from Yetzirah to Yetzirah, but others have been changed. But how come these changes are fine, but Crowley's change is not allowed? The argument would seem to be that because the zodiac associations have never been changed before, they cannot be touched now. The planetary associations are fair game, but nothing like that has ever happened with the zodiac ones............ so it can never ever happen now or in the future.
So this is what it boils down to. It never happened in the past, so it can't happen under any circumstances, period! Huh?

As above, I never said that, you did. Are you reading my posts or just in a big hurry to react to them?

I'll say it again. Change is fine, but you should have evidence for it, that's all. Now if one wants to just change whatever they like, then please do so, but don't say that it's related to tradition, Liber Legis, or anything else other than your own creativity.

Crowley was 'allowed' to change whatever he wanted to change. But his explanations for the changes he made ring hollow, as if he is either hiding something, deliberately making it enigmatic, or just didn't know what the hell he was doing.
Or maybe he just wanted to engender interesting internet discussions...

Aeon418 said:
I do disagree. Because any "true" double loop involves swapping IV and XVII. And, as we all know, that can't be done. Any other swap, yours included, is of a different kind.

I've been at pains to point out that this is simply not the case, but you're welcome to believe it if you like. You're sticking with the GD sequence, (which was deliberately changed), and I'm looking only at the Book of Thoth, because that's the data set we have for Crowley's 'solution' to verse 1:57.

Let me just state it one last time, for the sheer joy of repeating myself.

In the TdM Trump order, which the Book of Thoth follows,
the Hebrew letters and their associated zodiac signs are in the normal order with one exception: they are swapped in positions VIII and XI. Lamed-Libra and Tet-Leo are out of place.

The Hebrew letters ONLY are swapped in positions IV and XVII. Tzaddi and Heh are out of place, (but not Aries and Aquarius).

The two symmetrical 'loops' are with the letters only.
There is one loop of the signs.

To balance this loop of VIII-XI, one has to swap signs between IV and XVII. It's just that simple. That makes a true 'double loop' of the Zodiac, as Crowley claimed, (but did not accomplish).

It doesn't even matter what came before him. This is what Crowley left us. And it's incomplete, but only in the sense that there is no 'double loop' of the zodiac. That does not mean that its wrong to have only one loop in the zodiac. AC may have the perfect solution. But he explains it very poorly.

The Book of the Law makes no mention of the zodiac signs in this verse, only a letter and some of the Trump cards. We are left to determine for ourselves how we want to deal with that. We can accept what AC left us in the Thoth deck, or tweak it to our own taste. I merely offered one way to fulfill the dictates of the verse. Others may interpret this as they will.

I'll let you have the last word on the subject, because I have nothing more to say. Thanks for all your helpful criticisms.

Litl
RLG

Aeon418

RLG said:
But of course you're absolutely right in one sense; if you want to make TWO switches from the GD order, then yes, you'd have to swap both VIII-XI and IV-XVII. Why didn't AC do this? Because then he would have a TdM order modified in a different way, and would be no better off than the GD sequence left us.

Because he probably didn't see a need to make anymore changes. In A.C.'s mind the astrological attributions for the Star and the Emperor were already correct. (See comments on pages 10 & 40 in TBoT.) It is only the Tzaddi issue that throws a spanner in the works.

RLG said:
You're right, AC doesn't talk about a double loop in the letters, ONLY the zodiac. The question is whether the zodiac follows the letters or not, because it is the letters which were switched, remember?

But is it really the letters that are switched? If you actually look at what Crowley says in the Book of Thoth you will notice that he never mentions switching letters. Instead he talks about exchanging cards or a counter change in the positions of cards. On the Tree of Life this is exactly what happend. Heh and Tzaddi never moved. It was the positions of the cards and their astrological associations that moved. This same change in positions between Aries and Aquarius is mirrored in the zodiac loop diagram.

I'm baffled how so many people can claim to have read Crowley and then ignore what he said in favour of a letter swapping exercise. But it's clear that Crowley didn't see it that way. He only talks about the positions of cards. And this is the same reasoning he gives for the double loop. It's a change in positions.

RLG said:
Since, as you rightly point out, AC talks only about a 'double loop' in the Zodiac, please show me where he accomplished this, because as I see it, Aries and Aquarius are still in their normal sequence in the Thoth Tarot.

Place the cards in the order they descend the Tree of Life (according to the alphabet sequence). Now Aquarius and Aries are out of position. One loop.
Now follow the normal order of Tarot. Libra and Leo end up out of position this time. Second loop.

And if you want two loops together, place the cards in the normal Tarot order and then follow Crowley's instructions and counter-change the positions of XVII and IV. We may not be able to swap numerals, so swapping positions is the next best thing.

RLG said:
I have merely asked you to back up your assertion that the attributions were changed around all the time by the older kabbalists. But you have yet to give any evidence for your statement.

And I already said the Zodiac associations remain constant from Yetzirah to Yetzirah. If you want proof of planetary changes just look in Aryeh Kaplan's version of the Yetzirah. He's mapped all the changes out.

RLG said:
I never said that tradition rules above all else, or that things can never be changed. I said that if one is going to change such a long-standing tradition, one should have good evidence for that.

A.C. provides the evidence for the switch in TBoT. If that's not enough...

RLG said:
Crowley was 'allowed' to change whatever he wanted to change. But his explanations for the changes he made ring hollow, as if he is either hiding something, deliberately making it enigmatic, or just didn't know what the hell he was doing.

As Crowley said:

I see no harm in revealing the mystery of Tzaddi to 'the wise'; others will hardly understand my explanations.