Barleywine's Astrological Correspondences (split from Astrology & Tarot in TB&M)

Aeon418

Moon = Moon (duh . . .); High Priestess = Pisces (if the Sun can be the "Sun," why can't the Moon be the "Moon?" They're the two most important astrological bodies, and Pisces as the most mystical and nebulous of signs certainly suits the ephemeral nature of the High Priestess.)
Is this a purely astrological thought experiment? Or are you ditching the Hebrew correspondences and the card positions on the Tree of Life?

The Moon = Moon correlation looks reasonable until you go the whole hog and stick it on the Path of Gimel between Kether and Tiphareth. :confused:
 

kwaw

The Moon = Moon correlation looks reasonable until you go the whole hog and stick it on the Path of Gimel between Kether and Tiphareth. :confused:

Well if you're ignoring the GD tradition and changing the astrology to suit why not the letter attributions too? In the oldest SY texts Moon is attributed to Tau - which would place it between Malkuth and Yesod -
 

Barleywine

Is this a purely astrological thought experiment? Or are you ditching the Hebrew correspondences and the card positions on the Tree of Life?

The Moon = Moon correlation looks reasonable until you go the whole hog and stick it on the Path of Gimel between Kether and Tiphareth. :confused:

It's mostly a thought experiment for the fun of it and to see what pops out. I prefer to leave the path assignments alone, so I didn't intend to shift the cards around, just the astrological correspondences to make what feels like a better fit. My copy of Westcott's Sepher Yetzirah talks about planet-sign-and-letter associations in general terms (primal elements with Mothers; planets with doubles and signs with simples), but in the Supplement to Chapter V it provides a "modern allotment" of the letters to the signs, so I suppose if I move the signs on the paths to go with the cards, in Westcott's terms the letters would go with them. This kind of upsets the apple-cart, so I was starting to feel a bit Crowleyan even thinking about it, since in some cases the reconfigured letters, signs and cards make rather strange bedfellows. Now that I've gone as far as I did, I should probably ring all of that down, but it doesn't look promising.
 

kwaw

My copy of Westcott's Sepher Yetzirah talks about planet-and-letter associations in general terms (primal elements with Mothers; planets with doubles and signs with simples), but in the Supplement to Chapter V it provides a "modern allotment" of the letters to the signs, so I suppose if I move the signs on the paths to go with the cards, in Westcott's terms the letters would go with them.

W. Wynn Westcott in his essay on the Isiac Tablet of Bembo used the Gra SY attributions with Justice as VIII and Fool as XXII/0 (which I suppose you could try on the standard GD tree, or the being Gra SY attributions the Gra tree!?):

quote:
"The dogmas of the Sepher Yetzirah also form a perfect Tarot. The Three Mothers, which are: - Aleph, Air, the Firmament, the Holy Spirit. The Human respiration, the Chest. 13. Mem, Water, the Earth, the Belly, the Womb. 21. Shin, Fire, the Heavens of Stars and Suns, the Brain, the Head. These are represented by the Centre of the Isiac Tablet.

"The seven doubles which correspond to the planets, and the median part of the Isiac Tablet: - 2, Beth, Luna, Nature; 3, Ghimel, Mars, Force; 4, Daleth, Sun, Fertility; 11, Kaph, Venus, Generation; 17, Pe, Mercury, Wisdom; 20, Resh, Saturn, Peace; 22, or O, Tau, Jupiter, Beauty, and the Twelve Single, corresponding to the Zodiacal signs, and the Upper Region of the Isiac Tablet . . ."

End quote from The Isiac Tablet of Bembo by William Wynn Westcott."

Note beside his use of Gra attributions his "22, or 0, Tau."

Westcott created his own deck (he later changed the attributions on them to correspond with those of the GD).

Westcott gave a lecture on this to the Theosophical Society, and the essay was distributed widely through the theosophical society; on the 1st of January 1908 the formation of the Order of Christian Mystics was announced,s co-founded in Philadelphia in the USA by two Theosophists, Dr. Frank Homer Curtiss and Mrs. Harriette Augusta Curtiss. They published two volumes on the tarot, The Key to the Universe and The Key of Destiny that use the Gra attributions. They are also used on some modern Spanish decks -

A description of Westcott's pen & ink deck with the Gra attributions can be seen here:
http://green-door.narod.ru/west-tarot.html
 

Barleywine

W. Wynn Westcott in his essay on the Isiac Tablet of Bembo used the Gra SY attributions with Justice as VIII and Fool as XXII/0 (which I suppose you could try on the standard GD tree, or the being Gra SY attributions the Gra tree!?):

quote:
"The dogmas of the Sepher Yetzirah also form a perfect Tarot. The Three Mothers, which are: - Aleph, Air, the Firmament, the Holy Spirit. The Human respiration, the Chest. 13. Mem, Water, the Earth, the Belly, the Womb. 21. Shin, Fire, the Heavens of Stars and Suns, the Brain, the Head. These are represented by the Centre of the Isiac Tablet.

"The seven doubles which correspond to the planets, and the median part of the Isiac Tablet: - 2, Beth, Luna, Nature; 3, Ghimel, Mars, Force; 4, Daleth, Sun, Fertility; 11, Kaph, Venus, Generation; 17, Pe, Mercury, Wisdom; 20, Resh, Saturn, Peace; 22, or O, Tau, Jupiter, Beauty, and the Twelve Single, corresponding to the Zodiacal signs, and the Upper Region of the Isiac Tablet . . ."

End quote from The Isiac Tablet of Bembo by William Wynn Westcott."

Note beside his use of Gra attributions his "22, or 0, Tau."

Westcott created his own deck (he later changed the attributions on them to correspond with those of the GD).

Westcott gave a lecture on this to the Theosophical Society, and the essay was distributed widely through the theosophical society; on the 1st of January 1908 the formation of the Order of Christian Mystics was announced,s co-founded in Philadelphia in the USA by two Theosophists, Dr. Frank Homer Curtiss and Mrs. Harriette Augusta Curtiss. They published two volumes on the tarot, The Key to the Universe and The Key of Destiny that use the Gra attributions. They are also used on some modern Spanish decks -

A description of Westcott's pen & ink deck with the Gra attributions can be seen here:
http://green-door.narod.ru/west-tarot.html

I see, he shifted everything down one to accommodate where he put the Fool. Personally I prefer the Fool as Zero/Aleph for a lot of reasons. I was hoping there would be a Tree diagram in the link but didn't see one.
 

Barleywine

Well if you're ignoring the GD tradition and changing the astrology to suit why not the letter attributions too? In the oldest SY texts Moon is attributed to Tau - which would place it between Malkuth and Yesod -

I suppose I could cherry-pick that, but I'm kinda liking mutability on the Middle Pillar even more as a "mediating" quality.
 

Aeon418

Well if you're ignoring the GD tradition and changing the astrology to suit why not the letter attributions too? In the oldest SY texts Moon is attributed to Tau - which would place it between Malkuth and Yesod -
If you want to go down that road then you also have to reinterpret the Tarot symbolism in light of the new attributions. This is one area that some 'system builders' seem to underestimate. If you scramble the existing symbolic links, you have to rebuild them latter. It's not as simple as merely swapping bits of data to make a pretty pattern.
 

Barleywine

If you want to go down that road then you also have to reinterpret the Tarot symbolism in light of the new attributions. This is one area that some 'system builders' seem to underestimate. If you scramble the existing symbolic links, you have to rebuild them latter. It's not as simple as merely swapping bits of data to make a pretty pattern.

Yes, I understood that when I first started looking into this idea. I was thinking more in terms of "fine-tuning" than rebuilding, but it doesn't take long to catch up to you. I'm thinking of just using what I've done as a "pretty pattern" that has some fascinating internal linkages and reinforcements, and keep the cards and their revised astrological correspondences independent of the qabalistic underpinnings. All the Tree is doing here is giving me a convenient road-map to correlate my ideas - what Regardie (I believe) called a "giant filing cabinet." I will do some more work on looking at the relationship of the astrological cards on the paths to the planetary residents of the Sephirot to see what I can glean from it, but only in an informal way, nothing any more rigorous than what I've already done. Since I didn't move the cards, just switched the zodiacal and planetary correspondences, it becomes mainly an astrological exercise. It's a bit of enjoyable "what-if-ing."
 

Aeon418

I was thinking more in terms of "fine-tuning" than rebuilding, but it doesn't take long to catch up to you.
That's fine. But it's worth bearing in mind that any "fine-tuning" you undertake may erase hidden subtleties in the existing arrangement.

Using the Moon again as an example: Placing the Moon card with the astrological Moon may seem so obvious that it really is "well, duh!" But that little switch destroys the tripartite Lunar symbolism on the Tree represented by Gimel-Moon, Yesod-Moon and XVIII The Moon.

As Gimel the Moon is in contact with the Highest High - Kether. And as Pisces she also touches the lowest low - Malkuth. This points to the Moon as the general feminine symbol within which all exists. Of course you could object to Pisces being involved in this arrangement. But is not Pisces the final sign of the Zodiac and the closure of the circle?
 

Zephyros

Fine work, Barleywine. I tend to think that putting Pisces at the High Priestess would be somewhat of a problem, though. Pisces is a sign of endings, or sorts. As the last sign it has all that has washed down over the year, so it has a little of everything, I once heard an astrologer call it "the garbage sign" (but in a good way!). Point is, it isn't very energetic, it probably wouldn't have the power to hold up the Priestess's duties high up there in the Tree. Also, being there would put its entire neighborhood out of sorts.

I like the idea of having the spiritual moon emanating from Keter, its best qualities; and the actual moon down below, and as you mentioned Crowley it really it a sort of lackluster, polluted card. Not the prophetic visions of the HP, but meaningless dreams and fantasies you can't trust.