The Star card

Lillie

Yes,

Teth is the 19th path, Lamed is later.

No one moved the paths, they just changed the cards that were associated with those paths.

So, if the GD had not changed Justice and Strength (and the fool is zero) then Justice = teth, and Strength = lamed. (or at least this is what they would have equalled if the GD had put them on the tree with out the change around)
But they did change them, so Strength = teth, and Justice = lamed.

Then crowely gave them their old numbers back, but left them where the GD had put them on the tree.

No. I'm lost. Even I don't know what I am talking about now.

All I thought was that as the teth path goes horizontally across the tree, joining the left and right pillars, and as Justice is often shown seated between two pillars this would be a fitting place for this card.
And, as she might have been placed here if the GD had not changed her number I thought it was curious.

All this path/tree/letter atribution stuff confuses me. Especially when people keep moving things.
They should just make up their minds and stick to it.



I
 

Aeon418

Lillie said:
All this path/tree/letter atribution stuff confuses me. Especially when people keep moving things.
They should just make up their minds and stick to it.
Yeah, it is a bit of a mess, but a necessary one.

The letter Teth corresponds to Leo in the Zodiac and Lamed corresponds to Libra. So Justice/Adjustment and Strength/Lust have to be swapped around.

The feminine letter Heh means window, to breathe, to exist, to desire and the inentification of a star. What the Golden Dawn thought that had to do with The Emperor I have no idea. As Crowley saw it's far more suited to the Star.

Likewise with Tzaddi which means hunt, hunter, hunted, to lie in wait, capture, and adversary. It all sounds very masculine and a good match with the Emperor. (Who probably likes to go fishing at the weekends as well. ;) Fish-hook )
 

ravenest

??????

Now this is something I really want to nut out and never been able to get my head around it!

[I love you guys and this site ... this is great!!!!]


prob is I dont have a computer so I gotta print out and read at home - cant concentrate with old deaf lady yelling at library counter.

so will get back later or maybe start new thread when all this assimilated

As far as I can work out AC's diagram in Thoth "balances the changes"
yet that was because some one made an uneven change first.
And YES Aeon; can we be sure that that wiggle in the (original handwritten) Liber AL (and we must give importance to that handwriten version as a condition of print) is a Tzaddi?
I once raved with an American OTO Senator ('sceuse my forgetfullness of constitution) who was the chair of the senate ...or whatever, but he insisted it wasnt a Tzaddi, that went a bit wierd into 3 dimensional trees and lost paths of the three hebrew father letters ... all got a bit far out.

But just looking at those changed attributions on the tree ... it just seems illogical and out of balance to have the Tzaddi way up there and the He way down there?
 

Aeon418

ravenest said:
But just looking at those changed attributions on the tree ... it just seems illogical and out of balance to have the Tzaddi way up there and the He way down there?
Now you've lost me. Heh and Tzaddi stay put. Only the cards switch around. Heh is still on the 15th path and Tzaddi on the 28th.
 

Windhorse

Obviously horses for courses....

Don't get me wrong - I love this deck, and I love Crowley's writings and his work. And I love the way his deck has rivalled the standard RWS deck (I'm just a sucker for the underdog, and anything that bucks the mainstream).

BUT....

... I have of late felt that these attributions are... well, not so much incorrect, but perhaps deliberately misleading. A red herring, if you will.

I feel that the hebrew letter attributions of Emperor and Star should remain as is. I'm sorry Aiwass, but Tzaddi IS the Star. (ducks rotten fruit being thrown at him).... call me a heretic if you will, but I feel that ol' Aiwass was pulling Big Al's leg...

Now Teth is the 9th letter in the Hebrew Alphabet (or 8th, after Aleph), so must have it's place on the 19th Path (between Geburah and Chesed). Subsequently, Lamed is the 12th letter (11th after Aleph) and must lie on the 22nd Path, between Geburah and Tiphareth.

The question is then which trump to signify the letters. If we accept that the letters are in the correct paths and order within the hebrew system, and we accept that Teth=Strenght/Lust and Lamed=Justice/Adjustment, then it is Waite's transposition which is correct, not Crowley's.

This is assuming of course that Teth=Strength and Lamed=Justice.
I am yet to wander down this path (no pun intended) to see if these cards fit with these paths. I kind of assume they do, only because the association of Teth and the serpent and Strength/Lust feels right. I can't quite grasp the correlation between Justice and a goat-herding implement yet.... but Justice/Adjustment as the card that lies in the middle of the 22 trumps (given the scales symbolism) works for me...

...But then equally, Strength/Fortitude (as it was in the Marseilles) also works symbolically as the 11th card too....

So, its all rather confusing....
I think the GD members are just all tricksters who like messing with our heads... LOL :)
 

Aeon418

Windhorse said:
I feel that the hebrew letter attributions of Emperor and Star should remain as is. I'm sorry Aiwass, but Tzaddi IS the Star. (ducks rotten fruit being thrown at him).... call me a heretic if you will, but I feel that ol' Aiwass was pulling Big Al's leg...
Ok fine. But you fail to give us a reason why you think it's wrong.

It was the Waite/Golden Dawn switch of Justice and Strength that created all the problems in the first place. They changed the traditional Tarot sequence to make it conform with systems (Astrology and Qabalah) that have no direct link with the Tarot. Crowley's Emperor / Star switch balances this disturbance but it leaves the original sequence of the Majors intact.
What Crowley did is make the entire astrological/qabalistc system fit in a balanced way without playing monkey tricks with the Tarot.

Robert M. Place in his The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination, points out that Waites switch of Justice and Strength suggests that he was unaware of the Platonic meaning of these two cards in which Justice must come before Strength.

Windhorse said:
I can't quite grasp the correlation between Justice and a goat-herding implement yet....)
I find the correspondence of Justice and Lamed/Ox Goad one the easiest to understand when viewed in the context of it's position between Geburah and Tiphareth on the Tree of Life.
The Ox Goad is used to keep an Ox going in a specific direction (True Will;)). If it deviates from it's course it is brought back into line by the Ox Goad. Justice and the Ox Goad are symbols of Karma. When you deviate from your True Will, centred in Tiphareth, you are brought back into line by the harsh and stern power of Geburah. Of course there is no question of reward and punishment here. It is all totally impartial. Karma = cause and effect. Follow your True Will and you're fine. Stray from it and you suffer the consequences.
 

rachelcat

Yes, lamed/ox goad for Justice/karma and teth/serpent for Strength/Lust/beast always made perfect sense to me. Of course the reason for the switch of Strength and Justice is because it allows the zodiac majors to be in order with Strength as Leo and Justice as Libra. Thus Crowley's little diagram of the twist in the zodiac. (It would seem strange to have a card with a big cat on it as Libra and a card with scales on it be Leo, huh?) Of course, the planet majors aren't in order, so what the heck. (Or are they?)

When dealing with Tzaddik/Hey, don't forget the GD associations with the tetragrammaton: Yod Hey Vav Hey = Knight Queen Prince Princess = Wands Cups Swords Coins. That makes Hey one heck of a feminine letter. I don't really see the Emperor as a Queen (watch it!), Princess, Cup, or Coin! (Well, maybe Coin . . .) Plus, I read somewhere that Tzaddik also means/implies "Righteous Person," which goes very well with the Emperor as an upholder of civilization.

So basically what I'm saying is I've swallowed Uncle Al's theories Tzaddik, line, and sinker!
 

ravenest

Youse Guys!

I've always been confused about this. I try to nut it out, then get confused and give up.
Now look what you've done! My house is covered in open books, charts, diagrams, drawings, screwed up bits of paper and overflowing ash-trays!
My first problem seems that I have been in Thoth for so long that I dont have a comparative understanding of the first astrological and qabalistic attributions to Trumps nor their progressive changes or swaps.
Am I right in assuming that the Marseilles deck had a type of numerical sequential order in Tarot trumps but no astrological and cabalistic attributions ?
Then Eliphas Levi and G.D. saw a relationship to the order of tarot trumps and gave attributions to that numbered sequence qabalistically? And either through mistake or "concealment" the numbered sequence didnt match the "natural" astrological house progressions?
Then Crowley adjusted the house progressions but not the number?
(So it was he that created or supported the first or left-hand side loop in his diagram? See how the numerical progression goes AROUND the chart but the astrological progression LOOPS. If he realised the number progression was wrong - due to it not following the natural astrological progression, why didnt he change the number progression so the numbers and astrological houses both circled? .... because then the loop on the other side would not work?)

I ended up nutting out a whole lot of stuff about this (that hopefully will also clear up my earlier confusing statements) - if the first part of my above assumptions are correct - but its far too long (even after being pared down three times), any ideas where or how I can post it ... I'm hopeless at navigating I.T.
 

Alta

Split it up and use several post boxes.
 

ravenest

ummm

Marion said:
Split it up and use several post boxes.

ta! Do you mean, post several replies, send to peoples email or is there Post Boxes somewhere else I havnt found yet?

I just posted it reply and it fitted. er... I feel we are all driving bumper cards and I havnt got it yet, and zooming around crashing into your neat navigation.