Have I been invited to ramble more?
Well, ok, just a little bit.
First, I forgot to mention the eye. This is the eye of Shiva, it is the same eye that is on the Tower. The dance of Shiva maintains andcreates the universe, matter. When he stops dancing and opens his eye the world will end.
It is interesting however that on the Univers the woman seems to be blocking herself from the eye with the snake.
Using the afore mentioned theme of creation destruction it might be said that this again is a symbol of the union of male and female (the snake) being part of the cycle of destruction/ creation. Ie, the eye destroyes, but the snake creates.
I have to say this. I am not any kind of expert. If anyone doesn't agree with me, well, I won't be offended. I am always keen to hear what other people think.
Also it has been a long time since I really studied any of this stuff. I have been out of touch for many years.
And as you have said Frank, the images now are probablysomewhat divorced from theor creator. If therefore anyone wanted to do away with some or all of Crowleys intentions then that is well and good, as they say 'nothing is true, everything is permitted'. However, Crowley designed these cards, Harris painted them, the symbols used are very specific and relate directly to the time in which they lived, the education they had and the beliefs they held.
Therefore, what I am saying is, if it is a matter of what the card means to an individual, that is for the individual alone to say. But, if it is a a question of what Crowley/Harris was trying to say through that card then one is well paid by a study of that person and their personal symbolism.
I also think that it is also important to realise something that was said recently in the BOTA thread else where on these boards. That what was once secret and profound knowledge, treasured by adepts and handed out to students only after long years of study, are now common knowledge.
Who has not heard of 'sex magick'? Yet to Crowley this was the most secret of mysteries, allowed only to adepts of the 9th degree.
Now you can go to Waterstones and buy a book about it for a tenner.
There are programs on TV celebrating Tantra as the latest new age craze to 'spice up' your love life.
And yet all this has really done is to devalue that knowledge.
If you can buy it for cheap, if you can get it for free, then of course it is of little value to your subconcious mind, the place where magick works, the place where you touch the universe and create your own reality.
Gnosis through the sexual union of two people, the mingling of the red and the white of the alchemists, I doubt that this shocks, or even surprises anyone anymore, when you can see sex on the TV every night, buy it from every newsagents.
And therefore that tingling, daring sensation that our perdecessors would have felt when they read of things that defied all the moral conventions and certainties of their age is gone.
That excitement, that desperate, heart in the mouth feeling as you teeter on the very brink of damnation is lost. And that itself was gnosis, it was part of the power that fueled Crowleys workings.
Now, I'm afraid, it is just ordinary, a 'quick shag' (if I may be so crude). The magick and the mystery is lost.
Sad really