The Star card

Dulcimer

au revoir

Elegently put cheekyinchworm. And you are right of course. To dismiss something out of hand just because I could not make any sense of it is arrogant. And I'm feeling rather foolish. I guess my brain isn't wired to understand Crowley (Goddess knows I've tried lol). Nor can I marry tarot to Hebrew alphabet. To me its a fish riding a bicycle.
I follow your reasoning and easily accept it as an honest argument. I apologise if it appeared I was pouring scorn on you and your ideas.
I will withdraw from this particular thread as it seems I am more of a hindrance than a help.:)
Good luck!
 

cheekyinchworm

Dulcimer said:
Elegently put cheekyinchworm. And you are right of course. To dismiss something out of hand just because I could not make any sense of it is arrogant. And I'm feeling rather foolish. I guess my brain isn't wired to understand Crowley (Goddess knows I've tried lol). Nor can I marry tarot to Hebrew alphabet. To me its a fish riding a bicycle.
I follow your reasoning and easily accept it as an honest argument. I apologise if it appeared I was pouring scorn on you and your ideas.
I will withdraw from this particular thread as it seems I am more of a hindrance than a help.:)
Good luck!
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Dulcimer,

It sounds like you didn't dismiss it out of hand, actually! Didn't you say you spent a lot of time and effort trying to understand it? And decided that it didn't fit together for you?

Because, that's quite fine, really. I mean, I'm not committed to the idea that any particular thing in Crowley MUST make sense, whether that is a diagram or a table or list of correspondences or whatever.

I may end up deciding, just like you, that the Tarot trumps don't match one to one to the paths of the tree of life.

But for right now, I AM committed to making a serious effort for a long time to see if I can't make sense of it for myself. So I start by assuming that it DOES make sense.

However, I'm totally open and interested in hearing why you find that it DOESN'T make sense--that marrying the Tarot and the Qabalah is like a fish riding a bicycle. That would actually be productive for me, if (and only if) you'd like to post about it.

Actually, I have to admitt that I still use my RWS for any important readings. And also, that, honestly, right now Strength being 8 makes more sense to me than Strength being 11. And also that I really don't know what the hebrew letters or paths on the Tree MEAN.

I'm a total Thoth newbie. Just starting out. Just starting with Qabalah and Astrology.

So I'm interested in hearing anything except "You're wasting your time"! Although, again, even there, that also would be fine if it were a post about WHY it was a waste of time.

It's really thrilling, though. Astrology is amazing. And the Tree of Life is amazing. Thrilling, but also overwhelming. One thing at a time, though, I guess. Worm along, inch by inch.
 

Ross G Caldwell

cheekyinchworm said:
And, I was asking myself the question of why there would be such a glaring error in the table on page 278 (just after the notes on Diagram 9), where Aries is attributed to The Star, and Aquarius is attributed to The Emporer. My guesses (and that's all they are) amount to the following:

1. First of all, it IS a glaring error. Is there anyone who seriously maintains this correspondence? So, for those who have some experience, it's obviously wrong, right?
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I would definitely say is an error. As far as I can tell, Crowley never gave Aquarius to the Emperor. It is a misprint in the book, or whoever set it wasn't thinking.

The only thing that he changed seemed to be the *letter* attributions of the card. He didn't change the Tree of Life's paths, nor the traditional attributions (other than the Hebrew letter), associated with that card. He didn't say, for instance, that the Hebrew alphabet should go "Aleph, Beth, Gimel, Daleth, Tzaddi, Vav," etc.

But he *might* have said that the order of the Trumps should go "Magician, Priestess, Empress, Star, Hierophant," but the *numbering* would still be "I, II, III, XVII, V." The card gets to keep everything but its place on the Tree of Life.

Thus, the path mediating Chokmah and Tipereth is still Heh - only the card is changed. And the Star (because the Star's attributions other than the letter aren't changed) is Aquarius, so Heh now has Aquarius as well. It's like he's saying "This is the Age of Aquarius; Aquarius has revolved around Pisces and taken its mediating force from the supernal Chokmah." I'm sure that's one of the reasons he liked the change - as far as he was concerned, Tarot's wisdom comes from the Age of Aries, passed through Pisces, and is now emerging in a new Aeon, that of Aquarius.

The path mediating Netzach and Yesod is still Tzaddi, but now the Emperor and Aries occupy that space.

If you notice the color charts on the next few pages of the book, he does exactly what I said above - the paths are labelled "11, 12, 13, 14, 28 (Star), 16" etc. and "26, 27, 15 (Emperor), 29, 30." If you use that chart on the Tree of Life, you get the Emperor in the *position* of Tzaddi - between Netzach and Yesod (and the Star vice-versa) - but his tarotic number doesn't change (11=0 and 15=4).

So, as I see it, the card and all its esoteric attributions (sign, color, etc.) are moved to a new place on the Tree of Life, but the order of the alphabet on the Tree of Life isn't changed. Tzaddi doesn't become Heh in the alphabet.

That's why I wrote about the systems not being "seamless". If you're talking Tarot, you have to have the Emperor at IV, between the Empress and the Hierophant. If you're talking Hebrew alphabet, it's not changed at all. If you're talking paths on the Tree of Life, it's the same as ever. If you're talking astrological attributions, that goes with the card to a new letter, but the positions of the letters in the alphabet and on the Tree aren't changed.

So, only the letter attribution of the card should be changed, and thus its position on the Tree; everything else doesn't (meaning that the order of the alphabet and the Tree are primary, and the card attributions and astrological symbols, colors etc. of the letters are secondary, perhaps only able to be changed for a new Aeon).

So yes, I would argue for an error on page 278 - especially given the weight of Crowley's testimony elsewhere.

Ross
 

Teheuti

Ross G Caldwell said:
So yes, I would argue for an error on page 278 - especially given the weight of Crowley's testimony elsewhere.
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I agree with Cheekyinchworm & Ross. I posted my previous combings through the BoT and the Crowley/Harris letters in this thread on 28-02-2006 and came up with the same conclusions. Ross' additional readings in Crowley suggest the logical development of Crowley's thinking. It all makes sense to me.

BTW, I highly recommend laying out the Thoth deck according to all the charts - really look at what he was doing - and read BoT closely - again and again. Thank you, Cheekyinchworm, for pointing out the importance of Crowley's statement regarding Diagram 1: "This diagram should be studied so deeply and so constantly that it becomes automatic for the mind to accept it as the basis for all thinking on the subject of The Tarot" and Diagram 2: "The same general remarks . . . apply here also . . . [Diagram 2] should be committed to memory."

If you haven't studied the cards laid out according to these diagrams (and memorized the material) then it's really hard to keep track of what Crowley is talking about, and it's easy to fall into suppositions about what he "really" meant that aren't born out by almost all the evidence. Lay out the cards. Then go back to every statement that Crowley made about the Star and Emperor (see my earlier post where all the BoT references are noted) and see what works. Nothing substitutes for hands-on observation.

Mary
 
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