Book of Thoth Study Group- The Fool

Zephyros

0. The Fool. Air. Aleph
The Fool is Air, Emptiness, also Potential Purity. He holds the Wand of Fire, the Cup of Water, the Sword of Air, and the bag of planetary Discs.
Round him is the rainbow issuing from and returning to his heart, he wears the fool's cap, the horns of Bacchus, he stands on Harpocrates, the Egyptian symbol of adolescent Fertility, he is unconscious of the tiger tearing at his side, he is the Green Man of the Celts, Daluah and Parsifal. This is the moment of divine consiosness.
Lady Frieda Harris, 1942

Well, I hope that started the ball rolling. I chose to post the relevant part of Frieda Harris's essay on the cards prepared for the exhibition, since she explains what the symbols are and why, but doesn't often go into interpretation.

Anyway, I like that part about the Fool being the moment of divine consiousness. The moment of divine awakening, purity.
 

Zephyros

Just realized that there are terms in my post I don't understand myself, so here wisdom of the Great Oracle by the most high name of Google:

HARPOCRATES, originally an Egyptian deity, adopted by the Greeks, and worshipped in later times both by Greeks and Romans. In Egypt, Harpa-khruti, Horus the child, was one of the forms of Horus, the sun-god, the child of Osiris. He was supposed to carry on war against the powers of darkness, and hence Herodotus (ii. 144) considers him the same as the Greek Apollo. He was represented in statues with his finger on his mouth, a symbol of childhood. The Greeks and Romans, not understanding the meaning of this attitude, made him the god of silence (Ovid, Metam. ~X. 691), and as such he became a favorite deity with the later mystic schools of philosophy.
Harpocrates

The Great Oracle was silent about The Green man of the Celts and Daluah.
 

CreativeFire

The Green Man of the Celts

The Green man is the vegetation spirit of the wildwood. Perhaps the most tenacious Pagan god of all, his image survives in church carvings and pub signs all over Britain, in which he is usually depicted in the form of a severed head with branches and leaves emerging from the mouth. A strange figure - half man, half tree ....

These Green Spirits represent the raw, untamed, primal force of nature - a somewhat frightening concept to the modern mind, which prefers nature safe, controlled, and "civilized".
This is a section actually from the Sacred Circle Tarot Book - A Celtic Pagan Journey. In this deck "The Fool" card is actually called "The Green Man".

The Green Man is also connected in myth and legend to the Green Knight (Arthurian story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight) and also to the Robin Hood stories.

I was curious about "the horns of Bacchus" so checked out one of my mythology books and the Roman god, Bacchus, is represented in Greek mythology as Dionysus - a youthful god of vegetation, wine and ecstasy, known as the "bull-horned god" because he often adopted the form of this powerful beast.

CreativeFire
 

Zephyros

Somehow I get the feeling that this Fool is different than the RWS fool, in that the RWS Foll is much more innocent. He doesn't what he doesn't know. Somehow the eyes in the Thoth fool make me think he's much more ravenous. A thirst, a hunger for knowledge. Something about those eyes...

To me, a much more powerful figure than the RWS Fool.

What does the Sun on his, um, thing mean?
 

Diwha

This is great stuff all of you !!!

As for the fool, do we see him at the end of his journey, well at least after encountering all the other characters of the deck. Wouldn,t that give him a lifetime of experience in his eyes? Where is he at in his journey as we see him on the card? Is he each one of us in our own personal evolution? Aren't we in many ways the fool himself learning as life throws itself at us?

Just some thoughts I'm sharing here friends

Diwha
 

TheoMo

This card strikes me as being one of infinite possibilities. One of the most striking things about it is the spiral that both seem to start and end at the Fool's heart area. The spiral looks like one based on phi:

http://www.geocities.com/davidjayjordan/PhiSpiralofCreation.html

http://goldennumber.net/spirals.htm

http://www.championtrees.org/yarrow/phi/phi5.htm

the third link is interesting b/c the author there points out that the caduceus, which appears right in front of the Fool, is also based on phi. Phi is a number that represents infinite possibilities, and the sacred geometry of the spiral reinforces that for the Fool.

The fact that the spiral begins and ends with the Fool's heart also suggests the circular structure of the Fool's journey - at the end of traversing the spiral, the Fool will end up right where everything began. Of course, that's the paradox of the Fool, since how can anyone ever end up at the same place twice in his or her life? It's the old riddle of realizing what you seek has always been with you the entire time.

I am also struck at the androgyny of the Fool as well - you could picture him (her?) as either sex I think. The breasts appear too prominent to be that of a man and I think the glowing circle in the crotch seems to say that gender is irrelevant -- we shouldn't worry what the specific organs are in other words, but just about the inherent sexual energy that resides in both male and female.

I wonder about the animal depicitions - there's the croc at the bottom, the tiger (??) eating at the fool's leg, and then the dove and butterfly chasing after the caduceus.

just my thoughts!
 

CreativeFire

I have also been wondering about the animals depicted in the card as well, TheoMo.

The Butterfly - is akin to the air, it is the mind, and the abiliity to know the mind or to change it. It is the art of transformation - transformation of self.

To me the Thoth Fool - has a sort of "wild" look in his eyes - like a free spirit, which sort of goes with either the beginning or the end of the cycle.

Also it looks like there is a bunch of grapes behind his arm with the wand in it - which could be a connection also to Dionysus - a youthful god of vegetation, wine and ecstasy?

CreativeFire

PS. Have attached a pic of the Thoth Fool for easy reference.
 

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Zephyros

TheoMo said:

The fact that the spiral begins and ends with the Fool's heart also suggests the circular structure of the Fool's journey - at the end of traversing the spiral, the Fool will end up right where everything began. Of course, that's the paradox of the Fool, since how can anyone ever end up at the same place twice in his or her life? It's the old riddle of realizing what you seek has always been with you the entire time.

"Everything I knew about life I learned in kidergarten" as the old saying goes. The rainbow exiting and returning to his heart illustrates it. How many of us have undergone journeys, be it proffesionally, emotionally or whatnot only to find out in the end that the simplest things are the best in the end.

LOL, we seem to have come a full circle in our studies while on the first card!!!
 

Nycelle

I feel a strength about the Thoth Fool - he dominates the landscape of the card. This is about him, and his journey, where as I believe the WCS Fool is about his environment and what he experiences.

The spiral crossing over into a heart shape on his chest interests me, perhaps this is suggestive of an emotional openness and "heart on sleeve" nature. The golden circle at the groin is fairly phallic, as is the arrangement of three flowers between his legs.

Also, looking at the blue space below his feet convinces me he is floating in midair. And I can't quite get this out of my head. . . :)
 

Diwha

According to the esoteric Tarot, which draws on the Qabbalah, the Fool's letter is Aleph, meaning Ox. The Qabbalistic Intelligence given the Fool is Fiery Intelligence. The color is yellow and the musical note is E Natural. The planetary correspondence is Uranus. On the Qabalistic Tree of Life, the path of the Fool is the 11th Path, between Kether (Crown) and Chokmah (Wisdom of the Father).

Diwha