Lost & Confused Newbie

Lil Red said:

Hi guys,

How do you guys read the Thoth tarot?

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Honestly, if I had waited until I completly understood Qabalah, my cards would still be in the box.

You know how you're reading something that you don't quite get, then you turn the page and there is a picture or diagram and a lighbulb goes off? That is often how I use the Thoth. Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words. The habbit of drawing a daily card has sometimes jump started my understanding of an essoteric concept by giving it a practical application I can wrap my head around.


AW

Aeon418 said:

But maybe not the same Sepher ha-Torah (Book of the Law) you were thinking of.

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And sometimes a simple sentence is worth a thousand words.

AW

Always Wondering said:

Honestly, if I had waited until I completly understood Qabalah, my cards would still be in the box.......

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I feel that way too.

It helps me to think of it from the perspective of Dion Fortune's Mystical Qabalah, that it is more a way of thinking than a body of knowledge. Thus, memorizing the Tree and the attributions of the Sephiroth and connecting paths may be a significant step toward understanding what it is about.

I once experimented with an elementary algebra class. I made them learn the methods (the "how") but didn't force the issue of theoretical understanding (the "why"). Amazingly, they automatically developed an understanding of algebra to the extent of being able to analyze and solve fairly complicated "word" problems.

Like you said, LRichard, memorizing the basic concepts is both important and also fairly easy. To me study of both is interconnected, and it is impossible to separate the two. Analysis of a card is analysis of a path and vice versa. It also gets easier as time goes by (until you reach The Hanged Man, and everything you thought you knew makes no sense, as I am at present experiencing), since you use the same tools over and over until it becomes second nature.

As to the Torah, I am by no means an expert, but bible studies are mandatory in Israel, and high school students are tested on practically the whole thing. Not only because of modern Hebrew but also because of those lessons, biblical Hebrew is more approachable to me, for the most part, than someone with no experience of it at all. After about a year and a half of study of both the Thoth and Qabalah, I find that I can now go into the Torah and see reasoning and layers I could never have seen before, which makes it all the more fascinating. It really is a great book, provided you go into it with a secular outlook.

LRichard said:

It helps me to think of it from the perspective of Dion Fortune's Mystical Qabalah, that it is more a way of thinking than a body of knowledge. Thus, memorizing the Tree and the attributions of the Sephiroth and connecting paths may be a significant step toward understanding what it is about.

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I think Crowley was thinking along similar lines when he assigned the Qabalah to the Practicus 3=8 grade. The task of the Practicus is to 'cast the Magick Cup.' He/she is working out of the Mercurial sephira, Hod, and so an intellectual study such as the Qabalah is appropriate. But the element of Water corresponds to Hod, not Air. This makes sense when you remember that the word Qabalah comes from a root that means 'to receive.' The memorization and internalization of the attributions is, in a certain sense, casting an inner Magick Cup that slowly develops the faculty of reception.

LRichard said:

Qabalah?

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Yes, Qabalah.
I finally noticed that I misspelled it so sorry about the confusion.

LRichard said:

It never hurts to read the Qu'ran, but that's an Islamic holy book. The religious background of Kabbalah is Judaism, for which you might want to read at least the Torah, although the entire Tanach (Hebrew Bible) as well as some of the Rabbinic literature are also important. Some have gone so far as to say that one must be Jewish in order to fully understand Kabbalah.

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I had a feeling it was the Torah that I was suppose to get but my dad kept mentioning to me that it was the Qu'ran so thank you for pointing that out to me. Also, I'm going to check out the Rabbinic literature that caught my interest.

Always Wondering said:

Honestly, if I had waited until I completly understood Qabalah, my cards would still be in the box.

You know how you're reading something that you don't quite get, then you turn the page and there is a picture or diagram and a lighbulb goes off? That is often how I use the Thoth. Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words. The habbit of drawing a daily card has sometimes jump started my understanding of an essoteric concept by giving it a practical application I can wrap my head around.


AW

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I have thought of leaving my cards in the box so I can study the Qabalah but reading the Introduction[\i] I started to really see the cards so that idea was quickly shut down. Now I'm more curious to find what else I've been missing.

I agree with you especially the daily draws for I do the same thing with my other tarot decks. A picture really is worth a thousand worth.

Lil Red said:

I have thought of leaving my cards in the box so I can study the Qabalah...

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Working with a deck that has a strong foundation in the Tree of Life is a method of studying the Qabalah, IMO. The Thoth deck as a workbook.

MacGregor Mathers organized the approach in four areas: Practical, Literary, Unwritten and Dogmatic. Practice, investigate, listen and read--that's how I see it. The men and women on this forum keep reminding me to pace myself, but to keep walking. The wisdom here is phenomemal; I'm just now starting get things that were said to me at the beginning of the year.

Memorization of the emminations, paths and correspondences is good, and then there's the Tree as a living, growing organism of which I now see myself as participant. What if the Desire to Know it is coming from the Tree itself? Hold on and let go, my friend.

book of splendor...

And on this topic of Qabalah... I've been reading selections by Gershom Scholem from the Zohar. When I need to get out of the house for a bit and approach things a little more "right brained" as they use to say, I'll take Zohar: The Book of Splendor, Basic Readings from the Kabbalah down to the coffee shop and let the poetic, narrative musings wash over me and tickle unsuspecting synapses. I drift off, or in.