"Killing the Thoth Deck" -Mary Greer

[Teheuti]

My own answer to it is that if an author is purposefully intending a meaning, and purposefully excluding another meaning, for any symbol used in a deck, then his own meaning, plus any meaning he has not excluded, belong to the symbol.

If I understand you correctly - a symbol conveys only what the creator wanted it to convey and does not convey anything that that creator did not want? Therefore, is an explanatory text essential to any set of symbols to ensure that the viewer does not make an error?

 

[Nevada]

So what is a symbol? How does it operate? Is it a shorthand representation for a particular idea that is not meant to be understood in any other way? Is a symbol only what the person who selected that image meant it to mean? For instance, if an author says that he meant a drinking glass to indicate clarity, then would others be wrong if they thought it symbolized the evidence of alcoholism in the story-line (of which the author may have been totally unaware)?

I can't see symbols as shorthand, though in one person's single use of a symbol I do want to know what they meant by it. If I can't discern or learn clearly what they meant by it, or even if I can, I'm still going to put my own meaning on it, instead of or in addition to theirs.

Even from a single viewpoint, the symbol won't mean the same thing every time. In a tarot, that meaning will change from reading to reading as well. It will always depend on context.

That's why, barring insight into what it fully meant to Crowley, and what his intent was for putting it there, I don't think I'm that far off seeing the pelican as selflessness in the Empress card - in a general sense of course and not as a static meaning. I can think of many different things that pelican might mean to me in readings. But that one meaning is one aspect of the card's meaning for many people, possibly including Crowley. Even if I knew for certain all that it meant to him, that would still inevitably be part of my view.

 

[Kimberlee]

If I understand you correctly - a symbol conveys only what the creator wanted it to convey and does not convey anything that that creator did not want? Therefore, is an explanatory text essential to any set of symbols to ensure that the viewer does not make an error?

Pardon me for jumping in here, but I have silently been following this thread with interest. No offense intended for anything I may say.

I would have to agree with your above question. Yes, to understand the creator's intention, you would need to study his intention for including a symbol. (Whether by talking with him directly, which is not possible in the case of the Thoth or by studying his writings.)

For example, the Thoth Fool has the cluster of grapes. From my reading of the BoT and this forum, I have found out that the grapes are supposed to be phallic and/or fertile in nature. (Forgive me if that is not completely correct.) I *never* would have figured that out on my own. The grapes, to me, are not a universal symbol, and instead are a more personal symbol that Crowley chose for an express purpose.

I realize that there is the idea of universal symbols, that are supposed to convey the same meaning to everyone. Yet, I do not believe that all symbols are universal. For example, in the U.S. (and many other countries) we nod our heads for "yes" and shake our heads for "no". However, I have heard that in some other countries (Middle Eastern, perhaps? I don't recall) that the exact opposite is conveyed when you nod or shake your head.

So, unless your symbol has no other possible meanings attached to it, it is to your benefit to discover why the creator chose what he did. After all, isn't that why we enjoy reading the companion books that come with tarot decks? Isn't that why we study deck symbols so carefully, especially in complex decks such as the Thoth?

Such are my thoughts. All are welcome to disagree with me.

~Kimberlee

 

[Nina*]

If I understand you correctly - a symbol conveys only what the creator wanted it to convey and does not convey anything that that creator did not want? Therefore, is an explanatory text essential to any set of symbols to ensure that the viewer does not make an error?

I certainly hope not... What a pity for art generally that would be.

 

[Sophie]

Symbols operates directly, semi-directly and indirectly.

Directly, through its encounter: an operative symbol - the Red Cross, the Star of David, the Stars and Stripes - these will all suggest a dominant meaning, possibly two. More importantly, they will evoke a feeling, a reaction, and that reaction will change depending on who is seeing it. It will set a habitual train of thought in motion, which will change according to the situation of the viewer (for example, if you are in a refugee camp, you will view the Red Cross with a greater sense of urgency than if you see it out of the corner of your eye as you amble down the street). A live symbol will never be meaningless or need explanation; and a text won't do much to change its meaning to the viewer. You can say what you want to explain that the Stars and Stripes are a symbol of liberty: for some in the world, it's a symbol of oppression and exploitation.

Symbols also operate semi-directly, because some symbols, while still live and known, don't have that same charge, and need reflection. That will also be the case for symbols that DO have that live charge, but from whom someone wants or needs some distance. Such symbols will operate through dreams, but also through meditation on the symbol and reflection upon discussions and texts about that symbol.

Finally, some symbols operate wholly indirectly, either because they are dead, or they come from a culture that is not directly known to the viewer. Eventually, these can become so well known to the viewer that their charge is restored: that's the case with the ankh - which you might have to read about initially, but once you do and integrate its deeper meaning, you will feel its power directly whenever you see an ankh.


Just as interesting is the question: how can you manipulate and change the charge and underlying meaning of symbols, and how effective is it on the viewer? Because that is, after all, what Crowley did in the Thoth.

 

[Sophie]

If I understand you correctly - a symbol conveys only what the creator wanted it to convey and does not convey anything that that creator did not want? Therefore, is an explanatory text essential to any set of symbols to ensure that the viewer does not make an error?

No; as I wrote, a symbol on a tarot card conveys everything that the symbol can possibly mean but if the author has purposefully excluded a meaning, and turned the symbol on its head, then that meaning is conveyed as a negative (like a photo). It is there, but it is there to be considered, thought through - and rejected, from a philosophical viewpoint.

Of course, there can be no control and thought police over this: and if people still want to go on seeing motherhood as self-sacrifice rather than the expression of True Will, it's their choice. But in the Thoth, that option is presented as a negative.

 

[Scion]

SOphie thank you for that discussion of symbolic direction! Very helpful in defining terms. As you say that is EXACTLY what Crowley did.

So what is a symbol? How does it operate? Is it a shorthand representation for a particular idea that is not meant to be understood in any other way? Is a symbol only what the person who selected that image meant it to mean? For instance, if an author says that he meant a drinking glass to indicate clarity, then would others be wrong if they thought it symbolized the evidence of alcoholism in the story-line (of which the author may have been totally unaware)?

Well, if we were talking about a random symbol, something we encounter that hasn't been placed in context with other symbols and we are assured that it HAS meaning and asked to interpret it, our only option is to apply our own experience and knowledge in the hopes that we can discern meaning there. A symbol suggests meaning(s) external to its literal self. What they mean is always dependent on context and content.

But symbols aren't random in a created work, and (if you believe the Golden Dawn and almost every other historical Magickian) in the Universe. They aren't accidents. The accrete meanings over time and space, in the world and in our minds. In a created work they didn't just "happen" by chance. They were placed. And while we may in fact discover things there that the author didn't intend or realize, the starting point is what the author did intend. White does not mean the same thing in China that it means in England or Haiti. So blindly applying EVERYTHING we know about the presumed symbol proves nothing except our capacity for blindness. If I observe that red is sacred to Ogun, that doesn't mean that Titian was secretly a devotee of Ogun, or that knowing about Ogun will reveal something about Titian's work. That kind of thinking produced some of the dumbest literary criticism of the 1980s, "proving" that Elizabeth the First wrote all of Shakespeare and other nonsense.

Having a wealth of symbolic references to hand is useful but only if they help you to read what you are being offered as a symbolic text. Knowing about Dionysos is helpful if I'm trying to make sense of the New Testament, but that's because Dionysian mysteries and early Christianty overlapped so often and so aggressively. Trying to read the New Testament using nothing but an encyclopedic knowledge of wine production and fertility gods in Nysa in 1000 BCE will be counterproductive. If I have already read the New testament in its cultural context and THEN applied a deep knowledge of proto-Dionysian rites maybe I will discover more, but (to my mind) it's icing, not cake.

This is one of the big criticisms of Campbell's work, which indirectly makes Arrien's work look facile and thin all these years later. Just because stories share characteristics does not make them ONE story. Boiling down a concatenation of symbolic overlaps between farflung cultures doesn't automatically prove that the cultures were related.

So, before I'd go swanning about slopping random meanings onto existing symbols, I'd try to make sense of the intention first. In the same way (to use Aeon's metaphor), I'd assume blueprints indicated a building was to be built on the ground and not in midair. Maybe if I can figure out how the foundation could be poured to make it possible, I'd propose a building in midair, but then again, I'd design a NEW building.

Why would anyone add additional complications and confusion to a series of images already so pregnant with content and allusion? Out of laziness? Out of anxiety? Out of loathing for the creator? In any case, why choose the Thoth at all? And if it's because it's so damned appealing, then maybe it would behoove a new Thoth user to determine WHY it was so appealing before deliberately setting out to misconstrue or misinterpret the source of the appeal.

Taking the idea that symbols "can mean anything," would you suggest that people learn to read a book by making up grammars and systems? WOuld you suggest they try reading a book top to bottom rather than left to right as an interesting exercise? What would they learn? Out of such presumption did Europeans misinterpret the character and content of hieroglyphics, leading to a lot of interesting occult theory, but exactly NO translations of ancient Egyptian.

So I'll ask you: what do you mean by the word "read" when you use it?

Do you think people can just free-associate based on their impressions without any prior knowledge or awareness of the symbolic content in front of them? Do you believe such a thing is even possible, let alone valuable? AND IF SO... why bother limiting the process of reading Tarot to a specific set of symbols orchestrated by a specific man in a specific sequence pf specific patterns in a specific deck, only to reinterpret them willy-nilly because it's not worth paying attention to the intention? And if the preference is to divine rather than read the symbols, again why treat this specific set of symbols as if they lack coherence or organization.

We teach children to read by starting with simple sounds, then letters, then words, then phrases. We help them build a vocabulary and a grammar, set rules of communication and expression in place. It is an incredibly abstract and complex enterprise, yet many of us did it before we could walk. Imagine how I would feel if I discovered that someone had used a "multicultural" universalist approach to language... allowing me to compose strings of grunts and squeals into somethign THEY understood but no one else could. The center of any language (and that includes math and music) is that it allows us to communicate with others; it lets consciousnesses collide. If there is no framework, no grammar, no rules... we are all shouting into the hurricane. Later, after we've learned speech, and sarcasm, and irony, and deceit... then the ways we bend language grow ever more subtle and complex. THEN we can change symbols, make them our own, discard cliches and actually SAY something rather than quoting and repeating others.

Your idea of "freeing" symbols to mean anything we think they might is a familiar one... it's something I heard a lot from fellow graduate students desperate to come up with a twist big enough to support a thesis. More often, that kind of convolution was a way for people to avoid doing research and just decide what THEY wanted a book/sonnet/painting/play/opera to be about. Fancified horseshit for people rushing to meet a deadline. Did they actually learn somethign about the subjects in qwuestion? I dunno. But I do know they learned less than people who actually put in the time and did the work. Laziness and inattention are always the path away from knowledge... even for people who are anxious or afraid or bored. In the time it takes people to cobble together a mishmosh of "multicultural" meanings that actually have any value, they could have just done their homework. Or hell, they could have done the artist's homework and figured out what was intended by the artist.

Context and content. I'll take them any day.

 

[Teheuti]

Sophie - I found your discussion of directly, indirectly, etc. very helpful. There's also the idea that symbols operate at a personal, cultural and universal level (with more subtle distinctions in between). Cultural, btw, could be "American" or Masonic or street-rapper and personal can include family, etc.

Just as interesting is the question: how can you manipulate and change the charge and underlying meaning of symbols, and how effective is it on the viewer? Because that is, after all, what Crowley did in the Thoth.

Intriguing question, but I'm not really clear what you are asking. Could you give an example of "manipulating the charge" of a symbol?

 

[Nevada]

So you look at the pelican, you see the self-sacrifice: then you look at it again through new eyes - you see the pelican feeding her children her own blood because it's an expression of her True Will: freely chosen and embraced, an act that doesn't create a debt, but belongs wholly to her.

(and by the way, if any of you have met those mothers with martyr syndromes, you will be grateful to Crowley to give you an alternative view. One of these martyr-mums might be your querent one day - think how you might help her get over this self-sacrifice syndrome, with the help of Crowley!)

To that, you might add some meanings for that pelican that Crowley might not have included or excluded - and that, in the middle of a reading, might be entirely appropriate. That will be your call as a reader.

I can see your point...

If I understand you correctly - a symbol conveys only what the creator wanted it to convey and does not convey anything that that creator did not want? Therefore, is an explanatory text essential to any set of symbols to ensure that the viewer does not make an error?

But I wonder this too. Is it necessary? Should it ever be necessary? Should we be able to view a tarot deck as art, in which the images are complete in and of themselves? Or should we view it as illustrations in a book where the text is every bit as necessary? I really don't know the answer to this. I have some decks that have no books or one so brief it's not that helpful (Crystal Tarot and Margarete Petersen come to mind). But they're amazingly good decks, each with its own strengths and weaknesses.

The Thoth is different in that there is a book, but it seems to be a puzzle to so many people that it's not surprising to me that, popular as the deck is, some authors have come up with their own interpretations. I'm not defending them. It's just not surprising.

 

[Debra]

I shuffle and pull a card. Something about it is important for me. It might be the whole thing, or some part of the image, or the historical meaning, or something purely visual, or whatever, whether intended by the artist or not. It's up to me to find it for myself. On this I agree with what Arrien says.

As an example of why I don't buy the argument that knowing or appreciating the esoterica of the images is necessary, take Crowley looking at the Judgement/Aeon card and deciding it was a message that he should try to get laid. Yeah, that's real deep.