PKT:Secret Trad#1 - Study Group

[Teheuti]

Also I am currently search for this, that Archeologists found White powder that was being made in an ancient (factory), this white powder also disappeared. This is fact. hunting down the info, when I find it I will post it.

This is what I feel Waite may be meaning too.

I've read most of Waite's books, including his works on alchemy and I don't remember anything resembling this. If you can find a source in Waite's books for his creation or knowledge of this specific powder then great. We can then see if we can find a further connection to PKT.

 

[Yelell]

I admit I have no idea what you are talking about. However, a search of some keywords brought up this

I was filled with admiration, and asked my visitor whence he had obtained that wonderful knowledge of the whole world? He replied that it was a gift freely bestowed on him by a friend who had stayed a few days at his house, who had also taught him to change common flints and crystals into stones more precious than rubies, chrysoliths, and sapphires; he also revealed to me the preparation of crocus of iron (an infallible cure for dysentery), of metallic liquid (an efficacious remedy for dropsy), and of many other infallible Medicines, to which, however, I paid no great heed, as I was impatiently anxious to have the chief secret of all revealed to me. The Artist told me that his Master had bidden him bring him a glass full of warm water, to which he had added a little white powder, and in which one ounce of silver had melted like ice in warm water. Of this draught he emptied one-half, and gave the rest to me. Its taste resembled that of fresh milk, and its effect was most exhilarating."

I asked my visitor whether the potion was a preparation of the Philosopher's Stone? But he answered: "You should not be so inquisitive."

The Hermetic Museum Vol. 2: Helvetius’ Golden Calf
Arthur Edward Waite

And a couple other things if that's at all relevant

 

[INIVEA]

I've read most of Waite's books, including his works on alchemy and I don't remember anything resembling this. If you can find a source in Waite's books for his creation or knowledge of this specific powder then great. We can then see if we can find a further connection to PKT.

What caught my eye (STAR FIRE)

Star Fire was the lunar (menstrual) essence of one of the fourteen birth Goddesses. But even in the mundane, menstruum contains the most valuable endocrinal secretions of the pineal and pituitary glands. The Oxford English Dictionary even goes so far as to describe the menstrual action as “an alchemical parallel with the transmutation into gold.”

we can all look, it would have to with Transmutation (Alchemy)
Star Fire is also link the story of the holy grail.

You see this Star depicted on the cards

 

[INIVEA]

I admit I have no idea what you are talking about. However, a search of some keywords brought up this
The Hermetic Museum Vol. 2: Helvetius’ Golden Calf
Arthur Edward Waite

And a couple other things if that's at all relevant

That's what I am talking about, your on the right line of thinking

Thanks this is relevant. any more info would be great

ETA: just wanted to say thanks "You saved my butt from Teheuti". lol

 

[Yelell]

That's what I am talking about, your on the right line of thinking

Thanks this is relevant. any more info would be great

ETA: just wanted to say thanks "You saved my butt from Teheuti". lol

I did see other things, but I don't think you want them.

There's this insane thing I will never read unless at gunpoint. The bottom of page 76 has a footnote referencing ....something
https://books.google.com/books?id=_...ce=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Another book lists deLaurence and Waite (the same deLaurence that passed off the PKT as their own?)
https://books.google.com/books?id=C...aracelsus, Lauron William De Laurence&f=false

Waite and that 2nd above book are listed on the bottom as a source for this page (and others) on the philosopher's stone http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3403803550.html

And there's something by Waite mentioning white powder with the same appearance of milk as before --- The Real History of the Rosicrucians - Arthur Edward Waite." coloured with a fine white powder that it had the appearance of milk. It was cool when the Bird was set into it, and he was mighty well pleased with it, ... and we, after the Virgin with her blew Bird was departed from us ..."

------ I think I'm going to go play with some tarot cards now.

 

[Richard]

While Waite may have had some interest in conventional "puffer" alchemy, his main interest was mysticism, as Mary has stated. Relevant to this is spiritual alchemy, in which the alchemist attains enlightenment by means of the Great Work, which involves a synthesis (marriage) of opposites: Sun-Moon, Fire-Water, masculine-feminine, Spirit-Soul, consciousness-unconsciousness, mind-body. Carl Jung's individuation process is an aspect of the Great Work, which involves incorporation of unconscious contents of the mind into consciousness, thereby robbing them of their power to cause mental conflicts, which can lead to neuroses. The Great Work theme is more or less explicit in the Art card in Crowley's Thoth tarot, and I think it is implicit in Waite's Temperance card, but this is getting ahead of the thread.

 

[Teheuti]

It seems that we are being asked to accept that mono-atomic gold is the white (and black) powder mentioned in alchemical tracts and its characteristics and effects are specifically what Waite refers to whenever he mentions alchemy or the philosopher's stone (?). He knew that The Book of Lambspring and/or the Mutus Liber was actually referencing mono-atomic gold and therefore we should be making a study of its charcteristics as professed since 1975 (when it was supposedly "rediscovered" by David Hudson) in order to understand Waite's intentions for the Tarot (since Waite already knew of it). Am I correct in thinking this? And that the powders and stone mentioned by the alchemists that Waite surveys in his several works on Alchemy have all been proven to have been mono-atomic gold?

Added: Personally I don't believe this is the case. IMO, any further discussion of mono-atomic gold will just get us more off-topic.

 

[Richard]

Waite (and many others, including Jung) regarded puffer alchemy as a metaphor for spiritual alchemy.

 

[Teheuti]

Waite (and many others, including Jung) regarded puffer alchemy as a metaphor for spiritual alchemy.

I, too, found that to have been Waite's main interest - what he claims to have found most vital in alchemy - at least in my reading of his works.

18. "That combination [of the "universal types"] may, ex hypothesi, reside in the numbered sequence of its series or in their fortuitous assemblage by shuffling, cutting and dealing, as in ordinary games of chance played with cards."

I read this as: Combining the Greater Trumps either according to their numbered sequence or by shuffling and laying out the cards yields universal ideas that can be found in the Secret Tradition (as mentioneed in sentence 17).

19. "Two writers have adopted the first view without prejudice to the second, and I shall do well, perhaps, to dispose at once of what they have said."

Waite goes on that two writers (Mathers and, as we shall see, Papus) suggested putting the cards into a "connected sentence" via their numerical order.

23. "But if this were the message of the cards, it is certain that there would be no excuse for publishing them at this day or taking the pains to elucidate them at some length."

However, he found the messages they discerned in the card sequences to be inadequate for deep and lengthly consideration.

 

[Yelell]

...it is the presentation of universal ideas by means of universal types, and it is in the combination of these types -if anywhere - that it presents Secret Doctrine. That combination may, ex hypothesi, reside in the numbered sequence of its series or in their fortuitous assemblage by shuffling, cutting and dealing, as in ordinary games of chance played with cards. Two writers have adopted the first view without prejudice to the second...

It's not really possible for me to comment on just the passages that have been posted without going ahead a bit. In summary, what I noted is Waite is talking about the combination of the trumps in 2 methods, in sequence and random by chance. He likes the first, doesn't like the 2nd.

First. -in sequence:
Mathers - 22 majors in numeric order make a sentence- gave individual trumps specific characteristics- no reason to republish all that again...
Papus - also put them in sequence, Waite says he's on the right tract but lacks insight.

Second. - chance/cartomancy
Fortune, shuffling, dealing - the use of divination for "whatsoever" purpose or intention implies things Waite "disposes" of -- Waite says the meanings are "real" - proof positive that "obvious natural moralities" can't explain the "sequence."

Trumps have been used for fortune telling but don't belong there.
The divinatory meanings Waite assigns them later he considers arbitrary, uninstructed, and at best beneath the original intention. If fortune telling had been the real intention, it wouldn't be of the secret doctrine but of (black) witchcraft.

He later says "I am not denying the possibility of divination, but I take exception as a mystic to the dedications which bring people into these paths, as if they had any relation to the Mystic Quest."