The Occult Achievement of the 20th Century-The Thoth

[Abrac]

I do not disagree with the Aeon of Horus, just that I don't think it is here or coming or that it is a certain fact.

Hi Rosanne,

It seems that humans will always have a need to classify the ages in an effort to better understand their experience. There's a brief article at Wikipedia called Ages of Man that outlines a few of them.

This subject always reminds me of line from Industrial Disease by Dire Straits:

"Two men say they're Jesus, one of them must be wrong."

 

[Rosanne]

Hi Abrac! You make me smile

It is true your comment about 2 Jesus (how do you plural Jesus????)
I agree also that man labels ages as a sweeping overstatement.
Bronze age after all the weapons found buried in southern Europe, and the Golden age of Eden and before.......Someday the Lamb will lie down with Lion.
Yeah right.. the Lamb tied to the back of a Landrover tow bar in a lion's game park.(I do know what the biblical quote meant lol)
We in this Tarot world are insulated from everything that tells me that the Aeon of Horus does not, will not exist, except to make some,(more than a few) accept they are Gods in the usual acceptance of the word. Maybe a better word could be found. It just becomes another 'my God is bigger than your God' debate and the needed change in our behaviour is missed once again. (as always IMO)

So is the Thoth the greatest Occult achievement of the 20th Century?; maybe as Grigori and Ravenest says 'yes for them' but not for me.
Still I like the deck and so I will walk the mandorla of it and encourage others to do so, because it will change some.
~Rosanne

 

[Debra]

Golden Dawn--fundamentally British.

There's occultism all over the world. The New Aeon is the New Age, isn't it. I don't see the focus on the GD guys as the world's premier occultists. The Golden Dawn at its most "I am Secret Society, Hear Me Roar" phase had...how many? 200, 300 members?

In the spirit of questioning "What's an Age?" it seems like "20th Century" is awfully limiting. How about, let's go back to the late 1800's. I want Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophists up near the top of the list. More recently--in terms of "how many read and are influenced?" (in English) I nominate Paramahansa Yogananda and his Autobiography of a Yogi.

If Yogananda doesn't seem "occult" enough that might be because of cultural associations with the occult. He didn't use the British Isle's bag of magical tools.

 

[Lillie]

It is true your comment about 2 Jesus (how do you plural Jesus????

Jesi

Like octopi...

Tentacles included.

 

[Bernice]

Jusi. Reminds me of a girl I knew who called a convey of buses = busi!

.......

As 'proffesor X' (the OP) previously stated, in retrospect the title of this thread should have been "An Occult Achievement of the 20th Century". Not "The most outstanding".

And in this respect, the Thoth could be deemed remarkable in that those who choose to study it, must study many diverse branches of occult lore. Bearing in mind that all of them are somewhat tweaked in order to be arranged on the Tree of Life.

However (bet you knew that was coming...), the RWS, and GD, and Thoth tarots are but one of many tools for Working the Tree, so perhaps it is the ToL which should be the primary claimant for an Occult Achievement.

eta: In the context of this thread.


Bee

 

[Rosanne]

Well Lillie- you made me laugh...and laugh
So a Jedi is more than one skywalker?

Anyway I meant to say it is not unusual for someone on a spiritual path to use the tools without participating in their creator's reality. I practise Kriya Meditation for breathing and I do not bow to Shri Shri whoever. I was at a conference here just weeks ago and I was gobsmacked at the 10.000 thousand people who practise occult meditation now it is available. There is also here much following of Rudolph Steiner in farming as well as schools. Yes Debra is right.

~Rosanne

 

[Bernice]

Yes Debra is right.

Personally, just for me = I agree.

Bee

 

[Lillie]

Golden Dawn--fundamentally British.

Yay! And how cool is that???

It's the one cool thing Britain has done since Henry the VIII.
Don't knock it!

 

[Aeon418]

The New Aeon is the New Age, isn't it.

Yes. No. Maybe. The answer all depends on how confused you are on the subject.

The New Aeon is something definite. The New Age is, like all things caught under that umbrella term, anything you want it to be.

 

[Professor X]

Professor X's enthusiasm for the Thoth deck really shows. I myself use it, study it and am inspired by it. Many statements here put things into a more down-to-earth and universal perspective of the deck, and rightly so.

Coming from an artist's point of view, I am wary of mythologizing the greatness of our forerunners. One of the biggest examples in Art history is Michelangelo, where much has been written in a romanticizing fashion, deifying the man into heights which we can't possibly reach ourselves. Its a great disservice to future artists who aren't interested in myth, but technique. I believe it was Issac Newton who said something like 'They may be giants, but we stand at their shoulders and can see farther.' An impartial scholarly approach without overstatements to both, Art and the occult is what will best serve our collective development.

Great a seer as he was, Crowley was very much a British Victorian man, of very “Osirian” sensibilities, already a kind of quaint dinosaur compared to our very progressive world. Who knows what the next millennium will bring?

I'm certain that in this Aeon, there will be many brilliant artists, who will find plateaus like Crowley's and Harris' Thoth deck, and use it as a starting point to paintings, and decks more appropriate to the spirit of the future age. That might be a genuine identifying mark of a great occult achievement in the 20th century, though it wouldn't exist without countless other achievements, such as the GD initiation.

Thing about the Thoth that is special to me is that it is a imprint of Crowleys magical mind after 40 years of studying the occult. Having the deck is literally a peek into exactly WHAT he knew about the magical world,being able to take that and use it to peer into our own personal universes is indeed special.
You cannot really do that with other people in history who created great works,like I mentioned in my original post we can see the great works that people like Michealangelo created,but they never really left behind anything that the interested person could take and peer inside his artistic mind and use it to create. If I am wrong about that then someone please correct me.

I think that one of the reasons people deify people like Michealangelo is precisely because people cannot fathom how he created what he did. Even with the Thoth deck at our disposal people still do the same for Crowley as well. Another thing is my Sun,Moon and Rising Sign are all Virgo so I really get into the extra details being things,I thrive on all the little stories and histories behind someone like Crowley,so the Thoth is something that I connect with and use because it fits how I think about things. All the details that make the Thoth function resonate well with me.

Crowley had his flaws and issues no doubt,his issues dealing with women is well known,but what he created with the Thoth is flawless. I say it is flawless because it indeed a perfect way of using the tarot to explain the forces dealing with the Qabbalah and Tree of Life.

The Thoth is the perfect device for measuring how the concept of Nuit and Hadit and forces relating to that is functioning in your own personal universe.
As Hadit you are your own god inside of Nuit and the Thoth is how each Hadit can learn what energies and forces are manifesting around them. That is why I say the Thoth is such a highly inspired tool,unless you know that you are the center of your own universe within infinity(Nuit),you wont be able to get the full benefit of the deck.