The Pictorial Key and the Fool's Location

Where would you have put the Fool in 1909 if you were honoring your oath not to reveal the GD's greatest secret (the placement of the Fool as 0=Aleph)?

It is not so much a "blind" as a following of tarot occult tradition up to that point. Since the Fool was unnumbered people could, in actuality, place it wherever they wished. However, he couldn't resist switching Justice and Strength because that would have set everything off. He made the deck useful to those who knew the GD secrets, while keeping to his oath. I think it was pretty ingenious.

Teheuti said:

Since the Fool was unnumbered people could, in actuality, place it wherever they wished.

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Hmm, the Fool as "jack-of-all-trades" (or paths, as it were). I kind of like it! Over the years I've hired many contractors who met that description .

Crowley was a renegade, and quite unique in that respect. He's the one who blew the lid off the GD and was instrumental in its collapse. Waite was more reserved and conservative, he felt the obligations keenly. I sometimes think the best way to study Waite is not through the PKT but through other books; some his, and some Golden Dawn publications.

To tell the truth, he wasn't the showman Crowley was

However, there are also other reasons than impudence for what Crowley did. Enamored of his own teachings, he saw the dawn of the new Aeon as superseding all previous attributions, so the GD secrecy mattered little to him, since they were outdated.

closrapexa said:

......I sometimes think the best way to study Waite is not through the PKT but through other books; some his, and some Golden Dawn publications......

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There is some truth to that. In what is perhaps his magnum opus, The Hidden Church of the Holy Grail, there is not the slightest hint of what is often thought to be his tendency to prevaricate. Moreover, it probably presents his mystical philosophy as clearly as possible, in terms of an internal, spiritual version of the Catholic Eucharist, stripped of its conventional Christian dogmatic baggage. It confirms my original impression of the discussion of the majors in PKT as coming from a gnostic perspective.

LRichard said:

There is some truth to that. In what is perhaps his magnum opus, The Hidden Church of the Holy Grail, there is not the slightest hint of what is often thought to be his tendency to prevaricate.

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I agree that anyone who seeks to understand Waite should read at least a few of his other books, if they can stand it. But, I think anyone new to this whole field (magic, occult, myth and legend) would find even the HCHG to be difficult at first. His statements about the Minor Arcana in that work are filled will hints and allusions but few clear statements—until you get to know his style and core allusions.

It confirms my original impression of the discussion of the majors in PKT as coming from a gnostic perspective.

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If you mean "direct/mystical knowing" by a lower case, 'gnostic,' then I agree. If you see Waite as a formal, religious Gnostic, then, despite his fascination with duality, I don't see him as an adherent of the specifically Gnostic traditions. His idea of "The Secret Tradition" was very specific and uniquely his own, although it drew strongly on other strains of mystical Christianity.

All of his hundreds of published works (counting articles and revised editions of his books) seek to elaborate on his own system, based on a composite of Western myth. It involves a fool's progress through a story of loss, a death and resurrection, and then a path of attainment that culminates with the union of the Hierophant and the Shekinah in the mystical temple that resides in the heart - all of which is allegory for the transformation of self into a pure vessel for the Divine.

Yes, I deliberately used the lower case g for gnostic.

Regarding:

ladybird said:

[...] why have the cards drawn up with the Fool as "0" then? [...]

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Abrac said:

The Fool was always unnumbered or numbered 0. [...]

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Like @Abrac says, in the Marseille Tradition, The Fool was usually not numbered (not given the numerical title of "0").

In the games originally played with the Marseille decks, The Fool was still considered a Trump Card (being of the Major Arcana), but was not assigned an order/given the ability to "trump" other cards (ex. depending on the game: 6's would trump 3's, 9's would trump 7's, etc.). Instead, The Fool could be played in place of a card that would "trump" the previous card. This gives The Fool the connotation of being a "Wild Card".

I believe it was the Esoteric/Secret Societies who first gave the numerical attribution of "0" to The Fool, in order to make it a part of their systematic associations they placed upon the cards for magick/meditation/instructive purposes.

Since The Fool had no real "definitive" placement in the Major Arcana of the traditional Marseille pattern, it was up to the occultists to find it's "true" and/or "proper" place (within the context of their beliefs).

Everyone is free to play whatever historical games they wish to play with the Tarot. Life is too short to be passionate about where the Fool goes. For me it works for Fool to be Aleph, Magician Beth, Priestess Gimel, etc. Flame me if you wish. That's not my problem. BTW, quotation marks all over the place are confusing as hell.

LRichard said:

Everyone is free to play whatever historical games they wish to play with the Tarot. Life is too short to be passionate about where the Fool goes. For me it works for Fool to be Aleph, Magician Beth, Priestess Gimel, etc. Flame me if you wish. That's not my problem. BTW, quotation marks all over the place are confusing as hell.

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I'm not sure if this inflamatory response was intended for me, but if it was:
-I don't see you referenced in my response at all.
-I never attacked anyone with their preference to positioning. I simply shared my understanding of the OPs questions.
-If you were refering to my post as being over-punctuated , it was to differentiate nouns, verbs, titles, and terms. My apologies if this confuses anyone, but I find that useage of punctuation is easier to understand with titles and terms being ambiguous.
Finally, I see no flaming going on here... o.0;

FWIW, a careful reading of PKT reveals that the proper position for the Fool is at the head of the Majors (not that the author's original intention counts for much in this utterly strange environment, in which Dr. Waite is frequently berated for his obscurity.). The same ordering was followed in the Thoth. It is a Golden Dawn thing, but as I noted in another post (somewhere or other), Levi may have been aware of it. It has to do with the appropriate positioning of the Majors on the twenty-two inter-Sephirotic paths. It may seem unfortunate that something like oaths to a secret society could give rise to such confusion, but we must, alas, live with it. As Eviee has indicated, whatever positioning the appropriately unnumbered Fool may have had in pre-GD decks is not particularly relevant, as they were considered to be exoteric game cards and not generally keyed to the Sephirotic Tree.