yogiman
I will give you a little bit of my history. My steppingstone to tarot was 20 years back when my eye fell upon the Qabalistic Tarot from Robert Wang. I got so enthusiastic that i dedicated myself wholly to the philosophy of the Golden Dawn, and purchased Israel Regardie's voluminous classic. Fired up by the perspective to see the divinelight, to get magic powers, to become clairvoyant, to become a great personality, I learned astrology, geomantics, tarot, painted the egyptian gods and order symbols, constructed the paraphernalia, taped and executed the rituals, read more books, like i was committing myself to an academical discipline. Alas, after several years, it had brought me little more than a skillful handiness, and the ability to be completely on my own.
So i took recourse to the internet in order to contact a real golden dawn order (around the year 2000). I got email correspondence with an adeptus exemptus 7=4, and after a few exchanges he proposed to visit me in Amsterdam, as he was staying in Norway for the moment. Though suspecting that he was looking for a cheap stay, i was delighted to be in the opportunity to meet such a high order member. We arranged to meet in the centre of the city, and i was quite nervous for the big event. When i saw him approaching he was a little different from what i had suspected. He seemed to be into body building, and his walk was rather macho. Worst of all, he was very insecure, and though he was pretty knowledgeable, talking about spirituality made him look even more hollow. He was not unsympathetic at all, but he lacked spirit. When we departed he gave me a thick book that he had written. When i came home i went flat out on bed of desperation, and vented my frustration to my girlfriend. My spiritual world had collapsed, and it felt like all those years of toil had been for nothing. I had a look into his book, and it was full of nonsense, and the foreword had even been written by the girlfriend of Israel Regardie. I pondered to quit with the western esoterical tradition, but changed my mind. Maybe Aleister Crowley was right to revolt against the golden dawn order of Mathers. I threw away my golden dawn decks (Wang, Cicero) and studied the book of Thoth and his tarot cards.
To make it short, Aleister Crowley has not been a concious choice to me, but something like a second hand spare tire. I have spent hours and hours on doing research on the man Crowley in the hope of finding out whether he was being genuine. I like his courage and rebellious attitude, that i can much identify with. His tarot cards radiate strength, beauty and reality, but i am not fond of whores, of cocaine, of machiavelli, of social darwinism, and of the one and only prophet of the new eon. I got very tired of myself, and didn't discard Crowley, but put him in the fridge. This has been 10 years ago. My spiritual life since then consists of practising the pentagram ritual once a week, doing chinese astrology, sanskrit, and hatha yoga, qigong, and zen.
Last month i felt the urge to get the book of Thoth from the bookshelve, and surf after the crowley tarot on the internet. Raven's tarot site gave me a huge stimulus, and so did http://www.youtube.com/user/princeofcups518/videos. I am sceptical about the free flow of Paul Hughes Barlow. Another site that is in my favourites is http://taroteon.com/about/. Though in my opinion he is also too liberatarian, the guy Douglas Gibb is refreshing, and at times relentlessly honest.
So after this exposé i think i deserve an answer to my questions.
a)Is Crowley really worth all the time and effort i put into his brainchild (how much is Thoth, and how much is baboon).
b)There is consensus among the authorities on the Thoth tarot that the OOTK spread is the real thing, and that originally there were no positional spreads. Book T is quite unclear about the matter of elemental dignities (maybe says something about the personality of Mathers), and people are phantasizing about their own procedure. What is the philosophy behind this free flow of approach. Does one make some agreement with the subconscious about divinatory "grammar"rules?
So i took recourse to the internet in order to contact a real golden dawn order (around the year 2000). I got email correspondence with an adeptus exemptus 7=4, and after a few exchanges he proposed to visit me in Amsterdam, as he was staying in Norway for the moment. Though suspecting that he was looking for a cheap stay, i was delighted to be in the opportunity to meet such a high order member. We arranged to meet in the centre of the city, and i was quite nervous for the big event. When i saw him approaching he was a little different from what i had suspected. He seemed to be into body building, and his walk was rather macho. Worst of all, he was very insecure, and though he was pretty knowledgeable, talking about spirituality made him look even more hollow. He was not unsympathetic at all, but he lacked spirit. When we departed he gave me a thick book that he had written. When i came home i went flat out on bed of desperation, and vented my frustration to my girlfriend. My spiritual world had collapsed, and it felt like all those years of toil had been for nothing. I had a look into his book, and it was full of nonsense, and the foreword had even been written by the girlfriend of Israel Regardie. I pondered to quit with the western esoterical tradition, but changed my mind. Maybe Aleister Crowley was right to revolt against the golden dawn order of Mathers. I threw away my golden dawn decks (Wang, Cicero) and studied the book of Thoth and his tarot cards.
To make it short, Aleister Crowley has not been a concious choice to me, but something like a second hand spare tire. I have spent hours and hours on doing research on the man Crowley in the hope of finding out whether he was being genuine. I like his courage and rebellious attitude, that i can much identify with. His tarot cards radiate strength, beauty and reality, but i am not fond of whores, of cocaine, of machiavelli, of social darwinism, and of the one and only prophet of the new eon. I got very tired of myself, and didn't discard Crowley, but put him in the fridge. This has been 10 years ago. My spiritual life since then consists of practising the pentagram ritual once a week, doing chinese astrology, sanskrit, and hatha yoga, qigong, and zen.
Last month i felt the urge to get the book of Thoth from the bookshelve, and surf after the crowley tarot on the internet. Raven's tarot site gave me a huge stimulus, and so did http://www.youtube.com/user/princeofcups518/videos. I am sceptical about the free flow of Paul Hughes Barlow. Another site that is in my favourites is http://taroteon.com/about/. Though in my opinion he is also too liberatarian, the guy Douglas Gibb is refreshing, and at times relentlessly honest.
So after this exposé i think i deserve an answer to my questions.
a)Is Crowley really worth all the time and effort i put into his brainchild (how much is Thoth, and how much is baboon).
b)There is consensus among the authorities on the Thoth tarot that the OOTK spread is the real thing, and that originally there were no positional spreads. Book T is quite unclear about the matter of elemental dignities (maybe says something about the personality of Mathers), and people are phantasizing about their own procedure. What is the philosophy behind this free flow of approach. Does one make some agreement with the subconscious about divinatory "grammar"rules?