Well, here goes nothing, err, my IDS!
This is a very busy card. (When nicky started her “Learn the Thoth” thread, I almost pmed her a message advising not to start with the Fool. It has a million symbols and two long essays in the BofT to deal with. But it looks like she’s doing ok anyway!!) I remember first opening up my used-but-new-to-me Banzaf book and immediately feeling overwhelmed! And even now, I’m kind of glad he has waited to come around until the second half of my IDS!
Ok, quick but comprehensive description! The fool is all in green with gold boots. His eyes stare wide open. He has horns and a cone of light on his head. His feet don’t touch the ground. He has a crystal (octahedron) in his right hand and flames in his left, shooting over to the right hand. He has a huge bunch of grapes and a transparent bag with coins with astro sign and planet symbols on them. The very large stem of the grapes and a grape leaf (or is it an ivy leaf?) are around his neck. He is being bitten on the thigh by a tiger and a crocodile is below him in the water. But he’s smiling. Not aware of them? In the water are lotus stems. Between his legs are a very small crescent, two “embracing infants,” strange looking 3 white flowers. The sun is at his crotch. Around in front of him in a swirl of air are a dove, a butterfly, a caduceus. The swirl makes a heart over his heart. The dove has small light rays shining from it. The background is yellow with white dots in the middle and light blue in the corners (sky and water). The yellow is reminiscent of the yellow sky with crystals on the Ace of Swords. Oh, I think it’s a big, going off the edges of the card, upward triangle with line through it for Air. (The line goes through the sun at the crotch, and the point touches the point of the white point on his head, the bottom of the triangle is on the level of his knees.) Oh, and there’s a rainbow circle behind his head.
Whew, I think that’s it. The thing I don’t have a handle on for this card is the tiger. I get that it replaces the dog or other animal in other Fool cards. And, in some, the Fool is being attacked by the animal, instead of accompanied by it. But why is that the case here? And why a tiger? Especially when there is also a crocodile (more in keeping with the pseudo-Egyptian theme). Maybe he is being attacked by heat and cold, fire and water, tiger and crocodile. Like a new baby is first accosted by the variations of the air when he is born from his mother. Did I say air?
I wonder what deck first had a crocodile on the Fool? Crowley says the croc is a symbol of fertility because the ancients didn’t know how they reproduce. And I guess because they lived in the life-giving Nile. I’m thinking more a symbol of life AND death—they may be fertile and all that, but if you’re wading, I think they’re more a symbol of death! Crowley goes on to talk about Noah and Jonah, who had a lot to do with watery creatures and Jesus, a redeemer symbolized by a fish. But not a crocodile, so ?
I’m not sure about the “twin infants embracing,” either. Unless they are the precursors of the Lovers/Brothers? The Fool represents the young man and woman equally? Well, not really, because the next thing to realize is the masculine nature of the card. The flowers and the sun. I think they symbolize that the Fool is the card of potential life, like a penis. Nothing has been conceived yet, but it the potential for it is right here in our faces!
The horns and grapes (and ivy leaf) show that the Fool is Bacchus/Dionysus. Innocence and pleasure meet drunkenness and madness. Both sides of the Fool.
The coins again show potential, this time of personality qualities. The fool has just been born. His personality is not set yet, his horoscope hasn’t even been cast yet. He can be anything; there is no distinction for him yet.
The circle behind his head and the cone of light shows the Fool comes directly from Kether. He is the first emanation from Kether in the creation of the universe. Potential indeed!
Dove, butterfly, and caduceus are all small and swirly, again showing potential—for redemption/sonship/mission, rebirth, and power of action, respectively.
Fire and ice in his hands equal tiger and croc at his feet? Octahedron symbol for air. But it would be cool if it were ice, huh? OH! <insert light bulb here> Fire and tiger on side of Chokmah/Force and Crystal and croc on side of Binah/Form (and mother, which would be watery). The tiger is fiery force and it’s actively biting and clawing. The croc is watery form, it passively waits.
Gleanings from BofT that I find interesting:
Fool is 0, so is important in 0 = 2.
He is the wandering prince who wins the daughter of the king and the kingdom. (Or the brute in the Golden Bough who has to kill last year’s king in order to become king.)
He is the Green Man or the April Fool, new life of Spring. (I’ll add court jester here, who keeps the king and the court honest in a different way than the killer prince!)
He is Parzifal, the perfect fool who ends up redeeming the whole world by winning the Grail and becoming the Grail King himself. So similar to winning the princess and the kingdom.
He is Hoor-Pa-Kraat, the “Crowned and Conquering Child” god of Crowley’s new Aeon. So we will see him again in the Aeon card, as both the baby with the finger to his lips and as Horus, the hawk-headed god on a throne.
Ha! I just saw something that DOES connect the croc to Binah! “The crocodile helps determine the spiritual meaning of the card as the return to the original Qabalistic zero; it is the “He final” process in the magical formula of the Tetragrammaton. By a flick of the wrist, she can be transmuted to appear as the original Yod, and repeat the whole process from the beginning.” Even though this says transmuted to Yod, I am thinking the princess Malkuth taking the place of her mother, the queen Binah, to “repeat the whole process from the beginning.” So I haven’t totally lost it! Maybe.
I’m having trouble seeing the Fool as Baphomet. Isn’t that the Devil? Except maybe that Baphomet is hermaphroditic, as are some versions of Dionysus. And as I thought with the babies in the card.
Crowley talks a bit about the nothingness or emptiness of matter that we think is so solid—the interstices between inter-atomic particles, etc., relating to 0.
I remember reading on this forum about the bottle BACBUC and the Word TRINC. (I don’t remember the whole story, but basically, the oracle says Drink! In a satire saying that drunkenness is holy.) In vino veritas. And then a bunch of visions from smoking weed. This just annoyed me because it’s a bunch of nudge nudge wink wink about intoxication and cute circumlocutions about the Psalms. If you can get more out of it, you’re better than me! (Actually reading the threads on the Book of Law have helped a lot. Once again, it’s a case of the more you read and learn other things, the more Crowley make sense! I just have a bad attitude toward intoxication. That’s my deal, not Crowley’s.)
In a reading: Something is just beginning and is full of potential! The innocence and wonder of a child will serve you well now. Just be open to everything that comes your way without planning on how to use it (yet). Beware of actual foolish behavior (which is often caused by having a closed mind instead of the Pure Fool’s open mind).