Zan and BC's Excellent Thoth Adventure: The Fool

[Bat Chicken]

Ääähmm - I should not be posting here -
.

Glad you found your way here...
Please go on!

I have to agree this card is loaded - I see everything from references to the greenman, Pan to Dionysus, Sebet/Set, Blake's Tyger?? (OK that might just be my Blake obsession) and the medieval and renaissance symbol of the Holy Spirit in the dove that is wildly chasing stuff that seems to hover around his heart. ( feel free to expand on your observation of the heart pattern, Mi-Shell!)

I understand now that the mildly grotesque look on his face would be like an awakening - and pleasurable. Makes me think kundalini...

 

[Maskelyne]

I have to agree this card is loaded - I see everything from references to the greenman, Pan to Dionysus, Sebet/Set, Blake's Tyger?? (OK that might just be my Blake obsession) and the medieval and renaissance symbol of the Holy Spirit in the dove that is wildly chasing stuff that seems to hover around his heart.

Crowley drops all those names and many more in the BoT, except for Blake. Among them is Harpocrates, god of silence. Put me in mind of Harpo Marx (who never spoke), especially given that there's a rejected design for this card that looks a lot like Harpo.

I understand now that the mildly grotesque look on his face would be like an awakening - and pleasurable. Makes me think kundalini...

The sun at the root chakra would seem to reinforce that. And Mi-Shell has pointed out the antlers flanking it.

One thing that strikes me with this card is the way the arms and legs have been spread so that the figure fills the card, like he wants to have (or be) it all. The space seems defined by hands and feet at the corners and the sun at the exact center of the card. At the top, the spirals somewhat resemble the three Veils of Negative Existence sometimes shown above Kether on the Tree of Life. Except instead of extending into the Unknowable, these have looped around his neck. Maybe that's to emphasize that he arises from Nothing?

Mi-Shell called that flying dingus the Staff of Aesculapius, but I think the twin snakes and wings make it more of a caduceus. BoT just refers to it as a winged globe with twin serpents. The thing at the top of it looks like one of those pine cones supposedly carried by the followers of Bacchus.

 

[thorhammer]

I find it really hard to put a meaning on this card (The Fool, for posterity's sake) out of a reading context; but it does make me think a lot.

I've said that I think he's falling; but in the sense that one falls immediately after one has jumped Jump/fall/pushed . . . there are nuances there that any murder investigation involving heights will dredge up But I think the Fool has jumped, and is now falling. But I also think that in his present, pictured state, he'll never impact with the ground. (Where, pray tell, is "down" in space? ) He'll only impact - or land in a fortuitously uncontrolled manner - when something happens in the consciousness to pin his existence "down".

As such, I think he represents an eternal and non-existent moment in the process of self-manifestation that Aeon mentioned above; the moment of potential unrealised. The moment before the manifestation.

I'm sure I've seen some stupid sci-fi movie sometime where there was a machine with spinning rings, and into the space within materialised . . . something. That's what he makes me think of . The three rings, Ain, Ain Soph and Ain Soph Aur, are spinning in such a way as to create the worlds below them; Atziluth, Briah, Yetzirah and Assiah. Into these levels of existence is launched each shining and infinitely small (and individual) point of view, shard of divinity, scout ship (which has to bring data back to the mother ship ).

Okay, now I really am ranting so I'll stop. But I wanted to express how I see this Fool; that is, in a visionary way, part visual, part intellectual, but transcending both.

\m/ Kat

 

[Bat Chicken]

I just finished reading the chapter on the Fool in the BoT. I was amazed by how many hits I had gotten just on observation. A card I have paid little attention to on other decks is made remarkably profound here. I can clearly understand what AC means by limits to reason in contemplating this Fool. Degrees... (I know, I know! )

Best to ignore me entirely today! I am much too tired to comment further - tomorrow!

ETA - Elegantly put, Kat.

 

[teomat]

I'm sure I've seen some stupid sci-fi movie sometime where there was a machine with spinning rings, and into the space within materialised . . . something. That's what he makes me think of . The three rings, Ain, Ain Soph and Ain Soph Aur, are spinning in such a way as to create the worlds below them; Atziluth, Briah, Yetzirah and Assiah. Into these levels of existence is launched each shining and infinitely small (and individual) point of view, shard of divinity, scout ship (which has to bring data back to the mother ship ).

It's sounds like the film 'Contact' (which zan mentioned earlier). In the film, the spinning rings created a wormhole, through which Jodie Foster's character fell into (or not). Great film btw, and an interesting take on this card.

I've always seen this Fool as exploding rather than falling. Like the Big Bang. And the point he explodes from is the sun at his groin.

 

[Aeon418]

To identify with Self in its infinite form is to identify with NOTHING. Impressive.

Take a blank sheet of paper. Pick any point on that sheet and draw a little circle around it. Congratulations, you've just re-enacted the legend of the Fall. By the act of ring-fencing one point of undiferentiated consciousness everything magically springs into existence. All of a sudden "point of view" exists. I and Not-I. Experience is now possible.

AL I:30 This is the creation of the world, that the pain of division is as nothing, and the joy of dissolution all.

Now rub out, dissolve the circle and return to Eden.

(Or expand the circle into infinity. It's the same result either way.)

 

[Wendywu]

The concept of Self and its incarnations with differing personae is neatly illustrated by Dion Fortune:

“Once you have had some memory glimpse, however dim, of your own past, you are certain of your future; therefore you cease to fear life. Supposing I make a mess of an experiment today, I clear up the mess, go to bed, sleep, and then, in the morning when I am rested, I start again. You do the same with your lives when once you are sure of reincarnation. It is only the man who does not realize as a personal fact the immortality of the soul who talks of a ruined life and opportunities gone never to return.”

I tend to think of the Fool as sometimes making the mess, sometimes not but each time being certain at his core (in his true Self) that he follows the Path of Return and will achieve unity with God (whatever you perceive your God to be) eventually.

 

[Le Fanu]

For me, the Crowley Fool is suspended and rotating and (if it made a noise, this card would hum at very high frequency) he looks as if he is capable of spinning in all directions like as astrolobe.

I think the sense of suspension is so strong in this card, which gives me the feeling that any direction is possibly. There is also something (about the expression? The stance? The cheekiness?) which makes me think he is up-for-anything, spiritually, sexually, you name it. At the same time, the open stance makes him vulnerable.

I see that in my Thoth notebook I wrote of the Fool "alert, wide-eyed, multisexed, highly sexed, wild & compulsive, striking lucky with his swag-bag"

 

[Aeon418]

For me, the Crowley Fool is suspended and rotating and (if it made a noise, this card would hum at very high frequency) he looks as if he is capable of spinning in all directions like as astrolobe.

This brings to mind the Mundane chakra of Kether, the Rashith ha-Gilgulim. The Primum Mobile - the first swirlings. He is a whirling swastika (aleph) manifesting out of the Void.

 

[zan_chan]

This brings to mind the Mundane chakra of Kether, the Rashith ha-Gilgulim. The Primum Mobile - the first swirlings. He is a whirling swastika manifesting out of the Void.

That's exactly what I was thinking...

I never realized that one could become so little a part of one's own thread...