Tzaddi is not the Star
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[bib-arch dot org/bar/article.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=36&Issue=02&ArticleID=06&Page=0]
Besides being a good essay on the origins of the Hebrew script, there is some subtle proof that Heh should be attributed to Aries as "the emperor" here, since the hieroglyph they took to represent Heh symbolized a person giving orders. It likely meant something akin to "foreman," but this can't be used since the supposition is that they were illiterate of the hieroglyph's real meaning.
By contrast, Tzaddi may have its origins with the papyrus plant glyph, the emblem of Lower Egypt, which grows near the water. This does not seem linked to Aries to me.
[www.bib-arch dot org/scholars-study/alphabet-goldwasser-rebuttal.asp]
Edit: The article didn't link in full, sry.
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Let's not forget Crowley's sense of humour. The question I posed a couple of pages (and years) back, "Has Crowley poured the castor oil of confusion into the tea-urn of the Tarot?" alluded to the trick he played as a boy on the visiting Plymouth Brethren, where the meek guests were too timid to complain about the tea's awful taste. There were numerous other wicked pranks and cunning stunts, such as: the complaint to the Vigilance Society about the conspicuous evidence of prostitution in Foyers (conspicuous by its absence, you fools!); authorship of Alexandria: A Birthday Ode by Ophelia Cox; the hunting of the haggis at Boleskine; the acrostic in Hail Mary, which spelt out The Virgin Mary I Desire But Arseholes Set My Prick On Fire; the lesbian poetry of Amphora which was unwittingly put out by a Catholic publisher; the abstraction of the brass butterfly covering the genitalia of Epstein's statue on Wilde's grave; his faked suicide in Portugal, and no doubt many another jape.
Crowley says he spent "nearly twenty years" trying to solve the riddle of I:57, which indicates the solution came before April 1924. His diaries leading up to this date show his increasingly dismal view of the work of Charles Stansfeld Jones, who he facetiously refers to on 23 May 1923 as "Jesus Stansfeld Christ", and "the Great One, the Illuminated One", and of whom he seeks an oracle, asking "What shall be my attitude to Achad; is any open action on my part necessary (either directly or through Alostrael or O.P.V.)and if so, what?"
30 May sees possibly the first manifestation of the 4/17 switch, where Crowley is adding together the numbers of various pairs of Trumps, seeking to reach XXXI. He refers to XVII plus XIV (= XXXI) as "SH" or "HS", which indicates he has attributed XVII, The Star to He rather than the traditional Tzaddi.
On 24 July Crowley formulated a plan to "deal with" Jones, that his position as Magister Templi needed to be challenged in the occult publications of the time.
9 August sees Crowley's first acknowledgement of "absurd new attribution proposed for the Paths", and he again sought an oracle.
The "absurd new attribution proposed for the Paths" refers to Jones' book QBL. In the appendix to this book, Jones partly outlines his reversed Paths for the Tree of Life. To illustrate, in the Golden Dawn system, Path 11 (between Kether and Chokmah, refers to 0, The Fool, whereas in Jones' system it refers to XXI, The Universe. Path 12 is similarly I, The Magician, against Jones' Last Judgement. Path 13 is II, The Priestess against XIX, The Sun. Path 14 is III, The Empress against XVIII, The Moon.
Now for the interesting bit. **Path 15, in the Golden Dawn, is IV, The Emperor, but in Jones' revised attributions it is XVII, The Star. Similarly, Path 28 in the Golden Dawn is The Star, but Jones' world it is The Emperor.
**
This is interesting because, given that Crowley rejects Jones' proposed new paths as "absurd", he is at the same time adopting one of Jones' attributions by swapping The Star and The Emperor!In Book 4, Crowley states "One who ought to have known better tried to improve the Tree of Life by turning the Serpent of Wisdom upside down! Yet he could not even make his scheme symmetrical; his little remaining good sense revolted at the supreme attrocities. Yet he succeeded in reducing the whole Magical Alphabet to nonsense, and shewing that he had never understood its real meaning. The absurdity of any such disturbance of the arrangement of the Paths is evident to any sober student from such examples as the following. Binah, the Supernal Understanding, is connected with Tiphareth, the Human Consciousness, by Zain, Gemini, the Oracles of the Gods, or the Intuition. That is, the attribution represents a psychological fact: to replace it by "The Devil" is either humour or plain idiocy. Again, the card "Fortitude", Leo, balances Majesty and Mercy with Strength and Severity: what sense is there in putting "Death", the Scorpion, in its stead? There are twenty other mistakes in the new wonderful illumined-from-on-high attribution; the student can therefore be sure of twenty more laughs if he cares to study it."
The point is, if there are twenty more laughs, this would necessarily include Crowley's own 4/17 swap!
On 4 September Crowley reports he has "worked hard on Atus, etc getting a very complete simplified classification of the images". The results are seen on 7 September; however, he seems to waver -the letter E (He) as listed as XVII or IV
Sometime after May 1923, Norman Mudd took down "Dictation and Discussion" from Crowley. Here Crowley unambiguously adopts the 4/17 change: "Tiphareth gets from Chokmah by path of He, feminine Nuit-Star corresponds to sign of Aquarius, the water bearer. Aquarius is an airy sign, the Kerub of Man. Hence its relation to humanitarianism. How does the True Will convey its orders to the consciousness? By Aquarius and no other."
But at the same time, he seems to baulk at the idea: "How does Netzach affect Hod influence Yesod? Through Tzaddi - Emperor - Aries, i.e. the wish phantasm imposes itself on the image through the illusion of divine right. It is very arbitrary."
Crowley left Tunis 3 October 1923 and by this time, or perhaps a little later, the concept of 4/17 was in place. Yet he refrained from instructing his followers to make any corresponding alterations, and made no changes to the unpublished 777 Revised. The Heart of the Master, written from late 1924 to early 1925 makes no mention of it.
The first allusion is in in Magick in Theory and Practice, where there is a description of the letter H in the word ALHIM: "And then, in the centre of all, broods Spirit, which combines the mildness of the Lamb with the horns of the Ram, and is the letter of Bacchus or "Christ."
There is a note: "The letter He is the formula of Nuit, which makes possible the process described in the previous notes. But it is not permissible here to explain fully the exact matter or manner of this adjustment. I have preferred the exoteric attributions, which are sufficiently informative for the beginner."
I contend that the reason Crowley refers to 4/17 but refrains from explaining it is because it would only raise more questions, as evidenced by this very forum all these years later where, with all due respect, it remains a mystery.
The Equinox of the Gods makes no mention of any change in the Tarot attributions; however, there are several passages in the last eight pages of Chapter VII where he goes into some detail as to the standard of scriptural interpretation, or exegesis, that he intends to adopt with regard to The Book of the Law. Inasmuch as the reasoning behind 4/17 involves exegesis, these passages serve as a preliminary to understanding Crowley's approach to interpreting I:57.
In these eight pages Crowley makes several references to the occurrence of the word "not" in Liber Al, but any discussion of I:57 is conspicuous - by its absence!
In May 1938 Lady Frieda Harris became a student of Crowley's. Quite early in the piece she had this to say regarding the mystery of Tzaddi:
"Dear Aleister....Also, I don't feel you have made it clear about Tzaddi - the Emperor. Can't you have a diagram? I have been reading your book to Ann Christie in the evenings and although she is very interested, she could not understand your book, and I'm not sure I did in the end. It will be a point about which there will be the most argument. Is there any reason for the two loops except secrecy? Surely! And if not, why not undo the loop, and is the Emperor to be numbered 17 or 4 or 17 or IV, ditto the Star, also Strength XI and Justice VIII. I expect I have got it all wrong, but if I have you must make it clearer....I think we could have 4 and 17 on a swivel to twist round. Quite amusing also the Sun could have the Zodiac pushed round."
Incidentally, it appears Lady Harris drew the famous diagram in the Book of Thoth, for she states in a later letter: "I have a diagram of the Twist in the Zodiac. Would you like me to make a conventional diagram of your rough?" To which Crowley responded "Yes, please, make a conventional diagram."
Eight Lectures on Yoga, 1939, carries a Tree of Life diagram which shows - unsupported by any explanatory text - Aquarius on the 15th Path and Aries on the 28th. There is a passage in the lecture on Yama that may well refer to the issue at hand: "But now let me begin to unleash my indignation. My job - the establishment of the Law of Thelema - is a most discouraging job. It is the rarest thing to find anyone who has any ideas at all on the subject of liberty. Because the Law of Thelema is the law of liberty, everybody's particular hair stands on end like the quills of the fretful porpentine; they scream like an uprooted mandrake, and flee in terror from the accursed spot. Because: the exercise of liberty means that you have to think for yourself, and the natural inertia of mankind wants religion and ethics ready-made. However ridiculous or shameful a theory or practice is, they would rather comply than examine it. Sometimes it is hook-swinging or Sati; sometimes consubstantiation or supra-lapsarianism; they do not mind what they are brought up in, as long as they are well brought up. They do not want to be bothered about it."
In 1942 the Harris paintings were exhibited with an accompanying booklet. Curiously, Crowley refers to "the perpetration of a hoax transparent and nausient" in connection with the exhibition in the self-authored "An Open Letter to Aleister Crowley from the Society of Hidden Masters."
Crowley's replied to himself, to "most strenuously deny participation in the hoax."
If you are still reading this, open up your Book of Thoth and re-examine it in light of the foregoing. There is too much to mention here and it's getting on for dawn. However, I will bring your attention to the following passage (bearing in mind Crowley's view that he was the reincarnation of Eliphas Lev):.
"In the middle of the nineteenth century there arose a very great Qabalist and scholar, who still annoys dull people by his habit of diverting himself at their expense by making fools of them posthumously....Eliphas Levi was a philosopher and an artist, besides being a supreme literary stylist and a practical joker of the variety called "Pince sans rire"...."
In the Law is For All, 1946, Crowley continues, poker-faced to the end: "I see no harm in revealing the mystery of Tzaddi to "the wise"; others will hardly understand my explanations..."
In conclusion, I would contend the "Double Loop in the Zodiac" is Crowley's last laugh -- a blind, as my previous post stated. It is somewhat similar to Andersen's The Emperor's New Clothes -- non-existent clothing which the Emperor wore in order that he might distinguish the wise from the foolish.
Let the indignation begin!
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Why do people think that showing that someone's motivation for making a proposition is a disproof of the proposition itself? If the Heh-Tzaddi interchange is a joke, then the joke's on Crowley. It's like if someone discovered a diary entry in which Joyce admitted that Finnegan's Wake was an elaborate prank, it wouldn't detract a bit from the value of the work.
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This was really interesting guys, thanks for sharing!
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The Tarot cards are linked to the astrological attributions, among other factors. It's all sorted out in 776 1/2, if that helps.
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
" Modest's solution does not match the attributions in Crowley's diagram, or the text."
Well if you look at Crowley's diagram and read the Tarot number - zodiac atributtions on the loop you see that the text and the loop do not correspond/match each other - Crowley's diagram is broken. If you follow the text data of the picture a single Leo/Libra loop is formed!
No double loop is formed because the tarot number sequience is mixed up.
[hermetic.com/crowley/book-of-thoth]
That is why I posted a corrected picture where a double loop in the Zodiac IS formed:[s7.postimg.org/ww7yluwrf/loopy.jpg]
Can you see now? The double loop is the zodiac and the circle is the tarot numbers in increasing order.Of course there is Jim who tells us that it's not about the double loop in the zodiac but in letter - tarot number attributions. But from the picture in the book we clearly see "Diagram The Double Loop in the Zodiac".
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Yes. I've also said that the picture is screwed up
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@Jim Eshelman said
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Putting it in Hebrew letter order, we get:17 Star, Aquarius: Heh
5 Hierophant, Taurus: Vav
6 Lovers, Gemini: Zayin
7 Chariot, Cancer: Cheth
11 Strength, Leo: Teth
9 Hermit, Virgo: Yod
8 Justice, Libra: Lamed
13 Death, Scorpio: Nun
14 Temperance, Sagittarius: Samekh
15 Devil, Capricorn: A'ayin
4 Emperor, Aries: Tzaddi
18 Moon, Pisces: QophBy "off-diagram" I literally mean that the zodiac issue is not on the diagram. It's a consequence of what IS in the diagram but is, itself, not on the diagram.
(The astrological attributions are off-diagram - this loop diagram has nothing to do with them.) Your wish for a zodiacal-number flip is exactly what I've said from the beginning isn't here. It's a trump number - Hebrew letter flip."
Okay, Jim, I see the letter - number double loop, thanks. Now how do you explain the astrological attributions off-diagram if you can't deduce them from the diagram? If you could do that, please, because I don't understand this paragraph:
@Jim Eshelman said
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The result is that Aries (Trump 4, The Emperor) and Aquarius (Trump 17, The Star) loop around to highlight Pisces (Trump 18,The Moon), just as Libra (Trump 8, Adjustment) and Leo (Trump 11, Lust) loop around to highlight Virgo (Trump 9, The Hermit). Since this was conceived about the time the equinoctial points had reached the centers of Pisces and Virgo, I find it fascinating that this highlights a Pisces-Virgo horizontal axis and places Gemini at the highest declination and Samekh at the lowest - which was astronomically correct."Now if the the astrological attributions are off the diagram discussed - what kind of diagram are you using to write the paragraph above? I would like to see it, please.
Because I don't see that Aries and Aquarius loop around Pisces just as Libra and Leo loop around Virgo. It is certainly not in the order of attributions that I quote you in this post. How did you deduce that?I am confused because you say there is no double loop in the zodiac and another time you write that there is a double loop in the zodiac? How come?
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@Modes said
"Okay, Jim, I see the letter - number double loop, thanks. Now how do you explain the astrological attributions off-diagram if you can't deduce them from the diagram? If you could do that, please, because I don't understand this paragraph:"
The diagrams aren't for derivation, they're for demonstration. The correspondence of astrological signs to Hebrew letters has been documented for over 2,000 years, except that two were (intentionally, as I read the old texts) reversed. That's the core information given to Crowley as Magus. It's really only the numbers that have any mystery about them.
Really, this stuff is incredibly simple once you see it. Just go with the attributions as we know them, don't get hung up on something somebody jotted on the back of a napkin once, and the whole thing is pretty awesome.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"what kind of diagram are you using to write the paragraph above? I would like to see it, please."
"I don't do pictures. Give me a pen and napkin if you see me in person sometime. (I'll have to reread the thread, I'm certain I've described how to do this more than once on this forum.)
Let me see if I can find a clearer way to explain it. (Not sure where I'll get the time right now, but I'll try.)
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I actually did this before - much earlier - but let's try it again from the top.
Take the 12 simple letter names, in order:
Hé, Vav, Zayin, Cheyth, Teyth, Yod, Lamed, Noon, Samekh, A'ayin, Tzaddiy, Qof.Take the 12 Tarot trumps numbers that are available for them:
4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 1uDraw the loop figure - a flattened horizontal vessica piscis more or less, with a circle on either end.
Starting in the lower left (below the left circle), write the Hebrew letters as listed above, following the curve. Thus, H will be below the left circle, V Z Ch arched across the top, T below the right circle, Y outside right, L above the right circle, N S O from right to left along the bottom, Tz above the left circle, Q outside left.
Next, start in the upper left (with Tzaddiy) and put the numbers of the cards as listed above, going clockwise around the outside of the figure. Thus, 4 through 8 across the top, 9 on the right, 11 through 17 coming back across the bottom, 18 at the far left.
This is the correct attribution of the Tarot trump numbes to the Hebrew letters.
Next, add the zodiacal signs according to their attribution to the Hebrew letters. Aries is above left, Aquarius below left, wrapped around Pisces. Libra is above right, Leo is below right, wrapped around Virgo at far right. The others flow in between.
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[attachment=0:1g6row9q]<!-- ia0 -->Tarot Double Loop.jpg<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:1g6row9q]
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@Jim Eshelman said
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This is the correct attribution of the Tarot trump numbes to the Hebrew letters.
"This part I understand as in my post above. Sorry if my writting is hard to undersand.
@Jim Eshelman said
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Next, add the zodiacal signs according to their attribution to the Hebrew letters. Aries is above left, Aquarius below left, wrapped around Pisces. Libra is above right, Leo is below right, wrapped around Virgo at far right. The others flow in between."This part I don't understand as in my post above. It clearly does not "loop" as in your post before (below) but "wrap" may be a good word for this "ugly" arrangement in your diagram which does NOT form a Zodiac double loop nor a circle - does not follow the Zodiac order as the Hebrew letter double loop. So, as I understand I should not care about that in this diagram?
@Jim Eshelman said
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The result is that Aries (Trump 4, The Emperor) and Aquarius (Trump 17, The Star) loop around to highlight Pisces (Trump 18,The Moon), just as Libra (Trump 8, Adjustment) and Leo (Trump 11, Lust) loop around to highlight Virgo (Trump 9, The Hermit). Since this was conceived about the time the equinoctial points had reached the centers of Pisces and Virgo, I find it fascinating that this highlights a Pisces-Virgo horizontal axis and places Gemini at the highest declination and Samekh at the lowest - which was astronomically correct." -
Is this post referencing the diagram i posted just prior? I only ask because that diagram does correctly show the double loop, the outer path of the zodiacal and numerical attributions, and the wave-like distribution of the Hebrew attributions. I'm failing to see where the confusion still lies.
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@Gnosomai Emauton said
"Is this post referencing the diagram i posted just prior? I only ask because that diagram does correctly show the double loop, the outer path of the zodiacal and numerical attributions, and the wave-like distribution of the Hebrew attributions. I'm failing to see where the confusion still lies."
I think the confusion arises due the lack of a 'double loop in the zodiac' in the diagram. Following the natural order of the signs, starting from Aries on the left, a jump is required to reach Taurus. The natural sequence continues until Cancer and then you 'loop' down to Leo, Virgo, Libra, before rounding the bend and coming back via Scorpio, Sagittarius, and Capricorn. But to reach Aquarius one is required to 'jump' off the track again.
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Gnosomai Emauton clearly you made the diagram so you can see that the zodiac is out of Its natural sequience in the diagram. That's what bugs me. Thanks, Heru, you get the point.
I see in Waite's arrangement a harmony of letters, numbers and zodiac forming a circle. The double loop in Jim's arrangement has the harmony of letters and numbers but not the zodiac. So for me it means theoreticaly Waite's arrangement is better.The counterchange could be not the Waite 8, 11 cards but 4, 17 so if we do that we get a harmony in the double loop by 4 being Tzaddi, Aquarius, The Star/The Emperor, 17, He, Aries The Emperor/The Star, 8, Lamed, Adjustment, 11 Teth, Lust.
The problem was that the GD letter, number, zodiac attributions were not harmonious with the French Tarot so Waite counterchanged 8 and 11 and Crowley (may be) did the 4 and 17 instead or just the attributions for them. Those are the only possible 3 solutions to reach a harmony in all three attributions. The third one would require to redraw the two cards so we have only 2 solutions left, one of them being Waite's arrangement we have only one solution left.To clear things up I'm looking at the tarot from a theoretical design point of view. The design has to be uniform, harmonious. I understand that in practice it may be not so. I just see 4 Tzaddi, Aries, the Emperor, 17 He, Aquarius, The Star, 8, Lamed, Adjustment, 11, Teth, Lust as a theoretical design flaw with noone to explain why. Clearly from a theoretical standpoint Waite's arrangement is in order/harmonious while Crowley's is not. I still don't understand why...
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@Modes said
"Gnosomai Emauton clearly you made the diagram so you can see that the zodiac is out of Its natural sequience in the diagram. That's what bugs me. Thanks, Heru, you get the point."
Oh, I see: You wanted a literal zodiacal sequence all the way through the 12. Yeah, you're right, I don't think it's important that it isn't quite that.
The technical match is numbers vs. Hebrew letters. The signs go along with the letters. The key demonstration is that the axis is Virgo-Pisces with Aries-Libra and Leo-Aquarius (where the seeming "flips" occur) distributed on either side of them.
"I see in Waite's arrangement a harmony of letters, numbers and zodiac forming a circle."
Unfortunately, it's wrong. His biggest weakness was in being overly mentally formal (i.e., stuffy).
"The double loop in Jim's arrangement has the harmony of letters and numbers but not the zodiac."
Exactly. The letters vs. numbers pattern seems to be what matters. (Think of it from the point of view of Tarot's designers.)
"The problem was that the GD letter, number, zodiac attributions were not harmonious with the French Tarot so Waite counterchanged 8 and 11 and Crowley (may be) did the 4 and 17 instead. Those are the only possible 2 solutions to reach a harmony in all three attributions."
Exactly right on the last part.
"To clear things up I'm looking at the tarot from a theoretical design point of view. The design has to be uniform, harmonious."
For the sake of discussion: Why would this necessarily be so? (There actually are orderly patterns in the Double Letters and Simple Letters if you know where to look, but the Mother Letters are out of any sequence recognizable from the Sefer Y'tziyrah.)
"I just see 4 Tzaddi, Aries, the Emperor, 17 He, Aquarius, The Star, 8, Lamed, Adjustment, 11, Teth, Lust as a theoretical design flaw with noone to explain why."
I think you don't like the explanation you've been given.
Going with what it appears we know: First of all, the correct attribution of Tzaddiy was intentionally hidden, according to the Zohar. Not "a mistake," not "evolved from one model to another," but intentionally hidden and not to be disclosed correctly until long after. Second, that all happened when the equinoxes were almost precisely at 15° Virgo-Pisces, while the profane world was sinking deeper into adopting a false zodiac that defined the vernal point as the start of Aries for ever and ever (Amen!). I'm fascinated that just at this juncture in time Tarot was invented using a pattern of the Hebrew simple letters that gave Pisces-Virgo as the horizontal axis, Gemini (where the summer solstice actually occurred) at the apex up the up-arching curve and Sagittarius (where the winter solstice actually occurred) at the bottom of the down-arching curve; that allowed the Tzaddiy attribution to remain obscured by not making the loop one of zodiacal signs (which would have given it all away) but, rather, making the interacting streams be the Trump numbers and Hebrew letters (the two separate sequences that exist in the deck - the zodiacal sequence is indifferent to them).
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For the sake of discussion - humans create harmonious, symetrical, alphabetical etc theoretical/practical systems/models because they seek, see perfection in that. A messy system/model is not the aim of any creator - centuries old or new. Of course Nature/God is more difficult than that...
Thanks Jim for the astrology part - I have been looking forward to understand it. I need to research that more - can't comment about that now. Thanks, again. I can't understand yet what does Tzaddi have to do with the zodiac signs you mention in your post, because the problem is in Aquarius and Aries change...Sorry, I edited/added some text to my previous post while you were writing an answer.
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I dispute "change." I don't think anything actually changed. I think the correct attributions are newly disclosed.
You don't understand what Tzaddiy has to do with it? Tzaddiy is the Hebrew letter previously (wrongly) believed to be attributed to Aquarius and Atu XVII, and now known to be attributed to Aries and Atu IV.
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Isn't there a quote from one of the old Sephers about something about Heh being hidden?
See, as I understand it, switching those attributions makes Heh more receptive, more feminine. It makes a holy sexual relationship within the Divine Name, YHVH.
Now if you know your Hebrew Scriptures, you know that the Covenantal agreement was the relationship of servant to King. AGLA. You'll also remember that those worshiping the Star Goddess out in the groves or on top of the ziggurats were condemned.
It seems like a blind they would choose.