A few Tarot keys
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@Malaclypse said
"Okay, but could it perhaps have been because the effect the cards give to the uninitiated (this was a beginner's lesson) is too strong?"
Maybe some of them, but... Qoph? Zayin?
And, as you say: Excluding Peh (among others)?
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Gah! Sorry, but I don't know how the Hebrew letters fit in here.
I.e. I don't know anything more about the letters than that you said they somehow are hardwired into us and that fish, camel, door etc. and the numbers, which I know hardly anything at all about either.
Explanation or reference to one, please? -
Qoph - Trump 18, The Moon
Zayin - Trump 6, The Lovers
Peh - Trump 16, The Tower -
Hehe, yeah, I know those too; sorry. But it seemed by your post that something more was intended, like an interpretation of the meaning of "camel" or "fish" e.g. I mean, how does a camel relate to the meaning of Atu II in less esoteric terms?
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@Malaclypse said
"Hehe, yeah, I know those too; sorry. But it seemed by your post that something more was intended, like an interpretation of the meaning of "camel" or "fish" e.g. I mean, how does a camel relate to the meaning of Atu II in less esoteric terms?"
I was only using Qoph, Zayin, and Peh to refer to the trumps themselves, not to allude to any literal meaning of the words necessarily.
But, to answer your question, I think the main significance of "camel" for the Path of Gimel and Atu II is that GML comes from a root meaning "to bear" - it is what "bears one across the vastness" to a new location etc. and has often been compared to the path across the Abyss. More to the point, "to bear" has very strong relevance to the Madonna imagery of The Priestess - the core maternal quality being "to bear."
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Ah, then I get it all. Thanks, Jim!
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Oki, I have a follow up on this. Is it a problem with the order one meditates on the MA the way you suggested, Jim? I.e. the 2-3 a day meditation you mentioned in another thread I can't find now.
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@Malaclypse said
"Oki, I have a follow up on this. Is it a problem with the order one meditates on the MA the way you suggested, Jim? I.e. the 2-3 a day meditation you mentioned in another thread I can't find now."
What order?
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Going from 0-XXI. Does it matter if I take the cards I skipped in between, or should I start all over?
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There are different sequences. The produce different results.
I don't think there is any necessity that everybody start a given way.
Nonetheless, the numerical sequence is important, and I do think that the most people are likely to benefit from laying in the pattern of the 0 to XXI sequence.
If you're doing something that is of value to you, I can't think of a good reason you should abandon it to start something else instead. There is value in the perseverance itself.
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Ah, that gave some meaning. Thank you, Jim!
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You also might want to try laying them in rows of 7. 3 rows total, one row on top, one row in the middle and one row on the bottom.
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@TripleFlower said
"You also might want to try laying them in rows of 7. 3 rows total, one row on top, one row in the middle and one row on the bottom."
Yes, that's a valuable way to study them. Case gives such a format with Aleph set aside. From a Thelemic point of view, we can harvest the valuable pattern in Liber Tav and arrange this a bit differently. (I'll add it to this post as an edit - it will take some tricky formatting.)
VI V XVII III II I 0 Z V H D G B A XIII XII VIII X IX XI VII N M L K Y T Ch XX XIX XVIII IV XVI XV XIV Sh R Q Tz P O S XXI Th``` -
Ooh, thanks for the tips Triple and Jim! At first I took it to mean the 3-7-12 system of the Hebrew alphabet, but there's nothing representing 12. What does this pattern intend to show exactly?
And some further questions:
How well should I know every card when I scan it to get the message? (I'm using the Thoth deck.)
When laying them out in that way, should I look at them in a certain order or simply stare at them all peripherally with the mid ones in focus, and if not, how? -
@Malaclypse said
"What does this pattern intend to show exactly?"
Look at the Thelemic Holy Book Liber Tav - this is just the 22 Hebrew letters in sequence in three rows of 7 each, with Tav subsuming the rest. (Cf. Liber L., 3:73, "Paste the sheets from right to left and from top to bottom: then behold!") There are some theoretical patterns in it but - you can discern these as you go.
"How well should I know every card when I scan it to get the message? (I'm using the Thoth deck.)"
Looking at the cards is the main method of this meditation, so you'll be becoming familiar with them as you go. A preliminary study of the basics of the card - say, looking over it and reading the section in The Book of Thoth - may be a suitable preliminary just so some of the mechanical recognition details don't overly dominate your attention overly much.
"When laying them out in that way, should I look at them in a certain order or simply stare at them all peripherally with the mid ones in focus, and if not, how?"
I gave this to you as a layout to use in studying one card at a time. As you progress through them - particularly as you work your way to the second row - you can start to see things concerning (for example) the one immediately above it. Also, though they layout is in terms of the Hebrew alphabet, you should sequence the meditations according to the numbers on the card, not the sequence in the pattern IMHO. But don't get overly absorbed in the pattern itself - use it as a tool to look at the individual cards - led the pattern sneak it's way through to you.
Case proposed that the three rows were, respectively, Powers, Agencies, and Consequences. That's probably overly specific but, on the other hand, often discloses quite a bit. By using the Liber Tav pattern, the line breaks occur at the transitions between the three Orders, i.e., the attainment of the K&C of the HGA at the far left of the bottom row and Crossing the Abyss at the juncture of rows 1 and 2. This being the case, there is some validity in looking at the three rows as Atziluth, Briah, and Yetzirah, with Tav subsuming - but, again, this might be overly narrow and might distract you from really important things you could learn just by looking at the cards.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"[(Cf. Liber L., 3:73, "Paste the sheets from right to left and from top to bottom: then behold!")"
Wow! I've always interpreted this as referring to the 65 manuscript sheets of Liber Legis (13 x 5 grid). (I've found some interesting symmetries doing this...) Did Crowley ever say explicitly that Liber Tav was meant to be the fulfillment of this verse?
Would it be too annoying to reiterate how useful this forum is?
Steve
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@Steven Cranmer said
"Wow! I've always interpreted this as referring to the 65 manuscript sheets of Liber Legis (13 x 5 grid). (I've found some interesting symmetries doing this...) Did Crowley ever say explicitly that Liber Tav was meant to be the fulfillment of this verse?"
Nope. If there's anything to it, then I get credit for the discovery. (Soror Meral wrote an article in ITC about 20 years ago after we discussed it.)
The trumps are, after all, the "pages" of The Book of Thoth (what Nuit also calls "her" book).
"Would it be too annoying to reiterate how useful this forum is?
"I'd manage to live with myself another day if you did so.
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I humbly agree with Steven. Great!
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Okay, today I did a paste of the sheets, but I had forgotten the arrangement you gave in the ASCII, Jim, so I simply took them in order from left to right, three rows, XXII at the bottom. But something definitely happened, because I've been speeded all day and only now I got that it must've been the Tarot study.
I had very interesting insights, to my mind, about the Atus. I think I saw how Harris had been able to combine the style to fit the cards so that they continue very stringent. I look mostly on how the lines are drawn when I study pictures; how the harmony and balance and so on functions. I love looking at the cards all together now and follow the way they connect.
But specifically I saw a sycle. I still have a limited understanding of the meaning of the cards, but crudely speaking I do get them, mostly from simply working with them, empirics is the shit. To my mind I was taken very deep in meaning very rapidly, seeing them like that one after another. The succession of colours, the linear harmonies and the meaning are ingeniusly combined!
I laughed out loud when I saw the connections and attempted to apply them to micro/macro scales. I really do get why they have to be seen as a series to get the idea. So after I had laughed my ass off for a while I until now (and hopefully onwards!) have felt electrified and very content. My thoughts have since been very Thelemic during the day and even though I pondered psychological disasters which usually gets me upset I was mostly happy and "enjoyed the ride" no matter where I was on the pivot (up or down), and the thing is: I can't seem to shake the positive feeling!
And you may realize, even though I usually rant, I can't stop. I have been trying to tell you guys what pattern I saw, but this just never ends, so here's a snip: -<>-
The pattern itself was very much about fusing things together, thus creating beautiful analogies to explain incredible depths of the psyche; a story I seemed able to follow enough for it to feel like I was in a rollercoaster ride of introspection (/extrospection). The finishing of one pattern was fused with the middle of another, the beginning of a third, the culminating of a fourth and so on on so many levels they make Finnegans Wake seem weak in comparison. What a map!Now I must do the arrangement Jim told me about.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Yes, that's a valuable way to study them. Case gives such a format with Aleph set aside. From a Thelemic point of view, we can harvest the valuable pattern in Liber Tav and arrange this a bit differently. (I'll add it to this post as an edit - it will take some tricky formatting.)
VI V XVII III II I 0 Z V H D G B A XIII XII VIII X IX XI VII N M L K Y T Ch XX XIX XVIII IV XVI XV XIV Sh R Q Tz P O S XXI Th``` " I hadn't noticed it until now but this arrangement is remarkably similar to B.O.T.A.'s instruction to align the cards in 3 rows of 7 with *The Fool* alone at the top, similar to *Liber Tav* placing *The Universe* alone at the bottom...both are quite startling in their revelations. 616