Tzaddi is not the Star
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@gmugmble said
"To derail the discussion slightly ...
Do we still equate Tzaddi with "the Natural Intelligence" and Heh with "the Constituting Intelligence" or do these get swapped?"There's no official Thelemic position... but Temple of Thelema does keep the Path title/description with the Path. Thus, Tzaddi is Aries, The Emperor, and the Natural Consciousness, while Heh is Aquarius, The Star, and the Constituting Consciousness.
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True, I have not made a real note of the degree of opposition that the paths possess to the two spheres they conjoin, I just sensed intuitionally that in most all cases there was some non-oppositional correspondence. I have made a quick note of the degree of the paths possible opposition to the spheres below, and as I see it hardly any one of them possess the polar opposition to both spheres as you suggest.
1.) 1-2 Air
The Fool could be neuter as Air as 0, but is better as extrememly phallic or creative (831 = Phallos, etc). It is not oppostite from 1 or 2.
2.) 1-3 Mercury
The Magus is opposite 3 but not 1.
3.) 1-6 Moon
The High Priestess is different than 1, opposite 6, but not opposite both.
4.) 2-3 Venus
The Empress is opposite 2 but not 3.
5.) 2-4 Aries
The King is not opposite 2 or 4 (perhaps 4 as Chesed, but not 4 as Jupiter), nor 2 or 6 (traditional model). As Aquarius however he is opposite 2 and 6, but not 2 and 4 (Chesed as Mercy).
6.) 2-6 Taurus
The Hierophant is not opposite 2 or 6, nor 2 or 4 (traditional model).
7.) 3-5 Gemini
The Lovers are not opposite 3, but perhaps 5; they are not really opposite 3 or 6 (traditional model).
8.) 3-6 Cancer
The Charioteer is not opposite 3 nor 6 as the Holy Paladin, nor 3 or 5 traditionally as the âwarrior monkâ.
9.) 4-5 Leo
Leo is not opposite 5, perhaps 4 as Chesed.
10.) 4-6 Virgo
Virgo can be seen as opposite 4 and 6.
11.) 4-7 Jupiter
The Wheel of Fortune can be seen as opposite 7 perhaps, not 4 = Jupiter.
12.) 5-6 Libra
The Balance is not really opposite 5 or 6 in terms of Justice, perhaps as a goddess though.
13.) 5-8 Water
The Man as Water between 5 and 8 is perhaps the most opposite I have yet seen, but 8 as Mercury makes it not really so.
14.) 6-7 Scorpio
Death is not opposite to 6 or 7.
15.) 6-8 Sagittarius
The Archer is not opposite 6 or 8, perhaps the 9 of 6-9 (traditional model), not really as the unconscious though.
16.) 6-9 Capricorn
The Devil is not opposite 6 or 9, perhaps the 8 of 6-8 (traditional model) though.
17.) 7-8 Mars
The Fortress is perhaps opposite 7 but not really 8 as the palace.
18.) 7-9 Aquarius
âThe Starâ is not opposite 7 or 9, but as Aries it is.
19.) 7-10 Pisces
The Moon is not opposite 7 or 10.
20.) 8-9 Sun
The Sun is opposite 9 but not 8.
21.) 8-10 Fire
The Aeon may be opposite in energy to 10 but not 8 really.
22) 9-10 Saturn
The Universe is not opposite 9 or 10.I do not find âin most cases the symbolism of a path between two sephiroth seems almost the polar opposite of the sephirothic symbols themselves,â even by using your attributions. I would say (by your attributions) only these paths really do:3.) 1-6 (giving you this one)
5.) 2-6 (your Aquarius here yes is opposite)
10.) 4-6
12.) 5-6 (giving you this one)
13.) 5-8
16.) 6-8
18.) 7-9 (your assignment of Aries here yes is opposite)Using the attributions of the ânearest sphere firstâ model (in the essay I cite above) and not changing Aries or Aquarius, at least 4 of the above go away in terms of opposition to both the spheres they connect to. Perhaps you can point out a few prime examples, because I don't find (beyond your Aries-Aquarius switch) that any really do.
I would rather say that in most cases the paths are in correspondence to either one or both of the spheres they conjoin, and that this fact is a good indicator that the system is in order. If the paths are too out of sync with the spheres I would suggest the energy would not flow as smoothly, that it really should not be considered an ideal or desired state or aspect of attribution.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"I like it. And BTW, contrary to GD texts, the correct spelling of the letter name Heh is HA.
And, of course, it is Aquarius, not Aries, that is characterized by revelation."
HA as in "Aum Ha"?
It has struck me that there is an ambiguity in that final word. In one sense it is the silence (Turiya) that follows the utterance of "Aum" (curiously, I can't find anywhere that AC says this, though it must have occurred to him) but in another it is a common form of the Hebrew definite article, which seems to signify a new beginning.
In another forum I compared this to "...the" being the last word of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake and joining on to the beginning of the book ("riverrun..."). That started a whole thread looking for Crowleyan and Thelemic references in FW
But Heh/Ha as the letter of revelation (and its relevance to the Emperor/ Star question) casts another light on this Thank you.
Revelation in concealment; one of those oxymorons that's worth pondering on.
The fifth [Heh] chapter of the Biblical book of Revelation/ Apocalypse, is the one where they present the sealed scroll (though the Lamb - the passive form of Aries, featured in the Thoth Emperor card - begins taking off the seals in the sixth chapter).
I wonder how AC and Lady Harris might have redesigned the two cards had they essayed the task after the interchange became evident. Looking at the conventional portrayal of the female figure in the Star, and conventional depictions of Aquarius, a cynic might suggest the Emperor would appear without clothes.
Or are there enough "secret" signs in the original designs to make redesign unnecessary?
OP
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@Oliver P said
"I wonder how AC and Lady Harris might have redesigned the two cards had they essayed the task after the interchange became evident. "
Actually, it was evident to AC by at least Word War I, decades before they started working on the cards.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"
@Oliver P said
"I wonder how AC and Lady Harris might have redesigned the two cards had they essayed the task after the interchange became evident. "Actually, it was evident to AC by at least Word War I, decades before they started working on the cards."
OK; I should have said - after he decided to make the interchange (reasonably) clear in The Book of Thoth.
And with respect to seeing through the clothes (suface appearance) of the Emperor, I'm intrigued to notice Hans Andersen died in August 1875. Plenty of time according to some theories of foetus-ensoulment.
Maybe AC was wrong about being Levi's reincarnation
OP
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@Oliver P said
"OK; I should have said - after he decided to make the interchange (reasonably) clear in The Book of Thoth."
BTW, a see a lot of people asking (what boils down to) "Why Crowley did it this way or that" in the cards. Remember, though, how they were made: He didn't give her detailed instructions. He gave her an old Medieval-style deck with personal notes scribbled on the margins and she started painting. He was more involved with some of the paintings, and less involved with others. But, other than the bare outline of ideas, the designs were substantially hers - based on her reading of Crowley's published writings, and subject to his editing.
I don't get that he micromanaged all of the project too closely.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"
@gmugmble said
"To derail the discussion slightly ...
Do we still equate Tzaddi with "the Natural Intelligence" and Heh with "the Constituting Intelligence" or do these get swapped?"There's no official Thelemic position... but Temple of Thelema does keep the Path title/description with the Path. Thus, Tzaddi is Aries, The Emperor, and the Natural Consciousness, while Heh is Aquarius, The Star, and the Constituting Consciousness."
93
This also raises the question of which of the other correspondences attributed to the two paths are swapped. In one edition of 777 it is stated that only the correspondences of the Tarot and the Zodiac are swapped between ׊ and ×.
What of the rest of the associations attributed to the paths? I would assume that they all remain the same, but for some it seems glaringly obvious that they should be swapped also; an example would be the precious stones attributed to the paths - ruby with × and artificial glass/chalcedony with ׊: The fiery nature of Aries easily corresponds to the ruby, and hence it seems the precious stones must be swapped as well.Does the Temple of Thelema take an official position on which Qabalistic correspondences are swapped between the two paths?
93, 93/93
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@PatchworkSerpen said
"This also raises the question of which of the other correspondences attributed to the two paths are swapped. In one edition of 777 it is stated that only the correspondences of the Tarot and the Zodiac are swapped between ׊ and ×.
What of the rest of the associations attributed to the paths?"We are bringing 776 1/2 back into print in the near future. It has most of this worked out in detail. (It's a long answer. In general, Divine names and zodiac-based associations make up most of the correspondences, and these travel with the zodiacal attribution.)
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@Jim Eshelman said
"
@PatchworkSerpen said
"This also raises the question of which of the other correspondences attributed to the two paths are swapped. In one edition of 777 it is stated that only the correspondences of the Tarot and the Zodiac are swapped between ׊ and ×.
What of the rest of the associations attributed to the paths?"We are bringing 776 1/2 back into print in the near future. It has most of this worked out in detail. (It's a long answer. In general, Divine names and zodiac-based associations make up most of the correspondences, and these travel with the zodiacal attribution.)"
93
Thanks for the heads up - one more thing:
With his 'double loop' diagram (page 11, The Book of Thoth), Crowley asserts that the original Lust-Adjustment swap is balanced by the new Emperor-Star swap. It seems though that the former 'disrupts' the sequence of astrological signs and hebrew letters only as far as the order of the Tarot is concerned (retaining the internal consistancy of the hebrew letter/astrological attribution), whereas the latter swap does not change the order of the Tarot but does in fact 'disrupt' the hebrew letter/astrological attribution.
How can these be considered to balance each other when the nature of the swap itself is different in each case?
All of the other arguments as to why they ought to be swapped make perfect sense to me, but this minor point prevents me from accepting the notion wholeheartedly.93, 93/93
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@PatchworkSerpen said
" Thanks for the heads up - one more thing:
With his 'double loop' diagram (page 11, The Book of Thoth), Crowley asserts that the original Lust-Adjustment swap is balanced by the new Emperor-Star swap. It seems though that the former 'disrupts' the sequence of astrological signs and hebrew letters only as far as the order of the Tarot is concerned (retaining the internal consistancy of the hebrew letter/astrological attribution), whereas the latter swap does not change the order of the Tarot but does in fact 'disrupt' the hebrew letter/astrological attribution.
How can these be considered to balance each other when the nature of the swap itself is different in each case?
All of the other arguments as to why they ought to be swapped make perfect sense to me, but this minor point prevents me from accepting the notion wholeheartedly.
93, 93/93 "The diagram on BoT P11 represents what I call the "Old Crowley" ordering, where he put the Emperor with Tzaddi and the Star with Heh, but balked at exchanging the Zodiac signs.
Even this has a kind of symmetry, albeit, that as you say "the nature of the swap is different" at the two ends.
http://www.lashtal.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14483/normal_Crowley_Tarot_1.jpg
When he made up his mind that the Emperor had to be Aquarius and the Star Aries, he produced a "New Crowley" pattern that looks more symmetrical.
http://www.lashtal.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14483/normal_Crowley_Tarot_2.jpg
The diagrams were made by me some time in the 1980s, when trying to sort all this out for myself.
Hope the "full-colour" presentation is useful.
OP
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"When he made up his mind that the Emperor had to be Aquarius and the Star Aries, he produced a "New Crowley" pattern that looks more symmetrical."
93
So you're implying that Crowley's ultimate conclusion was that the Emperor was Aquarius and the Star Aries? That sure goes against everything that's been said before now... It is however backed up by a table near the back of The Book of Thoth that gives these attributions. This does seem to make a great deal more sense than carrying the astrological attributions with the Tarot Trumps. This swap, retaining the astrological signs to their respective Hebrew letters would be exactly symmetrical to the Lust/Adjustment swap, unlike the original Emperor/Star swap that carries the attributions with the Trumps.
'Course the only hang-up now is attributing the Emperor to Aquarius and the Star to Aries. What gives?
93, 93/93
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"Don't get it twisted."
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The only way the heh-tzaddi switch makes sense is if the zodiac sign stays with the letter, in keeping with the Sefer Yetzirah. That way, the Emperor is Tzaddi/Aquarius, and the Star is Heh/Aries.
This is exactly what was done when Waite switched Strength and Justice; the letters stayed with their zodiac signs, but were moved to fit cards whose symbolism he thought was more appropriate, (scales for Libra, Lion for Leo). If you want to 'balance out' what Waite did, you have to make the same kind of change, that's all.
The real mistake is moving ONLY the letter, as if the zodiac and the Tarot were linked and immovable, and the letter was changeable. This places too much importance on the tarot sequence, IMO.
The tarot is far younger than the Sefer Yetzirah, and there is no evidence it was a factor in the design of the original decks. This didn't happen for three centuries, until the French occultists started mapping the Hebrew onto the trumps.
To make the Tarot be the basis for the Hebrew alef-bet and it's attributions is rather silly. The letters are fundamental, not the tarot cards.
If switching the letter & sign together between two cards messes up your Tree of Life, then too bad for the Tree of Life. Perhaps you should use a different design. The one used by Kircher, the Golden Dawn, et al, is certainly not the oldest or most authentic, its just the one you choose to use. It works well for some things, not as well for others.
I think the real problem comes down to a confusion of which categories are most fundamental.
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@hreefold31 said
"The only way the heh-tzaddi switch makes sense is if the zodiac sign stays with the letter, in keeping with the Sefer Yetzirah. That way, the Emperor is Tzaddi/Aquarius, and the Star is Heh/Aries."
No, you have it backwards. The main thing is that the zodiacal attribution is divorced from the letter. The zodiacal attribution remains with the Tarot card, which was especially designed in conformity with it.
"This is exactly what was done when Waite switched Strength and Justice; the letters stayed with their zodiac signs, but were moved to fit cards whose symbolism he thought was more appropriate, (scales for Libra, Lion for Leo). If you want to 'balance out' what Waite did, you have to make the same kind of change, that's all. "
That's the wrong comparison because the Waite swap was an error. Things "straighten out" either if you make the make the Waite swap or the Crowley swap - not both. Each was trying to solve the same problem, but did it in mutually exclusive ways.
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No I don't have it backwards. I understand exactly what AC did. But divorcing the letter from the zodiac is what ignores the sefer yetzirah attributions, which are followed in every other case for the zodiac. Now if you want to say that its perfectly fine to ignore the SY, then so be it, that's an aesthetic choice. But Waite did NOT ignore the SY attributions, he switched letters, AND signs, to match better with tarot images.
My point is that to think the tarot is fundamental, and that the zodiac goes with the tarot, rather than the hebrew letter, is to ignore about two thousand years of hebrew qabalah in favor of a dubious and never-proven relation between the tarot and the zodiac signs.
I don't see how it is the wrong comparison. My point is exactly as you said, you can't make BOTH changes because they're different kinds of changes. So I think we agree on that.
IF the Waite swap is okay, then Crowley's should have matched it. Since it wasn't, Crowley's swap doesn't 'balance' anything, as he claimed it did in the double-loop drawing.
So I hear you saying that Waite was in error, thus the VIII card should be Justice and XI card Strength, which is how Crowley has it in TBOT. If that's the case, then ignore the dubious double-loop argument. But also, that leaves Crowley's swap to stand alone. If that's the case, where's the justification for divorcing letter from sign when both the letter AND the sign are more fundamental than the Tarot? Obviously there was a zodiac long before the tarot, and there was a hebrew alef-bet long before the tarot, so why should the tarot take precedence?
You say that the zodiac sign can be divorced from the letter? Then why does Crowley keep Lamed with Libra, but put them BOTH with Justice in position VIII? If it was all about the zodiac/tarot lining up, he could have moved just the sign, not the letter, and left Teth with the VIII card and Lamed with the XI card.
Liber AL says only that Tzaddi is not the star. It says nothing at all about the zodiac.
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In case I wasn't clear enough, basically I'm agreeing with Oliver P that tzaddi can be the Emperor, but that makes the Emperor Aquarius. And heh can be the Star, but that makes the Star Aries.
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You've misunderstood several of my points - probably because I was hasty and brief, which in turn was because this has been covered much more thoroughly earlier in this thread and numerous other places.
You've misunderstood my intent concerning zodiac vs. Tarot cards. Of course the zodiacal attributions are more basic to the Qabalistic structure, and the Tarot cards were a slightly later representation of that. My main point, though, was that the zodiacal attributions of the Tarot cards are primary, and severing those is a mistake.
You misunderstood the importance I place on the Sepher Yetzirah. I regard it as fundamental.
However, in this one instance - the alleged correspondence of Heh and Tzaddi to Aries and Aquarius respectively - it is wrong. I can take a sidewise approach to justifying this by (again and redundantly) pointing out that The Zohar asserted that the correct attributions of Tzaddi were intentionally withheld and distorted until a later era; but, mostly, I simply assert that The Book of the Law indicated an error regarding Tzaddi and its attribution.
You mistake my meaning regarding Waite (again, because I was quite brief on a matter explained repeatedly in the past). Waite and Crowley both recognized that there was an apparent error of some sort reflected in the attribution of the number 8 to the Lamed-Libra card, and 11 to the Teth-Leo card. Waite thought the correction needed was to swap their numbers. This was his error. Crowley eventually realized that the real error was that the complementary reversal - Aries and Aquarius, lying opposite Libra and Leo - also needed to be made. With that true correction, all the numbers, zodiacal attributions, and the rest feel correctly in place.
@hreefold31 said
"IF the Waite swap is okay,"
That's the point... it's not OK. He goofed. He took the simpleton's solution and it was the wrong solution. The Leo-Teth card (Strength, Lust, whatever) is No. 11, not 8; and the Libra-Lamed card (Justice, Admustment, whatever) is No. 8, not 11.
"So I hear you saying that Waite was in error, thus the VIII card should be Justice and XI card Strength, which is how Crowley has it in TBOT."
It's how every pre-Waite source had it - not just Crowley. That also means that it's how Crowley and Waite both learned it in the Golden Dawn.
"If that's the case, then ignore the dubious double-loop argument."
Why? It's brilliant. More brilliant than even Crowley knew. It also encodes quite a number of additional things he didn't catch, including the fact that the diagram is a true Sidereal Pisces Age map. The horizontal split axis is Pisces-Virgo - the actual location of the equinox axis since 220 AD - and the apex and antapex of the diagram are Gemini and Sagittarius, the actual solstice locations in the same period. (And there's more besides solving the Tarot mystery, but that's a good start.)
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"However, in this one instance - the alleged correspondence of Heh and Tzaddi to Aries and Aquarius respectively - it is wrong. I can take a sidewise approach to justifying this by (again and redundantly) pointing out that The Zohar asserted that the correct attributions of Tzaddi were intentionally withheld and distorted until a later era; but, mostly, I simply assert that The Book of the Law indicated an error regarding Tzaddi and its attribution.
You mistake my meaning regarding Waite (again, because I was quite brief on a matter explained repeatedly in the past). Waite and Crowley both recognized that there was an apparent error of some sort reflected in the attribution of the number 8 to the Lamed-Libra card, and 11 to the Teth-Leo card. Waite thought the correction needed was to swap their numbers. This was his error. Crowley eventually realized that the real error was that the complementary reversal - Aries and Aquarius, lying opposite Libra and Leo - also needed to be made. With that true correction, all the numbers, zodiacal attributions, and the rest feel correctly in place."
93
This was my issue with the swap. The attribution of Aquarius to × and Aries to ׊ seems logical to me however the nature of the swap is not symmetrical.
The double loop diagram in and of itself seems correct - minus the tarot and hebrew letter attributions. The point of contention is this:
On the Leo-Libra swap the tarot number is swapped.
On the Aries-Aquarius swap the hebrew letter is swapped.On further meditation it seems that this asymmetry is implicit in the verse of Liber Legis: It states that "׊ is not the Star", and so it is claimed outright that the hebrew letter/tarot attribution is swapped. This is already in opposition to the Leo-Libra swap, which retains the hebrew letter/tarot attribution.
Does it matter that this messes up the symmetry?
93, 93/93
P.S. Jim, I sent you a PM a few days ago and as yet you haven't replied- would it be better if I posted the question in the forum?
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@Jim Eshelman said
"You've misunderstood my intent concerning zodiac vs. Tarot cards. Of course the zodiacal attributions are more basic to the Qabalistic structure, and the Tarot cards were a slightly later representation of that. My main point, though, was that the zodiacal attributions of the Tarot cards are primary, and severing those is a mistake."
Dwtw
I see what you're saying, but the point is that without the hebrew letters, you wouldn't have the zodiacal assignments to the tarot in the first place. The only reason the zodiac is spread all over the tarot and not assigned to 12 sequential cards is because the zodiac is spread all over the hebrew alef-bet. Someone wanted to map one series onto the other, thus you have the 9th card, Justice, being attributed to the 9th letter, Teth. And this looks wrong because of the tarot imagery.
So I understand that you want to keep that zodiac with the tarot, but it only got there because of hebrew in the first place. With that being said, later changes were made precisely because hebrew doesn't seem to map 'sequentially' onto the tarot@Jim Eshelman said
"However, in this one instance - the alleged correspondence of Heh and Tzaddi to Aries and Aquarius respectively - it is wrong. I can take a sidewise approach to justifying this by (again and redundantly) pointing out that The Zohar asserted that the correct attributions of Tzaddi were intentionally withheld and distorted until a later era; but, mostly, I simply assert that The Book of the Law indicated an error regarding Tzaddi and its attribution."
I can see that, but TBOTL only mentions the attribution to a card, not a zodiac sign. You have to presume that the sign must stay with a given card. That's fine, except that it doesn't happen in the case of VIII and XI.
@Jim Eshelman said
"You mistake my meaning regarding Waite (again, because I was quite brief on a matter explained repeatedly in the past). Waite and Crowley both recognized that there was an apparent error of some sort reflected in the attribution of the number 8 to the Lamed-Libra card, and 11 to the Teth-Leo card. Waite thought the correction needed was to swap their numbers. This was his error. Crowley eventually realized that the real error was that the complementary reversal - Aries and Aquarius, lying opposite Libra and Leo - also needed to be made. With that true correction, all the numbers, zodiacal attributions, and the rest feel correctly in place."
But the so-called complementary reversal doesn't complement anything if its not the same kind of reversal. Crowley has both the letter and sign for Libra and Leo switched, but he only has the letter for Aries and Aquarius switched.
"If that's the case, then ignore the dubious double-loop argument."
@Jim Eshelman said
"Why? It's brilliant. More brilliant than even Crowley knew. It also encodes quite a number of additional things he didn't catch, including the fact that the diagram is a true Sidereal Pisces Age map. The horizontal split axis is Pisces-Virgo - the actual location of the equinox axis since 220 AD - and the apex and antapex of the diagram are Gemini and Sagittarius, the actual solstice locations in the same period. (And there's more besides solving the Tarot mystery, but that's a good start.)"
I understand the sidereal aspect, but the double loop implies reversals that were not made. Yes, the signs for Leo and Libra were swapped, but the signs for Aquarius and Aries are still in their normal order, assuming that Heh simply becomes the Star and Aquarius, while Tzaddi becomes the Emperor and Aries. You've yet to demonstrate how this part of the 'double loop' is actually a loop. It's only a loop in the letter order, not the zodiac order. Obviously I'm not the only one to see this fact.
When you break it all down, you have three sequences. Assume the tarot is inviolable, and is correct as in TBOT. Then the hebrew letters are swapped in two places, for this 'double-loop'. But the zodiac order, (which is originally based on the SY attributions of hebrew, and is meaningless without that correlation) is only swapped in one place, not two.
My only essential point is that the zodiac should be swapped in two places also, or else there really is no double-loop.
If you don't want to swap the signs, then fine, but that means there is no double-loop, and you have an asymmetrical alignment. Which is fine by me. I don't see that as a big problem. The real problem underlying all this is the fact that people think in such a linear fashion, when the universe appears to be radial and not linear
And isn't the point of a loop, double or single, to show this very fact?Litlluw
RLG