Khephra in the Moon card
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I've always been a little confused about one thing on the moon card.
The beetle on the bottom is not a scarab. A scarab is a short, squat beetle.
The beetle on the Thoth deck moon card looks very much like a female Giant Harlequin Beetle, acrocinus longimanus (the male has even longer front legs).
I've never figured out why, since the beetle is native to the Americas...
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My guess is... Lady Harris didn't know the difference.
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That's what I would guess too, but....
Everything else in the deck is so detailed, and every small detail rich with meeting.
The beetle in the deck is anything BUT a common/generic beetle (it certainly wasn't found in England outside of a collection, or a drawing)
Egyptian motifs were rather commonplace in England at the time, as was, I'm sure the winged scarab, with the sun:
http://www.scarletwoman.org/scarletletter/v4n4/images_v4n4/tut_scarab.gifAdditionally, the harlequin motif may exist in at least one more place in the Thoth deck: Adjustment.
Between the harlequin pattern on her legs (under a diaphanous material) and surrounding the large diamond, and her mask (not blindfold), I wonder if there is a link...
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@AvshalomBinyamin said
"Everything else in the deck is so detailed, and every small detail rich with meeting."
Actually, I think that's a trouble point. I almost (in my last answer) added some remarks about people who obsess about the fine points in the artwork. Crowley didn't design the deck, Harris did, and AC then gave it a nod (and sometimes asked for changes). And even if he had minutely designed it, it's still only one visual angle of the idea of the cards. These cards are at least as much artwork as occult symbolism, and I think it generally better to look at the broad strokes and not get too concerned with fine points.
In fact, I prefer to teach Tarot independent of any particular deck - so that students have a thoroughly good idea of what a card must be about without looking at any rendering of it - and then bring a particular deck in to see how those ideas are implemented. (But that's almost a digression.)
"Additionally, the harlequin motif may exist in at least one more place in the Thoth deck: Adjustment."
If you also found one on The Hierophant, I'd be impressed!
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@Jim Eshelman said
"If you also found one on The Hierophant, I'd be impressed!
"Just in the hiero's mask and the diamond pattern on the snake. But the diamond-back snake is on like a dozen cards, and it's not really part of his costume... so it's really pushing it...
(but if we're talking similarities between The Hierophant and The Moon, I go immediately to the 9 waw's on the one and the 9 yod's on the other... Great.. now I'm going to be searching for tiny artistic details, when maybe, like the Devil card, I should be taking a step back to look at it)
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The Egyptians came to associate Khephra with self-renewal and becoming through observing baby beetles coming out of the buried ball of dung.
Heart scarabs are designed to guard the heart of the dead to prevent them from confessing the wrong things during the psychostasis and 42 Negative Confessions.
As I see it, Khephra keeps the soul grounded in a Becoming and from identifying with the recently-finished incarnation and passing scenery. It’s a slow steady journey toward dawn. When you look back on your life and observe where you used to be against where you are now, that difference is the work of silent Khephra.
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"SO WHAT IS KEPHRA???"
All of the above!
As has been stated, he is an Egyptian aspect of the Sun, and bears the Sun through the underworld each night. In this aspect he is related to the Moon, as it is She who reflects the Sun's light in the darkness.
But remember: there is no definite attribution for anything, and every symbol takes part in every other. Of course, now the question arises: well, then why go through all the attributions? And to this the adept will probably reply: nothing!
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This wasn't the quote I was looking for but it serves alright instead:
"Having once reduce Lao Tze to Qabalistic form, it was easy to translate the result into the language of philosophy. I had already done much to create a new language based on English with the assistance of a few technical terms borrowed from Asia, and above all by the use of a novel conception of the idea of Number and algebraic and arithmetical proceedings, to convey the results of spiritual experience to intelligent students. - The Tao Teh King by Crowley"
As I remember it... Crowley said it somewhere else, too; that he was creating a language with which it becomes possible to as accurately as possible communicate mystical and magical "truths".
I understand what you are saying when you say: "there is no definite attribution for anything, and every symbol takes part in every other" ...
However on another plane - I have this stubborn theory that Crowley was using specific symbols to communicate specific ideas. I am trying to break through the curse of babel to try to understand what, for example, this means:
"But Khephra is the Sun at midnight in the North"
in terms of:
the physical plane
the emotional plane
the mental plane
the spiritual planeFor instance, the expression "Sun at midnight" for me evokes the following thoughts (off the top of my head):
the physical plane = when body rebels against conscious control - hang overs - disease
the emotional plane = paranoia, hate, fear, disgust
the mental plane = me right now not getting it, having no idea or opinion, the opposite of eureka moments
the spiritual plane = dark night of the soul, when we feel a lack of the divine in our livesTo expand into the original quote a little deeper: "in the North":
Crowley says:"in the North is Taurus, the Bull, Apis the Redeemer, the Son."
the physical plane = physical endurance, earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes
the emotional plane = emotional strength, satisfaction from work
the mental plane = stubborness, teaching
the spiritual plane = illuminatingSo putting it all together, I would say that Khepra on the Moon card, is a glyph of what Crowley writes in Thoth:
"How splendid is the Adventure!", or as Robert Anton Wilson mentions in a mantra in Illuminatus: "Just Do Go Ahead". Khepra then seems to be the Godform we might invoke during the darker hours of our lives, in an attempt to remember that time marches inevitably forward, and to draw strength to face our fears, prejudices, and hangups. We all come from the earth and the to the earth we return (bugs make me think of decomposing flesh and how the death of one thing is the gateway of another form of life). I also think the bug archetype taps into the most alien part of ourselves (as opposed to Icke and his lizards) and it's this symbol that is represented by "the sun at midnight".I see the Khepra symbol in the Moon card as telling us about "moving forward", but also as a "teacher". As the God of the Dead and Resurrection, maybe Khepra will visit me today as I seem to be dead in the head when it comes to this topic, and I need some help with a new way of looking at it that will breath new life into me. The chariot card, which I still see as a mirror of Khepra, I see in a similar way. HOWEVER, Khepra is facing up and moving away from us in the tarot card, while the charioteer is facing us. So my random off the cuff take on that is that Khepra represents teachers, Crowley for instance, as seen from low on the TOL (how the masses might see him). This is the demon Crowley, a bug, but holding up the sun as a symbol for worship. The charioteer is a mighty knight warrior whom we hold in high regard (Crowley, or other teachers seen from higher on the TOL), and in this instance the teacher presents the cup of babalon as the symbol for worship.
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@Tinman said
"As I remember it... Crowley said it somewhere else, too; that he was creating a language with which it becomes possible to as accurately as possible communicate mystical and magical "truths"."
Yes. That's very close to the quote. It might have been in the commentary to Liber LXV. (If not, then LXV and its commentary are certainly examples of its application.)
"I understand what you are saying when you say: "there is no definite attribution for anything, and every symbol takes part in every other" ...
However on another plane - I have this stubborn theory that Crowley was using specific symbols to communicate specific ideas. I am trying to break through the curse of babel to try to understand what, for example, this means:"
Probably not symbols. I'm sure he meant that he was creating literal, verbal language for this purpose. But, on a somewhat different note, I do think (agree?) that the "every symbol blends into every other" approach (I know that I paraphrase) isn't entirely true and, in any case, isn't very useful even to the extent that it is true.
OTOH, we are admonished at the very beginning of the path that, when encounteirng the name of any god, not to mistake it for any god whatsoever except that ONE known to us individually. In this sense, all gods eventually become equal (even if all symbols do not).
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@Jim Eshelman said
"OTOH, we are admonished at the very beginning of the path that, when encounteirng the name of any god, not to mistake it for any god whatsoever except that ONE known to us individually. In this sense, all gods eventually become equal (even if all symbols do not)."
Do you mean to remember that we're interacting with our personal/internal conception of each god we "encounter"; or do you mean to remember that each god you encounter is really your own hga? (or something else...)
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@AvshalomBinyamin said
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@Jim Eshelman said
"OTOH, we are admonished at the very beginning of the path that, when encounteirng the name of any god, not to mistake it for any god whatsoever except that ONE known to us individually. In this sense, all gods eventually become equal (even if all symbols do not)."Do you mean to remember that we're interacting with our personal/internal conception of each god we "encounter"; or do you mean to remember that each god you encounter is really your own hga? (or something else...)"
The sentence I quoted is so critical at an early, pivotal point on the Path, that I'd rather leave it as stated rather than turn that particular one into dialectic.
I know you know the answer to your own question, though.
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"Debate not of the image, saying Beyond! Beyond!"
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There have been others, to be sure. There are always others. But you know, Mr. Burton, the difficulties between WoMen and Gods. How seldom it works out? Yet we all keep trying, like fools.
"Atu XVIII shews that Life appearing in the Waters of Midnight, Kephra in the Pool of Great Dark Sea - 19th Aethyr"
"Yet again, Apis the Bull of Khem hath Kephra the Beetle upon His tongue, which signifieth that it is by this Will, and by this Work, that the Sun cometh unto Dawn from Midnight - Aleph, ch153"
"I beheld also Kephra, the Beetle God, the Glory of Midnight. - John St. John"
"If I say “come up upon the mountains,”
The Celestial waters shall flow at my word;
For I am Ra incarnate,
Kephra created in the flesh!- The Rite of Mercury"
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@Jim Eshelman said
"If you also found one on The Hierophant, I'd be impressed!
"Its on the roof of his mouth.
729
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Or the harlequin patterns of the priestess at bottom, center.
Bring me through midnight to the sun