Tzaddi is not the Star
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@PatchworkSerpen said
"This thread has been done to death, but:
After discovering a minor proof yesterday evening (MeLeKh = 90 = Tzaddi), I re-read the section of The Book of Thoth on the Emperor trump and found this:
"...It is finally to be observed that the white light which descends upon him [the Emperor] indicates the position of this card in the Tree of Life. His authority is derived from Chokmah, the creative Wisdom, the Word, and is exerted upon Tiphareth, the organized man."
Despite his earlier assertion in this paragraph that Tzaddi refers to the signs of Aries in the zodiac, Crowley now blatantly suggests that it (Tzaddi) leads from Chokmah to Tiphareth, and not from Netzach to Yesod.
and I thought I'd brought this mystery to a close..."
See my post on Page 2 of this thread (or search for it under "HRS") where I - half seriously - made exactly that suggestion, and did a piece of gematria around it that seemed to refer to April 10, the last day of the writing of Liber Legis.
As George Harrison said, "it's been done"; every possible combination of Tarot turmp, Herbrew letter, Tree-of-Life path and Zodiacal sign has been explored and this thread really is dead
But while I'm about it, the apparent fault in the "symmetry" which irks me a little is that with the Justice-Strength [Adjustment-Lust] switch, we have the neatness of yodh and kaph (closed and open hand; still-point [axle?] and wheel) between the "switched" symbols; while between Star and Emperor is a whole crowd of symbols all referring to different things: Moon-Pisces; Sun; Judgement[Aeon]-Fire; World-Saturn; Fool-Air; Magician-Mercury;High Priestess-Moon; Empress-Venus.
There may be only three Zodiacal signs on each loop, but all those planets and elements make it hard to see any overall symmetry.
OP
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@Oliver P said
"But while I'm about it, the apparent fault in the "symmetry" which irks me a little is that with the Justice-Strength [Adjustment-Lust] switch, we have the neatness of yodh and kaph (closed and open hand; still-point [axle?] and wheel) between the "switched" symbols; while between Star and Emperor is a whole crowd of symbols all referring to different things: Moon-Pisces; Sun; Judgement[Aeon]-Fire; World-Saturn; Fool-Air; Magician-Mercury;High Priestess-Moon; Empress-Venus.
There may be only three Zodiacal signs on each loop, but all those planets and elements make it hard to see any overall symmetry."
The loop is in the wheel of the Zodiac, not in the sequence of all 22 trumps.
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On page 40 of The Book of Thoth, while discussing the revolution of the signs around Virgo and Pisces, A.C. says:
"This is a reference to a peculiar secret of the ancients which was deeply studied by Godfrey Higgins and others of his school."
Does anyone know what this "peculiar secret" is?
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@Redd Fezz said
"Cool! Do you know where I can read more about Sirius. It's still a bit of a mystery to me (hehe, yes, a "Sirius Mystery")."Well... There's always The Sirius Mystery. Also, R.H. Allen's Star Names and miscellaneous scattered writings of Cyril Fagan."
Also check out PKD's VALIS and RAW's Cosmic Trigger Vol. I.
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This might be stating the obvious, but there are some interesting things that happen when you align the Thoth deck to the Atbash Cipher.
(For example, Tzaddi and Heh are opposite each other on the Atbash Cipher)
Here are some superficial little notes I jotted down a couple years back about it
[lashtal dot com/nuke/PNphpBB2-viewtopic-t-1770.phtml] -
According to Paul Foster Case, "In all ancient copies of the Book of Formation (Sepher Yetzirah), the planetary attributions to the double letters are purposely mixed, in order to mislead uninitiated readers into whose hands the book might fall. The correct attributions were reserved for mouth-to-ear instruction."
Likewise, Eliphas Levi (as acknowledged by Case and Crowley) deliberately mixed the astro-alphanumerical attributions to the Tarot Trumps.
Also, the Golden Dawn kept the true attributions secret for their members of the Practicus grade, whilst exoterically promulgating incorrect information.Is it not possible that this practice has continued, that this whole Double Loop in the Zodiac issue is a "blind" with the correct attributions reserved for mouth-to-ear transmission?
To put it another way, has Crowley poured the castor oil of confusion into the tea-urn of the Tarot? -
The fish-hook is the Aquarian man captured by the preceding Christ-Pisces in relation to the future sunrise over the equinox into the House of Aries, the new Emperor. Offcourse it is much more complex than that, but Crowley's words concern the new paradigm of Man. Aquarus, Pisces and Aries play pivotal roles.
The paradox is in the retrograde motion of 0 degree Aries equinox sunrise from the first degrees of Pisces into the last degrees of sign Aquarius.Hidden in this paradox is the mind bending problem of the path forwards to enlightenment, the birth of the new emperor man in the first house of Aries; and meanwhile regressing backwards from the last sign into the eleventh: the waterbearer.
Which, by the way, uncovers the answer to the sphinx's riddle. The backside of this monument points almost to the lion and its face will be illuminated by the sunrise in the last degrees of Aquariuas, which then are by our understanding the first degrees in this sign. The Emperor, house of Aries, the firstborn, occupied nowadays by the fish hook which is the border between old Fish and new Water Bearer.
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93,
"When Crowley declares that Tzaddi is not the star, we immediately grasp that he means the opposite: Tzaddi is indeed the Star."
It wasn't Aleister Crowley who said it, though. And there is zero logic in your statement, but I hesitate to go in that direction....
93 93/93,
Edward -
@Edward Mason said
"And there is zero logic in your statement"
Presumably he's implying that its a blind. Waites wrote a dreary little book on the Tarot that was full of them..
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If I'm understanding the above, there's a suggestion that Leo, in terms of the great year, is essentially wintertime, also analogous to nighttime when people are sleeping. Interesting thought.
Ayin fits the pattern as well, being the eye at the top of the pyramid, the peak of the great year. -
@JNV33 said
"If I'm understanding the above, there's a suggestion that Leo, in terms of the great year, is essentially wintertime, also analogous to nighttime when people are sleeping. Interesting thought.
Ayin fits the pattern as well, being the eye at the top of the pyramid, the peak of the great year."
Getting this from... Now, the Full Moon in Leo is a wintertime event (in the northern hemisphere), and the Sun is in Leo during southern hemisphere winter... but otherwise, no, that wouldn't be true.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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Getting this from... "I was trying to understand what Thalassos was saying, and having some fun with the idea.
Here's what I think he was saying: the "Great Year" has seasons that correspond to the annual seasons, except the solstice points (from a northern hemisphere perspective) are opposite, similar to how the tenth house is the brightest time of the day while Capricorn is the darkest time of the year. The idea of a summer solstice (at the beginning of the age of Capricorn?) in the "Great Year" is an interesting thought.
But yeah, entirely speculative fun.
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Got it!
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@Jim Eshelman said
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No. See above. The loop is done by plotting the Hebrew letters and the Tarot card numbers. You're confusing yourself by introducing the zodiac to it."You are mistaken. You're confusing yourself by NOT introducing the zodiac to it. Try to read threefold31 posts again if you didn't understand. I will quote Crowley:
@The New Comment (c. 1921) chap. 1 line 57 said
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Tzaddi is the letter of The Emperor, the Trump IV, and He is the Star, the Trump XVII. Aquarius and Aries are therefore counterchanged, revolving on the pivot of Pisces, just as, in the Trumps VIII and XI, Leo and Libra do about Virgo. This last revelation makes our Tarot attributions sublimely, perfectly, flawlessly symmetrical."@Book of Thoth, page 10 said
"For "The Star" is referred to Aquarius in the Zodiac, and "The Emperor' to Aries. Now Aries and Aquarius are on each side of Pisces, just as Leo and Libra are on each side of Virgo; that is to say, the correction in the Book of the Law gives a perfect symmetry in the zodiacal attribution, just as if a loop were formed at one end of the ellipse to correspond exactly with the existing loop at the other end."
@Book of Thoth, page 11 diagram said
"The Double Loop in the Zodiac"
EDIT:
Book of Thoth, page 279, The Tarot of Egyptians. It is written 11 Teth/Leo Lust, 8 Lamed/Libra Adjustment, 4 Tzaddi/Aquarius The Emperor, 17 He/Aries The Star. As I see it is in the book so official in the OTO.
End EDIT.Now, the goodies:
This image shows how the GD Tarot number order is the MODIFIED Marseille's Tarot order to make the zodiac round assuming that Strength is Leo and Justice is Libra.
This image shows that Crowley's Tarot leaves the Marseille's Tarot number order intact but ONE loop forms in the zodiac if we assume that Strength is Leo and Justice is Libra.
This image shows Crowley's Tarot DOUBLE loop in the zodiac in order to solve the "Tzaddi is not The Star" and make the zodiac symmetrical.
Therefore Teth is Leo Strength, Lamed is Libra Justice, Tzaddi is Aquarius The Emperor, He is Aries The Star. There are only two ways to get the zodiac in symmetry assuming that Strength is Leo and Justice is Libra. Either GD or Crowley. Crowley follows the tradition of Marseille's Tarot number sequence and GD doesn't follow any tradition - it's their invention. -
You're using the Trump number correspondence in one pair to argue the Hebrew and Zodiac correspondences in the other pair.
The only thing that got switched (in the sense that the original order of the Major Arcana isn't in aleph-beth-ical order) between Lust and Justice was the trump number (8 and 11). Strength/Lust was always Leo, and Justice was always Libra.
The argument your images make is that if you wanted to be perfectly symmetrical, you would do the same for the Emperor and the Star, so the Emperor would remain Heh, Aquarius and the Star would remain Tzaddi, Aries. You would just switch the 4 and 17.
But that doesn't help with the whole "Tzaddi is not the Star".
So, if you switch Tzaddi/Star and Heh/Emperor, but leave the zodiac, like you do, you have Tzaddi/Aquarius/Emperor and Heh/Aries/Star.
Then, by your logic, we'd have to be symmetrical, and do the same with Strength/Leo and Justice/Libra.
So now we have Strength/Libra/Lamed and Justice/Leo/Teth.
In short, you're over-complicating it.
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To make things crystal clear. The zodiac-hebrew letter attribution is form Sepher Yetzirah (Chapter 4) and is centuries old so far I know. Both Golden Dawn and Crowley use the Sepher Yetzirah zodiac attributions, the French Martinists do the same. In Sepher Yetzirah (Chapter 4) the attributions are Teth/Leo, Lamed/Libra, Tzaddi/Aquarius, He/Aries. To brake those attributions in a disorganized way would be not acceptable by anyone. There are NO LOOPS in Sepher Yetzirah zodiac-letter attributions.THE LOOPS are in zodiac to Marseille's Tarot roman number sequence attributions (see pic 2, pic 3) as Crowley stated himself(quotes included in the post before).
@Jim Eshelman said
"What makes this confusing is that the Teth-Lamed issue was never out of whack (until Waite "broke" it)."
Waite didn't brake it. It was already broken in Book T. Don't blame Waistcoat.
Golden Dawn (or Waite) and Crowley differ in the way they solve the problem to achieve symmetry in the zodiac. Golden Dawn does MODIFY Marseille's Tarot roman number sequence (pic 1) - Crowley does NOT (pic 2, pic 3). But they both use the same Sepher Yetzirah attributions to fix that. Why Crowley kicked GD ass? Because he didn't brake the Marseille's Tarot roman number sequence attributions (in use since 1650) and achieved a kind of symmetry of the zodiac - that's all. Solving "Tzaddi is not The Star" is a by-product.@Avshalom Binyamin said
"So now we have Strength/Libra/Lamed and Justice/Leo/Teth."
No, look again at pic 3 = the same as Book of Thoth, page 279, the Columns under the name The Tarot of Egyptians. It is written that 11 Teth/Leo Lust, 8 Lamed/Libra Adjustment, 4 Tzaddi/Aquarius The Emperor, 17 He/Aries The Star. As I see it is in the book so official in the OTO. Is it clear now Avshalom Binyamin? If not, you can get The Book of Thoth online and look for yourself at the page.
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@Modes said
"Both Golden Dawn and Crowley use the Sepher Yetzirah zodiac attributions, the French Martinists do the same. In Sepher Yetzirah (Chapter 4) the attributions are Teth/Leo, Lamed/Libra, Tzaddi/Aquarius, He/Aries."
No, you don't have that right. Crowley's post-CCXX form is Tzaddi=Aries, Heh=Aquarius. The final result is:
IV Emperor = Tzaddi = Aries
XVII Star = Heh = Aquarius"To brake those attributions in a disorganized way would be not acceptable by anyone."
Wrong. The letter-to-sign attributions are what was originally wrong. Sepher Yetzirah was either wrong or blinded in this regard.
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
"So now we have Strength/Libra/Lamed and Justice/Leo/Teth."No, look again at pic 3 = the same as Book of Thoth, page 279, the Columns under the name The Tarot of Egyptians. It is written that 11 Teth/Leo Lust, 8 Lamed/Libra Adjustment, 4 Tzaddi/Aquarius The Emperor, 17 He/Aries The Star."
Those are errors in the table, which was malformed. (That's perhaps what's misleading and confusing you through all of this.) Read, instead, the textual sections on The Star and The Emperor earlier in the book, and you will see that he persisted in Emperor = Aries and Star = Aquarius, which are pretty basic to the natures of the cards.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"No, you don't have that right. Crowley's post-CCXX form is Tzaddi=Aries, Heh=Aquarius. The final result is:
IV Emperor = Tzaddi = Aries
XVII Star = Heh = Aquarius"@Jim Eshelman said
"The letter-to-sign attributions are what was originally wrong. Sepher Yetzirah was either wrong or blinded in this regard."
Crowley's post-CCXX New Comment:
@The New Comment (c. 1921) chap. 1 line 57 said
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Tzaddi is the letter of The Emperor, the Trump IV, and He is the Star, the Trump XVII. Aquarius and Aries are therefore counterchanged."Original:
IV Emperor = Heh = Aries
XVII Star = Tzaddi = Aquarius
Counterchanged:
IV Emperor = Tzaddi = Aquarius
XVII Star = Heh = AriesWhat don't you understand about the word "counterchanged"? So now we have that the Sepher Yetzirah is a blind, and Crowley's post-CCXX New Comment is a blind too? So Book of Thoth, page 10 is a blind too?
@Jim Eshelman said
"Read, instead, the textual sections on The Star and The Emperor earlier in the book, and you will see that he persisted in Emperor = Aries and Star = Aquarius, which are pretty basic to the natures of the cards."
I have read the book. The textual sections on The Star and The Emperor are a blind. They can't prove the double loop in the zodiac-number perfect symmetry as the Crowley's post-CCXX New Comment does and Book of Thoth, page 10 which is almost a copy-paste of the New Comment.
Jim, can you show me a double loop in the zodiac and numbers "sublimely, perfectly, flawlessly symmetrical" with the IV Emperor = Tzaddi = Aries, XVII Star = Heh = Aquarius? Book of Thoth, page 11 diagram is NOT "sublimely, perfectly, flawlessly symmetrical" as anyone who can count sees. If you wan't to see perfect symmetry in diagram form look at my pic 3 or see Book of Thoth, page 279, the Columns under the name The Tarot of Egyptians for the text.
Jim, do you understand why the loop in the zodiac formed in the first place? And why in GD Tarot there is no loop? -
No, you''ve got it exactly backwards. But I'm going to stop arguing with you. I've had my say two or three times already, and don't have time to keep repeating myself.
@Modes said
"Jim, can you show me a double loop in the zodiac and numbers "sublimely, perfectly, flawlessly symmetrical" with the IV Emperor = Tzaddi = Aries, XVII Star = Heh = Aquarius?"
No, and you're just being rhetorical - I've already stated (and you've quoted) "The loop is done by plotting the Hebrew letters and the Tarot card numbers. You're confusing yourself by introducing the zodiac to it."
"Jim, do you understand why the loop in the zodiac formed in the first place? And why in GD Tarot there is no loop?"
Yes to both. In the first case, as stated in The Zohar, the meaning of Tzaddi needed to be blinded until a later time. The creators of Tarot appear to have been quite aware that the vernal equinox had shifted back into Pisces, and therefore created Tarot with the zodiacal elements on the Virgo-Pisces axis. The original was created, therefore, to show this in the design and yet mask the real characteristics of Tzaddi.
As for the GD, I don't have time to write another essay on it (it would take an essay), but the long and short of it is: The apparent discrepancy was already hinted at in the cipher manuscripts on which G.D. was founded, but they settled into the Marseille model of numeration probably as the path of least resistance. Waite and Case both took one path to reconcilling the seeming discrepancy, but their path actually made things worse (adding two pairs or errors instead of one). Liber L. pointed to the real issue.
I can see why you are confused about this - Crowley, for years, was sorting the thing out gradually and then was ambivalent about whether to communicate it. Book of Thoth had numerous small errors (bad proof-reading, illustrations inverted by the printer, tables that never got proofed properly - he may actually have been sincere when he said the whole thing was dashed off). But he seems not to have been overly concerned about this sort of thing where this issue was concerned, since Liber L. indicated he would only "reveal it to the wise."