Tarot
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Again, thank-you. I've been going through various meanings and interpretations tonight; your interpretation of futility speaks to me more then any of them *
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That interpretative material comes from Liber Theta, which some of us have been studying on the forum.
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I'll check it out
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@SerpentSeed123 said
"I'll check it out
"LOL...!
You'd better! It's the good stuff.
You may thank your forum host for both writing it and providing it for free.
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Thanks Jim ... wherever you are!
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You showed valor, and fought valiantly through the trouble of yester year
Now, Fire of Fire, you stand at a new beginning - ready to charge forth and create! Spread thy order!
In the future, you shall hold the lantern up to what you have done to see if anything has really changed (a period of reflection)
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@Uni_Verse said
"You showed valor, and fought valiantly through the trouble of yester year
Now, Fire of Fire, you stand at a new beginning - ready to charge forth and create! Spread thy order!
In the future, you shall hold the lantern up to what you have done to see if anything has really changed (a period of reflection)"
Thankyou! It's making much more sense to me now!
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I thought to note that the Hermit card does not all ways mean withdrawing from the world per say.
It can some times manifest as a turning of ones awareness to the inner world.
Where one might begin concentrating on internal reactions to external occurrences (such as interactions with a friend or group of people).
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"I'll be getting "Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot" as soon as I can. Maybe that will shed some light"
That's a great primer if you are brand new to the Thoth Tarot. However, if you would like to take a more integrative approach to studying the Tarot I highly recommend this:
www.thelema.org/publications/books/LiberT.pdf
Not only is it intellectually satisfying but it will give you a very practical and hands-on approach to weaving the Tarot into your psyche. When you are ready for that ofcourse
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@Al-Shariyf said
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"I'll be getting "Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot" as soon as I can. Maybe that will shed some light"That's a great primer if you are brand new to the Thoth Tarot. "
Sorry, I just can't agree with you here. It's an awful piece and anyone claiming otherwise should go and read the Book of Thoth, which is actually not very hard. Demanding, yes, but not hard, and it yields an infinite amount of knowledge more than Lon's book.
I can only say that it's a (pretty alright/mediocre) 101 as far as Tarot basics go. It doesn't bring anything new to the game, and it leaves the majority (over 90%) of the Book of Thoth out, which, in my opinion as an avid Thoth student is quite an awful move.
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"Sorry, I just can't agree with you here. It's an awful piece and anyone claiming otherwise should go and read the Book of Thoth, which is actually not very hard. Demanding, yes, but not hard, and it yields an infinite amount of knowledge more than Lon's book."
We can agree to disagree. When I first started out, I couldn't understand Crowley for shit. I picked up the Book of Thoth and Lon's book the same day I got my deck. I didn't read the BoT for months. Lon's book was perfect for me at that particular time in my develpoment. I don't know where SerpentSeed is but Lon's book may be what they need for where they are at the moment.
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I'll be perfectly honest with you: the Little White Book that comes with the deck covers about the same amount of information as Lon's book does, with exception of the Rosy Cross formula, the Vesica piscis, the color scales, and the astrological attributions. All of which can just be looked up from the internet or 777, as they're quite simple to comprehend. And they're on the cards anyway, so you don't really need a diagram if you're just divining.
Plus, if the OP is serious, he'd dive right into the matter, instead of dabbling around.
Furthermore:
www.bookdepository.com/Understanding-Aleister-Crowleys-Thoth-Tarot-Lon-Milo-DuQuette/9781578632763
350 pages, "Authoritative", "everything you need to know to get the most out of using the Thoth deck."
I feel sick when I see people buying this book. Actually, let me cite you something from the book, just to show you how bad it is, the fragment is about Atu V - The Hierophant:"The hexagram can be seen enclosing the whole body of the Hierophant."
If you've ever seen the card, you know straight away that this is plain bullpucky. He's not even trying here, and the rest of the books is just as shallow compared to TBOT, which, needless to say, has its flaws, but is the ultimate compendium on the deck nonetheless, provided that one really does study it, instead of reading it once and leaving it be.
I hope I made my point clear here.
Have a good day. -
"If you've ever seen the card, you know straight away that this is plain bullpucky."
Ehhhhh.... I think maybe you're missing something... You've made a hard, absolute interpretation of the pentagram that seems to me to be intentionally stretched and distorted - I think to suggest a hexagram.
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See how the scepter that the High Priestess is holding continues the tip of the internal pentagram downward to the bottom of the Atu? To me, the distortion and the continued point of the scepter seems artisticaly to suggest the hexagram that the author is talking about. That, along with the fact that the High Priestess (associated with the Moon) stands and holds her scepter at the point that would be normally be held by the Moon in the planetary hexagram seems to me to confirm this symbolism. To me, it suggests some combination of the 5 and the 6, or some transition from the 5 to the 6, or vice versa, expressed by the imagery that is worthy of meditation.
It takes a while for the mind to be made pliable enough to really understand the symbolism of the tarot. Everybody's got to start somewhere. I think it's written simply, but not ignorantly as you accuse.
As for me, I've found Mr. Duquette's work to be invaluable - especially that work most hated by the "serious-minded" occultist - The Chicken Qabalah. Bock! Bock! Bock!
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Well, I can't see a hexagram here, regardless of how I bend my mind.
Besides, the inner pentagrams wouldn't fit if it was a hexagram.
Also, an important thing to keep in mind is that the journey always goes inwards, which the three pentagrams underline here.
I have found that the hebrew letter/ atu number attributions work best alone, in this case giving the 5=6 formula, instead of pushing it into the image when it's obviously not there.Bottom line: there is no hexagram on the card, period.
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Perhaps not, but the pentagrams are irregular - even to the point of distorting the larger pentagram to include a downward-pointing, precisely equillateral triangle with 60 degree angles...
As the only precisely angled pentagram on the Atu is in the very center, with the rest stretched seemingly to achieve the construction of the precisely equilateral, downward-pointing triangle (which also just happens to be artistically extended in the proper direction with the proper planetary hexagram symbolism), I think perhaps you are missing the artist's intent.
I'm just sayin'... But that's probably all I'm sayin'.
Peace.
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@Surg said
"Well, I can't see a hexagram here, regardless of how I bend my mind."
I'm puzzled... it isn't that difficult. It is clearly a hexagram (thoough, admittedly, the lower point is more implied than stated... much like instruction from The Hierophant).
The think I think you are missing is that it isn't the number of points, but other things like the number of degrees in each angle. Those are not at all 72° angles (as they would be with a pentagram. They are very close to 60° angles (as they are in a hexagram).
"Besides, the inner pentagrams wouldn't fit if it was a hexagram."
On the contrary: An important key to understanding The Hierophant is the coexistence of the 5 and the 6. (It's even in the basic numeric patterns of the card: Atu 5, letter value 6 - as you later noted.)
"Bottom line: there is no hexagram on the card, period."
You're quite funny
The geometry is emphatically that of a hexagram. -
"Bock! Bock! Bock! "
I literally lost it at my desk just now. Hilarious. Also, very enlightening. That Goddamn distorted hexagram frustrates me so much but your explanation shed light on things that were previously in the dark for me. Cheers.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@Surg said
"Well, I can't see a hexagram here, regardless of how I bend my mind."I'm puzzled... it isn't that difficult. It is clearly a hexagram (thoough, admittedly, the lower point is more implied than stated... much like instruction from The Hierophant).
"Verily. Up to the point that I seem entirely blind to it.
@Jim Eshelman said
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The think I think you are missing is that it isn't the number of points, but other things like the number of degrees in each angle. Those are not at all 72° angles (as they would be with a pentagram. They are very close to 60° angles (as they are in a hexagram).
"Can be, but we're talking about penta and hexa grams, which are about the number of lines, not the angles, as shown by the large pentagram encompassing the figure of the Hierophant.
@Jim Eshelman said
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"Besides, the inner pentagrams wouldn't fit if it was a hexagram."
On the contrary: An important key to understanding The Hierophant is the coexistence of the 5 and the 6. (It's even in the basic numeric patterns of the card: Atu 5, letter value 6 - as you later noted.)
"Agreed, however that is a pattern that follows throughout the cards, and I have mostly noticed it between the card numbers and hebrew letters, rarely finding them in the illustrations. A very prominent example is The Emperor, IV/90 => square, or tetrahedron.
@Jim Eshelman said
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"Bottom line: there is no hexagram on the card, period."
You're quite funny
The geometry is emphatically that of a hexagram."Not so. There is a descending triangle, agreed, but for all I know (and that's not very much) it's mostly about attainment (Adeptus Minor) and descent back into matter from there. But hey, what do I know? I'm not even close to being an adept yet.
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I would agree that it is a pentagram (the two pairs of lines at the bottom of the card will meet in the two legs of the pentagram). But I would also agree that the way it's stretched clearly implies a hexagram. The downward triangle is equilateral, as it would be for a hexagram, and if you gaze at the card at arms length, the gestalt impression is of a hexagram with an unfinished bottom.
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Is that a scepter or a sword that she's got? The bottom looks like a sword, but if so, then the hilt seems impractical, and she'd be holding it by the blade. I can't tell.
Either way, the original sub-topic is really about whether or not Mr. Duquette was phoning it in when he wrote that hexagram bit about the Hierophant in * Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot*.
I don't think so. I think he was simplifying very complex symbolism. Maybe it was written so simply as to confuse the reader. But we have not been simple about it, and it has required many words and abstruse concepts even to debate. That's the kind of thing that turns beginners off. So to me, it seems like a choice, and the choice makes sense.
Surgo - I think you should reconsider your vehement rejection of the book. But if not, then we'll simply disagree.
Welcome to the forum...