A few Tarot keys
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Do Atus 6, 7, 10, 13, 15 and 18 have something in common and in that case what? I read an exercise in a book that told me to take these cards away and do a 3 minute contemplation, one a day, on the rest, but got no explanation about the cards. Also, iirc, it was intended for the Waites deck and one or two others, but perhaps that's beside the point? Sorry, but there's no more information than that to get more specific in the book.
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Look for the triangle in each - the one figure transcendant to a pair of figures.
Of course, that might not be it... since Keys 5, 14, and 20 have the same sort of thing.
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Ah, I see it, yes. Thanks! But is that specific for the Thoth deck or Tarot in general?
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@Malaclypse said
"Ah, I see it, yes. Thanks! But is that specific for the Thoth deck or Tarot in general?"
Actually, I was taking just the Waite deck into consideration.
For the most part, the same patterns exist across Tarot decks.
Again, I'm not sure if that was the pattern in question - just a thought. But there is no astrological pattern, none on the Cube of Space, none on Tree of Life positioning, etc. that I can see, so I suspect something of the images on the card might be the determining factor.
The fact that your meditation is to remove these cards is very strange.
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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? Atu 13 and 10 I get in that case, because they seem to mean very much either/or in a more binary way than the others imo. The rest I'm not acquainted enough with. But either way, that doesn't satisfy me either because I would have excluded Atu 16 as well if it was about explosivity.
>The fact that your meditation is to remove these cards is very strange.
What do you think about the above reason?
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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.