College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

Okay, mystery solved. I claim that Crowley's innovation is the double loop in the zodiac as opposed Golden Dawn/Waite/Case zodiac circle - anything other is not perfect symmetry. As there is no double loop in the zodiac in Crowley's Thoth Tarot it means that the Thoth Tarot is based on the zodiac circle so the attributions are the same as in Golden Dawn/Waite/Case Tarot - Lust-Teth-Leo being atu 8 and Adjustment-Lamed-Libra 11, The Emperor-He-Aries 4, The Star-Tzaddi-Aquarius. Crowley and Freida Harris created a standard attribution Golden Dawn Tarot pack leaving out "Tzaddi is not the Star"/"double loop in the zodiac" material. The Thoth Tarot book is another matter as it deals with Crowley's various ideas and innovations.
Finally no need to make Crowley's Thoth Tarot what it is not - it is not based on the "Tzaddi is not the Star" material it's attributions are totally the same as Waite/Case Tarot. Unfortunately I haven't seen a deck made with the "double loop in the zodiac" attributions and colors so I use Marseilles Tarot for these.

I was reading Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot by Lon Milo Duquette and the author is incorrect in table 8 & figure 25 claiming that there is a double loop in the zodiac. In accord with table 8 there is no double loop but a single loop from Leo-Virgo-Libra to Libra-Virgo-Leo and therefore figure 25 is incorrect. To make matters worse the author claims that there is a change in sequence "from Aquarius-Pisces-Aries to Aries-Pisces-Aquarius" thereby implying that The Star is Aries and the Emperor is Aquarius but later in the book denies it by stating that The Star is Aquarius and the Emperor is Aries.

Lon Milo Duquette contradicts himself by trying to solve Crowley's contradictions - what a mess. At least Jim finally agreed that there is no double loop in the zodiac in Crowley's Thoth Tarot but Duquette is trying to "understand" and failing to prove the double loop in the zodiac.

Is anyone aware of any books that write about the "tzaddi is not he star" problem besides Aleister Crowley, Freida Harris, Robert Wang, Gareth Knight, and Lon Milo Duquette?

I used to have poping clicking sounds in my room while practicing daily pranayama so it seemed it was caused by energy work in general. Anyway buddhists say that you should not care about the phenomena just continue practice. Good luck.

@Takamba said

"Mysticism should be Heliocentric
Magick system should be magician centric
"

Thanks for your opinion.
I think as the magician deals with the outside world influencing outside results he clearly needs a heliocentric view to have results on the outside world - clearly the outside world is harder to get control of. The mystic deals usually only with his inner self so he can be self-centric and exercise more easy self control.

I think it is just hard to subscribe to a magical system that is tied to a geocentric world view. They say as above so below, the microcosm is like the macrocosm but if the saints and mystics really knew what they are saying they would have told us that we are orbiting the sun and not the sun is orbiting us. Most of the old magical systems I know have a geocentric view and all the practitioners with their practical results could not tell us that we are orbiting the sun. So it feels that the old magical systems don't give that much knowledge and wisdom if they could not figure this out.

So far I understand that I need an up to date magical system, magic like sigil, chaos magic that incorporates what we know about the world today, the facts that are true now but were unknown before. I don't know how do you update the Qabbalah or the Tarot as clearly our society grew up out of the knowledge that the world was created like in the Bible and the social structure is more mixed than it is shown in the Tarot. Today's society like sigil magic created their own new symbols and gods and bibles.

Yes, but Crowley's Thoth Tarot specifically labels 7 planets, 12 zodiac signs and 5 elements in the Major Arcana. My question was why he decided to label the 5 elements coming to to 24 symbols instead of 3 Alchemical symbols coming to exactly 22 symbols?

I wanted to ask why the 5 elements are crammed into 22 Major Arcana keys Aleph - Air, Mem - Water, Shin - Fire, Spirit, Tau - Saturn, Earth when a more elegant solution would be to use the alchemical symbols of Aleph - Mercury, Mem - Salt, Shin - Sulphur? It looks like the Minor Arcana is already represented by the 5 element symbols - 4 elements being the cards from 1-10 and Spirit being the court cards no? Any insight into this?

Yes, you got it right - in so many words. We have two designs:
Waite Tarot: letters, numbers and zodiac forming a circle
Crowley Thoth Tarot (Jim picked this one): letters, numbers forming a double loop and zodiac forming only a single loop at Leo & Libra

And My picked imaginary Tarot: letters, numbers and zodiac forming a double loop thus requiring recoloring and change of symbolism the card The Emperor being Tzaddi - Aquarius and The Star - He - Aries. That is why I bought the Marseille's deck.

To put it simple I re quote Jim and myself:

Me: I see in Waite's arrangement a harmony of letters, numbers and zodiac forming a circle.
Jim: Unfortunately, it's wrong. His biggest weakness was in being overly mentally formal (i.e., stuffy).
Me: The double loop in Jim's arrangement has the harmony of letters and numbers but not the zodiac.
Jim: Exactly. The letters vs. numbers pattern seems to be what matters. (Think of it from the point of view of Tarot's designers.)

Historically one can see that GD and AA systems Qabbalah Tree of Life & Tarot are geocentric as they include the planet "Moon" out of the 7 planet symbolism but the heliocentric view strikes out the Moon as it is not a planet.

The question is how do you knowing that the heliocentric view is the correct one still can use a geocentric system? As I understand most of the wester magic is made of 12 zodiac signs, 7 planets, 4 or 5 elements. It was all good and nice until we found out a lot more about the universe as there are more than 12 signs and more than 7 planets etc. How do you update the old models or do you separate your psyche in two parts and go back and forward between old and new view? Are there attempts to make the Qabbalah Tree of Life & Tarot heliocentric?

"Sorry if I'm disturbing someone, I am just trying to make factual arguments in the discussion and see what are /others factual arguments."

@Jim Eshelman said

"I'm rather lost on what your goal is. I thought it was to understand the pattern. It seems, instead, that you are trying to prove some position of your own instead."

I think I understand now the pattern you are trying to show/advocate but I can't see enough factual arguments for me to endorse it myself. I don't have a position myself - I just like to compare/discuss/understand various positions on the topic. Thanks for your help.

@Jim Eshelman said

"<sigh> We're just going in loops, here, so I'm probably about ready to stop responding."

Yeah, I know. Most of the points you repeat I know but some new things/questions pop out sometimes.

@Jim Eshelman said

"Exactly! That's what I've said all along. The one that is not rigorously mapped is the zodiac (though, even there, the essential pattern is evident)."

I would not call that a pattern because it does not repeat - it's just a zodiac circle crippled at 1 point.

@Her said

" But this would only be true if the IV-XVII swap exactly matched the VIII-XI swap. It's a very simple point of logic proven by both diagrams."

@Jim Eshelman said

"Your "simple point of logic" collapses when one of its veiled premises collapses: You are presuming that the passage in The Book of Thoth is correctly written. It isn't. You are building an argument on an invalid premise."

I would say you, Jim, are building an argument on an invalid premise because (see my post from before) Crowley's post-CCXX The New Comment (c. 1921) chap. 1 line 57 talks in same words about the topic as The Book of Thoth. They both can't be wrong can they? Crowley even tells us that he changed not only the letters but the zodiac signs too making 4 Tzaddi Aquarius The Emperor, 17 He Aries The Star. I got the same in my 2007 Book of Thoth print on page 278.

Sorry if I'm disturbing someone, I am just trying to make factual arguments in the discussion and see what are others factual arguments.

Heru, also:
Crowley's post-CCXX New Comment:

The New Comment (c. 1921) chap. 1 line 57 wrote:

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.

So Crowley thinks the zodiac atributtions have to be counterchanged too? That would be the same change as Lust and Adjustment.

For the sake of discussion - humans create harmonious, symetrical, alphabetical etc theoretical/practical systems/models because they seek, see perfection in that. A messy system/model is not the aim of any creator - centuries old or new. Of course Nature/God is more difficult than that...
Thanks Jim for the astrology part - I have been looking forward to understand it. I need to research that more - can't comment about that now. Thanks, again. I can't understand yet what does Tzaddi have to do with the zodiac signs you mention in your post, because the problem is in Aquarius and Aries change...

Sorry, I edited/added some text to my previous post while you were writing an answer.

Gnosomai Emauton clearly you made the diagram so you can see that the zodiac is out of Its natural sequience in the diagram. That's what bugs me. Thanks, Heru, you get the point.
I see in Waite's arrangement a harmony of letters, numbers and zodiac forming a circle. The double loop in Jim's arrangement has the harmony of letters and numbers but not the zodiac. So for me it means theoreticaly Waite's arrangement is better.

The counterchange could be not the Waite 8, 11 cards but 4, 17 so if we do that we get a harmony in the double loop by 4 being Tzaddi, Aquarius, The Star/The Emperor, 17, He, Aries The Emperor/The Star, 8, Lamed, Adjustment, 11 Teth, Lust.
The problem was that the GD letter, number, zodiac attributions were not harmonious with the French Tarot so Waite counterchanged 8 and 11 and Crowley (may be) did the 4 and 17 instead or just the attributions for them. Those are the only possible 3 solutions to reach a harmony in all three attributions. The third one would require to redraw the two cards so we have only 2 solutions left, one of them being Waite's arrangement we have only one solution left.

To clear things up I'm looking at the tarot from a theoretical design point of view. The design has to be uniform, harmonious. I understand that in practice it may be not so. I just see 4 Tzaddi, Aries, the Emperor, 17 He, Aquarius, The Star, 8, Lamed, Adjustment, 11, Teth, Lust as a theoretical design flaw with noone to explain why. Clearly from a theoretical standpoint Waite's arrangement is in order/harmonious while Crowley's is not. I still don't understand why...

@Jim Eshelman said

"
This is the correct attribution of the Tarot trump numbes to the Hebrew letters.
"

This part I understand as in my post above. Sorry if my writting is hard to undersand.

@Jim Eshelman said

"
Next, add the zodiacal signs according to their attribution to the Hebrew letters. Aries is above left, Aquarius below left, wrapped around Pisces. Libra is above right, Leo is below right, wrapped around Virgo at far right. The others flow in between."

This part I don't understand as in my post above. It clearly does not "loop" as in your post before (below) but "wrap" may be a good word for this "ugly" arrangement in your diagram which does NOT form a Zodiac double loop nor a circle - does not follow the Zodiac order as the Hebrew letter double loop. So, as I understand I should not care about that in this diagram?

@Jim Eshelman said

"
The result is that Aries (Trump 4, The Emperor) and Aquarius (Trump 17, The Star) loop around to highlight Pisces (Trump 18,The Moon), just as Libra (Trump 8, Adjustment) and Leo (Trump 11, Lust) loop around to highlight Virgo (Trump 9, The Hermit). Since this was conceived about the time the equinoctial points had reached the centers of Pisces and Virgo, I find it fascinating that this highlights a Pisces-Virgo horizontal axis and places Gemini at the highest declination and Samekh at the lowest - which was astronomically correct."

@Jim Eshelman said

"
Putting it in Hebrew letter order, we get:

17 Star, Aquarius: Heh
5 Hierophant, Taurus: Vav
6 Lovers, Gemini: Zayin
7 Chariot, Cancer: Cheth
11 Strength, Leo: Teth
9 Hermit, Virgo: Yod
8 Justice, Libra: Lamed
13 Death, Scorpio: Nun
14 Temperance, Sagittarius: Samekh
15 Devil, Capricorn: A'ayin
4 Emperor, Aries: Tzaddi
18 Moon, Pisces: Qoph

By "off-diagram" I literally mean that the zodiac issue is not on the diagram. It's a consequence of what IS in the diagram but is, itself, not on the diagram.

(The astrological attributions are off-diagram - this loop diagram has nothing to do with them.) Your wish for a zodiacal-number flip is exactly what I've said from the beginning isn't here. It's a trump number - Hebrew letter flip."

Okay, Jim, I see the letter - number double loop, thanks. Now how do you explain the astrological attributions off-diagram if you can't deduce them from the diagram? If you could do that, please, because I don't understand this paragraph:

@Jim Eshelman said

"
The result is that Aries (Trump 4, The Emperor) and Aquarius (Trump 17, The Star) loop around to highlight Pisces (Trump 18,The Moon), just as Libra (Trump 8, Adjustment) and Leo (Trump 11, Lust) loop around to highlight Virgo (Trump 9, The Hermit). Since this was conceived about the time the equinoctial points had reached the centers of Pisces and Virgo, I find it fascinating that this highlights a Pisces-Virgo horizontal axis and places Gemini at the highest declination and Samekh at the lowest - which was astronomically correct."

Now if the the astrological attributions are off the diagram discussed - what kind of diagram are you using to write the paragraph above? I would like to see it, please. Because I don't see that Aries and Aquarius loop around Pisces just as Libra and Leo loop around Virgo. It is certainly not in the order of attributions that I quote you in this post. How did you deduce that?

I am confused because you say there is no double loop in the zodiac and another time you write that there is a double loop in the zodiac? How come?

@Avshalom Binyamin said

" Modest's solution does not match the attributions in Crowley's diagram, or the text."

Well if you look at Crowley's diagram and read the Tarot number - zodiac atributtions on the loop you see that the text and the loop do not correspond/match each other - Crowley's diagram is broken. If you follow the text data of the picture a single Leo/Libra loop is formed!
No double loop is formed because the tarot number sequience is mixed up.
[hermetic.com/crowley/book-of-thoth]
That is why I posted a corrected picture where a double loop in the Zodiac IS formed:

[s7.postimg.org/ww7yluwrf/loopy.jpg]
Can you see now? The double loop is the zodiac and the circle is the tarot numbers in increasing order.

Of course there is Jim who tells us that it's not about the double loop in the zodiac but in letter - tarot number attributions. But from the picture in the book we clearly see "Diagram The Double Loop in the Zodiac".

@Her said

"So how is the double loop in the zodiac formed?"

Hi, Heru, if you haven't read Jim says there is no double loop in the zodiac-Trump number.

@Jim Eshelman said

"Your wish for a zodiacal-number flip is exactly what I've said from the beginning isn't here. It's a trump number - Hebrew letter flip. "

He thinks the zodiac-trump number loops form his own deduced way (See his last two posts). But this quote proves, I believe, how to do the double loop in the zodiac and it is not the way Jim does it:

@Book of Thoth page 11 said

"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."

1. Make a double loop in the zodiac as in Book of Thoth diagram 11 or your own diagram.
2. Next, starting at Aquarius, next Taurus... and going around the outside of this, not looping but circling the outside of the whole thing, put the Trump numbers: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11,13, 14, 15, 17, 18.

This is my conclusion, if you want to read Jim's and how he forms the loops read his last two posts.

Oh, and you can do THE SAME thing but this time by looping the Trump numbers in accord with other citations:

@Book of Thoth page 10-11 said

""He tried for years to counter-change this card, "The Star", which is numbered XVII, with some other.""Tzaddi is "The Emperor"; and therefore the positions of XVII and IV must be counterchanged.""

And you don't have to brake the Sepher Yetzirah hebrew letter-zodiac attributions.

@Jim Eshelman said

"This matches up the following of Trump number vs. zodiac:
4 - Tzaddi
5 - Vav
6 - Zayin
7 - Cheth
8 - Lamed
9 - Yod
11 - Teth
13 - Nun
14 - Samekh
15 - A'ayin
17 - Heh
18 - Qoph

The result is that Aries (Trump 4, The Emperor) and Aquarius (Trump 17, The Star) loop around to highlight Pisces (Trump 18,The Moon), just as Libra (Trump 8, Adjustment) and Leo (Trump 11, Lust) loop around to highlight Virgo (Trump 9, The Hermit). Since this was conceived about the time the equinoctial points had reached the centers of Pisces and Virgo, I find it fascinating that this highlights a Pisces-Virgo horizontal axis and places Gemini at the highest declination and Samekh at the lowest - which was astronomically correct."

Here's the picture in accord with your instructions:

Your diagram doesn't meet the requirements set in Book of Thoth:

@Book of Thoth page 11 said

"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."

You form the zodiac loops but they don't correspond to each other so there is no perfect symmetry in the zodiacal attribution.
Okay, I have drawn the diagram your way, now you draw the diagram Crowley's Book of Thoth way:

1. Make a double loop in the zodiac as in Book of Thoth diagram 11 or your own diagram.
2. Next, starting at Aquarius, next Taurus... and going around the outside of this, not looping but circling the outside of the whole thing, put the Trump numbers: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11,13, 14, 15, 17, 18.

This meets the requirements set in Book of Thoth:

@Book of Thoth page 11 said

"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."

@Jim Eshelman said

"Rather than starting in the middle, let's roll this back to the poiont where a problem was detected. It makes this looping less loopy."

Okay.

@Jim Eshelman said

"Waite and Case resolved this by concluding that the number assignments to 8 and 11 were wrong. They each swapped these. To them: Problem solved."

Don't forget to mention that in doing so they didn't brake the vital Sepher Yetzirah zodiac-hebrew letter attributions to the Tarot.

@Jim Eshelman said

"But Crowley, having been told by Aiwass that Tzaddi is not The Star, approached the problem differently. Starting from the above list, he eventually uncovered that the seeming 8/11 problem was really not a problem at all - it was the solution! And that, with Leo and Libra card numbers seemingly screwed up against the whole pattern, and the problem before him to solve was the Aquarius card... the solution was that Aquarius and Aries were behaving just like Leo and Libra! This was symmetrical."

See commented at the beggining of my post. But I quote Crowley again:
Book of Thoth page 10-11
"He tried for years to counter-change this card, "The Star", which is numbered XVII, with some other."
Crowley tried to counterchange the trumps - NOT the hebrew letters or ANYTHING else.
"Tzaddi is "The Emperor"; and therefore the positions of XVII and IV must be counterchanged."
Crowley counterchanged the trumps XVII and IV - NOT the hebrew letters or ANYTHING else.

But it is the same as:

"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."
The double loop in the zodiac. In doing so he didn't brake the Sepher Yetzirah zodiac-hebrew letter attributions as well as Waite and Case.

@Jim Eshelman said

"And to bring it into alignment, since it was the Hebrew letter attribution of The Star that was being challenged, the solution was to swap the Hebrew letter assignments of those two cards, resulting in this table:"

And why do you think that Crowley would brake the vital Sepher Yetzirah zodiac-hebrew letter attributions to the Tarot when Case and Waite wouldn't? Couldn't it be that you are wrong?

@Jim Eshelman said

"The card names and zodiacal signs simply ride along with the trump numbers, which serve as the sequencing key."

The zodiacal signs rode always all along hebrew letters as the attributions came from Sepher Yetzirah. They never were attributed to trump numbers directly but as a hebrew letter-zodiac pack so how can they ride them? But oh, you say Sepher Yetzirah is a blind.

A comment to the New Comment by Modest
"The New Comment (c. 1921) chap. 1 line 57"
“Tzaddi is the letter of The Emperor, the Trump IV, and He is the Star, the Trump XVII.”
The double loop in Hebrew letters – Marseille's/Crowley's Thoth Tarot Trump numbers.
“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.”
The double loop in Zodiac – Marseille's/Crowley's Thoth Tarot Trump numbers.
“This last revelation makes our Tarot attributions sublimely, perfectly, flawlessly symmetrical.”
There is no other way to make ALL the Tarot attributions symmetrical using Marseille's/Crowley's Thoth Tarot Trump number sequence.

Trump IV The Emperor Tzaddi Aquarius
Trump XVII The Star He Aries

So, Jim, you're right that Crowley wrote about the double loop in Hebrew letters – Marseille's/Crowley's Thoth Tarot Trump numbers. See first sentence of the New Comment.

@Jim Eshelman said

"The flip of the numbers gives the loop which then (off-diagram) causes the zodiac flip to be perfectly symmetrical."

By this quote I understand that you know about The double loop in Zodiac – Marseille's/Crowley's Thoth Tarot Trump numbers. See the second sentence of the New Comment.

So can you draw a diagram with Trump IV The Emperor Tzaddi Aries, Trump XVII The Star He Aquarius "which then (off-diagram) causes the zodiac flip to be perfectly symmetrical."? Please do if you write about it. How do you make with these attributions a perfectly symmetrical zodiac - trump numbers. I get only non symmetrical see my pic 2 - single loop in the zodiac-trump numbers. I would be happy to see how you do it.