@niveks said
"For a while I have discussed using the full letter spelling of each Hebrew letter with many members in various orders who agree on the full letter spelling while others say it is ridiculous. So my question to members here is do you use only the letter or full spelling?"
Niv', we've been talking about this elsewhere but, especially since nobody else is responding to your questions, I thought I'd through in some remarks.
There are many things that are of value as exercises. They are not intrinsically valuable in terms of having specific meanings attached, but they serve as valuable drills in developing your ability to work with symbols and to be open to receiving, the real meaning of Qabalah. Quite a lot of these have to do with understanding words letter-by-letter - finding formulae or disclosures. However, these formulae or disclosures are often highly personal and have no significance for anyone else. And, whether you find any cool formulae, the practice of working with words central to Qabalah in this way is a valuable drill.
The error is to think that they mean anything in and of themselves, or that they have universal meanings. Generally, they do not.
Some have geometric patterns on the Tree that are important. Take the letter name Samekh, spelled Samekh - Meym - Kaf. Before even breaking this out into letter-by-letter analysis, notice that these are the Paths that link Y'sod, Hod, and Netzach to Tifereth, G'voorah, and Chesed. This implies that it is not only a single that is being "lifted up," so much as the entirety of the triad below to the one above. But this is a conclusion - not a point of doctrine. And one still can set out Trumps 14, 12, and 10 right to left and meditate on them to get other layers of understanding which, nonetheless, are going to be primarily personal.
"As an example Beth is the house but if you combine the Yod which is hand along with the Tav the 4 elements you have then a house & hand & elemental cross which then provides the deeper meaning to the Magus card."
Yes, one can draw conclusions such as this for one's personal use.
"There is a lot of confusion on the shape of each letter, for instance Tav is said to be a Resh with a Yod by some. Others say it is the Daleth/Door with a Nun also with the shape of Beth I personally see a Resh sitting on a horizontal base while I have read that Case says the Beth is made up of 3 Vavs. I don't see that nor agree with that."
All Hebrew letters are made from Yods: That's the baseline of all of these things. From Yod, all things in the "flame alphabet" emerge. For example, a Yod extends its tail downward and becomes a Vav (drawing its essence down into Ruach), and then extended further to be a Nun-final (extends into subconsciousness, the instinctual field). To a Vav, add another Yod as a foot for Gimel. Broaden the head of a Yod to make Reysh, continue Reysh I around to form Kaf, give Kaf another Yod as a tongue for Peh; or give Reysh a wider, squared-off food (ultimately another long Yod) for Beyth. Elongate the Yod but with no significant tail, then add a separate, distinct, vertical for a Daleth, another long Yod on the other side for a Heh, connect it up for a Cheyth. And so for each. Everything is one or another form of Yods in combination and extension. That's a doctrinal basis.
Now, what one makes of that is another matter. There have been different doctrinal interpretations at different points in time but without an integrated doctrine. They fall more in the line of particular schools or (usually) individual interpretations for personal use.
"As for as the double letter life/death Case says what we give our attention to becomes alive & what we ignore dies. What do the rest of you think?"
If you mean "stays alive in us or dies in us," then I agree completely - provided that you count active suppression of content as a part of our mind giving attention to it.
But that's hardly the whole mystery of te polarity Life & Beath for Beyth.