Dwtw
The establishment of a qabalah based on Liber Trigrammaton, and the fulfillment of Liber AL II:55, has been accomplished many years ago by R. Leo Gillis, whose massive work on the subject is titled The Book of Mutations. Basic details can be found at trigrammaton.com
Litlluw
RLG
Dwtw
I guess I'm confused on your overall stance, because you're saying that the Lurians were trying to retrofit the ancient source, the Sefer Yetzirah, onto a more modern work, the Zohar, and this was not a good idea. They should have just left the Tree alone.
But then you say that we should change the letter-attribution of Tzaddi, from the Sefer Yetzirah, in part because the Zohar says it will be revealed. This is the exact same Zohar that you're implying shouldn't be used as a justification for changing anything in the SY, right?
It would seem in that case, that one can pick and choose which texts they want to use to support their positions. Obviously the Lurians really liked the Zohar.
Litlluw
RLG
@Jim Eshelman said
"
@Gawain said
"I have often wondered about this. Can there possibly not be a connection between the 3 horizontal, 7 vertical and 12 diagonal paths of the diagram and the 3 mother, 7 single and 12 double letters of the alphabet?"
Post-Lurianic rabbinical kabbalists thought so. Their model, however, varies from the whole rest of the history of kabbalah."
Dwtw
Are you suggesting that strictly because the Lurianic Tree 'varies from the whole rest of the history of the kabbalah' that there is something wrong with it? Because as I noted on another thread, the letter Tzaddi being attributed to the sign Aries would most certainly 'vary from the whole rest of the history of the kabbalah' going back to the Sefer Yetzirah.
And you may be right that the Zohar, (many centuries after the SY) said the attribution of Tzaddi was a secret to be revealed, etc. But I imagine Isaac Luria and his school must have had equally good reason to think their Tree model was important, if they were going to make such a big change. Maybe their reason could be found in the Zohar too. I wouldn't know, it's a very big book and I haven't read it all.
Litlluw
RLG
@Frater_AVV said
"
"Isn't it true that Libra is VIII and Leo is XI in TBOT? Yes. And that is not zodiacal order. Since Aries stays with IV and Aquarius stays with XVII, that is zodiacal order. The two switches are not symmetrical. "
Nope. In BOTA tarot, Leo is 8, Teth, and Libra is 11, Lamed."
Dwtw
Perhaps I should not have abbreviated. TBOT stands for The Book of Thoth, which is the Tarot I was discussing.
Litlluw
RLG
@Jim Eshelman said
"
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."
Dwtw
haha, that's a good one. When my point all along has been that the zodiac is not switched to effect any balance. It's no wonder you think I'm misunderstanding you when you keep ignoring my main point.
I GET that the letters switch. That's obvious. Its the whole point of the exercise. The whole question is whether the zodiac goes with the letter or the card. And as you say the zodiac stays with the card. Right? except that when it stays with the card, it is out of order.
Isn't it true that Libra is VIII and Leo is XI in TBOT? Yes. And that is not zodiacal order. Since Aries stays with IV and Aquarius stays with XVII, that *is *zodiacal order. The two switches are not symmetrical.
Yes, the letter switch, by itself, is symmetrical. But divorcing it from the zodiac means that the zodiac is not symmetrical.
I'm not sure why you ignore the fact that there are indeed three sequences at work here. Of these, two of them have elements that switch; the letter sequence and the zodiac. The letter switches are symmetrical. Anyone can see that. But the zodiac signs that switch are not symmetrical, (unless the zodiac goes along with the letter).
Okay, I shan't waste anyone else's time here. There's no point in both of us continuing to repeat what should be obvious to anyone with a modicum of intelligence. Thanks for the discussion. Sorry if it was redundant for you.
Litlluw
RLG
@Jim Eshelman said
"You've misunderstood my intent concerning zodiac vs. Tarot cards. Of course the zodiacal attributions are more basic to the Qabalistic structure, and the Tarot cards were a slightly later representation of that. My main point, though, was that the zodiacal attributions of the Tarot cards are primary, and severing those is a mistake."
Dwtw
I see what you're saying, but the point is that without the hebrew letters, you wouldn't have the zodiacal assignments to the tarot in the first place. The only reason the zodiac is spread all over the tarot and not assigned to 12 sequential cards is because the zodiac is spread all over the hebrew alef-bet. Someone wanted to map one series onto the other, thus you have the 9th card, Justice, being attributed to the 9th letter, Teth. And this looks wrong because of the tarot imagery.
So I understand that you want to keep that zodiac with the tarot, but it only got there because of hebrew in the first place. With that being said, later changes were made precisely because hebrew doesn't seem to map 'sequentially' onto the tarot
@Jim Eshelman said
"However, in this one instance - the alleged correspondence of Heh and Tzaddi to Aries and Aquarius respectively - it is wrong. I can take a sidewise approach to justifying this by (again and redundantly) pointing out that The Zohar asserted that the correct attributions of Tzaddi were intentionally withheld and distorted until a later era; but, mostly, I simply assert that The Book of the Law indicated an error regarding Tzaddi and its attribution."
I can see that, but TBOTL only mentions the attribution to a card, not a zodiac sign. You have to presume that the sign must stay with a given card. That's fine, except that it doesn't happen in the case of VIII and XI.
@Jim Eshelman said
"You mistake my meaning regarding Waite (again, because I was quite brief on a matter explained repeatedly in the past). Waite and Crowley both recognized that there was an apparent error of some sort reflected in the attribution of the number 8 to the Lamed-Libra card, and 11 to the Teth-Leo card. Waite thought the correction needed was to swap their numbers. This was his error. Crowley eventually realized that the real error was that the complementary reversal - Aries and Aquarius, lying opposite Libra and Leo - also needed to be made. With that true correction, all the numbers, zodiacal attributions, and the rest feel correctly in place."
But the so-called complementary reversal doesn't complement anything if its not the same kind of reversal. Crowley has both the letter and sign for Libra and Leo switched, but he only has the letter for Aries and Aquarius switched.
"If that's the case, then ignore the dubious double-loop argument."
@Jim Eshelman said
"Why? It's brilliant. More brilliant than even Crowley knew. It also encodes quite a number of additional things he didn't catch, including the fact that the diagram is a true Sidereal Pisces Age map. The horizontal split axis is Pisces-Virgo - the actual location of the equinox axis since 220 AD - and the apex and antapex of the diagram are Gemini and Sagittarius, the actual solstice locations in the same period. (And there's more besides solving the Tarot mystery, but that's a good start.)"
I understand the sidereal aspect, but the double loop implies reversals that were not made. Yes, the signs for Leo and Libra were swapped, but the signs for Aquarius and Aries are still in their normal order, assuming that Heh simply becomes the Star and Aquarius, while Tzaddi becomes the Emperor and Aries. You've yet to demonstrate how this part of the 'double loop' is actually a loop. It's only a loop in the letter order, not the zodiac order. Obviously I'm not the only one to see this fact.
When you break it all down, you have three sequences. Assume the tarot is inviolable, and is correct as in TBOT. Then the hebrew letters are swapped in two places, for this 'double-loop'. But the zodiac order, (which is originally based on the SY attributions of hebrew, and is meaningless without that correlation) is only swapped in one place, not two.
My only essential point is that the zodiac should be swapped in two places also, or else there really is no double-loop.
If you don't want to swap the signs, then fine, but that means there is no double-loop, and you have an asymmetrical alignment. Which is fine by me. I don't see that as a big problem. The real problem underlying all this is the fact that people think in such a linear fashion, when the universe appears to be radial and not linear 
And isn't the point of a loop, double or single, to show this very fact?
Litlluw
RLG
In case I wasn't clear enough, basically I'm agreeing with Oliver P that tzaddi can be the Emperor, but that makes the Emperor Aquarius. And heh can be the Star, but that makes the Star Aries.
No I don't have it backwards. I understand exactly what AC did. But divorcing the letter from the zodiac is what ignores the sefer yetzirah attributions, which are followed in every other case for the zodiac. Now if you want to say that its perfectly fine to ignore the SY, then so be it, that's an aesthetic choice. But Waite did NOT ignore the SY attributions, he switched letters, AND signs, to match better with tarot images.
My point is that to think the tarot is fundamental, and that the zodiac goes with the tarot, rather than the hebrew letter, is to ignore about two thousand years of hebrew qabalah in favor of a dubious and never-proven relation between the tarot and the zodiac signs.
I don't see how it is the wrong comparison. My point is exactly as you said, you can't make BOTH changes because they're different kinds of changes. So I think we agree on that.
IF the Waite swap is okay, then Crowley's should have matched it. Since it wasn't, Crowley's swap doesn't 'balance' anything, as he claimed it did in the double-loop drawing.
So I hear you saying that Waite was in error, thus the VIII card should be Justice and XI card Strength, which is how Crowley has it in TBOT. If that's the case, then ignore the dubious double-loop argument. But also, that leaves Crowley's swap to stand alone. If that's the case, where's the justification for divorcing letter from sign when both the letter AND the sign are more fundamental than the Tarot? Obviously there was a zodiac long before the tarot, and there was a hebrew alef-bet long before the tarot, so why should the tarot take precedence?
You say that the zodiac sign can be divorced from the letter? Then why does Crowley keep Lamed with Libra, but put them BOTH with Justice in position VIII? If it was all about the zodiac/tarot lining up, he could have moved just the sign, not the letter, and left Teth with the VIII card and Lamed with the XI card.
Liber AL says only that Tzaddi is not the star. It says nothing at all about the zodiac.
@h2h said
"I’ve been meditating on Crowley’s following description of Atu XI Lust:
Behind the figures of the Beast and his Bride are ten luminous rayed circles; they are the Sephiroth latent and not yet in order, ***for every new Aeon demands a new system of classification of the universe***.
At the top of the card is shown an emblem of the new light, with ten horns of the Beast, which are serpents, sent forth into every direction to destroy and recreate the world.
(Book of Thoth, p. 95; emphasis mine)
"
Dwtw
If indeed a new system of classification is necessary for this new Aeon, then why are we continuing to work with the old Tree of Life? I mean, I know it works well for lots of things, but is it really the qabalistic framework of a new Aeon?
In the New Naples Arrangement, the 10 spheres are numbered 0 to 9, to recognize the fact that Zero is an number like any other, and is where most mathematicians would begin counting from, (as A.C. noted in his description of the Fool card in the Tarot). At least this is a way of re-ordering the sefirot for a new perspective.
Litlluw
R.Leo Gillis
The only way the heh-tzaddi switch makes sense is if the zodiac sign stays with the letter, in keeping with the Sefer Yetzirah. That way, the Emperor is Tzaddi/Aquarius, and the Star is Heh/Aries.
This is exactly what was done when Waite switched Strength and Justice; the letters stayed with their zodiac signs, but were moved to fit cards whose symbolism he thought was more appropriate, (scales for Libra, Lion for Leo). If you want to 'balance out' what Waite did, you have to make the same kind of change, that's all.
The real mistake is moving ONLY the letter, as if the zodiac and the Tarot were linked and immovable, and the letter was changeable. This places too much importance on the tarot sequence, IMO.
The tarot is far younger than the Sefer Yetzirah, and there is no evidence it was a factor in the design of the original decks. This didn't happen for three centuries, until the French occultists started mapping the Hebrew onto the trumps.
To make the Tarot be the basis for the Hebrew alef-bet and it's attributions is rather silly. The letters are fundamental, not the tarot cards.
If switching the letter & sign together between two cards messes up your Tree of Life, then too bad for the Tree of Life. Perhaps you should use a different design. The one used by Kircher, the Golden Dawn, et al, is certainly not the oldest or most authentic, its just the one you choose to use. It works well for some things, not as well for others.
I think the real problem comes down to a confusion of which categories are most fundamental.
Dwtw
The circularity of the YHVH order creates an interesting situation, derived from the numerical values of the letters.
There are two Heh's in the Tetragrammaton, meaning one is 'extra' in a certain sense. Let us presume that the extra Heh is the Daughter, the final letter. If she is raised to the throne of her Mother, and connects with the Father, then she is placed above the other three letters to continue the cycle anew.
Consider that Heh = 5 and the other three non-repeated letters = 21.
In the Trigrammaton system, which is ternary, placing the Trigram of 5 over the trigram of 21 gives you this hexagram: 012210
This is the base three equivalent of the decimal number 156.
In short, we might say that renewing the cycle, by placing the Princess on the throne of her Queen, (placing the extra Heh at the beginning of the Tetragrammaton), is equivalent to creating the number 156, which is the value of the name of BABALON.
Litlluw
R.Leo Gillis
@Jim Eshelman said
"You are right that the "child" idea really isn't expressed in Liber Legis. However, it does seem to have been in Crowley's mind from the beginning and through the whole period of the reception.
@hreefold31 said
"Adjunct to this, Heru-Ra-Ha is described in Liber AL as either one or both of the deities Hoor-paar-kraat and Ra-Hoor-Khut.
But elsewhere in Liber AL, Hadit identifies himself as Heru-pa-kraath."
I wanted to address your last point separately. Your last sentence is something frequently cited but not actually what is said.
The actual clause in CCXX 2:8 is, "Who worshipped Heru-pa-kraath have worshipped me....' This isn't the same as saying, "I am Heru-pa-kraath."
Consider the sentence construction and compare it to parallel uses. Suppose we had a sentence (and BTW I'm not saying it is the equivalent to the above, but it makes a good example) which said, "Whoso has worshipped the silence has worshipped the inmost center." This has meaning without affirming "the silence is the same thing as the inmost center." "
Dwtw
Yes, the trinity idea and the 'child-hood' of Horus seem to be thematically connected with Liber AL, but as I say, there is no actual stipulation of that in the text of AL, so I've always found it a bit of a conceptual leap to make.
Another leap is to identify Hadit with Heru-pa-kraat. As you say, Hadit does not say, 'I AM HPK', but the statement is awfully close to an identity. I would conjecture that the statement as made in AL can be construed as being an identity of Hadit and HPK; the words do not exclude that conclusion. But they also do not make it unequivocal. So in the end it's the reader's choice.
But at least this reader's choice has some scriptural justification, while I don't think the same can be said for 'RHK is the child of Nuit and Hadit'.
I've been prone to understand Heru-Ra-Ha as a Horus deity with twin aspects, of HPK and RHK. If Hadit is identified with HPK, then he is the Silence, while RHK is the Strength. Together they form the two poles of the Double Wand of Power.
To me, this formulation is much easier to make if Hadit is NOT considered some sort of Father to RHK, but is more like a twin brother. At least there is some basis for that in Liber AL, whereas Nuit does not say she is anybody's mother, nor does Hadit say he is anyone's father.
And it might be worth noting that the Trinity which issues forth a child is a preoccupation of older kabbalah, both Jewish and Chrisitian, and may not be valid in the same sense in the current Aeon.
Thanks for your comments
Litlluw
R. Leo Gillis
Dwtw
It seems a commonplace of Thelemic philosophy to espouse the idea that the conjunction of Hadit and Nuit produces their 'child' Ra-Hoor-Khuit.
I fail to see any justification for this in the Book of the Law. It is true that Crowley held to this belief, but it does not appear to originate in Liber AL.
The Vision and the Voice culminates in Heru-Ra-Ha proclaiming that he is the crowned and conquering child, but the child of whom it is not said.
Adjunct to this, Heru-Ra-Ha is described in Liber AL as either one or both of the deities Hoor-paar-kraat and Ra-Hoor-Khut.
But elsewhere in Liber AL, Hadit identifies himself as Heru-pa-kraath.
Any thoughts?
Litlluw
R. Leo Gillis
Dwtw
Greetings to the other members
i wanted to start my new year with something different
so i thought i'd join in. here's my intro:
i became a Thelemite when Pluto entered Scorpio in 1983.
i initiated myself at Boleskine House on Yule 1986.
i began working with Liber Trigrammaton on Bastille Day 1996.
i built Detoit's only residential geodesic dome in 2001
i have been a musician and a theoretical qabalist for over 25 years.
I have a 13 year old Sun, the light of my life.
i am child number seven, and my parents named me Leo.
i'm here to learn, if i may, and teach, if i can.
Litlluw
R. Leo Gillis