Communication and order

Crowley states in 'Magick in theory and practice '

'1. We postulate the existence of intelligences, either within or without the diviner, of which he is not immediately conscious. (It does not matter to the theory whether the communicating spirit so-called is an objective entity or a concealed portion of the diviner's mind.) We assume that such intelligences are able to reply correctly --- within limits --- to the questions asked.

2. We postulate that it is possible to construct a compendium of hieroglyphs sufficiently elastic in meaning to include every possible idea, and that one or more of these may always be taken to represent any idea. We assume that any of these hieroglyphics will be understood by the intelligences with whom we wish to communicate in the same sense as it is by ourselves. We have therefore a sort of language. One may compare it to a "lingua franca" which is perhaps defective in expressing fine shades of meaning, and so is unsuitable for literature, but which yet serves for the conduct of daily affairs in places where many tongues are spoken. Hindustani is an example of this. But better still is the analogy between the conventional signs and symbols employed by mathematicians, who can thus convey their ideas perfectly

As a matter of fact, they cannot. The best qualified are the most diffident as to having grasped the meaning of their colleagues with exactitude; in criticising their writings they often make a point of apologising for possible misunderstanding.
without speaking a word of each other's languages.

3. We postulate that the intelligences whom wish to consul are willing, or may be compelled, to answer us truthfully.

If one were to subscribe to this belief ( which i do ) then the 'correct' ordering of trumps , planetary attribution , hebrew letter corelation etc becomes void ..all that matters is that there IS a fairly fixed system in place within the mind .

Just a thought..

thantifaxath said:

If one were to subscribe to this belief ( which i do ) then the 'correct' ordering of trumps , planetary attribution , hebrew letter corelation etc becomes void ..all that matters is that there IS a fairly fixed system in place within the mind .

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Very true, but correspondences are based on the fact that they have certain effects on the mind which are uniform from person to person. The structure of the Universe is the structure of the mind and vice versa.

I only brought this up , as i had become increasingly frustrated with the lack of agreement found in various systems and 'authoritive' interpretations of these systems.
It seems the harder you look at something the quicker it breaks down .
It all seemed to point to the possibility that correlation was not as important as a workable system based on whatever you like , be it 'alice in wonderland' , 'Pythagorean numerology' , ' Qabalah' etc etc ...
In this light ....The fact that the Golden dawn interpreted the 'sepher yetzirah' in such a way to fit in with their system of magic makes sense..
I can rest easy in the knowledge that 'correct' ordering makes not a jot of difference in 'divination' ..

thantifaxath said:

I can rest easy in the knowledge that 'correct' ordering makes not a jot of difference in 'divination' ..

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How odd that Crowley didn't think that way. "but Tzaddi is not the Star". ;-)

Aeon418 said:

How odd that Crowley didn't think that way. "but Tzaddi is not the Star". ;-)

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I believe he did think that way ..the 'tzaddi is not the star' statement simply points out that a system of hieroglyphs has to satisfy on all levels to work , clearly other tarot , hebrew letter correlations failed to float Crowley's boat..

thantifaxath said:

I believe he did think that way ..the 'tzaddi is not the star' statement simply points out that a system of hieroglyphs has to satisfy on all levels to work , clearly other tarot , hebrew letter correlations failed to float Crowley's boat..

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My opinion is that Crowley was very concerned about this issue. If what he says about The Book of the Law is to be believed he was concerned enough to pose a mental question to Aiwass during the dictation which precipitated the Tzaddi - Heh switch.

Also in The Book of Thoth Crowley devotes quite a bit of space to explaining his attributions as the correct ones.

Aeon418 said:

My opinion is that Crowley was very concerned about this issue. If what he says about The Book of the Law is to be believed he was concerned enough to pose a mental question to Aiwass during the dictation which precipitated the Tzaddi - Heh switch.

Also in The Book of Thoth Crowley devotes quite a bit of space to explaining his attributions as the correct ones.

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Seems to me that all that has been written by Crowley in reference to the whole Tzaddi - Heh switch was done for personal reasons , all methods of cementing a system in the psyche , tell lots of people, write about it , meditate on it , build that thought form , all helps to make it work for the individual .

thantifaxath said:

Seems to me that all that has been written by Crowley in reference to the whole Tzaddi - Heh switch was done for personal reasons , all methods of cementing a system in the psyche , tell lots of people, write about it , meditate on it , build that thought form , all helps to make it work for the individual .

Click to expand...

The only reason I can think of is that particular verse in The Book of the Law that mentions Tzaddi and Crowley couldn't even figure it out for years anyway. Even toward the end of his life Crowley didn't seem too sure. The errors in the Book of Thoth seem to point to that. The closing paragraph in the description of the Emperor and the messed up correspondence tables at the back of the book are odd to say the least.

Odd indeed. Personally I am happy to take Crowley's word on the correspondances for now. To my mind, and to get back to the original point, the important factor is that the system works - all else is irrelevant. However it's _not_ an arbitrary assignment of correspondances - there is a system by which it all hangs together.

I think of it rather like Newtonian physics which quantum has superceded. The simple formulas that Newton put forward for calculating gravity and the like were approximations, but they worked under most circumstances and therefore they formed a useful model of the world. Perhaps these correspondances will ultimately go the same way; they'll be superceded by something else: a better model of the world. But until that happens or my own experience indicates otherwise I'm sticking to them.

This approach verges on chaos magic. By that system any system will work, but the more rigid it is the better it will work. To a Chaos Magician it is vital to convince oneself that the system you are using is the correct one, to establish it in the sub-concious, and so on, but what the system is is irrelevant (from a theoretical not a practicval point of view)