XV-The Devil

ravenest

I will run with that one then. The 'girls spirits' seem free floating and 'supplicating' for birth. The 'boy spirits' are doing what Crowley describes ; " What if 2 boys want the orange .... they will fight for it " ( from some Crowley source somewhere ? ).

For some reason I always thought the 'weird-headed one' represented genetic mutation, the possibility of throwing up something new that might better fit new circumstances.

Also, with this male female polarity we can make the basic 'inner psychological' profile;

Male female base line = Mars and Venus, above at the triangular apex is Mercury ( the caduceus or 'Staff of Hermes' .... and if I seek further associations (in my imagination ;) )
the 'Bleaty Buddhas' third eye would be the Sun, the horns the Jupiter / Saturn 'gateway' or 'valve' and the 'tower' going through the 'ring of Saturn' the connection up to the 'transpersonal' world (not shown on this card due to the nature of the card * ).

Maybe we could find a card to put there that continues the pattern ?

Now .... why 4 in each making 8 ?

(I tend to see the 8 circuits of Exo-biology here .... but that was developed WAAAY after Crowley - Harris. )

* It seems a whole dynamic of the lower half of the 'Psychological Tree' , the 'natural forces', the dynamics within the 'personal psyche', the Ego and Id ( still being influenced by the 'Superego / transpersonal realm, although that is not shown - however, I get a feeling, due to the artistic style and design that the card 'continues above itself' into another realm ) and the personna interacting with the outside world and environment .
 

Zephyros


Probably. I took high school biology a very long time ago. :)


I will run with that one then. The 'girls spirits' seem free floating and 'supplicating' for birth. The 'boy spirits' are doing what Crowley describes ; " What if 2 boys want the orange .... they will fight for it " ( from some Crowley source somewhere ? ).

This fits, as it is the nature of the male influence, as exemplified by Chochma, to seek an "end point" to its endeavors. Sperm certainly races toward the egg, and whoever wins achieves immortality.

For some reason I always thought the 'weird-headed one' represented genetic mutation, the possibility of throwing up something new that might better fit new circumstances.

Possibly. He looks to me like old representations of the Devil, an "evil" influence, using force to achieve his ends. But in the new Aeon, this figure is vindicated as representing an urge to Will, separating the wheat from the chaff. Remember what Crowley says of Capricorn, that he is wholly without conscience. In "Crowley-speak" this could mean perfect innocence, the single minded execution of Will. He is putting down all the other figures in much the same way as Lust tramples the saints underfoot, there is and can be nothing but Will.

The females are rather more difficult to "make fit," especially in such a predominantly male card, but perhaps the fault is seeing it as male and not something else. Certainly not as transgender as Art, but perhaps some element of "loving Babalon." This is perhaps where the male and female influences become less abstract, at the "Gates of Matter," before being spewed out into Hod (Eve).

This could also relate to the HGA's singular "sex." In K&C you both give as well as receive. Indeed giving is receiving, and this may illustrate how the HGA is both an "inner" as well as "outer" force. The Devil's proximity to Death would certainly seem to suggest that K&C is possible only when one has assimilated the idea of submission as well as force into one idea that isn't contradictory.

And... I'll go a bit further and say that there is a certain "power" in being a bottom, or a woman on the receiving end, despite the outward appearance of submission (were we to translate things into actualities).

"ואל אישך תשוקתך והוא ימשול בך"
 

Owl Tarot

Possibly. He looks to me like old representations of the Devil, an "evil" influence, using force to achieve his ends. But in the new Aeon, this figure is vindicated as representing an urge to Will, separating the wheat from the chaff. Remember what Crowley says of Capricorn, that he is wholly without conscience. In "Crowley-speak" this could mean perfect innocence, the single minded execution of Will. He is putting down all the other figures in much the same way as Lust tramples the saints underfoot, there is and can be nothing but Will.

The females are rather more difficult to "make fit," especially in such a predominantly male card, but perhaps the fault is seeing it as male and not something else. Certainly not as transgender as Art, but perhaps some element of "loving Babalon." This is perhaps where the male and female influences become less abstract, at the "Gates of Matter," before being spewed out into Hod (Eve).

This could also relate to the HGA's singular "sex." In K&C you both give as well as receive. Indeed giving is receiving, and this may illustrate how the HGA is both an "inner" as well as "outer" force. The Devil's proximity to Death would certainly seem to suggest that K&C is possible only when one has assimilated the idea of submission as well as force into one idea that isn't contradictory.

And... I'll go a bit further and say that there is a certain "power" in being a bottom, or a woman on the receiving end, despite the outward appearance of submission (were we to translate things into actualities).

"ואל אישך תשוקתך והוא ימשול בך"

While I see the point you are making about the horned man within the ball, I would take it a bit further and say that this makes stronger the position of The Devil's lack of any conventional sense of morality. Are you a tyrant? That's ok. Are you a saint? That's ok. Are you a man? That's ok. Are you a woman? That's ok. He is as unconventional in terms of morality as Christ whose influence he represents. People will always see him as a scapegoat, his word will never be fully understood, in his name humans will commit crimes of their own but it doesn't matter. He is the cause of misunderstandings, pain, war and he is to blame even when others wage it for their own benefit. For me, all he is concerned to fulfill is his True Will, which takes in little regard one's conventional sense of "good" or "evil" and to understand him is to illuminate and filter the forms given by Hod with the light of the HGA, thus arriving to one's personal Truth- And Truthfullness is the Virtue of Hod, the intellect.

Liber AL said:
For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.

One may enjoy reading "The Great Inquisitor" while meditating on this card. I find it to be really relevant.

EDIT: And that proposal is encouraged towards the same direction -for me- when I consider the mythology around Pan and the N.O.X. formula in general. A really beautiful card indeed, I find the representation of The Devil in the New Aeon to be. A really illuminating card in my opinion, which goes on to show that conventional perception is not necessarily precise. The form giving ability of Hod can be truthfull or false, depending on it's use. Under the light of the HGA, however, those forms are separated, one's true are kept and his/her false are discarded under the illumination of one's intellect through L.V.X., a necessary step before one is able to experience N.O.X..
 

Zephyros

I agree with you. However there is also the idea of perfect orbits, with one perfect Will not interfering in another's. The Devil may represent a power the intellect is not equipped to handle. Indeed it cannot, as it is rough and coarse and male and is concerned only in its own Will. The Devil only seems evil down here below Tiphareth, because it is the nature of the intellect to resist the "surrender to power" that is the Devil (like in that Enigma song, "don't be afraid to be weak, don't be to proud to be strong") ). Once fulfilled, the Will is seen to be the exact opposite of conventional evil, as no conflict is necessary or even possible higher up. The figure may appear to be putting others down, but going down from Tiphareth, he may actually be engulfed by petty desires. It all depends on where you're looking at him from.

In fact, the Devil and Hanged Man seem to mirror different views of immersion.
 

Owl Tarot

I agree with you. However there is also the idea of perfect orbits, with one perfect Will not interfering in another's. The Devil may represent a power the intellect is not equipped to handle. Indeed it cannot, as it is rough and coarse and male and is concerned only in its own Will. The Devil only seems evil down here below Tiphareth, because it is the nature of the intellect to resist the "surrender to power" that is the Devil (like in that Enigma song, "don't be afraid to be weak, don't be to proud to be strong") ). Once fulfilled, the Will is seen to be the exact opposite of conventional evil, as no conflict is necessary or even possible higher up. The figure may appear to be putting others down, but going down from Tiphareth, he may actually be engulfed by petty desires. It all depends on where you're looking at him from.

And that depends on the type of intellect we are talking about. To better arrive at a satisfying answer concerning Hod and it's importance, I think one has to study and work with the Yetziratic text of Hod itself:

The Eighth Path is called the Absolute or Perfect
Intelligence because it is the mean of the Primordial, which has no root by which
it can cleave or rest, save in the hidden places of Gedulah, from which emanates
its proper essence.

I made bold the part I think really relevant here. Hermes is both the God seen as the Divine messenger and the God of thieves. This aids one to realize both the Virtue and the Vice of Hod. But, from my personal work on Hod, I translate the fact that Ayin=70=the sum of the Paths on the Middle Pillar that the opening of the Eye of Hoor signifies the illumination of the initiate on the nature of evil. This results in the common perception of evil according to one's ego, the Vice of Hod, to be eliminated.

The Hod is now a purified means of the Primordial. It is the form-giver that will be used for the rest of the initiate's Magickal Path as the Divine messenger. As Dion Fortune says,

Dion Fortune said:
The Spiritual Experience assigned to this Sephirah is the Vision of Splendour, which is the realisation of the glory of God manifesting in the created world. The initiate of Hod sees behind the appearance of created things and discerns their Creator, and in the
realisation of the splendour of Nature as the garment of the Ineffable he receives his
illumination and becomes a co-worker with the Great Artificer. It is this realisation of the
spiritual forces manipulating all manifestations and appearances which is the key to the
powers of Hod as wielded in the Magic of Light. It is by making himself a channel for
these forces that the Master of White Magic brings order into the disorder of the Spheres of Unbalanced Force, not by deflecting the invisible powers to his personal will. He is the
equilibrator of the unbalanced, not the arbitrary manipulator of Nature.

Under the light of Tiphareth the mind becomes the purified instrument ready to accept all existence as Nuit, and what he considers evil as a personal preference, if you may. About the idea of the perfect orbits concerning the True Wills not clashing, I agree on a theoritical level and that is not incopatible with what we are building up to now. On the contrary, it is a natural result deriving from the "destruction" of one's egoistic (I use ego in the "bad" sense here, not the Jungian one) perception of evil. The Devil is an evil figure when seen from one's personal sense of evil. When the Eye of Hoor is open, that personal sense is purified and redirected to one's personal moral Ideal, which allows one not to be interfered by another's True Will, since all of them are stages on the journey rather than adversaries, if you may. That's how I kind of think of this card.

Of course, when seen from above, what you say about engulfing in petty desires is indeed a great way of understanding the "ill dignified" sense of this card.