Nine Chambers

Hans Idle

1.10.100 path 11-The Fool (1) or the Moon (100) Ida
2.20.200 path 12-The Magician (2) or the Sun (200) Pingala
 

jmd

Welcome to Aeclectic, Hans Idle.

For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the concept of the 'nine chambers' as it refers to the Hebrew Alphabet, the letters are placed in sequence within the spaces (or 'chambers') of a criss-cross as per that used for 'Naughts-&-Crosses'.

Reaching the ninth chamber, the tenth letter is placed with the first, and the sequence continues, each of these with a value increasing in tens. Again, after the first eighteen letters have been placed, the nineteenth, with a value of 100, is placed with the first (and tenth).

As each letter has a value, the first chamber has letters with a value 1, 10, and 100. The next chamber with values of 2, 20 and 200, etc..

Ida and Pingala are the two energy 'serpents' that spiral around the central backbone. Also each is at times said to relate to Sun and Moon.

As the Golden Dawn places the Fool with the letter whose value is one, the Bateleur or Magician with the letter whose value is two, the Moon with the letter whose value is 100, and the Sun with the letter whose value is 200, the small lists are given as Hans Idle suggests.

Problem is, of course, whether one accepts the GD views. For example, Resh (200), as twentieth letter, is for some of us more appropriately connected to XX Judgement.
 

Hans Idle

Shin 300

3.30.300 - Priestess, Justice, Judgement
Justice and Judgement together would seem to be correct
Judgement on path 13 represents the child of the union of Ida and Pingala
or Nuit and Hadit.
 

Hans Idle

?

I think i misunderstood your response, so for you Alef - Magician, Beth -
Priestess etc, and the Fool - Shin or somewhere else?.
 

jmd

Whilst it is useful for those who wish to follow Golden Dawn views to know what these are, it would be also useful to read what people make of these.

You are correct, Hans Idle, that I tend to favour, as others also do, a correlation of Alef = 1 = Bateleur &c...

For each of us who do make Hebrew letter correlations, it is also of course important to reflect on what kind of correlations arise in the 'nine chambers' if we also accept that this has relevant importance.

The two major letter attributions give us the following (for the GD version, with the transposed placements of Justice and Strength, and the numbering of the Fool as zero).

I have made the sequence I - XXI + Fool gold, and the GD sequence green.

Also, the top numbers refer the the ordinal arrangement, the next row to the value of the Hebrew letters, and the next two to the various sequences as mentioned above.
Code:
 21   12      3  |  20    11     2 |  19    10   1
300   30      3  | 200    20     2 | 100    10   1
[color=gold]XXI   XII   III[/color]  |[color=gold]  XX    XI    II [/color]|[color=gold]XVIIII   X   I[/color]
[color=chartreuse] 20   11      2  [/color]|[color=chartreuse]  19    10     1 [/color]|[color=chartreuse]  18     9   0[/color]
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
----  15      6  | ----   14     5 |  22    13   4
600   60      6  | 500    50     5 | 400    40   4
      [color=gold]XV     VI  [/color]|[color=gold]      XIIII    V [/color]|[color=gold] Fou  XIII IIII[/color]
      [color=chartreuse]14      5  [/color]|[color=chartreuse]        13     4 [/color]|[color=chartreuse]  21    12   3[/color]
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
----  18      9  | ----   17     8 | ----   16   7
900   90      9  | 800    80     8 | 700    70   7
    [color=gold]XVIII  VIIII [/color]|[color=gold]       XVII  VIII[/color]|[color=gold]       XVI  VII[/color]
      [color=chartreuse]17      8  [/color]|[color=chartreuse]        16     7 [/color]|[color=chartreuse]        15   6[/color]
One thing one may observe straight away is that the arrangements in gold have a direct ordinal correlation: the seventeenth letter is correlated with the card numbered XVII. The GD variant shows that more thought as to the reasons for those correlations has to be investigated.

The numbers 500 to 900, by the way, refer to five letters that take a different form when placed at the end of a word, and thus also gain a different value (for example, Mem, that normally has a value of 40, becomes 600 when located at the end of a word).

If one reflects on the pairs and triplets thus created, various insights of course may be gained - in some ways, one may also say this of any pairs and/or triplets made. The question that needs to also be asked, in my opinion, is whether these pairings and triplets reveal something that appears more intrinsic to Tarot (as I personally view the I/XI; II/XII; etc does reveal such), or whether the insights gained arise out of considering those cards in such conjoined manner.