Windhorse
Aeon418 said:Queen of Swords is Water of Air. Nut the airy sky goddess and a connection to the water of Aquarius. But also the letter Heh via the connection with the Ace of Cups.
Now I am intrigued - please elaborate on this....
p
The Star card
Now I am intrigued - please elaborate on this....
p
Aeon418
Intrigued about what in particular? Heh and the Ace of Cups?Windhorse said:
See the Golden Dawn Ace of Cups. Top line, second from the left: http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/golden-dawn/
cheekyinchworm
ravenest said:Yes, well it's all very obvious ..... NOW!
That damned double loop in the zodiac thingo! I knew something was fishy but just couldn't get to the bottom of it. .... maybe because it is so simple? (well simpler than I thought it was! ... or maybe I'm just stupid
Bear with me a moment.
Go to the diagram of the double loop, Book of Thoth. Copy out the diagram accuratly (or be reckless and draw in your book like I did)
Write the number 1 next to IV (the lowest in the series of Roman Numerals shown) and go around the diagram attributing the next number (2) to the next highest Roman Numeral (V) and so on. Dont loop, go around the diagram in a circular path. Now do the same with the astrological signs in their order; 1 to Aries, 2 to Taurus, etc.. Now look at how the two sets of numbers you have written at each position compare with each other (starting from IV / Aries and going anti-clockwise); 1-1,12-12, 11-11, (left hand side) 2-2, 3-3, 4-4, 5-7, 6-6, 7-5 (right hand side) 8-8, 9-9, 10-10. The loop is only on one the right hand side where Adjustment / Lust trump number swap is. There is no left hand loop or double loop!
But it is even more obvious than this! The diagram is a number / astrological order diagram, the right hand side is a loop because it is a number / astrological order switch. The left hand side cant loop as it is a Hebrew letter switch that cannot show up on the diagram as it is out of the reference field (ie, the diagram is not referenced to Hebrew letters - that is why the switch of Emperor / Tzaddi show on the Tree of Life as that IS a Hebrew letter reference field).
Crowley tweaked the loop on the left hand side himself, just by , mearly, drawing it that way. There is no astrological / numerical order switch in the Tarot to justify it on the left hand side.
Now look at the tables in The Book of Thoth, p. 278. (the 'wrong' ones) with the strange attribution of Aries / Star, Aquarius / Emperor. Go down the attribution column but start at Aries; Aries, Pisces, [go up to the top] Aquarius, Taurus (the left hand loop in the diagram), Cancer, Libra, Virgo, Leo, (right hand loop), Scorpio, Sag. Capricorn. The double loop only works (in the tables) if you swap the previous astrological attribution to the Emperor and Star. That is why the attributions are out of wack in the table.
Now, go back to the loop diagram. Unloop the left hand side, ie. twist it around swapping IV / Aries with XVII / Aquarius. Is not this a true map of the astrological and Roman numeral progression? There is no need to loop the left hand side in the first place. Looping the diagram on the left hand side explains nothing about a swapped Hebrew letter attribution, so it doesnt matter if it is looped or not, so why loop it? Looping it changes the astro order and the numeral order. The loop on the right hand side however remains as it explains a switch in the numbered order of the Trumps and a corresponding one in the astrological sign progression (and numbered and astrological sign orders are within the reference field of the diagram). So the right hand loop is valid, as demonstrated by the numbering exercise mentioned above.
In any case the loop diagram attributes IV to Emperor and XVII to Star (as do the cards themselves), again, no need to loop the diagram on the left. Even if we use Crowleys table and put Aries to the Star and Aquarius to the Emperor on the double loop diagram, the loop disappears as the astrological progression is back in order.
This does, however, loop the Roman numeral progression on the left hand side, but why do we need to loop the numbers when the astro progression works out?The only way to justify that is to say that the signs loop on the right and the numbers loop on the left but non of that is valid anyway as it is trying to justify a Hebrew letter swapped attribution.
The double loop in the zodiac diagram is a 'fudge' as far as I can see.
If my reasoning is off, please explain and show he where. I am very prepared to admit I might be wrong (or stupid). [You guys have known about this all along haven't you and were pulling my leg?
In the Book of Thoth A.C. glosses over it (p.4) "Tzaddi is the Emperor; and therefore the positions of XVII and IV must be counterchanged " (yes, but on the Tree of Life not the Zodiac). And unfortunatly Crowley refers to this balanced double loop as, "The most convincing evidence possible that the Book of the Law is a genuine message from the Secret Chiefs".
As Crowley has said (in intro to Postcards to Probationers), "I often get carried away by my own enthusiasm."
[Note I have used and still use Thoth deck for many years, I am a Thelemite, and utalise much of Crowley's writings and ritual ( except where he has made a mistake). I dont have some hidden agenda against A.C. or his system.]
YES! It seems to me, too, that the double-loop thing in the Zodiac is indeed a fudge. I wish I had found this thread about a week or so ago. It would have saved me a few head-aches. Because, if you order the Zodiac against the hebrew letters, you have one twist in the Thoth system. And if you order the Zodiac against the Trump numbers, you also have only one twist in the Thoth system.
I suppose you could say it was a double single-twist (or loop).
The only thing that has a double twist in it that I can see is the Key scale when ordered against the trump numbers (i.e. 15 and 28 are counter-changed as well as the key numbers for lust/strength and adjustment/justice, which I can't remember right now.)
I confess that I wasn't able to read this entire thread, and more or less focused on the discussions I could find about the Zodiac loops, so if the key scale was already discussed, please forgive me. I will be reading this entire thread in due course.
But, for right now, is everyone in agreement about the double-loop thing being a fudge? (Excepting, of course, the notion that Aries and Aquarius really can in some ways correspond to Star and Emperor respectively--THAT would indeed create a double loop. But I totally don't buy that attribution right now.)
Dulcimer
cheekyinchworm said:
There is no loop. Really. Honestly. Truly. It isn't a fudge. It is a nonsense.
All that happened was that the Golden Dawn tried to attribute Zodiacal signs to the cards with mixed results. They redesigned the cards to allow for this approach. When it got to Strength and Justice they simply swapped their 'traditional' positions in the sequence of cards to fit in with Leo and Libra.
As Ravenest points out it is the cards not the Zodiac signs or the Hebrew alphabet which are affected. Crowley saw an attractive opportunity to add weight to his claims to the Emperor equals Tzaddi thing because by coincidence the signs just happen to fall opposite Leo and Libra. BUT his correspondence was based, not on how the cards align with the Zodiac but on how they aligned with the Hebrew alphabet (The book of the Law stated that "Tzaddi is not the Star" not that Aquarius is not the Star nor even that Tzaddi is the Emperor).
It is plain for all to see - unless you use some impressive mental gymnastics - that Aries can no more be attributed to the Star than can Aquarius be attributed to The Emperor. I believe Crowley recognised a real problem with this and so created the whole "loop" nonsense to attempt to force a proof.
Dulcimer
I forgot to mention that the cornerstone to Emperor equals Tzaddi and therefore Heh equals The Star has more to do with that Heh as a word, or H as a letter, are considered femanine in nature (for reasons I'll not go into here but we all know what I'm talking about). It makes more sense then to have the letter asigned to a femanine type card. But that only holds water [sorry] if you accept the premise that the letters of the Hebrew alphabet correspond with the Tarot cards.
Those of us who see no such correspondences have no such problems
Those of us who see no such correspondences have no such problems
cheekyinchworm
Dulcimer,
Thanks for your reply!
First of all, leaving aside the question of whether or not the attributions are non-sense or not, worthwhile or not, it seems to me that the Thoth tarot was constructed and envisioned as if they WERE valid.
So, given that, a person studying the deck on its own terms would want to try to figure out what corresponds to what and why and how and so on. And given THAT effort, the person will inevitably want to make sense of the while double-loop / zodiac thing.
And, clearly, putting the 12 single (simple?) hebrew letters in order and looking at the zodiac signs next to them, you find only one loop or twist, due to the interchange of tzaddi and heh.
And doing the same with the trumps, you also find only one loop, due to Lust being 11 and Adjustment being 8.
So, there is no double loop as described in the BOT or DuQuette's book. I agree with that.
But, to jump from there to the conclusion that Crowley was just trying to cover over a problem and "force" a proof is only wild speculation on your part. There are a number of other reasons why the double loop zodiac belt argument might have been put in the BOT.
The DuQuette book, on the other hand, is another matter. Why HE glossed over the double loop thing is actually far more puzzling to me than why Crowley did. Crowley was a bit of a trickster and a "character" and was known for pulling all sorts of stuff, and I don't have to do much imagining to come up with half a dozen reasons why he would put the double loop thing in, and why he would make the BOT contain a number of contradictions about the Tzaddi is not the star. And I remember reading some interesting ones in this thread.
But, why DuQuette didn't come right out in his typical fashion and make the distinction between the two ordering possibilities, one in hebrew letter sequence, the other in trump sequence, and explain it all as clear as day -- well, the only thing I can think is that he is bound by some OTO oath on the subject.
And if that's true, it would be plenty of evidence for me that the whole issue is deeper and more esoteric than we know. Intentionally adding errors and wrong attributions and confusions and "blinds", isn't that standard fare in the occult?
So, to jump to the whole Crowley-was-just-trying-to-make-the-best-of-something-he-knew-was-a-muddle argument seems premature to me.
Finally, there really is a double loop in the key scale. If you order the trumps as per Thoth ordering, and then put the key scale numbers attributed to the trumps next to them, you will see TWO COUNTERCHANGES. Check out page 67 of DuQuette's book. 22 falls where 19 should, and vice versa. And, 28 falls where 15 should, and vice versa. And both counterchanges do indeed happen about the pivots of Pisces and Virgo. i.e. if you go to Virgo, and go one sign up and down in the trumps and counterchange the key scale numbers attached to them, you will counterchange 19 and 22. And if you go to Pisces and do the same, you will counterchange 28 and 15.
And, isn't the key scale like MASSIVELY IMPORTANT? Aren't Crowley's 777 tables all arranged around the key scale number? So that if you look up anything in Table 1, the key scale number in the right collumn will tell you what that thing corresponds to anywhere else? So that once you find the key scale number of, say, a color or an astrological sign, you can find all sorts of other things that correspond to that color or that sign: Deities, purfumes, Budhist Meditation, etc. ?
These aren't rhetorical questions. I honestly don't know what's going on here one way or another. But I'm not about to write off the GD attributions and the Thoth tarot because of there not "really" being a double loop in the zodiac.
Thanks for your reply!
First of all, leaving aside the question of whether or not the attributions are non-sense or not, worthwhile or not, it seems to me that the Thoth tarot was constructed and envisioned as if they WERE valid.
So, given that, a person studying the deck on its own terms would want to try to figure out what corresponds to what and why and how and so on. And given THAT effort, the person will inevitably want to make sense of the while double-loop / zodiac thing.
And, clearly, putting the 12 single (simple?) hebrew letters in order and looking at the zodiac signs next to them, you find only one loop or twist, due to the interchange of tzaddi and heh.
And doing the same with the trumps, you also find only one loop, due to Lust being 11 and Adjustment being 8.
So, there is no double loop as described in the BOT or DuQuette's book. I agree with that.
But, to jump from there to the conclusion that Crowley was just trying to cover over a problem and "force" a proof is only wild speculation on your part. There are a number of other reasons why the double loop zodiac belt argument might have been put in the BOT.
The DuQuette book, on the other hand, is another matter. Why HE glossed over the double loop thing is actually far more puzzling to me than why Crowley did. Crowley was a bit of a trickster and a "character" and was known for pulling all sorts of stuff, and I don't have to do much imagining to come up with half a dozen reasons why he would put the double loop thing in, and why he would make the BOT contain a number of contradictions about the Tzaddi is not the star. And I remember reading some interesting ones in this thread.
But, why DuQuette didn't come right out in his typical fashion and make the distinction between the two ordering possibilities, one in hebrew letter sequence, the other in trump sequence, and explain it all as clear as day -- well, the only thing I can think is that he is bound by some OTO oath on the subject.
And if that's true, it would be plenty of evidence for me that the whole issue is deeper and more esoteric than we know. Intentionally adding errors and wrong attributions and confusions and "blinds", isn't that standard fare in the occult?
So, to jump to the whole Crowley-was-just-trying-to-make-the-best-of-something-he-knew-was-a-muddle argument seems premature to me.
Finally, there really is a double loop in the key scale. If you order the trumps as per Thoth ordering, and then put the key scale numbers attributed to the trumps next to them, you will see TWO COUNTERCHANGES. Check out page 67 of DuQuette's book. 22 falls where 19 should, and vice versa. And, 28 falls where 15 should, and vice versa. And both counterchanges do indeed happen about the pivots of Pisces and Virgo. i.e. if you go to Virgo, and go one sign up and down in the trumps and counterchange the key scale numbers attached to them, you will counterchange 19 and 22. And if you go to Pisces and do the same, you will counterchange 28 and 15.
And, isn't the key scale like MASSIVELY IMPORTANT? Aren't Crowley's 777 tables all arranged around the key scale number? So that if you look up anything in Table 1, the key scale number in the right collumn will tell you what that thing corresponds to anywhere else? So that once you find the key scale number of, say, a color or an astrological sign, you can find all sorts of other things that correspond to that color or that sign: Deities, purfumes, Budhist Meditation, etc. ?
These aren't rhetorical questions. I honestly don't know what's going on here one way or another. But I'm not about to write off the GD attributions and the Thoth tarot because of there not "really" being a double loop in the zodiac.
Dulcimer
cheekyinchworm said:
Curiously it was not: cards 8 and 11 were placed back into there pre Golden Dawn order and cards 4 and 17 retained their places. Also, the designs do not suggest that any realignment has taken place.
cheekyinchworm said:
Dude, if you can make sense out of it then don't let me put you off. Maybe you will come up with something that makes sense of it all. Good luck with that.
cheekyinchworm said:
Oh, absolutely.
cheekyinchworm said:
I hear that a lot. You do too I''ll wager. Its a fall back position when things get confusing. Doesn't get us any closer to the truth though does it.
cheekyinchworm said:
Now who is wildly speculating?
Well, how is this for an answer: DuQuette doesn't have a clue either!
cheekyinchworm
Dulcimer,
The Thoth Tarot was constructed, from the get go, with the Tree of Life and Astrology very much in mind. The cards were painted, per Crowley's instructions, with correspondences between them and the paths and Sephiroth as a given. And also the same for Astrology.
Whether or not Crowley "forced" this grand unified tarot into being, or if it really did exist before hand, is not the point.
The point is that if you want to understand the Thoth Tarot the way Crowley understood it (or approaching that) you want to understand which Atu corresponds to which path on the Tree of Life, and to which sign of the Zodiac, or planet, or element.
It makes no difference that Crowley put the trumps back into the pre-GD ordering. Strength/Lust is still attributed to the same path on the Tree and the same Zodiac sign whether it is 8 or 11, and the same goes for Justice/Adjustment.
You said earlier that:
And this is what I was responding to.
It seems to me that you really CAN'T not accept that premise when studying the Thoth Tarot, because that's how the frigging thing was made. That was the attempt, at the very least.
As for your statements that the designs of the Thoth cards "do not suggest that any realignment has taken place", well, I find that to be a pretty outrageous suggestion if I'm understanding you correctly.
Are you saying this only about The Star and The Emperor? Or are you saying this in general? Because it seems to me that anyone can quickly spot the differences in the Aeon vs. Judgment Trump, or the Hanged Man, for example. And certainly, many of the small cards are radically different from the RWS deck.
Are you really saying that you don't see that any realignment or "rectification" of the Thoth tarot card designs has taken place vs. say, the RWS or RWS clone decks?
Are you being ironic and condescending here? Or am I misreading your intended tone?
For starters, it's a crapy answer. DuQuette has no trouble saying that he doesn't have a clue about this that or the other thing. He is very good at speaking about what he does understand and what his own experience does speak to, and marking clearly where that leaves off.
The DuQuette I have come to know (as a writer) would have shown the "loop" made via the hebrew letter sequence ordering, and the loop made via the trump ordering, and explained things very clearly to that point, and then would have said that's as much sense as he could make out of it.
But he didn't do this.
Next, my wild speculation was clearly indicated as such, as a guess, so I don't see the need for you to point out that it is what I said it was.
Finally, you said "Its a fall back position when things get confusing. Doesn't get us any closer to the truth though does it?"
Well, actually, sometimes YES IT DOES. It is impossible to get anything out of Mamonidies Guide for the Perplexed, for example, unless you assume that the author was NOT AN IDIOT, and in fact knew as much or more than you.
Before you assume that something that YOU see as an error or a muddle or a mistake is really in fact an error or a muddle or a mistake, you should (in my opinion) try assuming that you aren't smarter than the person you are studying, and try to see if you can't make sense of it in some way or another.
If you can't make that assumption and take that course of action, then why bother studying a work by that author at all?
I have made major progress in understanding Plato and Machiavelli, for example, by not automatically assuming that I'm smarter than Plato or Machiavelli, or attributing base motivations to them.
Perhaps that's not the case here. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps Crowley was just trying to fudge a proof and be a "me too" kind of guy to sell more Tarot packs or something. I'll damn well have to come to that conclusion myself, thank you very much, and will not take bald assertions from you as dogma. Evidence and facts and information would be welcome. But isn't all this getting very tedious and pointless?
Do let's stop arguing about it.
Does anyone have anything to say about the Key Scale and the Thoth Tarot and 777 and so on? I'd love to hear from someone about this, especially in regards to my suggestion that maybe the double loop is in the Key Scale when ordered against the Trump numbers. Anyone?
The Thoth Tarot was constructed, from the get go, with the Tree of Life and Astrology very much in mind. The cards were painted, per Crowley's instructions, with correspondences between them and the paths and Sephiroth as a given. And also the same for Astrology.
Whether or not Crowley "forced" this grand unified tarot into being, or if it really did exist before hand, is not the point.
The point is that if you want to understand the Thoth Tarot the way Crowley understood it (or approaching that) you want to understand which Atu corresponds to which path on the Tree of Life, and to which sign of the Zodiac, or planet, or element.
It makes no difference that Crowley put the trumps back into the pre-GD ordering. Strength/Lust is still attributed to the same path on the Tree and the same Zodiac sign whether it is 8 or 11, and the same goes for Justice/Adjustment.
You said earlier that:
And this is what I was responding to.
It seems to me that you really CAN'T not accept that premise when studying the Thoth Tarot, because that's how the frigging thing was made. That was the attempt, at the very least.
As for your statements that the designs of the Thoth cards "do not suggest that any realignment has taken place", well, I find that to be a pretty outrageous suggestion if I'm understanding you correctly.
Are you saying this only about The Star and The Emperor? Or are you saying this in general? Because it seems to me that anyone can quickly spot the differences in the Aeon vs. Judgment Trump, or the Hanged Man, for example. And certainly, many of the small cards are radically different from the RWS deck.
Are you really saying that you don't see that any realignment or "rectification" of the Thoth tarot card designs has taken place vs. say, the RWS or RWS clone decks?
Are you being ironic and condescending here? Or am I misreading your intended tone?
For starters, it's a crapy answer. DuQuette has no trouble saying that he doesn't have a clue about this that or the other thing. He is very good at speaking about what he does understand and what his own experience does speak to, and marking clearly where that leaves off.
The DuQuette I have come to know (as a writer) would have shown the "loop" made via the hebrew letter sequence ordering, and the loop made via the trump ordering, and explained things very clearly to that point, and then would have said that's as much sense as he could make out of it.
But he didn't do this.
Next, my wild speculation was clearly indicated as such, as a guess, so I don't see the need for you to point out that it is what I said it was.
Finally, you said "Its a fall back position when things get confusing. Doesn't get us any closer to the truth though does it?"
Well, actually, sometimes YES IT DOES. It is impossible to get anything out of Mamonidies Guide for the Perplexed, for example, unless you assume that the author was NOT AN IDIOT, and in fact knew as much or more than you.
Before you assume that something that YOU see as an error or a muddle or a mistake is really in fact an error or a muddle or a mistake, you should (in my opinion) try assuming that you aren't smarter than the person you are studying, and try to see if you can't make sense of it in some way or another.
If you can't make that assumption and take that course of action, then why bother studying a work by that author at all?
I have made major progress in understanding Plato and Machiavelli, for example, by not automatically assuming that I'm smarter than Plato or Machiavelli, or attributing base motivations to them.
Perhaps that's not the case here. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps Crowley was just trying to fudge a proof and be a "me too" kind of guy to sell more Tarot packs or something. I'll damn well have to come to that conclusion myself, thank you very much, and will not take bald assertions from you as dogma. Evidence and facts and information would be welcome. But isn't all this getting very tedious and pointless?
Do let's stop arguing about it.
Does anyone have anything to say about the Key Scale and the Thoth Tarot and 777 and so on? I'd love to hear from someone about this, especially in regards to my suggestion that maybe the double loop is in the Key Scale when ordered against the Trump numbers. Anyone?
Dulcimer
You are misreading my intended tone. In fact you have misread my intended tone throughout.cheekyinchworm said:
I have the greatest respect for everyone on this forum.
Since we don't know each other how can you know if I may or may not be being ironic and condescending. All we see are words. Why do you choose to interpret them so negatively and so personally. Take another look at what I wrote without prejudice. It is simply as written :- if you think you can make sense of it fine. Good luck with that. I spent 20 years trying to fathom it out and got nothing. I honestly hope you can find something I never could. Why would you think I meant anything other than that?
I've studied Crowley's works for decades and became disillusioned. I know many who have studied his works and think he is a Messiah. Fine. Whatever works for you. But I don't agree with you. And if you only want to talk to people who agree with you then you've come to the wrong forum.
You insult me and misrepresent me with abandon. Of course I don't think I'm smarter than DuQuette, Crowley, Plato or even yourself. I put a
to point out I wasn't being serious. Yet you take every word I write as a thinly veiled attack. There is nothing I've written to suggest that except in how you are reading it.You mistake my meaning; by "realignment" I'm referring to Crowley realigning the cards with certain letters of the Hebrew alphabet. What you are describing I would call "reinterpreting". Which is the point of the Thoth of course.
If you are determined to misrepresent me then I guess you'll find plenty in this post as well.
For an excellent resume on all(?) Crowley's writings on the subject, including the key scale, check out Teheuti's excellent post#81 on this thread.
Ross G Caldwell
I don't know if the following will help, I hope so.
_____________
A chronology of passages with relevance to Crowley's Emperor-Star Heh-Tzaddi switch.
Because of recent discussions on another list, I was forced to go back and try to figure out the chronology and perhaps reasoning behind Crowley's decision to switch Heh with Tzaddi, not the position of the paths on the Tree of Life but the cards associated with each. I found that he had already come to make this switch by early 1918.
Crowley says on page 9 of the Book of Thoth (BoT) that "He tried for years to counterchange this card, "The Star", which is numbered XVII, with some other." (note he assumed a "counterchange" and not some other solution). He goes on - "He had no success. It was many years later that the solution came to him."
So when was that, exactly? And how was that, as well?
I think the answer to first question can be narrowed down to a matter of months; the answer to the second is thus probably within the events of those months, taking into account Crowley's general principle when solving Liber Legis puzzles that the solution "will be marked by the most sublime simplicity, and carry immediate conviction" ("New Comment" (1919-1920)), II:76).
Chronology -
1904-1912
There is no discussion of this problem in anything published or written (that I know of) during the years 1904-1912.
Crowley doesn't allude to it until 1912, in the "Old Comment" to the Book of the Law (BL), I:57, published in "The Equinox" I/7 (March 1912) p. 392 - "The last paragraph confirms the Tarot attributions as given in 777. With one secret exception."
However, it is clear that he didn't yet have an explanation for the exception, since the symbolism of the Chapters in the Book of Lies (1912-1913) still relies exclusively on the Tzaddi=Star and Heh=Emperor connection:
Chapter 5 (Heh=5) is "The Battle of the Ants." It is a meditation on war (Aries, Mars, Emperor).
Chapter 28 (Tzaddi is the 28th path on the Tree of Life by the GD system, and used in 777, which Crowley considered largely "confirmed" by the Book of the Law.) is called "The Pole-Star". (Tzaddi=Star)
Chapter 90 (Tzaddi is 90) is called "Starlight".
(Crowley's commentary on the Book of Lies is not contemporary with its composition, but does repeatedly insist that it was composed with such symbolism in mind.)
The next possible source for a discussion of this problem is the "Opus Lutetianum" or "Paris Working" (Dec. 31 1913-Feb. 12, 1914). Crowley used these workings sometimes to answer specific questions about Liber AL, but he does not mention it at all in this working.
1914-1918
Between 1914 and 1918, when Crowley was in North America (based in New York City), the only sources I have are his record of sex-magick workings "Rex de arte regia", his articles from "The International", the Amalantrah Working (Jan.-June, 1918), Liber Aleph, and his own and various biographers' notes about his activities. He doesn't allude to the "Tzaddi is not the Star" problem directly in any of these writings.
However, in one passage of the Amalantrah Working (April 20th, 1918), he does indicate more or less indirectly that he was searching for a *feminine* "counterchange" to the Tzaddi-Star attribution, with the Empress or the High Priestess:
"He-Tzaddi-Yod-Vau is the tetragrammaton of the magical officers. He(Hebrew) is the Emperor, and the Tzaddi the Empress, or High Priestess, vide secret attributions indicated in Liber CCXX."
This quote illustrates clearly that he was seeking a counterchange of the woman of the Star with another feminine figure in the tarot. He was still, as he said later in the BoT, *trying* to find a solution.
But the equivalence of Heh with the Star had already occurred to him in 1918, as we may infer from lines in Liber Aleph (written in New York city in the winter of 1917-1918).
In Chapter 87, he is discussing the formula of the word ABRAHADABRA. He says that of the 5 letters in the word (ABRHD), the Sun, Mercury and Venus are R, B, and D (Resh=Sun, Beth=Magician, D=Empress). He then remarks: "But the last of the Diverse Letters is H, which in the Tarot is The Star whose Eidolon is D."
This seems to indicate that he had considered the possibility that Heh, being the feminine part of the Tetragrammaton, was the most suitable substitution for the Star. It might even indicate that by early 1918, he had made the Emperor-Tzaddi substitution, but I know of no direct evidence for that. It is clear it should be, by his logic (counterchange), but I can't find it.
But that he had already decided in 1918 that the Star was Heh, is clear from Chapter 167 - "From the Crown descendeth the High Priestess in the Path of the Moon (Gimel)... Next, from the Father (Chokmah) floweth the Virtue of the Star in the Path of the Water-bearer (Heh=Aquarius)... Third, from the Mother (Binah) are the Lovers in the Path of the Twins (Gemini)... These three are from the Supernals."
These quotes show without any doubt whatsoever that Crowley felt comfortable placing the Star on the path of Heh. But Liber Aleph was finished in March of 1918, while the Amalantrah passage was made in April 1918! Why didn't he already make the Heh of the Amalantrah passage the Star, and the Tzaddi the Emperor?
I can only guess, but I think it's because Crowley wasn't sure of it yet because he hadn't worked out the "double loop" thing in the Zodiac attributions of the Trumps. It was exactly this "symmetry", which also accounted for both the change of the Aeons and the GD switch of Teth-Lamed=Strength-Justice in the Tarot, that finally convinced him.
This passage from Liber Aleph attributing the Star to the path of Heh, from Chokmah to Tiphereth on the Tree of Life, is the earliest I have found in Crowley's writings. Given his apparent ambivalence to the attribution just a month or so later, it seems he was not ready to consider the "counterchange" to be the fulfillment of a prophecy - he just liked the idea of a trinitarian feminine influence from the three supernal sephiroth on Tiphereth (as he also insisted later in the BoT, page 203 note 1). Also, it seems the idea must have been new to him, since the counterchange it implies is not worked out in any detail.
Note that it is symbolism, and not a system such as Atbash or numbering the Trumps from Aleph=World to Tau=Fool, that gets him to this point. The remarks in Amalantrah and Aleph indicate that he is just hammering away at the problem, seeing what will fit.
Before Crowley finished Liber Aleph, and while the Amalantrah Working was in progress, Charles Stansfeld Jones arrived in New York. Jones' personality and unique approach to Thelemic Qabalism must be considered as significant influences upon Crowley's own thinking during this period.
Jones' main contribution was to consider the Serpent of Wisdom as *climbing* up the Tree, and hence the paths he climbed by were numbered in exact reverse to the traditional scheme. Aleph=Tau. It is not clear how much Jones had worked out the scheme by the time he visited Crowley, but given the coincidence in time is seems likely that Crowley got the idea in some way from Jones.
1919
Jones sent Crowley his "key" in September of 1919, and Crowley wrote back immediately exclaiming that it solved all the problems of the Book of the Law, and in fact that it had now "opened like a flower." (Jones' Liber XXXI, page 1). But given the earlier associations Crowley had made with the Star, it seems that little remained to be solved in the issue of the counterchange Crowley sought for Tzaddi.
It is important to remember that Crowley never bought Jones' complete system, and was solely devoted to the solution of individual puzzles. He always kept to the Aleph=Fool attributions, and only believed that *one pair* of attributions was wrong, because the Book of the Law I:57 said so (as he interpreted it).
1920
Finally, when Crowley was in Cefalù, he makes the first assertion of Emperor=Tzaddi that I can find. On June 2nd, 1920, he writes (in the course of a much longer passage): "Of course Tzaddi the Emperor is of phallic shape..." (page 144 of the 1972 Symonds and Grant edition). His off-handedness, without explanation, indicates that he already took this for granted. I am therefore driven to the conclusion that he already made this counterchange in 1918, as intimated by the Liber Aleph passages.
To illustrate how he had *already* worked it out, this counterchange is mentioned on the 22nd June 1920 as well: "And this Word seed in Aquarius, Hé, Nuith, who is 'Isis Mourning'... Now LA is Libra. Not is at once XI and VIII counterchanged in Tarot's natural order, as Hé is XVII and Tz is IV, revolving round Pisces as the other around Virgo.... Nu is Trump XVII, Aquarius, Hé, 5, etc...." (pp. 189-190).
Pp. 195-196 show a table of the Hebrew alphabet with the 777/GD correspondences, except H (He) = The Star and Tz (Tzaddi) = Emperor.
On the 30th of June (page 197) he writes: "The 31-93 Key opens all doors. 418 Cancer balances Set in Capricorn. Nu in Aquarius balances AL in Leo, 419."
Page 198 - "Nuith, Hé, Aquarius, XVII".
Additionally, in 1920 Crowley finished the so-called "New Comment" to Liber Legis (entry of December 21 1920). He had been writing it for over a year, since the Comment for II:76 mentions that it was written before Crowley received Jones' communication about AL, which happened around September 5, 1919.
In the "New Comment" to I:57, Crowley explains: "I see no harm in revealing the mystery of Tzaddi to 'the wise'; others will hardly understand my explanations. Tzaddi is the letter of the Emperor, the Trump IV, and Heh is the Star, the Trump XVII. Aquarius and Aries are therefore counterchanged, revolving on the pivot of Pisces, just as in the Trumps VIII and XI, Leo and Libra, do about Virgo. This last revelation makes our Tarot attributions sublimely, perfectly, flawlessly symmetrical.
"The fact of its doing so is a most convincing proof of the superhuman wisdom of the author of this Book to those who have laboured for years, in vain, to elucidate the problems of the Tarot."
Jones had received a copy of this Comment by 1922, since he writes in "Q.B.L. or the Bride's Reception" (1922), page 71 of the Benjamin Rowe PDF version, that the second part of verse I:57 had been explained by the Prophet in his comment, by changing the positions of the Star and Emperor.
(Emperor now the Path between Yesod and Netzach) Note that Jones' reasoning and Crowley's are different in this matter. Jones started with Aleph at the bottom and numbered upward, coming to Heh and putting the Emperor on that Path; Crowley assigned the Emperor to Tzaddi, occupying its traditional place on that Path counting downward. The fact that they coincide is because of Atbash, where Heh=Tzaddi.
It is clear then that Crowley was completely convinced of this counterchange by the end of 1920, and quite possibly by the end of 1918.
However, it should be noted that he arbitrarily used the old attributions if it suited him, since he regarded the two cards to be "revolving". This is identical to the case of VIII and XI, which are Lamed and Teth, and are hence out of alphabetical order in the Thoth deck, as are Tzaddi and Heh.
The three systems - alphabetic, astrological, and tarot - are not able to be seamlessly combined. But they can be elegantly and symmetrically related, and this is what Crowley sought and why he found the Tzaddi-Heh, Emperor-Star, Aquarius-Aries switch convincing.
Ross
_____________
A chronology of passages with relevance to Crowley's Emperor-Star Heh-Tzaddi switch.
Because of recent discussions on another list, I was forced to go back and try to figure out the chronology and perhaps reasoning behind Crowley's decision to switch Heh with Tzaddi, not the position of the paths on the Tree of Life but the cards associated with each. I found that he had already come to make this switch by early 1918.
Crowley says on page 9 of the Book of Thoth (BoT) that "He tried for years to counterchange this card, "The Star", which is numbered XVII, with some other." (note he assumed a "counterchange" and not some other solution). He goes on - "He had no success. It was many years later that the solution came to him."
So when was that, exactly? And how was that, as well?
I think the answer to first question can be narrowed down to a matter of months; the answer to the second is thus probably within the events of those months, taking into account Crowley's general principle when solving Liber Legis puzzles that the solution "will be marked by the most sublime simplicity, and carry immediate conviction" ("New Comment" (1919-1920)), II:76).
Chronology -
1904-1912
There is no discussion of this problem in anything published or written (that I know of) during the years 1904-1912.
Crowley doesn't allude to it until 1912, in the "Old Comment" to the Book of the Law (BL), I:57, published in "The Equinox" I/7 (March 1912) p. 392 - "The last paragraph confirms the Tarot attributions as given in 777. With one secret exception."
However, it is clear that he didn't yet have an explanation for the exception, since the symbolism of the Chapters in the Book of Lies (1912-1913) still relies exclusively on the Tzaddi=Star and Heh=Emperor connection:
Chapter 5 (Heh=5) is "The Battle of the Ants." It is a meditation on war (Aries, Mars, Emperor).
Chapter 28 (Tzaddi is the 28th path on the Tree of Life by the GD system, and used in 777, which Crowley considered largely "confirmed" by the Book of the Law.) is called "The Pole-Star". (Tzaddi=Star)
Chapter 90 (Tzaddi is 90) is called "Starlight".
(Crowley's commentary on the Book of Lies is not contemporary with its composition, but does repeatedly insist that it was composed with such symbolism in mind.)
The next possible source for a discussion of this problem is the "Opus Lutetianum" or "Paris Working" (Dec. 31 1913-Feb. 12, 1914). Crowley used these workings sometimes to answer specific questions about Liber AL, but he does not mention it at all in this working.
1914-1918
Between 1914 and 1918, when Crowley was in North America (based in New York City), the only sources I have are his record of sex-magick workings "Rex de arte regia", his articles from "The International", the Amalantrah Working (Jan.-June, 1918), Liber Aleph, and his own and various biographers' notes about his activities. He doesn't allude to the "Tzaddi is not the Star" problem directly in any of these writings.
However, in one passage of the Amalantrah Working (April 20th, 1918), he does indicate more or less indirectly that he was searching for a *feminine* "counterchange" to the Tzaddi-Star attribution, with the Empress or the High Priestess:
"He-Tzaddi-Yod-Vau is the tetragrammaton of the magical officers. He(Hebrew) is the Emperor, and the Tzaddi the Empress, or High Priestess, vide secret attributions indicated in Liber CCXX."
This quote illustrates clearly that he was seeking a counterchange of the woman of the Star with another feminine figure in the tarot. He was still, as he said later in the BoT, *trying* to find a solution.
But the equivalence of Heh with the Star had already occurred to him in 1918, as we may infer from lines in Liber Aleph (written in New York city in the winter of 1917-1918).
In Chapter 87, he is discussing the formula of the word ABRAHADABRA. He says that of the 5 letters in the word (ABRHD), the Sun, Mercury and Venus are R, B, and D (Resh=Sun, Beth=Magician, D=Empress). He then remarks: "But the last of the Diverse Letters is H, which in the Tarot is The Star whose Eidolon is D."
This seems to indicate that he had considered the possibility that Heh, being the feminine part of the Tetragrammaton, was the most suitable substitution for the Star. It might even indicate that by early 1918, he had made the Emperor-Tzaddi substitution, but I know of no direct evidence for that. It is clear it should be, by his logic (counterchange), but I can't find it.
But that he had already decided in 1918 that the Star was Heh, is clear from Chapter 167 - "From the Crown descendeth the High Priestess in the Path of the Moon (Gimel)... Next, from the Father (Chokmah) floweth the Virtue of the Star in the Path of the Water-bearer (Heh=Aquarius)... Third, from the Mother (Binah) are the Lovers in the Path of the Twins (Gemini)... These three are from the Supernals."
These quotes show without any doubt whatsoever that Crowley felt comfortable placing the Star on the path of Heh. But Liber Aleph was finished in March of 1918, while the Amalantrah passage was made in April 1918! Why didn't he already make the Heh of the Amalantrah passage the Star, and the Tzaddi the Emperor?
I can only guess, but I think it's because Crowley wasn't sure of it yet because he hadn't worked out the "double loop" thing in the Zodiac attributions of the Trumps. It was exactly this "symmetry", which also accounted for both the change of the Aeons and the GD switch of Teth-Lamed=Strength-Justice in the Tarot, that finally convinced him.
This passage from Liber Aleph attributing the Star to the path of Heh, from Chokmah to Tiphereth on the Tree of Life, is the earliest I have found in Crowley's writings. Given his apparent ambivalence to the attribution just a month or so later, it seems he was not ready to consider the "counterchange" to be the fulfillment of a prophecy - he just liked the idea of a trinitarian feminine influence from the three supernal sephiroth on Tiphereth (as he also insisted later in the BoT, page 203 note 1). Also, it seems the idea must have been new to him, since the counterchange it implies is not worked out in any detail.
Note that it is symbolism, and not a system such as Atbash or numbering the Trumps from Aleph=World to Tau=Fool, that gets him to this point. The remarks in Amalantrah and Aleph indicate that he is just hammering away at the problem, seeing what will fit.
Before Crowley finished Liber Aleph, and while the Amalantrah Working was in progress, Charles Stansfeld Jones arrived in New York. Jones' personality and unique approach to Thelemic Qabalism must be considered as significant influences upon Crowley's own thinking during this period.
Jones' main contribution was to consider the Serpent of Wisdom as *climbing* up the Tree, and hence the paths he climbed by were numbered in exact reverse to the traditional scheme. Aleph=Tau. It is not clear how much Jones had worked out the scheme by the time he visited Crowley, but given the coincidence in time is seems likely that Crowley got the idea in some way from Jones.
1919
Jones sent Crowley his "key" in September of 1919, and Crowley wrote back immediately exclaiming that it solved all the problems of the Book of the Law, and in fact that it had now "opened like a flower." (Jones' Liber XXXI, page 1). But given the earlier associations Crowley had made with the Star, it seems that little remained to be solved in the issue of the counterchange Crowley sought for Tzaddi.
It is important to remember that Crowley never bought Jones' complete system, and was solely devoted to the solution of individual puzzles. He always kept to the Aleph=Fool attributions, and only believed that *one pair* of attributions was wrong, because the Book of the Law I:57 said so (as he interpreted it).
1920
Finally, when Crowley was in Cefalù, he makes the first assertion of Emperor=Tzaddi that I can find. On June 2nd, 1920, he writes (in the course of a much longer passage): "Of course Tzaddi the Emperor is of phallic shape..." (page 144 of the 1972 Symonds and Grant edition). His off-handedness, without explanation, indicates that he already took this for granted. I am therefore driven to the conclusion that he already made this counterchange in 1918, as intimated by the Liber Aleph passages.
To illustrate how he had *already* worked it out, this counterchange is mentioned on the 22nd June 1920 as well: "And this Word seed in Aquarius, Hé, Nuith, who is 'Isis Mourning'... Now LA is Libra. Not is at once XI and VIII counterchanged in Tarot's natural order, as Hé is XVII and Tz is IV, revolving round Pisces as the other around Virgo.... Nu is Trump XVII, Aquarius, Hé, 5, etc...." (pp. 189-190).
Pp. 195-196 show a table of the Hebrew alphabet with the 777/GD correspondences, except H (He) = The Star and Tz (Tzaddi) = Emperor.
On the 30th of June (page 197) he writes: "The 31-93 Key opens all doors. 418 Cancer balances Set in Capricorn. Nu in Aquarius balances AL in Leo, 419."
Page 198 - "Nuith, Hé, Aquarius, XVII".
Additionally, in 1920 Crowley finished the so-called "New Comment" to Liber Legis (entry of December 21 1920). He had been writing it for over a year, since the Comment for II:76 mentions that it was written before Crowley received Jones' communication about AL, which happened around September 5, 1919.
In the "New Comment" to I:57, Crowley explains: "I see no harm in revealing the mystery of Tzaddi to 'the wise'; others will hardly understand my explanations. Tzaddi is the letter of the Emperor, the Trump IV, and Heh is the Star, the Trump XVII. Aquarius and Aries are therefore counterchanged, revolving on the pivot of Pisces, just as in the Trumps VIII and XI, Leo and Libra, do about Virgo. This last revelation makes our Tarot attributions sublimely, perfectly, flawlessly symmetrical.
"The fact of its doing so is a most convincing proof of the superhuman wisdom of the author of this Book to those who have laboured for years, in vain, to elucidate the problems of the Tarot."
Jones had received a copy of this Comment by 1922, since he writes in "Q.B.L. or the Bride's Reception" (1922), page 71 of the Benjamin Rowe PDF version, that the second part of verse I:57 had been explained by the Prophet in his comment, by changing the positions of the Star and Emperor.
(Emperor now the Path between Yesod and Netzach) Note that Jones' reasoning and Crowley's are different in this matter. Jones started with Aleph at the bottom and numbered upward, coming to Heh and putting the Emperor on that Path; Crowley assigned the Emperor to Tzaddi, occupying its traditional place on that Path counting downward. The fact that they coincide is because of Atbash, where Heh=Tzaddi.
It is clear then that Crowley was completely convinced of this counterchange by the end of 1920, and quite possibly by the end of 1918.
However, it should be noted that he arbitrarily used the old attributions if it suited him, since he regarded the two cards to be "revolving". This is identical to the case of VIII and XI, which are Lamed and Teth, and are hence out of alphabetical order in the Thoth deck, as are Tzaddi and Heh.
The three systems - alphabetic, astrological, and tarot - are not able to be seamlessly combined. But they can be elegantly and symmetrically related, and this is what Crowley sought and why he found the Tzaddi-Heh, Emperor-Star, Aquarius-Aries switch convincing.
Ross
