Variant approaches to the Thoth: Angeles Arrien's book

gregory

The fact remains that he put into those cards what he put into them, and wrote it up - and there is no milage in saying he didn't.

And I would suspect that a lot of the poking fun was to wind people up when they didn't believe what he believed..... he had a terrific sense of humour. You can have fun at the same time as being serious.
 

Teheuti

Scion said:
the idea of taking the time to go, and carefully execute something so mind-bogglingly negative and silly seems literally pathetic... as in evocative of pathos. It makes me acutely aware of my own mortality and of the smallness of human beings.
Scion, I feel so sad at the thought of seeing the world and it's people in this way. I see the Thoth deck as such a wondrous work of art that functions on so many levels and can be so many things to so many people. I also hear the pain of those who are disturbed that anyone would take a tool that was only meant for playing games and distort it through their occult views. It's continually amazing to me that our own little microcosm mirrors all the worlds hatreds and disgust and well as its loves and joy.

Mary
 

gregory

How do we know it was intended only for games - and does that apply to every deck ? Realistically none of us has any idea what Crowley intended; even the tales you have been told are second hand, told to you by people who may have had their own agendas. Whatever else, it contains HIS occult views, whoever much he actually held them. Whatever, the Book of Thoth is a LOT more interesting and meaty than Arrien's book. There are plenty of pretty decks that can be viewed as pretty decks. This one can offer so much more if you study it - however it does it - and to suggest that it doesn't is equally sad, IMHO.

I have no occult views of my own and no axe to grind for them - but I hate the idea that this deck is just some pretty pictures put together for a game. I came to it from looking at it and realising that there was a hell of a lot to it which merited study. Arrien's book helps not at all with that; Ziegler's also doesn't - Crowley's does and so does Duquette's.

I am sorry some people see it as something that needs to be debunked. I think they are profoundly wrong.
 

Teheuti

gregory said:
The fact remains that he put into those cards what he put into them, and wrote it up - and there is no milage in saying he didn't.
Of course he did. I don't think anyone says that he didn't. Sometimes, after the fact, people see things in a work of art that were not intended at the time. It's something that human beings do. No one has to agree with what Angie says. Given what I know of her, she had no intent of conning anyone.

Would you say a people who believe the sun will not rise without their prayers are liars? In human history there have been groups of people who have legislated that everything possible must be done to destroy this misguided form of thinking. The movie Rabbit-Proof Fence was a good example of this.

I would suspect that a lot of the poking fun was to wind people up when they didn't believe what he believed..... he had a terrific sense of humour. You can have fun at the same time as being serious.
It may have been fun for Crowley. Too bad he didn't let everyone in on the joke so they could all laugh together like at a comedy club. Many people went home believing his "fun" was the truth, not knowing that others were laughing AT THEM. Was this okay simply because he was Crowley? I'm not condemning him for doing this, I'm just pointing out that he deliberately told lies that would hurt the recipients, for the sake of his own personal pleasure.

Mary
 

gregory

Teheuti said:
Of course he did. I don't think anyone says that he didn't. Sometimes, after the fact, people see things in a work of art that were not intended at the time. It's something that human beings do. No one has to agree with what Angie says. Given what I know of her, she had no intent of conning anyone.

Would you say a people who believe the sun will not rise without their prayers are liars? In human history there have been groups of people who have legislated that everything possible must be done to destroy this misguided form of thinking. The movie Rabbit-Proof Fence was a good example of this.
Indeed it was. A BRILLIANT movie. I can think of a few others. And no, actually, I would never say they were liars. I think they may well even be right. I think almost anything merits at least consideration as a possible basis for belief. Misguided thinking is not necessarily wrong thinking; logically the world has to be flat or everyone in Rabbit-Proof Fence would have fallen off years ago. And when I visit Australia I cannot afford to be thinking about being upside down or I will freak ;) Nothing is what it seems, in many respects.

Are you saying that what is now seen in the deck by people like Duquette is not what was intended when it was created ? I think the occult things that are seen were there from the word go.

Teheuti said:
It may have been fun for Crowley. Too bad he didn't let everyone in on the joke so they could all laugh together like at a comedy club. Many people went home believing his "fun" was the truth, not knowing that others were laughing AT THEM. Was this okay simply because he was Crowley? I'm not condemning him for doing this, I'm just pointing out that he deliberately told lies that would hurt the recipients, for the sake of his own personal pleasure.
Lots of people do that. You should have met my father..... Crowley and he would have got on too well for their meeting up to be a good idea..... :eek:
No - it isn't OK to do things like that to people - but it isn't OK to say that because he did that we can assume that he didn't mean any of what he said. He may well have been a thoroughly nasty person - or just totally lacking in social skills, of course, and thinking everyone was enjoying the joke - but that doesn't mean he wasn't gifted or insightful - or occult !
 

Teheuti

Aeon418 said:
The symbols on the cards are meaningless and arbitrary shapes and colours, waiting for meaning and intention to placed upon them, or so Arrien claims.
I asked where Angie said this.
I was being sarcastic. ;)
So, she never says this. Thank you.

But sarcasm or no, the point still stands because it is the overall theme of Arrien's book.
No wonder you are so upset. You have read something into this book that isn't there at all.

Angie's approach was based on Jung's theory of the collective unconscious and the meaningful repetition of archetypal images and themes across world-wide human cultures.

She writes: "The Tarot is a symbolic map of consciousness and an ancient book of wisdom that reveals to us visually and symbolically the creative ideas and states of consciousness that appear in multiple existence in all cultures. . . . At the time I was deeply influenced by Carl Jung's book Man and His Symbols and began to see the mythological and psychological themes represented in the Tarot."

Of course, none of us have to like or believe Jung's theories, or even Angie's way of applying them. Angie's book is an approach based on, as she acknowledges, the work of Jung, Marie Louise von Franz, Joseph Campbell, Ralph Metzner, Mircea Eliade and Robert Bly.

If you remove Crowley's esotericism from the Thoth what are you left with? 78 pretty pictures that were "seemingly" assembled at random, without any conscious thought behind them. The reasoning behind the careful placement of each and every piece of symbolism has instantly vanished.
Thank you for making clear that this is your own view of what happens if you take away Crowley. If I believed that it would make me angry, too. However, this is the exact opposite of what Angie Arrien says in her book - which is that the symbols do have meaning beyond what Crowley wrote or intended.

I think a core problem here could be this major misunderstanding about Angie's intention in her book.

The trouble is that each card is trying to convey a set of ideas using the language of symbolism. If you throw that language out how do you know what it being said.
Both my and Angie's understanding of a symbol is very different from yours.

I go along with Joseph Campbell, who said: "When you are given a dogma telling precisely what kind of meaning you shall experience in a symbol, explaining what kind of effect it should have upon you, then you are in trouble. This symbol may not have the same meaning for you that it had for a council of Levantine bishops in the fourth century [or for Crowley]. . . . The individual's assent to a definition is not nearly as important as his or her having a spiritual experience by virtue of the influence of the symbol."

This is why it is important to learn the language of symbolism.
Which I don't believe to consist of fixed, dogmatic definitions.

Can you imagine the kind of negative reaction a fundamentalist Christian would have to many of the cards in the deck?
Yes, precisely because they have learned a specific language of symbolism--very close to the one Crowley knew well from growing up with in his own fundamentalist Christian family.

The multitude of symbols used in the Thoth is an encoded and highly concentrated language of symbol and colour . . . a clearly defined language
Then they are no longer symbols, but rather signs. Symbols have many possible referents. Signs have fixed meanings.

2)Arrien's insistence that Harris be acknowledge as the sole creator of the Thoth literally reeks of agenda.
Of course she had an agenda. Any writer who says they don't are probably lying.

Here are Angie's oh-so-damning words.

"I was most drawn, of all the decks available at the time, to the Thoth deck which was designed by Aleister Crowley and painted by Lady Frieda Harris. . . . I read Crowley's book that went with this deck and decided that its esotericism in meaning hindered, rather than enhanced, the use of the visual portraitures that Lady Frieda Harris had executed. I instantly felt that a humanistic and universal explanation of these symbols was needed so that the value of Tarot could be used in modern times as a reflective mirror of internal guidance which could be externally applied. . . . I feel these visual symbols stand by themselves because of the artist's integrity and commitment to their being representative of something greater, 'God's Picture Book [quote from Harris].' It is Crowley's interpretation of these symbols, regardless of his reputation, with which I have issue; and it was this issue which led me to interpret these symbols from a cross-cultural and universal view honoring their visual execution." p. 13.

I understand this as saying that Angie took issue with there being a necessity for esotericism in getting something out of the symbols. She believed that the Thoth deck symbols could be read in an other-than-esoteric way - specifically, as cross-cultural psychological symbols (archetypes from the collective unconscious). Her book merely offers this alternate perspective.

In essence she asked: What do these symbols tell us if we strip away the esotericism and look at them purely as symbols and archetypes from the collective unconscious reflecting myths and images that have appeared across many cultures?

I see it purely as an alternate reading of the deck—not as a demand that we discount Crowley—but, rather, asking what can be seen if we do ignore Crowley? Is there anything else? Do real 'true' symbols transcend a single, fixed definition?

As I see it, we might as ask, "If Crowley's book were lost (along with other esoteric texts), would future generations be able to find anything meaningful in these 78 images? Would this deck still offer something capable of guiding our thoughts and actions?

I see this as an eminently worthy intention, though not the only one to consider when learning the Thoth deck.

If we take away all references to the middle class and New Age, etc., what are we left with in your criticism?

The only way to kill the Thoth is to remove Crowley.
Would Crowley have wanted the deck to be no more than this? Or would he have wanted it to work again if dug up some day from a deeply buried time capsule with no explanatory work to go with it?

Perhaps these two different beliefs form the real dividing line. Did both Crowley and Harris infuse something into the Thoth deck that can/will transcend Crowley's own stated thoughts about it, or not?

Mary
 

Teheuti

gregory said:
it isn't OK to say that because he did [tell jokes] that we can assume that he didn't mean any of what he said.
I didn't know this was an issue. The original reference was to Scion asking
What kind of person teaches people falsehoods willfully? It's pathological.
I pointed out that the whole Golden Dawn system was based on deliberate falsehoods and that Crowley also used them. I don't have a problem with my tradition coming out of this. Do you?

Mary
 

Teheuti

gregory said:
Whatever, the Book of Thoth is a LOT more interesting and meaty than Arrien's book. . . . I came to it from looking at it and realising that there was a hell of a lot to it which merited study.
I agree with this completely. Angie's book and classes were extremely helpful to me in an entirely different way.

Mary
 

Teheuti

gregory said:
Are you saying that what is now seen in the deck by people like Duquette is not what was intended when it was created ?
Not specifically, although I'm sure I could find something questionable if I looked hard enough. I was referring to Arrien (which is what this is all about). I believe she saw things in the deck that were not specifically intended when it was created. Have you been reading the whole discussion? I am getting the feeling that you've come in part way through and think I am arguing something very different then I am.

Mary
 

Lillie

Can I ask what the row is about?

Are people saying that the book is just crap, or not crap, depending on their opinion, or are they saying it should never have been written, or shouldn't be allowed?

Cos one is just individual opinion and taste, and no one ever agrees on that. And the other is censorship.

People can write what the hell they like, it's a free world.
It's up to individuals to decide whether the book is useful to them or not.
Caveat emptor, or however you spell it, and tough tittie to anyone who didn't do their research before they paid their hard earned money for a book that wasn't what they wanted.

I read a book once, it said the world was hollow and we were living inside it.
Now that really is crap.