Escaping from the Tree of Life?

Richard

........In dealing with these daily mundane problems of general public, Tarot readers have to come out of the Tree of Life frame, and try to see the issues from the point of view which is unbiased and same level as normal daily life of modernity.......
Yes, and that's very unfortunate. It shows that he totally misunderstands the ToL. The Tree does not bias one's perspective in any way whatsoever. If it were not applicable to any situation, I would toss it out as a totally useless artifice. What it does is help one see the interrelationships between different factors which are relevant to the situation. In applying it to a Tarot spread, it shows how the cards can impact one another. It does not force any single interpretation of the cards, but it does open up layers of significance which might not be seen otherwise. It can only enhance a reading, not bias it in any particular direction. Hughes-Barlow could use a few lessons from closrapexa.
 

Owl Tarot

Do we have to escape from the ToL? What do you think?


If you want my opinion, I don't think so. If you have done deep studies about the Tree of Life itself, you will know by now that escaping isn't an issue when we are talking about a Map of the Universe in a set of Symbols, which is one of the things the Tree of Life represents, both Macrocosmically and Microcosmically speaking. This may help conceptualize:

The Mystical Qabalah p. 13 said:
Speaking of the method of the Qabalah, one of the ancient Rabbis says that an angel
coming down to earth would have to take on human form in order to converse with men.
The curious symbol-system known to us as the Tree of Life is an attempt to reduce to
diagrammatic form every force and factor in the manifested universe and the soul of man;
to correlate them one to another and reveal them spread out as on a map so that the
relative positions of each unit can be seen and the relations between them traced. In brief,
the Tree of Life is a compendium of science, psychology, philosophy, and theology.
 

ravenest

I just watched it. He starts out by mumbling something incoherent about the fact that you can't really escape the ToL. (Probably someone had tried to correct his misconception.) Then he evasively changes the subject and gets even more incoherent trying to explain the relationship between "consciousness" and tarot reading. I get the impression that he's a little out of his depth with this psycho-philosophical stuff.

Good. I tuned out after 2 minutes as it seemed like rubbish, looks like I saved myself 8 minutes :) < credits life with an extra 8 mins >
 

ravenest

He is. I've watched others of his videos over time, and I always get that same feeling. He just says he is knowledgeable, but when it comes to the nitty-gritty, that's where he often falls apart. Other things he "knows" but fails to understand them in their greater context and significance, especially things relating to GD lore (and of course, Quabalah).

If you want to see some great comedy, try watching his review of the Book of Thoth. He looks as of he's leafing through it for the first time, really he does. I could overlook the mumbling (I stutter myself, I know how speech impediments work) if there was anything of worth behind it, but every time I watch him I find myself banging my head against a wall.

Okay, I had to listen to 1 minute of that ...

Who cares about the mumbling ... its the 'slips' that are the classics! " The Book of Thoth ... I haven't read the .... reviewed the Book of Thoth yet .... " :laugh:

Both of the above videos just display a deplorable lack of understanding of what the Tree is, why it is, and how it works. One does not escape the Tree any more than one escapes a map of the world by taking a walk around the neighborhood. He also seems to have a limited, derogatory view of magicians, and his insistence on that point is just plain weired.

yeah, he is like those people that cant comprehend it, so need to decalre it is worthless ... or worse ... a trap , that we need to escape from ... and cant if we are a magician.

I wonder if he realises one can say the same about Tarot? Tarot readers are stuck in the tarot and cant break out of that .... its very restrictive :)
 

ravenest

I viewed the video twice to understand it more clearly. As I am a newbie in the topic, I find the topic a bit challenge to fully understand.

Might help to get a background on the subject first, to be able to understand any criticism of it ?
What I thought he was saying is that, Tree of Life is a conceptual frame of understanding Mind, Spirits, Universe and Deity, so if Tarot readers are fully thinking and viewing the world and life in Terms of that frame, then she or he would not be able to help out his clients, who comes along for advices and answers for their mundane profane life problems.

Yes, he might be saying that. And it is sooo wrong, if he is. That is a classic case of trying to understand a concept from the old way of thinking ( eg, the idea that a tarot reading can have a relevance to your life) with the current conditioned mind set based on Cartesian Dualism ( tarot ? ... what a load of rubbish ! )

The problem is, that for most who do not think Tarot is a load of rubbish, they still have a Cartesian Dualistic mindset and are using that to try to comprehend how tarot ( and Kabbalah and astrology ) 'works'.

It can be summed up by posing the question that ; is 'mundane' life part of the 'Universe' ? Is the earth and our life here, part of the Universe, or the spirit or the magical world. Is the earth on which we stand and have mundane experience at the heart of the astrological map ?

How could one ever consider it removed in the first place?

This is like asking, can a Priest, Rabbi, , with his head in prayer and the scripture offer solutions to people (of that religion) who have 'mundane life' problems .... of course they can !

In dealing with these daily mundane problems of general public, Tarot readers have to come out of the Tree of Life frame, and try to see the issues from the point of view which is unbiased and same level as normal daily life of modernity.

I feel this is what I got from his talkings, but I am not sure if I had understood him correctly. Any other criticisms, corrections or different opinions would be much appreciated. :)

This is an issue many dont understand. But really it is so simple. Take astrology for example; Do I have to tell you you have a retrograde Ceres transit reflecting off your Neptune Mercury trine ? Or do I tell you that you better examine how you bring intuitive ideas into productivity? depends on the person of course.

Honestly, at times, it seems as if people think we give clients readings in ancient Hebrew !

Kabbalah and astrology, for some, help clarify the readers understanding, the process of that understanding does not have to be relayed to the querent .

Just the same as the doctor does not need to have to explain scientifically why a drug, a treatment or a change of habits may help us. He may have studies intricately why smoking is bad for our lungs, but he doesnt need to tell us about it in the language of the research.
 

Zephyros

The Tree of Life does have relevance in mundane matters, and when used right it can be a powerful tool. Its names and definitions may touch upon the spiritual but as the cliché goes "as above, so below," these are used merely as placeholders for real things. What it describes is a process of an idea unfolding from the abstract to the actual, and that can be the development of the God-potential into Man, or it can describe making a sandwich. It does both of these equally well.
 

Zephyros

For example, Keter is the latent hunger, you're hungry without even realizing it. That divides into the Fool, your actual hunger, and the Magician, your stomach telling your brain that you're hungry. The Fool goes to Chochma, your fully formed hunger, which then connects with the Empress, could be the "empty" feeling potential (what are you hungry for? Sweet? Salty?) which then meets Binah, your fully formed realization of hunger.

What are you going to make? Right now your hunger is still abstract, you're hungry for something but not sure what. Chesed is peering into the fridge and seeing what you have. It ls your raw materials. Geburah is the desire for bread and jam, you really want these things and will do anything to get them. Tiphareth is the ideal state of having all your ingredients, the sandwich is all but made in your mind, and it is absolutely perfect. Netzach is about the actual work in making the sandwich while Hod is you admiring the finished product. You have a sandwich, it may not be the ideal sandwich you dreamt of, but it is good enough. In Yesod you sniff the mouth-watering smell of your sandwich and in Malkuth you finally eat and satisfy your original hunger.

I left out the paths in the second part because I'm lazy, but the same thing can be done with them included. This can also be expanded to include four Trees in four Worlds, but that would perhaps involve much more scrutiny into all aspects of sandwich making, both physical and mental. It all depends on you and how far you want to take the model. The steps can also be interpreted differently, with different Sephiroth/path assignments.

Obviously my example is limited, since I'm just making a sandwich, but proper assimilation ،f the Tree yields wonderful results. You can look "into the past" by identifying where a card comes from and what its sequence is. You can look into the future for where a card is likely to go. This information is given even by cards that aren't in the spread. If you get the Nine of Cups, for example, you instinctively see it having Temperance (of Cups) before it and the Universe (of Cups) after it, and every card is expanded into a story. You can also look at cards as relating to their root causes. In essence, the Nine of Cups is what it is because of the Sun, Temperance and the Star (Emperor?). Coming from those paths, the Nine of Cups adds to itself the influence of the Universe, Judgement and the Moon in its journey to becoming the Ten. Each of these Majors is itself a four-in-one, because they exist in all the Worlds and so you have the Sun of Cups, etc.

So really, you can make wonderful mental models with the Tree and use it to analyze every situation. But ultimately that's all it is, a model, and the reader is the one who successfully translates that model into actualities. Just as a normal person wouldn't give directions to the grocery store by using latitude and longitude, a good esoteric reader goes beyond mere symbolism and really assimilates how the Tree works, and then "wields" it accordingly. Not only is it not restrictive, but study of the Tree actually breaks down mental barriers. When analyzing a situation, it allows you to juggle many different possibilities without becoming a "slave" to any of them. It teaches mental flexibility.

As always, it must be stressed that in the confines of the forum, conversations tend to be theoretical, and this is so that everyone understands each other. People might be throwing jargon around, but there are very real, concrete things behind it. An engineer may talk the talk with his peers, but to a customer they will say "I'll build you a bridge for this much money."
 

foolMoon

Yes, he might be saying that. And it is sooo wrong, if he is. That is a classic case of trying to understand a concept from the old way of thinking ( eg, the idea that a tarot reading can have a relevance to your life) with the current conditioned mind set based on Cartesian Dualism ( tarot ? ... what a load of rubbish ! )

The problem is, that for most who do not think Tarot is a load of rubbish, they still have a Cartesian Dualistic mindset and are using that to try to comprehend how tarot ( and Kabbalah and astrology ) 'works'.

Could you please elaborate more on the old way of thinking and the current conditioned mind set based on Cartesian Dualism?

I used to think Cartesian dualism is purely on Mind and Body separate dualism in Theory of Knowledge and Perception. I can't quite see relevance on that system with Tarot, and also wrong and old way of thinking.
 

foolMoon

The Tree of Life does have relevance in mundane matters, and when used right it can be a powerful tool. Its names and definitions may touch upon the spiritual but as the cliché goes "as above, so below," these are used merely as placeholders for real things. What it describes is a process of an idea unfolding from the abstract to the actual, and that can be the development of the God-potential into Man, or it can describe making a sandwich. It does both of these equally well.

I feel what Paul Hughes Barlow is saying also could be that he believes that OOTK in Tarot reading is so powerful that you don't need any other system to be brought in when reading for mundane fortune telling. So when he thought Tree of Life was no longer needed, he tossed it in favour of OOTK.
 

Zephyros

The Opening of the Key is merely a spread, it is not a method of understanding individual cards. Besides that, it rests on a great amount of Kabbalistic knowledge.