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Book of Thoth Study Group #9: Tarot and the Holy Qabalah
Zephyros
The Tarot and the Holy Qabalah
It always amused me that he described it as "a very simple subject." One could argue that its basic premise really is simple and once grasped is a revelation but there seems to be a joke here I'm not getting.
Anyway, here he gives a general description of the Tree of Life and a basic justification for the Sephirothic structure. Why is it called the Naples Arrangement?
Just a few scrambled thoughts jotted down... and if anyone is completely new to Qabalah, there are several very good books on the subject as well as some very good threads and tutorials in the Kabbalah forum.
The Ain is one of the most perplexing Qabalistic ideas. I think this is because there is no possibility of experiencing it. Down here at Malkuth we can at least make guesses as to what's "above" us because it all filters down. But a negative kind of Nothing, that yet is, that's beyond the limits by several levels.
Next there's Ain Sof, a Nothing that "is." There is in fact nothing. Then there's the "Limitless Light," which is also a bit difficult for me to understand. Is the Spirit? I guess it's the opposite of Keter as the contracted point without form or circumference, while the Limitless Light is boundless expanse but still without form? One would become the other, it would seem.
Finally, Crowley describes Keter, the Point. It is infinitely contracted yet having no form or end (these things not having been invented yet) it holds the whole universe inside it. It symbolizes the state of Being, nothing else, pure unity.
Chochma and Binah are created both simultaneously as well as one from the other. The Self contemplates itself and so the line is created. For a line to exist it must have space in which to go from one point to the other and so we have Binah giving Chochma an end-point. And so we have the Triangle and the gorgeous simplicity of the Supernals.
I quoted up until here from the book because this is stiff stuff. The idea here is that the ideas conveyed in the Supernal Triangle are so utterly simple and abstract as to be very basic laws of the universe but not developed enough to do anything with.
And their rules really do rule the entire Tree. The Pillar of Mercy always goes outward in its energy just like the boundless energy of Chochma. The Pillar of Severity always limits and engulfs the energy absorbed from the Pillar of Mercy just like the limitless receptiveness of Binah.
[/quote]THE NEXT issue is the Holy Qabalah. This is a very simple subject, and presents no difficulties to the ordinary intelligent mind. There are ten numbers in the decimal system; and there is a genuine reason why there should be ten numbers, and only ten, in a numerical system which is not merely mathematical, but philosophical. It is necessary, at this point, to introduce the “Naples Arrangement”. But first of all, one must understand the pictorial representation of the Universe given by the Holy Qabalah. (See diagram.)
It always amused me that he described it as "a very simple subject." One could argue that its basic premise really is simple and once grasped is a revelation but there seems to be a joke here I'm not getting.
Anyway, here he gives a general description of the Tree of Life and a basic justification for the Sephirothic structure. Why is it called the Naples Arrangement?
“THE NAPLES ARRANGEMENT” The Qabalists expanded this idea of Nothing, and got a second kind of Nothing which they called “Ain Soph”-“Without Limit”. (This idea seems not unlike that of Space.) They then decided that in order to interpret this mere absence of any means of definition, it was necessary to postulate the Ain Soph Aur-“Limitless Light”. By this they seem to have meant very much what the late Victorian men of science meant, or thought that they meant, by the Luminiferous Ether. (The Space-Time Continuum?) All this is evidently without form and void; these are abstract conditions, not positive ideas. The next step must be the idea of Position. One must formulate this thesis: If there is anything except Nothing, it must exist within this Boundless Light; within this Space; within this inconceivable Nothingness, which cannot exist as Nothing-ness, but has to be conceived of as a Nothingness composed of the annihilation of two imaginary opposites. Thus appears The Point, which has “neither parts nor magnitude, but only position”.
Just a few scrambled thoughts jotted down... and if anyone is completely new to Qabalah, there are several very good books on the subject as well as some very good threads and tutorials in the Kabbalah forum.
The Ain is one of the most perplexing Qabalistic ideas. I think this is because there is no possibility of experiencing it. Down here at Malkuth we can at least make guesses as to what's "above" us because it all filters down. But a negative kind of Nothing, that yet is, that's beyond the limits by several levels.
Next there's Ain Sof, a Nothing that "is." There is in fact nothing. Then there's the "Limitless Light," which is also a bit difficult for me to understand. Is the Spirit? I guess it's the opposite of Keter as the contracted point without form or circumference, while the Limitless Light is boundless expanse but still without form? One would become the other, it would seem.
Finally, Crowley describes Keter, the Point. It is infinitely contracted yet having no form or end (these things not having been invented yet) it holds the whole universe inside it. It symbolizes the state of Being, nothing else, pure unity.
But position does not mean anything at all unless there is something else, some other position with which it can be compared. One has to describe it. The only way to do this is to have another Point, and that means that one must invent the number Two, making possible The Line.
But this Line does not really mean very much, because there is yet no measure of length. The limit of knowledge at this stage is that there are two things, in order to be able to talk about them at all. But one cannot say that they are near each other, or that they are far apart; one can only say that they are distant. In order to discriminate between them at all, there must be a third thing. We must have another point. One must invent The Surface; one must invent The Triangle. In doing this, incidentally, appears the whole of Plane Geometry. One can now say, “A is nearer to B than A is to C”.
Chochma and Binah are created both simultaneously as well as one from the other. The Self contemplates itself and so the line is created. For a line to exist it must have space in which to go from one point to the other and so we have Binah giving Chochma an end-point. And so we have the Triangle and the gorgeous simplicity of the Supernals.
But, so far, there is no substance in any of these ideas. In fact there are no ideas at all) except the idea of Distance and perhaps the idea of Between-ness, and of Angular Measurement; so that plane Geometry, which now exists in theory, is after all completely inchoate and incoherent. There has been no approach at all to the conception of a really existing thing. No more has been done than to make definitions, all in a purely ideal and imaginary world.
I quoted up until here from the book because this is stiff stuff. The idea here is that the ideas conveyed in the Supernal Triangle are so utterly simple and abstract as to be very basic laws of the universe but not developed enough to do anything with.
And their rules really do rule the entire Tree. The Pillar of Mercy always goes outward in its energy just like the boundless energy of Chochma. The Pillar of Severity always limits and engulfs the energy absorbed from the Pillar of Mercy just like the limitless receptiveness of Binah.
