Opening of the Key Spread

OperaPhantom u_u

OOTK: What’s so ceremonial anyway?

Hello there

I’m not exactly new to all this Tarot stuff, though recently I’ve been reading a better explanation than the one is made in Liber T about the Opening of the Key spread, and as result it’s beginning to make sense to me. Little is what I know about the Golden Dawn’s system of magick, so I wonder why this OOTK spread and the Elemental Dignities rules are considered to be ceremonial in their nature (apart from “invoke suitably” as it is reading in the text).

Anybody here can explain this to me?
 

rif

What do you mean about it being considered ceremonial in nature? Are you reading about this spread over at Supertarot?

The OOTK was originally considered ceremonial, I suppose, because it was treated as a sacred act of divination. It wasn't intended to be used for an afternoon quickie spread on a trivial matter. Rather it was meant to be used in the course of a full ritual procedure whose outcome was successful divination on a matter. There is also the sense that the OOTK is intended to mirror the universe and adhere to occult principals; so all the card counting is based on underlying principals, and more importantly, each of the five sections correspond or are ruled by some aspect of the divine. For example, the first operation is under the four Aces and Princesses, the last under the expressions of the ten sephira (and the cards laid out accordingly). Elemental dignities (EDs) were part of this, allowing for elements to affect the cards' interactions. Although the original documentation does not call them EDs.

In reality I gather the order members only used the first operation (the initial horseshoe), presumably without any ceremonial ritual. Modern use of this spread tends to the same, outside of dedicated Golden Dawn members.

Paul Hughes-Barlow at supertarot and in his book talks about the OOTK as being a magical act, and has developed and refined this spread accordingly. One could argue that it's no longer OOTK, but a modernization and specialization of the OOTK; in the same way that I think original OOTK techniques were a refinement and specialization of other card-reading techniques.

But Paul makes the case that the OOTK allows one to perceive reality and analyze it fluidly with respect to many variables. I phrase it as allowing one to "surf the probabilities" by perceiving the available aspects of the querent's situation. Paul goes further in the belief that a situation changes just by being observed. The OOTK as he practices it, and all the interactions shown by the card interplay (the elemental dignities, or EDs), thus enable a large amount of insight at all levels of the situation in a reading, and awakening consciousness or intuition or whatever in the reader during the process.

Does that make sense?
 

OperaPhantom u_u

I see. Thanks, it makes sense.

It’s just that I’ve seen various references concerning this “ceremonial nature” of the OOTK and elemental dignities. These last ones are very useful to me. Then I see these references so they make me wonder about it.

nisaba said:
There are many different strands in magic, but they tend to divide into two major groups, the chthonic and the ceremonial. Elemental dignities sounds as if it should really belong with the first, but trust me, it is pure Ceremonial. I'm a bit of a chthonic, folk-magic, earth-centred kinda gal. I tried using dignities in my own Tarot use for quite a while, and it just never added anything for me or seemed to have any use. So I stopped. That doesn't mean it's not a very useful system for other types of readers with different types of energies, though.
 

Gareth

I finally managed to complete this spread in it's entirety. I have to say it was well worth the effort. For a couple of reasons firstly in order to do it I had to learn a lot of the corrospondences and the astrology and Kabbalah involved it gave me a reason and a frame work for doing so. Much of it becomes easy to remeber some how. I also wrote down my results it took me about two and a bit hours but the feedback I recieved was more definite than any of my previous readings.

I feel there are prinicples in this system that I will use even in quick readings.

I did find it hard and had to use a combo of books to learn it. Probably GD-R was the clearest with the first section of super tarot

Many thanks to all who posted in this thread I'm excited and feel I've made real progress.


Cheers
G
 

thorhammer

Good for you, Gareth! Bravo! One day when I'm feeling intrepid I will do that as well - I think I've got enough reference material to get me through the sticky points like Houses and stuff.

I'm glad to hear that you think it was worth the effort.

At 2.5hours, though, it's not something you'd do for just any sitter, is it!

\m/ Kat
 

guy bannik

I'm currently working on the card counting part

3 for aeon, hanged man and fool
9 for planetary major arcana
12 for zodiac major arcana

7 for princesses (not certain about this one)
4 for all other courcards (not certain about this one)

5 or 11 for aces (when is it five, when 11?)
numerical equivalent for all other cards.
can someone help me with the courtcard counting and with aces?
 

tarotreader2007

guy bannik said:
I'm currently working on the card counting part

3 for aeon, hanged man and fool
9 for planetary major arcana
12 for zodiac major arcana

7 for princesses (not certain about this one)
4 for all other courcards (not certain about this one)

5 or 11 for aces (when is it five, when 11?)
numerical equivalent for all other cards.
can someone help me with the courtcard counting and with aces?

I was also having some difficulty in seeing where these seemingly arbitrary numbers came from. I searched literally EVERYWHERE I could make sense of and ended up emailing Paul and asking him 3 questions: Where do the court associations come from, also why Earth was left out of the Majors elemental attributions, and what about the aces. My response only tells the princess associations for the courts and have asked him to address the other courts (perhaps he forgot that since i asked so many questions, don't we all! :) )

The response:

"There is a certain arbitrary nature to the counting attributes.

Aces represent the Root of the Powers of the Elements, which is Space or Akasha, the 5th element, hence 5. In the Book of Thoth Crowley gives 11 for the Aces, as that is the number of Magick and Change.

The Princesses represent the Seven Palaces, reflecting their nature in Malkuth.

The Major Arcana are related to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and they break down to 12 zodiac signs, 7 planets and 3 'Mother' letters. Earth is not represented."

**The other court cards he said he thinks are are based off of kabbalistic reasons**

Peace and Love
 

guy bannik

I've been using the OotK a lot last few days and tried out a row of things.
here's what questions I've come up with:

in the past pile (fire) all water cards are always weakend. So there's no strong love in the past (cups two) possible at all. That's a bit odd. Next to that this problem obviously occurs always whan elements weaken eachother. Good ideas leading to productive work (ace of swords and eight of disks) is also not a strong combination. I asume my insight in some way flawed. can you point out my misperception?

Where lie the priorities in reading? The counting and pairing can lead to quite different readings then the ED's. Basically you get about three to four reading in the OotK. How do you prioritiese them?

With these asumptions, meanwhile reading Duquette and having worked through the supeertarotlessons I find the OotK somehwat fuzzy. Can you help me clarify my perception. I respond well to practical tips.

Much obliged
 

thorhammer

guy bannik said:
in the past pile (fire) all water cards are always weakend. So there's no strong love in the past (cups two) possible at all. That's a bit odd.
I'm not familiar with the idea of the Fire pack being assigned the Past of a question. Where did you find that reference? Not being confrontational, merely curious :)
Next to that this problem obviously occurs always whan elements weaken eachother. Good ideas leading to productive work (ace of swords and eight of disks) is also not a strong combination. I asume my insight in some way flawed. can you point out my misperception?
I'd never thought about it like that, to tell you the truth; which is almost certainly a failure of my imagination, not your perception. But could you elaborate on your example of the Ace of Swords/8 of Disks a little? In your mind, how are they located? In the same pack, or next to one another in the Four Aces operation?
Where lie the priorities in reading? The counting and pairing can lead to quite different readings then the ED's. Basically you get about three to four reading in the OotK. How do you prioritiese them?
I use the Four Aces part of the operation the most, as I find that it answers most of the questions straight away. For the sake of my sanity, when considering the counted cards I leave EDs out of it and read them like a story (and treat each one as independent of the cards on either side UNLESS one or both of those cards is a counted card - does that make sense?). When pairing, I consider the elemental dignities within the pair and let that mitigate the combined meaning of the pair; let's look at the pairing of the 10 of Swords (Lord of Ruin) and Hierophant as an example. The Hierophant, as an earthy card (attributed to Virgo) would weaken the 10 of Swords. The 10 would have less effect on the Hierophant, imo, because of the relative "importance" of the two cards. So in terms of interpretation, I'd say that in the matter in question, the querent would do well to "toe the line" to avoid being destroyed (financially, perhaps) by his or her bad decisions and reckless behaviour.
With these asumptions, meanwhile reading Duquette and having worked through the supeertarotlessons I find the OotK somehwat fuzzy. Can you help me clarify my perception. I respond well to practical tips.
I don't find it fuzzy; more overwhelming. Perhaps you could work with it in chunks? Decide before beginning the operation that you'll be only using the pairing, or the counting, or the Four Aces. Taken in isolation, they might become clearer. When you've practiced only one aspect for a while, it should become more concrete in your mind how it fits into the whole.

\m/ Kat
 

Macavity

thorhammer said:
Perhaps you could work with it in chunks? Decide before beginning the operation that you'll be only using the pairing, or the counting, or the Four Aces. Taken in isolation, they might become clearer. When you've practiced only one aspect for a while, it should become more concrete in your mind how it fits into the whole.
Seems like it's seven years since I last posted on this thread, so for a bit of fun...

My belief is that the OOTK technique is designed to be "modular and extensible". (Before these modern buzz words arrived! LOL). At one end of a continuum of techniques lies "conventional" Tarot reading, with it's in-depth intuition, detailed interpretation of card images / symbols, for some SUBSET of [dealt] cards - In the context of specific, pre-defined spread "meanings". At the other end, lies the OOTK, which uses the WHOLE deck, elemental dignities (basis etc.) and brief, deck-independent (significantly!) "meanings" - Derived from rank/suit, GD astrology etc. To remind the user, Crowley conveniently includes these on the cards. :p

Although not being party to the GD's secrets, it appears these techniques were used to some extent / purpose? Personally, I find it quite easy to make mistakes in card counting etc., so one wonders, re. practicality, in any "live" situation. But now, such problems are remedied by getting a computer to un-erringly do the hard work! With such possibilities, one can (I did!) quite easily explore the extensions mooted e.g. by Paul Hughes-Barlow: Frequently-counted or "un-aspected" cards etc. Whether these ideas were considered / used at the turn of the 19/20th century might be questioned? But these ideas DO seem thoroughly in the spirit Kabbalah and Astrology. Being a "Feline", I have no objection to (enthusiasm for!) CAT - Computer Aided Tarot. :D

Despite the "high church" image of Ceremonial Magick, I sense Crowley was a pragmatic reader - Maybe something of the (scientific) experimentalist too! He talks of "stories", he suggests one might even "abandon" [OOTK] readings - If they make no sense. Maybe the ultimate in (much needed) flexibility... :cool:

For another bit of fun, one might ponder the significance of these in-depth studies of OOTK card strings. Given the right (ceremonial magick) treatment, might these unusual card sequences unlock some "Stargate" to... something? I have not yet gained the motivation / initiation to try... But who knows. ;)

<wibble>