DuQuette?

Why would one wish to "worship" Crowley, as has been implied in this thread? I personally don't worship the man but am leaning towards a belief that he may have indeed been a prophet. This requires much more personal study and reflection. Whatever the outcome I'm sure it won't be one of worship. Regarding DuQuette, I feel part one of his book gives some very informative information regarding the importance, symbolism and history of the Thoth deck. I personally didn't pay much attention to the details of his comments on each of the 78 cards. I was certainly not offended by any of his comments. Crowley can be a touchy subject for some and their is definitely a WIDE range of opinions about the man.

I've read DuQuette's book, and he is quite um...flowery i'd say. The book is thorough, and it is obvious he knows his material. I think perhaps, that his style is more intuitive than academic, he doesn't read as objective. His style is quite personal.

He cares about the subject matter.

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As an aside--Joseph Campbell said the same thing regarding Jehovah--

"the trouble with Jehovah is that he thinks he's God"

And i believe the meaning of that statement was to illustrate the difference between the image of God and Ain Soph.

Cosmotaroist said:

So where did men and women come from?

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The Dream of Ungud - the Rainbow Serpent.

interesting!

ravenest said:

The Dream of Ungud - the Rainbow Serpent.

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In fact if we go with a worldview where there is now God, we'll have to acknowledge the "big void" or the "feminine Matrix", something like that...

that's the kind of knowledge that Buddhist try to make people understand buy he, you know how difficult it is to change a fixed belief system ;-)

Light
Omeada

The snake - serpent - is an ancient feminine symbol, a symbol of the Goddess. So the Rainbow Serpent is not so far away from the Feminine Matrix. And to me, certainly, the Universe card in the Thoth - with its serpent winding round and giving a form of birth to the dancer inside, looks like a womb.

Oh - and DuQuette is great. He likes Crowley, his book isn't critical - but neither is it hagiographical. Simply an attempt to understand and explain the Crowley-Harris Thoth using the paradigms - but simplified - of its creator.

Crowley was a real iconoclast, by the way. He loathed the Church and Christianity, and what he considered to be its life-threatening morality and morbidity - but he did not loathe Christ. And neither does DuQuette, if I remember correctly.

Cosmotaroist said:

So where did men and women come from?

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Organisms must adapt to their environment to survive. The environment can be unpredictable, but the life-cycle is periodic (i.e. predictable).

Single-celled organisms can simply divide in two - clones - and continue in their environment (so long as it remains steady enough for them).

More complex organisms, which live longer and suffer greater environmental changes, have adapted differently (this is to ignore the reasons for complexity in the first place). The genes create two sexes, which combine to form a new organism, instead of a clone which is adapted to only one kind of environment. During the gestation period, the new combination can adapt to external environmental changes, which are conveyed from the outside by the mother, and hence evolve (=adapt).

The means of attraction must be pleasure, the most basic urge, or no species would survive.

its a bit of a moot case really Christianity denounces tarot as an act of clairvoyance, and magicians as evil (and we all know what happens to evil people) so even taking DuQUette's example of the demigurge as a swipe at christainity, it's not nearly as bad as the swipes christianity has made against non-Christians.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but he was just using an example that a lot of people could relate to, and did so in a tongue in cheek way.

Deal.

MikeTheAltarboy said:

Since the Thoth tarot is based on Kabbalah, and since he's explaining it in those terms, you just need to allow him to do that. JHVH isn't the name of *God Proper*; it's the name of him *as he acts through Chesed.* He's not saying that the Christian God isn't God; he's saying that the fullness of God isn't displayed under that name. When you read the Hebrew scriptures, you can see a difference in the way "The Lord" operates, and the way "God" does. We say it's the same being, but the kabbalists say that distinct names were used for a reason.

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Good stuff, Mike. There are different sources for the OT, Priestly/Elohist (and what's the other one?) that treat the God concept differently. Hence the repetitiousness of the Torah - they all get their space. In the Creation myths this is apparent, creatio ex nihilo- creation from nothing - versus God creating form from existing matter. There's also a story where an OT character meets God walking down a road and has a conversation with him. We go from that to "No man shall see me and live." Then there's the story in The Gospel of Judas where Jesus laughs at the disciples for saying grace to the "wrong god" (Demiurge?). (I've got to get that book!)

IMHO Duquette is speaking from Crowley's theory of spiritual evolution - who is definitely not the only one to address this, as you know, and I fully agree with all of that, without necessarily buying into many of Lon Milo's conclusions. His swashbuckling atheism has a slightly hollow ring. He may be making a mild trace of Crowley's being outrageous for effect, no? There's some rather self-indulgent "show-biz personality" here. I don't know much of DQ's personal history, but he could be waxing profanely from the truly unenviable position of one who's never seen his life pass before his eyes. He may never have had to say "I don't believe in grace, but if there is such a thing, could I have some right about now?" That's all right - there's more in Thoth than in even AC's and DQ's science.

~B~

its a bit of a moot case really Christianity denounces tarot as an act of clairvoyance, and magicians as evil

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AbstractConcept - this is not strictly true. It would be more accurate to say "Some christians" rather than Christianity.

"Christianity" has no views on tarot *per se*. 2nd, only some tarot readers would claim clairvoyance as their method - others would simply read what the cards say. In any case, clairvoyance is not unilaterally condemned - it's concidered a "spiritual gift" if used in the right way. Psychic phenomenon is more addressed in works addressed to monks by monks, because historically they're the ones more likely to be engaged in active spiritual development. And finally, three magicians read the stars and saw the comming of Christ - they're revered every year at Epiphany. And it's thanks to them that astrology was fairly well accepted and regarded as a "natural science" throughout the renaissance.