Tarot of the Sephirot and Black Magic ??

novenovembre

What does the term "black magic" mean to you? I've been studying the occult since the middle 1970s, a fair few years now <smile> and to me and most serious occultists it means magic that is indigenous to black-skinned races. Since the late 1980s I've learnt a lot about Australian Aboriginal Magic, much of it very gentle and all of it based around ensuring life and growth - it is black magic. Conversely, the magic I practice, which comes from a Western European tradition is White Magic, even if I choose to Bind or Curse people or situations.

Magic designed to enhance tends to be referred to as "walking the right-hand path", and magic designed to limit is called "walking the left-hand path".


So ... how does he know? Does the card have a moving picture? And no ... my copy of the RW does not have a moving picture.

If your friend knows anything of the occult (positive or negative), he's know that in the Northern Hemisphere, clockwise is Deosil (following the path of the sun, positive) and anti-clockwise is widdershins (against the flow, or negative). He's also know that in the Southern Hemisphere this reverses. The coriolis effect, a natural meteorological phenomenon on which this belief is based, also does not and cannot take effect on things smaller than about fourteen metres in diameter, too.


You have met the devil? Do tell. Red is the colour of blood circulation and therefore of healing. It is the colour of Fire and therefore of warmth, energy and protection. How is that negative?


Horns symbolise animal life, the vigour and energy of livestock, and the gift of food they give to their human tribe. How is this negative? Shouldn't an Emperor be able to ensure that the population he rules have sufficient protein?


Nakedness represents innocence and purity, having nothing to hide and no reason to hide it. How is this sinister?


And you get to see her upright. Seeing yourself as you really are (as she would be seeing herself) is absolutely crucial to positive personal development. How is this sinister?


In manufacturing pharmacy, you often pour two or more measured liquids into a joint receptacle to produce the final blend. In fact, pouring substance A from a test tube meant for it into a test tube meant only for substance B, will contaminate the B-test tube to the point where even after sterilisation it can't be used.

And that's from modern pharmacy, which grew out of alchemy. How many years' study does your friend have in either discipline, pharmacy or alchemy?


Look like, to whom?

We are water-based life-forms, and live on a Watery planet. The origins of life have to do with the blending of different organic chemicals in primordial waters. But they would never have been given a kick into actual reproducing life without electricity and geothermal heat - elemental Fire. Water needs Fire to become Life. How is that sinister?


<smile> If it was a little white book inside the actual Tarot deck and not an accompanying book written by the creator of the deck, let me tell you, these are rarely written by the creator of the decks, usually by hack copy-writers employed by publishers who know even less than most of us. LWBs are famous for it.

I would dearly love to hear your friend's credentials.

Again, read my previous posts for the points all of you raised, which I won't repeat....now, let me be a simpleton, as I obviously cannot compete with you in black or white or red magic, or in tarot for that matter....neither do I want to....I was a baby when you began to study these things, anyway....and I have a passionate but very modest interest and knowledge in this field....so, what is black magic ? What most of us think it evokes, right or wrong. Of course you are free to practice whatever magic you want, and call it what you like....call it yellow magic if you wish....
The cards don't have a moving picture, no, but the snake and the other figure in the RW, and the feet in the Sephirot, clearly show which way the wheel is turning.
Have I met the Devil ? Not that I am aware of....but with all due respect, I think you know very well what I meant....classic, traditional iconography-which is probably crap to you, but nevertheless is evocative to 99 per cent of the population of certain concepts- works so that certain images awaken certain thoughts in people, much like the dog in the experiment hearing a bell and going to his bowl to eat....I think someone who uses a certain imagery, knows very well what he is evoking....just like the flames underneath Temperance, to answer senecar, I dare anyone to claim that, when they see flames like those, they wouldn't think of hell rather than alchemical fire of anything else....
Nakedness in the Star was not the point I made. Of course there is nothing wrong about that.
The little white books iside the deck when you buy them are all crap, of course, but I wonder why, of all the decks I've come across and all the booklets I skimmed through, NEVER had I come across that explanation for the Devil....are you saying it was the hack copy writer's joke ?
 

Grigori

Again, not an expert there.....but, if I remember correctly, I read somewhere that even Crowley's mother was well known for being into black magic rituals...and that, when she was pregnant with him, she referred to him as the son of the beast....and claimed that he was going to be extremely powerful in that field....historical malicious gossip ? Maybe...Given some time, I might find the source....

There is no basis in fact there. Crowley's mother was a devout religious woman who jokingly referred to her naughty 6 year old child who wouldn't eat all his greens as 'The Great Beast' in a bit of humour for his normal childhood shenanigans. It was a reference to a character in the Bible, just about the only book in their house and the only thing Crowley was permitted to read for most of his childhood. His father was an evangelical representative of the church (their particular sect doesn't have priests, but in another sect he might of been called that). Crowley adopted the title again later in life as part of his rebelling against the ultra-conservative Christian values of his family and the repressive morality of the Victorian Era.

novenovembre said:
As far as the Golden Dawn is concerned, there are those who say that Crowley himself, was into black magic...I do not know this subject very well, though I've read about it, but I've heard about it a few times...I haven't known this guy for long, but he is particulary into alchemy, so I find it hard to believe that what he said about that had no foundation...in alchemical processes, apparently, you never pour two elements into a third container, but one directly into the other, exactly like it shows in the RW Temperance. but again, even so, obviously it doesn't mean the image was deliberately portraying something evil....

Crowley said:
To practice black magic you have to violate every principle of science, decency and intelligence. You must be obsessed with an insane idea of the importance of the petty object of your wretched and selfish desires.

I have been accused of being a ‘black magician’. No more foolish statement was ever made about me. I despise the thing to such an extent that I can hardly believe in the existence of people so debased and idiotic to practice it.

In Paris, and even in London, there are misguided people who are abusing their priceless spiritual gifts to obtain petty and temporary advantages through these practices.

The Black Mass is a totally different matter. I could not celebrate it if I wanted to, for I am not a consecrated priest of the Christian Church.

I think your friend is either pulling your leg or a little bit eccentric. Either way if a deck disturbs you this much, its probably best to avoid it :)
 

nisaba

<sigh> You believe whatever you want to. But you'll never convince me that the Earth is flat - I've seen the hills with my own eyes!

I think your friend is very superstitious and very bound up in his fears, and you've bought that wholesale, and really don't feel inclined to look at any actual facts. That is your choice and your right.

And Grigori is absolutely right about Crowley's background and his childhood - there's a wealth of documentation about it. In fact, reading the various sources, you get the picture of a man who never found love, security or a sense of safety in his childhood, so he dealt with it by being "naughty", and as he got older, he decided that rather than show his vulnerability to people, he'd crank up the "naughty" to "evil" and scare people away from looking at him and his neediness too closely. He is to be pitied, not feared.
 

novenovembre

There is no basis in fact there. Crowley's mother was a devout religious woman who jokingly referred to her naughty 6 year old child who wouldn't eat all his greens as 'The Great Beast' in a bit of humour for his normal childhood shenanigans. It was a reference to a character in the Bible, just about the only book in their house and the only thing Crowley was permitted to read for most of his childhood. His father was an evangelical representative of the church (their particular sect doesn't have priests, but in another sect he might of been called that). Crowley adopted the title again later in life as part of his rebelling against the ultra-conservative Christian values of his family and the repressive morality of the Victorian Era.





I think your friend is either pulling your leg or a little bit eccentric. Either way if a deck disturbs you this much, its probably best to avoid it :)

That' absolutely not what I read, but I'll dig it out....I'm not defending one thesis or another, but just discussing it with people who surely are more knoledgeable than me in this matter-not hard to be more knoledgeable than me on this...-And, just to play devil's advocate (!) people who are brought up in extremely religious, rigid environments, are the most prone to bend the other way.....that's not just me saying it....Anyway, to call a child the Great Beast, no less than a Bible quotation, because he refused to eat his veggies....well, could easily have turned him into a worshipper of the Devil....!
And whatever he was doing, my friend was most certainly not joking......
It goes without saying that I never used that deck even long before my friend told me about the black magic stuff....just like I never used the Crowley, long before I read about his supposed black magic background....
 

novenovembre

<sigh> You believe whatever you want to. But you'll never convince me that the Earth is flat - I've seen the hills with my own eyes!

I think your friend is very superstitious and very bound up in his fears, and you've bought that wholesale, and really don't feel inclined to look at any actual facts. That is your choice and your right.

And Grigori is absolutely right about Crowley's background and his childhood - there's a wealth of documentation about it. In fact, reading the various sources, you get the picture of a man who never found love, security or a sense of safety in his childhood, so he dealt with it by being "naughty", and as he got older, he decided that rather than show his vulnerability to people, he'd crank up the "naughty" to "evil" and scare people away from looking at him and his neediness too closely. He is to be pitied, not feared.

If I was determined not to look at the facts I wouldn't be discussing this with you on this forum. You're the one who makes jokes about how the cards have no moving pictures, instead of getting into the merit and evaluating options like cloraspexa and senecar, who clearly know a bit about this stuff, are willing to do.....
If you feel so superior that you can dismiss this by not answering one single point I raised, and just comparing it to the earth being flat,.....well good for you and the hills you can see so neatly.....
 

Sulis

Years ago, a friend came to visit me from Israel, and she asked me what I wanted her to bring me froom there. I had just started getting into tarot, and asked her for an Israeli tarot deck. She didn't know anything about tarot, so she bought what they advised her in the shop, the Tarot of the Sephirot. I didn't like the deck, it was reminescent of the Crowley, which I had always found a bit sinister, but even more so....I never used it, but kept it because it was a present. The other day I was showing it to a friend who studies exoteric science, and I was shocked when he told me that in the cards there was a lot of black magic symbolism. In particular, here's some of the main things he noticed :

This was the biggest detail : the Wheel of Fortune turns clockwise, whereas it is supposed to turn anti-clockwise, as in the RW.

The emperor looks like the Devil, he wears a red cloak and has horns-a capricorn's head, or something more sinister ...?

In the Star, there's a naked woman looking into a pool of water, and you see her image reflected, so that you see her image upside down.

Temperance is pouring two vases both of which seem to contain water into a third....if it's supposed to be alchemy, it doesn't work like that anyway; it works as in the RW, you pour one element into the other, not in a third container, to avoid contamination. Also, underneath Temperance, there are what look very clearly like the flames of hell.

I became curious, and for the first time, I read the booklet that came with the deck....the explanation of the Devil, which shows, in its own words, " a jolly devil with two naked human supplicants ", the divinatory meaning goes : " informed commitment, choice, perceptiveness, ironic wisdom. Having a sense of humour, being able to see the spiritual truth behind the facade of appearences.

Well....has anybody got any knowledge to comment on this ?
Thank you....

From what you say your friend said here I'd come to the conclusion that your friend thinks he knows more about the occult and alchemy than he actually does.
There are lots of people out there who read a little on a topic and decide that they know a lot about it... I think your friend's comments show that he knows very little about any of these subjects and that he may be prone to superstition.

Other people in this thread have gone through the points you raised and explained very well why they think they don't have any grounding in fact or in occult or alchemy lore so I won't repeat what's already been said...

I think your friend should probably do some reading on the topics that he thinks he's so knowledgeable about.

And as Gregori has said, if you find a deck disturbing, for whatever reason, it's probably best to avoid it.
 

novenovembre

From what you say your friend said here I'd come to the conclusion that your friend thinks he knows more about the occult and alchemy than he actually does.
There are lots of people out there who read a little on a topic and decide that they know a lot about it... I think your friend's comments show that he knows very little about any of these subjects and that he may be prone to superstition.

Other people in this thread have gone through the points you raised and explained very well why they think they don't have any grounding in fact or in occult or alchemy lore so I won't repeat what's already been said...

I think your friend should probably do some reading on the topics that he thinks he's so knowledgeable about.

And as Gregori has said, if you find a deck disturbing, for whatever reason, it's probably best to avoid it.

I honestly can't see how you feel that you can judge someone you don't know at all, and be so judgemental and dismissive when you know nothing about how many years he studied and what his sources are....and I already said he is not superstitious and takes this subject very seriously.
My comment about not answering my points was directed at Nisaba, who I have known for a while, and appreciate very much, but who sometimes has the habit of throwing in theories and comments which are dismissive of others, and by no means unquestionable, and then disappearing as if she was too superior to explain or discuss what she threw in....and I won't comment what she said about black or white magic further than I already have, because that would open a can of worms that could lead us on very dangerous ground, and could be seriously explosive.....
What I said about Crowley was not my friend's weird idea but what a lot of people say and write, and I never said, neither did he claim, that certain symbols are black magic because he says so, but because there is a literature about them....just like we all know about the swastika changing totally, according to which way it rotates, all symbols can belong to black or white magic, depending on how you use them.
Cloraspexa and senicar are discussing with huge intellectual honesty this subject I raised, and Grigori as well....the rest of the comments seem to me self-righteous indignation.
 

Zephyros

It might be worth mentioning that when many traditions interlock, some things that might mean something according to one don't mean the same things according to another. I study the Golden Dawn, and none of the points mentioned have any connection, as far as I know, with anything that could be construed as black magic. That doesn't mean the same symbols can't mean something else in another tradition. Both the clockwise and counterclockwise swastika has been used by many cultures; its direction does not automatically make it "black," nor does the inverted pentagram denote such a thing.

Still, I can't imagine a Kabbalistic Tarot dealing in black magic; I at least see nothing of the sort in it. However, many peoples' definition of black magic may change. The Abramelin ritual is seen by popular media as a black magic ritual, but that isn't its essence. Instead of playing broken telephone, this person's sources would answer this question better than anything.
 

novenovembre

It might be worth mentioning that when many traditions interlock, some things that might mean something according to one don't mean the same things according to another. I study the Golden Dawn, and none of the points mentioned have any connection, as far as I know, with anything that could be construed as black magic. That doesn't mean the same symbols can't mean something else in another tradition. Both the clockwise and counterclockwise swastika has been used by many cultures; its direction does not automatically make it "black," nor does the inverted pentagram denote such a thing.

Still, I can't imagine a Kabbalistic Tarot dealing in black magic; I at least see nothing of the sort in it. However, many peoples' definition of black magic may change. The Abramelin ritual is seen by popular media as a black magic ritual, but that isn't its essence. Instead of playing broken telephone, this person's sources would answer this question better than anything.

It' Saturday over here....he was out with his family and will get back to me tonight with the references....nobody's playing broken telephone, people have other things to do in life....and answering this forum wasn't exactly an emergency in his view....I apologize for that....
 

novenovembre

I don't know if this was one of his sources, but I know he studied the work of Samael Aun Weor and the gnostic movement....but it may have nothing to do with this, I'll have to check with him.