cheekyinchworm said:
And, I was asking myself the question of why there would be such a glaring error in the table on page 278 (just after the notes on Diagram 9), where Aries is attributed to The Star, and Aquarius is attributed to The Emporer. My guesses (and that's all they are) amount to the following:
1. First of all, it IS a glaring error. Is there anyone who seriously maintains this correspondence? So, for those who have some experience, it's obviously wrong, right?
I would definitely say is an error. As far as I can tell, Crowley never gave Aquarius to the Emperor. It is a misprint in the book, or whoever set it wasn't thinking.
The only thing that he changed seemed to be the *letter* attributions of the card. He didn't change the Tree of Life's paths, nor the traditional attributions (other than the Hebrew letter), associated with that card. He didn't say, for instance, that the Hebrew alphabet should go "Aleph, Beth, Gimel, Daleth, Tzaddi, Vav," etc.
But he *might* have said that the order of the Trumps should go "Magician, Priestess, Empress, Star, Hierophant," but the *numbering* would still be "I, II, III, XVII, V." The card gets to keep everything but its place on the Tree of Life.
Thus, the path mediating Chokmah and Tipereth is still Heh - only the card is changed. And the Star (because the Star's attributions other than the letter aren't changed) is Aquarius, so Heh now has Aquarius as well. It's like he's saying "This is the Age of Aquarius; Aquarius has revolved around Pisces and taken its mediating force from the supernal Chokmah." I'm sure that's one of the reasons he liked the change - as far as he was concerned, Tarot's wisdom comes from the Age of Aries, passed through Pisces, and is now emerging in a new Aeon, that of Aquarius.
The path mediating Netzach and Yesod is still Tzaddi, but now the Emperor and Aries occupy that space.
If you notice the color charts on the next few pages of the book, he does exactly what I said above - the paths are labelled "11, 12, 13, 14, 28 (Star), 16" etc. and "26, 27, 15 (Emperor), 29, 30." If you use that chart on the Tree of Life, you get the Emperor in the *position* of Tzaddi - between Netzach and Yesod (and the Star vice-versa) - but his tarotic number doesn't change (11=0 and 15=4).
So, as I see it, the card and all its esoteric attributions (sign, color, etc.) are moved to a new place on the Tree of Life, but the order of the alphabet on the Tree of Life isn't changed. Tzaddi doesn't become Heh in the alphabet.
That's why I wrote about the systems not being "seamless". If you're talking Tarot, you have to have the Emperor at IV, between the Empress and the Hierophant. If you're talking Hebrew alphabet, it's not changed at all. If you're talking paths on the Tree of Life, it's the same as ever. If you're talking astrological attributions, that goes with the card to a new letter, but the positions of the letters in the alphabet and on the Tree aren't changed.
So, only the letter attribution of the card should be changed, and thus its position on the Tree; everything else doesn't (meaning that the order of the alphabet and the Tree are primary, and the card attributions and astrological symbols, colors etc. of the letters are secondary, perhaps only able to be changed for a new Aeon).
So yes, I would argue for an error on page 278 - especially given the weight of Crowley's testimony elsewhere.
Ross