New Thoth book

Aeon418

The swap of XI Lust and VIII Adjustment represents a break in the Tarot sequence that matches the swap of IV and XVII. And yet Seckler does not switch the traditional Intelligences of the 19th and 22nd paths.

She does not discuss the intelligence of the 19th path and Lust (the Intelligence of the Secret of all Spiritual activities), but she does comment upon the Faithful Intelligence in connection with the 22nd path and Adjustment.

This makes her switch of the Constituting and Natural Intelligences look odd.
 

Always Wondering

I suspect you've already come across this idea before while reading Dion Fortune. Take a look in her The Mystical Qabalah, chapter 16, section 28 to 30 (and possibly further on). But keep your B.S. detector handy. Sometimes Fortune stretches the analogy too far and starts talking drivel.

Ah, thanks for the pointer. I did reread Fortune's thoughts on Chokmah and polarity.

I have such a great admiration for women like Seckler and Fortune, who defied all social convention in their time to follow their Will. I wonder if in the same circumstance I would have had the balls to do this. But thanks to them and the even the misogynist, sex fiend, Crowley, I don't have to find out.

That said, I find myself a bit disillusioned.

Fortune said:
These two magnetic currants, running in the aura parallel to the spine, are called the Sun and Moon currents. In a male incarnation we work predominantly with the Sun current, the fertilizer; in a female incarnation we work predominantly with the moon-forces. If we desire to work with the opposite type of force to that with which we are naturally endowed, we have to do so by using our natural mode as the basis of operations and, as it were, “cannoning off the cushion.” The male who wants to use the moon-forces employees devices that enable him to get his natural sun-force reflected, and the female who wants to use the sun-forces employs a device whereby she is enabled to focus them upon herself and reflect them. On the physical plane the sexes mate, and the man begets a child upon the woman, thus availing himself of her moon-powers. The woman, on the other hand, desiring creation and unable to compass it single-handed, entice the male through his desire till he bestows upon her his sun-force and she is impregnated.

Really? :rolleyes: How very black and white, and I am not referring to her thoughts on race in her next paragraphs. What if I were gay? Or asexual? What if I didn't want children and I killed his “Sun fertilizer” with spermicide? I'm pretty sure HGA would find a way to get my attention somehow.

This all seems very matter of course in a vacuum but were are not in a vacuum. Or I should say, I am not in a vacuum. I am ten years into a study of a solar phallic magical system, and that very fact seems to silence almost every woman magician I've met, unless we are talking about being the Whores of Babylon, but even that get's old after a while. :|

Page 234 in the new book.
Seckler said:
I think some women still feel that the male has the upper hand, and they don't come forth and express themselves because it's still a man's world. Just look at the people who are working at work, you know. Women don't get paid as highly as men and they the same job. That's still going on right now.

I agree. This is still a real issue.

Seckler said:
So we're going through a period when we have to know how to balance the sexes because it's all been male previously.

For a while, but before that was the age of Isis, where woman were upheld. So wouldn't it hold true that in this New Aeon, where every man and every woman is a star, that there would finally be some kind of equalization of the sexes?

Crowley said:
Balance against each thought its exact opposite. For the Marriage of these is the Annihilation of Illusion.

The illusion of division, correct?

Seckler said:
Not only that, but women are positive on the spiritual plane, as you'll read [In the Continuum] Volume 2, Number 6, and since they're already there where a man wants to go some of them feel, “Why should I take any more trouble?”

:bugeyed: This has not been my experience. I have many questions, but none of the are why bother?

I question why not many women participate in this forum for very long? Have they found solace in Wicca or are they lurking? I question why there is so much talk of theory in Magick without much discussion of practical application? I wonder if male magicians experience emotion, because if they do, very few talk about it. Yet Crowley seems highly emotional. He wears me out? :laugh:

I wonder why it is I can kill a thread talking about my real life? Is it that bad? I wonder why certain people on various forums flat out ignore me? Is it because I'm a woman? Are you afraid I'm some over sexed housewife from California? :joke: Is it a cultural thing? I'm I not supposed to talk about a sexuality in mixed company? Would I be more successful with ritual if I had a penis? Would you have honestly corrected my spelling if I were man?

Would I have woman peers if I joined an official order? Is it worth it?

How in the hell does a woman Thelemite in this New Aeon reconcile herself to the large slate of misogynist U.S. politicians that want to interfere with not only a woman's will, but her very body? Am I really an over sensitive aging feminist? What of it? How do I rectify my will to live peacefully with my will to stick up for myself? Where do I draw the line? Which battles do I choose?
Do I really have to sit still and meditate? :laugh:

This is the sort of thing I was hoping to read from another woman Thelemite. Because it's not out there on the web. Not that I can find. And it certainly isn't in my little redneck town.

I actually kind of like Phyllis Seckler after reading this book and look forward, I think, to Volume 2. I realize she is human, and had a bum like Grady to distract her, while she charmed everyone, even Crowley, with amusing cartoons and single handedly saved the west coast division of the O.T.O . That's what women do while raising kids and bringing home the bacon; if they have to. I admire this about so many women.

But I am really disappointed also.

Seckler said:
Look what happens in a Mass. It's the woman who's being put on top of the world and he worships. She is the voice of Nuit; she always has been.

Huh? I've been at this for about 10 years. I first heard the voice of Nuit from Crowley. I've read Paul Forster Case, DuQuette, Regardie and Eshelman. I've heard It though Aeon418, Scion, Grigory, Ravenest, and others that I assume are men, but maybe not. :laugh:

Seckler said:
And that's because women naturally have a positive attitude about spirituality.

Maybe this is the case somewhere, but I haven't seen it.

I might drive the 200 miles to Sacramento to see a mass where a man plays Nuit and a woman plays the Priest. Or they could mix it all up with an all transgender cast, or an all female cast, or an all male. That would be worth seeing. ;) And it would all mean the same to me. Because all the screwing in the world might be fun, but it misses the whole point of what I understand to be sex magick.

Just saying.

AW
 

Always Wondering

The swap of XI Lust and VIII Adjustment represents a break in the Tarot sequence that matches the swap of IV and XVII. And yet Seckler does not switch the traditional Intelligences of the 19th and 22nd paths.

She does not discuss the intelligence of the 19th path and Lust (the Intelligence of the Secret of all Spiritual activities), but she does comment upon the Faithful Intelligence in connection with the 22nd path and Adjustment.

This makes her switch of the Constituting and Natural Intelligences look odd.

I'm still thinking on this one. Got distracted by my own ranting. :|
 

Aeon418

AlwaysWondering said:
How very black and white, and I am not referring to her thoughts on race in her next paragraphs.
It is an idealised model of gender polarity. In practice things are not so clear cut. On the material plane of Assiash there is a clear and distinct binary division between male and female bodies. But on other planes things are far more fluid and there is wide variety between individuals. The task of the initiate is develop and strengthen those aspects of him/herself that are underdeveloped, thereby creating balance.

The Devil card illustrates this principle. The core of each individual is beyond gender. And yet the first illusion the soul clothes itself with is gender. The perception of this difference is so powerful that it has the potential to become a trap and an all consuming obsession. However the Devil has his Third Eye open and can see beyond these pairs of opposites. This is the view from Tiphareth.

AlwaysWondering said:
For a while, but before that was the age of Isis, where woman were upheld. So wouldn't it hold true that in this New Aeon, where every man and every woman is a star, that there would finally be some kind of equalization of the sexes?
This is a very big topic. The New Aeon should herald the equalization of the sexes, but the previous period saw the active suppression of the feminine. It will take time for a rebalancing and readjustment to take place. In the Book of Thoth Crowley tells us that Atu XVI, The Tower is the preface to the Aeon. This would suggest that birth of the Aeon will possibly be one of struggle, strife, upheaval and war. The third chapter of Liber Legis reinforces this theme.

AlwaysWondering said:
How in the hell does a woman Thelemite in this New Aeon reconcile herself to the large slate of misogynist U.S. politicians that want to interfere with not only a woman's will, but her very body?
Correcting injustices such as this is part of the unfolding of the Aeon. But we've barely started on that long and bumpy road. Crowley's closing remarks on the Sun card illustrate how big a job this transition is.
Aleister Crowley said:
It is also most important to observe that the formula of the Rose and Cross (indicated by the wall-girt mound) has completed the fire-change into “something rich and strange”; for the mound is green, where one would expect it to be red, and the wall red, where one would expect it to be green or blue. The indication of this symbolism is that it must be one of the great advances in adjustment of the new Aeon to work out simply and without prejudice the formidable problems which have been raised by the growth of civilization.

Man has advanced so far from the social system, though it was not a system, of the cave man, from the primitive conception of property in human flesh. Man has advanced so far from crude anatomical classification of the soul of any given human being; he has accordingly landed himself in the most dreadful mire of psychopathology and psycho-analysis. Tiresome and tough are the prejudices of the people that date morally from about 25,000 B.C.

Largely owing to their own intransigence, those people have been born under a different spiritual law; they find themselves not only persecuted by their ancestors, but bewildered by their own uncertainty of foothold. It must be the task of the pioneers of the new Aeon to put this right.
J. Daniel Gunther said:
The Child Horus is hermaphroditic. Because of this, as only one example, we may foresee the complete rejection of prejudice in all its forms. This will take time to come to complete fruition, yet in Western societies, since the advent of the Aeon of Horus, in the sociological arena we have seen the advance of the Women's Movement, the Civil Rights Movement and the movements for sexual liberty, whether heterosexual or homosexual. The Aeon is still young, and we see these hopeful advances as mere shadows of a forthcoming era of freedom wherein mankind breaks the bonds of a tyranny of restriction.
 

Barleywine

"The word of Sin is Restriction." (Liber Al vel Legis, page 23). But it seems to me Crowley's legendary libertinism was just another aspect of the Illusion he set out to annihilate.
 

Aeon418

"The word of Sin is Restriction." (Liber Al vel Legis, page 23). But it seems to me Crowley's legendary libertinism was just another aspect of the Illusion he set out to annihilate.
Anyone who merely copies Crowley without awareness is ignorantly reinforcing the illusion. But once you've seen through the trick you can turn the tables for your own self expression and amusement.
Liber LXV said:
17. Then the scribe took note, and was glad. But Adonai had no fear of the Magician and his play. For it was Adonai who had taught all his tricks to the Magician.
18. And the Magister entered into the play of the Magician. When the Magician laughed he laughed; all as a man should do.
19. And Adonai said: Thou art enmeshed in the web of the Magician. This He said subtly, to try him.
20. But the Magister gave the sign of the Magistry, and laughed back on Him: O Lord, O beloved, did these fingers relax on Thy curls, or these eyes turn away from Thine eye?
21. And Adonai delighted in him exceedingly.
 

Always Wondering

It is an idealised model of gender polarity. In practice things are not so clear cut. On the material plane of Assiash there is a clear and distinct binary division between male and female bodies. But on other planes things are far more fluid and there is wide variety between individuals. The task of the initiate is develop and strengthen those aspects of him/herself that are underdeveloped, thereby creating balance.

Yeah, this makes sense, now that you said it.

The Devil card illustrates this principle. The core of each individual is beyond gender. And yet the first illusion the soul clothes itself with is gender. The perception of this difference is so powerful that it has the potential to become a trap and an all consuming obsession. However the Devil has his Third Eye open and can see beyond these pairs of opposites. This is the view from Tiphareth.

Oh I get the all consuming obsession, been there, done that. Possibly why I reacted so strongly to all this. Once was enough for me. Never want to do that again. :laugh:

This is a very big topic. The New Aeon should herald the equalization of the sexes, but the previous period saw the active suppression of the feminine. It will take time for a rebalancing and readjustment to take place. In the Book of Thoth Crowley tells us that Atu XVI, The Tower is the preface to the Aeon. This would suggest that birth of the Aeon will possibly be one of struggle, strife, upheaval and war. The third chapter of Liber Legis reinforces this theme.

:lightbulb Ohhhhhh. During the study I internalized a lot of Chapter Three. Now I got to go have a second look.


Correcting injustices such as this is part of the unfolding of the Aeon. But we've barely started on that long and bumpy road. Crowley's closing remarks on the Sun card illustrate how big a job this transition is.

Again, the New Aeon can mean one thing personally and now I'm seeing, a total other thing for the world. I think I've been rather self centered in my thinking. Just because things have changed in me doesn't mean they've changed everywhere. It just felt like the whole world was changing.

Thanks. Again. ;) :laugh:
 

Always Wondering

Aeon418 said:
This would suggest that birth of the Aeon will possibly be one of struggle, strife, upheaval and war. The third chapter of Liber Legis reinforces this theme.

I just have to say this is very timely for me right now. Mars has entered my rising Cancer and will be there for 7 weeks. :bugeyed: I was wondering how I was going to deal with this. Now I think I will choose me an island. :laugh:


AW
 

Always Wondering

Just to be clear, Seckler does switch the IV and XVII cards as per Crowley, but she also switches the attributions of the 32 Paths of Wisdom (These can be found tabulated in 777, table XIII.) and weaves it into her interpretation.

In my opinion switching the Path Intelligences is a step too far. Crowley envisioned a card swap, not a path swap. Correspondences that are clearly linked to a card should move with the card (astro signs, colours etc.), but path correspondences stay put and are reframed within the new interpretative matrix of the card.

Table XIII is one of those rare instances where the card swap makes no difference.

I did some thinking and reading on this. There has been so much discussion on the swap.
And much discussion and arguments on the origin of tarot and on the subject of correspondences. I got a little lost for a few days. I finally ended up on The Book of Thoth, page 10.

1. The origin of the Tarot is quite irrelevant, even if it were certain. It must stand or fall as a system on its own merits.

Sheese, why didn't I read that first? :laugh:

2. It is beyond a doubt a deliberate attempt to represent, in pictorial forum, the doctrines of Qabalah.

It is beyond my doubt also, so I will skip point three.

4. These attributions are in one sense a conventional, symbolic map; such could be invented by some person or persons of great artistic imagination and ingenuity combined with almost unthinkable great scholarship and philosophical clarity.

5. Such persons, however eminent we may have suppose them to have been, are not quite capable of making a system so abstruse in it's entirety without the assistance of superiors who's mental process were, or are, pertaining to a higher dimension.

So I wouldn't mess with it. I can see why Crowley waited so long before he published his messing with it. I don't know what was going on in Seckler's mind, or how her work came about to be published, but I think you are right to point out the discrepancy here on a forum where people come to work these things out. I figure there is enough confusion as it is. At least on my part. :confused:

AW
 

Aeon418

I don't know what was going on in Seckler's mind, or how her work came about to be published, but I think you are right to point out the discrepancy here on a forum where people come to work these things out.
I should point out that there is no 'official ruling' on this point. It's a matter of opinion. Seckler was well within her rights to switch the Intelligences. I suspect she may have become accustomed to the old attributions and thought it was natural to swap all the correspondences on the 15th and 28th paths.

Seckler may have taken her lead from the editor(s) of 777 Revised. I'm not entirely sure if it was written by Israel Regardie or Karl Germer, but on page 124 there's an editorial note about the card swap. The final paragraph says:
777 said:
In his published work Crowley did not transpose He and Tzaddi until his edition of The Book of Thoth in 1944. The change, therefore, only occurs once in 777 Revised, namely in The Vital Triads on p.41, which are taken from The Book of Thoth. Those who accept The Book of the Law should therefore alter 15 to 28 and 28 to 15 in the Key Scale throughout this book. Their tables will then agree with those published in The Book of Thoth, but will disagree with the same tables in Magick in Theory and Practice.
In my 'opinion' its too simplistic to open a copy of 777 and make a wholesale swap of the contents of rows 15 and 28 across all the tables. I think you need to be more selective. Some of the correspondences stay with the paths and letters. Others correspond to the cards and zodiac signs and should be moved. The lists of colours is an obvious example.

Table XIII - The Paths of the Sepher Yetzirah, should be left as it is. It corresponds directly to the paths and not the cards.
James Eshelman seems to agree on this point. In his Liber Theta he has retained the traditional order of the paths while incorporating the card swap.

Path 15 - Heh - Constituting - XVII, The Star.

Path 28 - Tzaddi - Natural - IV, The Emperor.