Trump on Trump Action: Thoth and Astrology

brujaja

So, as happens, the Thoth is driving me to refamiliarize/learn more astrology. The basic reading was interesting, but wasn't clicking, and hey, the cards are the whole reason why I want to learn this stuff right now, so yesterday I turned to the cards themselves to try and puzzle it out.

I read that planets are direct forces, and signs are more like scenarios or arenas wherein those forces are exercised. And the Atouts' correspondences are either planets or signs. So I used them to graph my chart and see what happens. For instance,

My Sun and Magus are in Art
My Priestess is in the Star
My Empress is in the Devil
My Tower is in the Hermit
My Fortune is in Death
with The Lovers ascending

Interesting! "Mars in Virgo" means very little to me...but "The Tower operating through The Hermit?" Bam. That phrase is a cornucopia of imagery. This brought up a couple of snags, though. XXI corresponds with Saturn, the BoT explicitly gives that. But I've read elsewhere that XII gets Neptune, The Fool gets Uranos, and XX gets Pluto. Are these GD associations? Did Crowley use them? Or, in my experiment of mapping trumps on trumps, do these three cards (0, XII, XX) exist outside in their own little category?

The mapping trumps on trumps works other ways, though. If you match the sign and planet of a pip with its two majors, you instantly understand the pip's color scheme! This is nothing new, I'm sure, but as a method to stumble on all by myself, if feels huge! ;) And the key word can work backwards to understand subtleties of trumps' interactions. How would The Sun in The Lovers equal Ruin (10 Swords)? Snarky Crowley.

I'm not sure if this is logically solid or just a good learning exercise. I mean, the trumps don't easily divide into, say, "active, external forces" and "realms or modes of expression to be traversed." Do they? The best I've yet played out this logic is that the "sign" trumps -- IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, XI, XIII, XIV, XV, XVII, and XVIII -- are like settings, they need to be actively addressed and consciously handled. While the "planetary" trumps -- I, II, III, X, XVI, XIX (0, XXII, XX, XXI?) -- are forces to be humbly acquiesced to and/or worked with. Perhaps even that "signs," being external scenarios, require spacetime context while "planets," being forces or internal, are generally wonkier and ongoing processes to apply to given situations.

Yes? No? Maybe so?

And if yes, couldn't you use these categories as an alternative or addition to, say, elemental dignities when exploring a reading?
 

brujaja

thanks for the heads up, fyreflye.
 

Grigori

brujaja said:
Are these GD associations? Did Crowley use them?

Nope, and nope. Because the 3 modern planets were discovered around their time and mostly integrated into magical traditions in the decades after that. We discussed it a bit in this thread, which has some links to other threads on the forum also.

Since then I've gotten the Hermetic Tarot, which is based on the GD descriptions very closely. It has attributed the modern planets, though a little differently. He has Fool = Pluto, Hanged Man = Neptune and Judgement = Uranus. I don't really like the swap though, as I think is messes up the traditional element associations where Fool = Air etc.
 

Grigori

brujaja said:
I'm not sure if this is logically solid or just a good learning exercise. I mean, the trumps don't easily divide into, say, "active, external forces" and "realms or modes of expression to be traversed." Do they?

Qabalistically each of the Trumps are attributed to a letter, and the letters do divide neatly into 3 types.

3 Mother Letters: Attributed to the 3 primary elements and sometimes the modern planets.
Aleph (Fool, Air, Uranus), Mem (Hanged Man, Water, Neptune) and Shin (Aeon, Fire, Pluto)

7 Double Letters: Attributed to the 7 traditional planets.

12 Single Letters: Attributed to the 12 signs of the Zodiac.
 

brujaja

Thanks, Similia. So is the astrological division into three validated/predated by /built onto the qabbalistic division into three? Are the planets associated with the letters a separate qabbala thing, or is it all one big mushy astrology-qabbala tarot overlay?
 

Grigori

brujaja said:
Are the planets associated with the letters a separate qabbala thing, or is it all one big mushy astrology-qabbala tarot overlay?

http://www.tarot.org.il/Library/Misc/Sepher Yetzirah.pdf

You can read a version of the Seper Yetzirah here.

In it, the Mother Letters have been attributed to the 3 elements, as in the GD system.

The 7 double letters are attributed to the planets, though the attributions are different than the GD ones (and both are a modern invention it seems). I don't know where the order comes from. Can anyone shed any light? I suspect its based on the divinatory meanings more than anything.

And the 12 single letters are attributed to the Signs. These are the same attributions as the GD system (And same as Crowley, except for his swap of Tzaddi and Heh). But also a later addition.

You can see with the signs, if you place the single letters in their alphabetic order, the signs they are attributed to also come in the order that they occur during the year. Which is why the GD swapped Strength to be Trump 8, and Justice to be Trump 11. So the numbers line up also, and places the signs and single letters in the correct order.
 

Aeon418

similia said:
The 7 double letters are attributed to the planets, though the attributions are different than the GD ones (and both are a modern invention it seems). I don't know where the order comes from. Can anyone shed any light? I suspect its based on the divinatory meanings more than anything.
I assume you are referring to the GD planetary attributions? If so the source would be the mysterious Cipher Manuscripts. The source of that source is a whole 'nother can 'o worms. :laugh:
 

Grigori

Aeon418 said:
I assume you are referring to the GD planetary attributions? If so the source would be the mysterious Cipher Manuscripts. The source of that source is a whole 'nother can 'o worms. :laugh:

Yeah I guess that is the answer really. I actually wasn't thinking of any specific text as I typed though, more thinking "what system or justification decided the order"

Which perhaps translates as "when they made it up, why did they make it up that way?" ;)
 

Aeon418

similia said:
Which perhaps translates as "when they made it up, why did they make it up that way?" ;)
I think the answer to that will never be known. It's lost in time along with the identity of the author of the ciper manuscripts.

Personally I think the Golden Dawn attributions originated out of a sense of dissatisfaction with the French system and Eliphas Levi. Although there is a well known story that claims that Levi knew the GD attributions, I think it's just another myth.

I believe that the founders of the GD felt a need for some kind authority to back up their new system. Back in those days antiquity was seen as authenticity. So if you could link yourself with a known pedigree you were granting yourself authority. A similar thing still happens today, yes? Rather than acknowledge that all the different attribution systems are "manufactured", there is a need to hark back to antiquity in the hope of finding the "one original and true" set of attributions because it is thought by many people that Old = Authentic. Rubbish!

The whole system of correspondences used by the GD is essentially an artificial language for communicating with the subconscious mind. On paper it's almost as worthless and arbitary as any other system. Of course there are ideas and structure behind the system, but the attributions need to be used in a practical way in order to make them live. Once they've been absorbed by the mind it becomes a tool for communicating with yourself. Plus if someone else speaks the same language you can compare results.

The symbolic language created by the GD works fine with their Christian based system. But it needed a little tweaking to make it fully compatible with Thelema. ;)