A quick lesson
isthmus nekoi said:
I honestly have no clue how to tie things together as I am a total neophyte when it comes to kabbalah on its own. I've only really just scaffolded my knowledge on the Thoth tarot and I'm sure this doesn't do the system justice given the impossibility of separating the TOL's content and form.
Nice art, the Thoth, but unrelated to actual Kabbalah (except in Crowley’s mind, which lacked any real understanding of Hebrew letters and thus simply lined them up in order beside the trumps, starting with alef-Fool—which would have been an odd place for Semites to start their letter-sequence—but switching VIII Justice and XI Force around to make things ‘fit’, as I recall).
The trumps in T. of Marseilles, on the other hand, were (as can be demonstrated from many angles) devised
based on the letters handed down through both Hebrew and Irish-Welsh tradition, using a symbolic numbering that was evidently more ancient than alef-bet order (and the numbering based thereon) since it is linked to sounds’ placement in the calendar-alphabet known as
ogam consaine, extant from at least the early 2nd millennium B.C.E. Letter-shapes in many ancient alphabets can be traced to this calendar-symbolism—such as dalet, ‘door’, being D-duir-oak (12) in Irish, wood of doors, its letter shaped like a doorway in both the Libyan alphabet and closely related Tifinag (brought by Nordic seafarers to Libya), its Phoenician form being a jib, which also swings (as does XII The Hanged Man), since it is the month of summer solstice, when the year’s pendulum (or door) swings about (as do jibs in tacking), the year having begun in B-beth-birch at yuletide. You will find from Crowley’s
777 that he did not even know enough to assign dalet to the oak, let alone to trump XII.
The ToL originated as the first ten of the 12+1 (12 plus return to start) stations of the round, which were termed the 13
middot or divine attributes: it leads from
up (first, aries, head)—the exalted or divine—through
out (fourth, cancer, breasts)—pointed towards other (making it Chesed, kindness)—through
down (seventh, libra, loins)—the physical (
Bahir’s ‘Holy Palace’)—to straight back or
in (tenth, capricorn, mid-spine)—meaning self (the Shekhinah or Presence, one’s individual conscious awareness). The
Bahir describes their origin, in the first world (called Atzilut),
SY describes them divided into pairs by the second world (Beriyah), the ToL in its common layout shows them divided into triads by the third world (Yetzirah), and astronomical cycles show them divided into four strata, each corresponding to an element: eternity, great year or ‘pre’cession (heavens’ forward revolution about the zodiac), Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, year, Venus, Mercury, month, day (with 1 = fire, 2-4 = air, 5-9 = water, 10 = earth). Each world is a wheel, the first centered atop standing Adam Qadmon's head, the second atop that of seated Adam, the third at the heart of the seated torso (being the zodiac thereof), the fourth at the heart of the womb (symbolizing the round thereof), each wheel half the height of its predecessor. This gives you the crux of Ezekiel's great vision, and
Qabbalah in a nutshell (actually Ma'aseh Merkavah, Work of the Chariot, in which
Q. has its root).
Trumps relate the ToL to the transition between the second and third worlds, in a sense, or the gathering of all four, in another sense—that is, it relates it to the quintessence or soul gathering together and balancing all four worlds or elements—and those of the first four Sefirot even relate directly to their description here in
SY. XI Force is the pivot or fulcrum (or mirror), first (trump I) being reflected by first-from-the-end (trump XXI), second (trump II) by second-from-the-end (trump XX), and so on. Only the first three hold firm, though, as the lower seven ‘vessels’ are broken (according to the Lurianic school) by sudden influx of Light from above to below. Thus I-XI-XXI are all one thing—in itself, in relation to one ten-fingered, and in relation to two ten-fingereds—whilst II-XI-XX are all numerological +2s and III-XI-XVIIII all +1 in valence (lithium-sodium-potassium). Note trump XI binds together all three triplicities.
Of course the ‘experts’ have a different story (and little curiosity as to ToL's
origin), so judge for yourself.
[The Marseilles trumps, beginning with LeMat, correlate to bardic letters in the order H-A-E-I-O-B-M-P-F-K-G-T-D-N-L-R-S-U-Q(kk)-Y(ii)-St(ss)-AA, which translate into Hebrew as cheyt-alef-heh-zayin-ayin-beyt-mem-peh-samekh-kaf-gimel-tav-dalet-nun-lamedh-reysh-shin-vav-qof-yod-tzaddi-teyt. The reason samekh replaces F is that it is (originally, before rearrangement into alef-bet order) aries, the tip of the tongue (top of the Egg or round), hence an
s sound (and the only letter
shaped like the head or aries), whereas to pagans it was the Corn Spirit sprouting out
beyond the tongue (or Egg or seed) and thus an
f sound. The heh in Abraham to signify the Covenant was the eighth
sign, scorpio—one’s ‘secrets’, as old horticultural charts used to label it, meaning the organ of arousal—and circumcision is on the eighth
day. Vowels tended to harden into consonants, AA-teyt being a consonant in all alphabets
except the Irish bardic. For example, zayin is Greek zeta, Zeus’s initial being from erosion of D by I. Y(ii) is mistletoe or loranthus (according to me, but based on Graves’s reconstruction of an original tree-alphabet of 22 letters from the surviving Irish one of 20), which is why square-Hebrew yod hovers
over the line on which one writes (mistletoe being rooted in trees, not soil). The more of the story you have, the better to judge it by.
]
