Phoenician letter correspondences & Astrological considerations

kwaw

Re: I think you mean Mars

Mars I attribute to the Empress. Again, following with the GD tradition, I attribute the letter Daleth to the Empress, however in variance to the GD tradition I follow the older versions of the SY which attribute Mars to Daleth.

Kwaw
 

kwaw

Fulgour said:
How odd of them. That would make The Hierophant=Waw=Taurus,
which is hilarious.

Why is it hilarious?

Kwaw
 

Fulgour

It was, and now, it's not anymore. But why do you ask?
 

kwaw

Fulgour said:
It was, and now, it's not anymore. But why do you ask?

Because we are on a forum, a place for discussion. I thought any serious objections you had to such an attribution might be of interest to us all, if you cared to share, discuss and debate them.

The attribution of pope/taurus I think fits in with the exaltation scheme quite neatly:

1 Of the tetramorph on card XXI 'The World' the Bull is distinguished by being the only one without a halo

2 Of the four fixed astrological signs to which the four tetramorph correspond, Taurus the Bull is distinguished by being the only one of the four to house a planetary exaltation

3 The tetramorph are symbols of the four apostles, and

3a The Moon, which is exalted in Taurus, is a symbol of the Divine Presence, God's Immanence or the Spirit made manifest

4 The office of the Bishop of Rome is exalted above all others as the vehicle and manifestation of spiritual authority through Apostolic succession

5 The letter Vau in the divine name YHVH is said to correspond the Son, in Christian cabbala Christ, and

5a The letter Aleph, meaning 'ox' is said to be composed of two yods and a vau [alluding to God, as two yods and a vau = 10+10+6= 26 = YHVH]. The Vau joins the upper and lower yods, symbolic of the joining of Heaven and Earth. Ergo

6 The attribution of Vau, Taurus, to the Pope, Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Christ.

Kwaw
 

Fulgour

why don't we pick a card?

I order the planets by their distance from Earth:

Moon (Beth) II La Papess
Venus (Gimmel) III L'Imperitrice
Mars (Daleth) IIII L'Empereur

Mercury (Kaph) XI Strength
Sun (Pe) XVII Le Toille

Jupiter (Res') XX Le Judgement
Saturn (Taw) [ * ] Le Fol

And consider their exaltations to be embodied by:

Moon VI L'Amourex (Waw) Taurus
Venus XVIIII Le Soleil (Qoph) Pisces
Mars XVI La Maison Dieu ('Ayin) Capricorn

Mercury X La Roue de Fortune (Yodh) Virgo
Sun V Le Pape (He) Aries

Jupiter VIII Justice (Heth) Cancer
Saturn XII Le Pendu (Lamedh) Libra

North Node VII Le Chariot (Zayin) Gemini
South Node XV Le Diable (Samekh) Sagittarius

And so there remain only:

3 Elements: Aleph Mem 'Sin
and
3 Fixed Signs: Aquarius (Tsade), Scorpio (Nun), Leo (Teth).
 

Fulgour

Fulgour said:
I order the planets by their distance from Earth...
Last night I watched at sunset as the Moon, Venus, and Jupiter
twinkled into view and graced the evening sky. That's astrology!

*

Planets According to Distance from the Earth
in Kilometres

Moon
384,404

Venus
38,050,900 minimum (261,039,880 maximum)

Mars
54,510,620 minimum (401,355,980 maximum)

Mercury
77,269,900 minimum (221,920,880 maximum)

Sun
147,085,800 minimum (152,104,980 maximum)

Jupiter
588,404,520 minimum (968,460,580 maximum)

Saturn
1,195,772,020 minimum (1,658,854,940 maximum)
 

venicebard

(This thread reminds me a little of the 'confusion of tongues', each having a different way of correlating letters, planets, signs, etc.)

That first website mentioned,

http://www.ancientscripts.com/protosinaitic.html,

is the first attempt I’ve seen to ‘fill in the holes’ of the proto-Sinaitic theory of origin (though the end result is a definite stretch): the idea that Phoenician derives from ‘proto-Sinaitic’ is, in my studied opinion, simple ignorance of the much more coherent theory developed during the course of the 19th century (and since discarded, as so much previous learning has been), which traced almost all the Phoenician letters to hieratic forms of Egyptian single-sound hieroglyphs (and some two-sound figures used to transcribe single sounds in foreign words, for example ‘recumbent lion’, rw, for L, which Egyptian lacked) whose shapes AND sounds are a close match, unlike most of ‘proto-Sinaitic’ (a term based on flimsy evidence to start with). I have finished, corrected, and refined the 19th-century argument and do not see anything in proto-Sinaitic theory that calls it into question, though two forms it gives are correct (those for shin and tav). (One ought to consider Meroitic writing as well, another offshoot of hieroglyphs, and of course Libyan, and bronze-age ogam consaine: all these show branches and ramifications of the poetic tradition underlying letters in the first place, based on alliteration.)

And jmd, K. Barry misunderstood what Kabbalah is (not hard, since many rabbis themselves do), thinking it primarily gematria and other ‘tricks’. His work does remind us of one important point, though, which is that the numbering of letters in Hebrew is relatively late and a probable offshoot of the Greek practice. This consideration adds much weight to my argument that an earlier, more fundamental symbolic numbering – preserved clear into the Middle Ages and beyond in Ireland and Wales – takes precedence over the later, somewhat artificial (though based on alef-bet-ical order) numbering got from copying Greeks, who were the skeptics of their age (unless we are speaking of the earlier Orphic tradition, which was revived around the time of the philosophers). Unfortunately, there is much of which Mr. Barry is unaware concerning evolution of letters (he is not alone), though I did learn a thing or two from reading him.

Finally, as to planetary correlations and exaltations and so on, I have been able to reconstruct considerably more of the original Qabbalah than the rabbis themselves (since I shun not the help of British and Irish Kelts), and even I have not been able to definitievly attribute planets to the seven doubles: signs on the Cauldron of the surroundings, yes, but planets, only imperfectly. Planetary rulership I can show the derivation of (it involves alchemy and the original, symbolic numbering), but exaltation as yet I have not been able to explain.

I would be very interested in a good source for the actual textual history of when these ideas (exaltation, rulership, current names of signs, and so on) first crop up in the written (or inscribed) record. I have spent hours looking through astrology sections in bookstores with no real result.

[Edited to correct the mis-typed 'bold' switch around the first symbolic.]
 

Fulgour

venicebard said:
I would be very interested in a good source for the actual textual history of when these ideas (exaltation, rulership, current names of signs, and so on) first crop up in the written (or inscribed) record. I have spent hours looking through astrology sections in bookstores with no real result.
Robert Zoeller tried something rather iffy based on Kabbalah.

"Exaltations" come down to us in a direct but scrambled form.
Since the earliest writings on Astrology they have been known,
but increasingly their meaning has been lumped with aspects.

Modern attempts to include newly discovered planets stupefy.

Think of them a the 4-Leaf Clovers in an ancient astrology kit.
Just the fact that the awareness of them hasn't been lost says
so much. My thought is just to honour them as being Sacred.
 

Rosanne

Thanks VeniceBard for posting this thread as it is a subject I love and read about (Lots) :D
Here is a just a small snippet of why I agree with the base of the Phoenician Alphabet.
The Egyptian glyphs were in their standard shapes around 5400 years ago. The glyphs were objects-actions and sometimes abstractions. They were used homophonically so a word could be a sound as well. an example would be the word db= finger and also meant 10 thousand. 26 glyphs came to represent one consonant- 84 glyphs meant two consonants, 24 glyphs were specific syllables. In time 26 single consonant glyphs emerged but They never became an Alphabet.
However they did inspire the Phoenician Alphabet. Here is an example.
Par meant house and 'to exit' and was written Pr or pehr the Phoenicians used Peh to mean Mouth as in to go in or out. This was in 1300 bc (circa). Semetic languages were better suited to the Phoencian Alphabet because they prioritized consonants before vowels in forming words. The Greeks were trading partners and by 1200bc had adopted the Phoenician Alphabet as well. They had a problem with its lack of vowels tho.

Now I may have my thoughts totally askew here- but when talking about the Kabbalah- I think what are the influence and traditions? I believe Hinduism is there in the practice, Sufi writings, early Greek mysticism, and they all influenced the meanings of numbers and letters and words. I believe that the book of creation -the Sefer Yetzirah was written about AD 600 by an unknown mystic. So that book had alot of other traditions within it. As I peel back the layers of the 22 images that are a major part of my Tarot pack and I step back in time I get back as far as the 22 letters of the Phoenician alphabet and say to myself "What were these used for- what was important? Just sounds for words? Neh- they were a sacred rebus whose pictoral image evoked all the correspondances we draw out ourselves today. I look at The High Priestess/La Papesse I see the Number two in sequence- Bayt the house -our dwelling under the Moon- then the others just fall in place.~Rosanne
I forgot to add; That the reason for the order of the letters in the Phoenician Alphabet is based on three principles 1.the similarity of juxtaposed letter sounds 2.the meanings of their names and 3. and the forms/shapes of the letters/signs.
 

Rosanne

Fulgour, I can see the spaces for the elements; why do you put the elements Water and Earth together at 13 Mem/Death- why not Earth with Air at 1 Aleph/Magician? I see Earth more fitting with Aleph meaning ox -as in I will plow the earth, rather than I will be buried in the Earth (Dust to Dust). Just tiding up my spreadsheet of all your conclusions. ~Rosanne