The Five Operations

Have just finished reading the last section of the BOT where Crowley talks about the five operations. I'm very confused, are these five different kinds of spreads or are they all part of one type of spread? Also not very clear on the whole pairing of the cards. Can anyone shed any light on this for me? If so, it would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Hello. Its part of one Big operation....
when you pair it......do it from the significator...say it is the Knight of Wands....pick the card immediately left and right of it...pair it up...and work it outside.....this opperation II is supposed to clear up any enigma from the first operation...Hence....this is a second story to supplement the first story you have generated from the Counting

Also something one the side...if you like to try out different "advanced" spreading like the one you are doing...you may try Edward A. Waite's Alternative way of divination in the end of his Tarot book called Pictorial Key.....( I forgot the rest).....Althought that book was a Rider Waite Smith companion...like what B.of.T is for Thoth deck, you can use Waite's spread with your thoth deck...I have yielded some revealing results with it.....just thought you might be interested

You'll find this spread talked about in the following threads as well:

Spreads
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=59210
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=46027
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=17651

Thoth forum
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=58926
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=61704

As Cosmo said, they're all the same Big Operation. You can find more information about it and card pairing here: http://supertarot.co.uk/lessons/tarot.htm

The "logic" behind the Opening of the Key is that - I forget the exact quote - but "The more a form of divination is aligned with the universe, the more accurate it will be." So the tarot mirrors the Qabala, and the operations let that work out: The 1st under the presidency of the Elements and Aces working through the Princesses; the 2nd under the presidency of the Signs and Zodiacal trumps, etc.

Cosmo says you pair from each side of the significator and work out: That's what's written in my Thoth book. However, the Golden Dawn stuff he was using says to pair from the outside of the horseshoe and work in. You might try it both ways and see what works for you.

And be aware that although there are 5 operations there, evidently even many of the original users of the spread only actually went through the 1st operation for ordinary divinations.

Thanks to both of you. I knew this forum would have some related threads, thanks for pointing them out. I've also been doing a little reading on the supertarot website, learning and practicing some of the lessons on ED's. Pretty cool stuff. Looks like I have quiet a lot more reading and practicing to do yet! Just to be clear though, these "five operations" are also know as the Opening of the Key spread, is that right?

Thank you to both of you...

Sorry I forgot that the way of pairing I have mentioned is the one in thoth..preferred by Master Therion...

Opening the Key....is the Golden Dawn one I believe...like MiketheAltar said...I think the 5 operations in B of T slightly differs from the GD OPTK spread.

Forgot to mention......With Crowley's way of pairing...you might run into a "problem" that i ran into with leftover cards from pairing...I do not know what to do with those cards as I have requested for advise in another Thoth thread.