More curiosity...

Amanda

Coming from this thread over in RWS: http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?p=4170354#post4170354

In the Marseille, Strength is 11 and Justice is 8. In the Golden Dawn, Strength is 8 and Justice is 11. Waite used the Golden Dawn numbering. Crowley used the earlier Marseille numbering.

However, the numbering is a superficial difference and doesn't even begin tell the whole story. Crowley's apparent reversion to the Marseille numbering is not directly related to the cardinal number placement of the Strength and Justice cards. It has to do with the Hebrew letter correlations of the Emperor and Star cards (as well as the Strength and Justice cards) and their positions on the Hermetic Tree of Life. I could go into details, but it would take us far afield from your original post into the intricacies of the Sepher Yetzirah and Crowley's mathematical/astrological notion of the "double loop" connection between Justice-Strength and Emperor-Star.

The best place to start for me is at the beginning. :D What was the proper Hebrew lettering placement? Then what did Crowley change it to?

Anyone have a quick run-down on the Tree of Life I can read? I know nothing about it. I do good with basics and abstracts though, so don't need a lot of detail.

Errmmm ... thats the whole thing about infinity ... it cant, by definition have a beginning nor an end.

Okay, but go beyond definition. Is this something that could have been misconstrued between Waite's leminscate and Crowley's Alpha and Omega?

...What Crowley did may seem, on the surface, as going back to the original order but what he did was so drastic and "out there" it can't be considered as such. Here, in order to understand that you really have to know your stuff, because it really is confusing. Here is a short, graphic explanation that serves mainly to demonstrate what niether I, nor you, will ever fully understand

http://www.cornelius93.com/EpistleonZodiacBelt.html

It has to do with the reception of the Book of Law and certain instructions contained therein. For the Thoth it works... after a fashion, although some would say it causes more problems than it solves.

...It seems like he's making reference to the Lovers and the Tower, and then says something about his prophet revealing the secret to the wise. What do you think that means?

...I can see why this is called a double loop, but is there any significance to the trinity of circles the double loop creates?

So, can I ask you something? Are you as familiar with TdM and Waite as you are the Thoth? What draws you strongly to the Thoth over the others? And how do you personally feel about the placement of Strength/Justice?

Here I am with my questions closrapexa. :D
 

Richard

.....The best place to start for me is at the beginning. :D What was the proper Hebrew lettering placement? Then what did Crowley change it to?
OK. Please be patient. It's really very simple but a bit hard to explain.

Let's write down the Hebrew alphabet in a column, in its natural order. (I'm using transliterated names of the letters for convenience.) Now beside this column, place the TdM cards in order, from top to bottom, starting with Fool. (See the attached image.)

Notice that the Justice card is aligned with Teth, and Strength with Lamed. In the Sefer Yetzirah (a Qabalistic text), Teth is associated with the Leo constellation, and Lamed with Libra. However, Leo goes better with Strength because it is a Lion, and Libra goes better with Justice because it is balance scales.

In other words matching Leo with Justice and Libra with Strength doesn't seem appropriate. It should be the other way around: The Libra scales go better with Justice, and Leo the lion with Strength. The Golden Dawn (and the Waite deck) fixed the problem by interchanging the order of the cards Justice and Strength, so that Strength became card 8 and Justice 11. Now Justice is paired with Libra and Strength with Leo.

Crowley solved the problem another way. Instead of interchanging the Justice and Strength cards, he, in effect, interchanged the order of the Hebrew letters Teth and Lamed. By placing the actual letters on the cards, he could simply put Lamed on Justice and Leo on Strength. (Crowley made a similar change for Emperor and Star, but let's not go into that. This post is long enough.)
 

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Amanda

OK. Please be patient. It's really very simple but a bit hard to explain.

Okay, taking it in...

Let's write down the Hebrew alphabet in a column, in its natural order. (I'm using transliterated names of the letters for convenience.) Now beside this column, place the TdM cards in order, from top to bottom, starting with Fool. (See the attached image.)

Got it, understanding commences...

Notice that the Justice card is aligned with Teth, and Strength with Lamed. In the Sefer Yetzirah (a Qabalistic text), Teth is associated with the Leo constellation, and Lamed with Libra. However, Leo goes better with Strength because it is a Lion, and Libra goes better with Justice because it is balance scales.

Now here's where it gets interesting... how long has this Qabilistic text been around in comparison to astrology? What is unique about Teth that it was associated to Leo and Lamed for Libra?

In other words matching Leo with Justice and Libra with Strength doesn't seem appropriate. It should be the other way around: The Libra scales go better with Justice, and Leo the lion with Strength. The Golden Dawn (and the Waite deck) fixed the problem by interchanging the order of the cards Justice and Strength, so that Strength became card 8 and Justice 11. Now Justice is paired with Libra and Strength with Leo.

Crowley solved the problem another way. Instead of interchanging the Justice and Strength cards, he, in effect, interchanged the order of the Hebrew letters Teth and Lamed. By placing the actual letters on the cards, he could simply put Lamed on Justice and Leo on Strength. (Crowley made a similar change for Emperor and Star, but let's not go into that. This post is long enough.)

So, one man decided to change the meaning of the stars, while another decided to change an entire culture's alphabet. Who do they think they are? (Rhetorical :D)

So... I was kind of right to feel that Strength/Lust should stay as number 11 and perhaps have alpha/omega while Justice/Adjustment stays at number 8.

...and, if there was a "mistake" then, it was with the creation of the TdM and its associations with astrology, which was primitive knowledge at the time...?
 

Richard

The 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet are classified into the 3 mother letters, which are correlated with the elements air, water, and fire; the 7 double letters, which are the 7 classical planets; and the 12 simple letters, which are the zodiac signs. The alphabetical order of the simple letters is aligned with the natural order of the zodiac, starting with Heh ~ Aries, Vav ~ Taurus, and so on, ending at Koph ~ Pisces.

It is generally thought that the TdM was not consciously designed with Qabalah in mind. The association of Tarot with Qabalah was a later discovery. (Maybe the apparent connection is just a remarkable coincidence. I'm not going to get into woo-woo stuff with regard to Tarot history. There is enough turmoil in AT already, without my adding to it.)
 

Amanda

The 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet are classified into the 3 mother letters, which are correlated with the elements air, water, and fire; the 7 double letters, which are the 7 classical planets; and the 12 simple letters, which are the zodiac signs. The alphabetical order of the simple letters is aligned with the natural order of the zodiac, starting with Heh ~ Aries, Vav ~ Taurus, and so on, ending at Koph ~ Pisces.

It is generally thought that the TdM was not consciously designed with Qabalah in mind. The association of Tarot with Qabalah was a later discovery.

I figured, hence my loose terminology with mistake...OK. I got it this far, I think.

So, now a hypothetical focused back on the Thoth: If Crowley had never changed a thing here with Strength/Justice and Hebrew lettering, how might these two cards be interpreted in a reading today?
 

Aeon418

So, one man decided to change the meaning of the stars, while another decided to change an entire culture's alphabet.
Change an entire culture's alphabet?! :bugeyed: See what you've done now, LRichard. :laugh:

On the Tree of Life the Hebrew Alphabet and the orderly placement of the letters in their normal sequence from Aleph to Tau never changes. This still holds true regardless of the Golden Dawn or Crowley swaps involving cards and zodiac signs.

In LRichard's example he used the Tarot numeral order as a sequencing key. In that particular order the Hebrew Alphabet 'appears' to be changed. But if you look at a Tree of Life diagram complete with Tarot attributions you will instantly see that it is the Tarot that 'appears out of order.

And to complicate matters there's a third sequence. The Zodiac. These three sequences don't line up perfectly. Whichever of the three you use as a linear sequencing key has an effect on the other two that forms loops.
 

Amanda

:laugh:

Now, now... don't be too hard on LRichard. I'm certainly out of my element here. :D

Okay, so I'll take a closer look at the thing closrapexa gave me the other day. I understand that I must look at it from top to bottom, yes? Any other ways I need to consider looking at this tree?
 

Zephyros

I'm on my way to bed and very tired, so this will be short. You might want to take a look at a little essay I did a while ago. In retrospect I would improve it, but it might give you a general idea of what's what.

http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=201798
 

Richard

.....So, now a hypothetical focused back on the Thoth: If Crowley had never changed a thing here with Strength/Justice and Hebrew lettering, how might these two cards be interpreted in a reading today?
If we forget about the numbers on the cards for a moment, the significant thing is that Libra is associated with Justice and Leo with Strength, and this did not originate with Crowley. It originated with the Golden Dawn, over 40 years before the appearance of the Thoth.
 

ravenest

Dont know if AC's 'simplified take' on it will help (it did help me though) ? ;

" There was, however, one kink in the rope. The card called Adjustment is marked VIII. The card called Lust is marked XI. to maintain the natural sequence, Lust must be attributed to Libra, and Adjustment to Leo. [The old titles of these cards were respectively "Strength" and "Justice": they are inadequate or misleading.]

This is evidently wrong, because the card called Adjustment actually shows a woman with sword and scales, while the card called Lust shows a woman and a lion. "