Always Wondering
Raven134 said:
Perhaps the term "grateful alcoholic" might shed some light here. If I treasure my sobriety, I also treasure the path that got me here. How do we know that we are free, without the experience of enslavement?
AW
Mitosis and the Devil?
Perhaps the term "grateful alcoholic" might shed some light here. If I treasure my sobriety, I also treasure the path that got me here. How do we know that we are free, without the experience of enslavement?
AW
Aeon418
Addictions, obsessions, temptations, materialism, etc., etc, are all ill-dignified meanings of the Devil. But the Devil is not a negative card per se. In fact it is no more negative than any other card in the deck. Every card has a positive and negative side. Why the Devil is always singled out as "the bad card" is a mystery to me. Well, maybe not. I'll say one thing for Christian dogma, it's tenacious the way it sticks in peoples mind. Or to rephrase, s*** sticks.Raven134 said:
The Devil also gets a bad rap because one of this cards functions is not very well understood. The temptations and trials that can be indicated by this card are not random B.S. sent to mess with your head. Instead they are important and very hard life lessons. It's very easy to see these experiences in a negative light. But if looked at in the right way they are opportunities for learning and growth. At times even the worst setbacks can be blessings in disguise, because if you make it through the troubled times you come out stronger and hopefully wiser than before.
Raven134
Always Wondering said:
Oh Wow!!! I had not made that connection... Your so right. How can you feel freedom if you don't know enslavement? Its the whole idea of how can you "truly know" one thing unless you experience its opposite? Thanks for the insight.
Always Wondering
Aeon418 said it much better than I.
AW
AW
Raven134
Yes I like what you both said. In a reading I would see it as something in my life that can be beneficial and powerful but at the same time could also be taken too far and become obsession?
Always Wondering
For me, in my early stages of study, balance seems to be the message of many cards. Perhaps because this is what I need to pay attention to right now.
We can learn a lot from reading books and listening to others. But it's my humble opinion, that in the end, it comes down to me and the card. Nobody can tell me the meaning of that, but me.
I am a bit bruised from running into walls on occasion
but I haven't gotten too terribly off path, nor can I, really, because it is my path.
I don't mean to be cagey. But I did want to acknowledge your question.
AW
We can learn a lot from reading books and listening to others. But it's my humble opinion, that in the end, it comes down to me and the card. Nobody can tell me the meaning of that, but me.
I am a bit bruised from running into walls on occasion
but I haven't gotten too terribly off path, nor can I, really, because it is my path. I don't mean to be cagey. But I did want to acknowledge your question.
AW
Raven134
Always Wondering said:We can learn a lot from reading books and listening to others. But it's my humble opinion, that in the end, it comes down to me and the card. Nobody can tell me the meaning of that, but me.
I am a bit bruised from running into walls on occasion
I don't mean to be cagey. But I did want to acknowledge your question.
How true, In Lon Milo DuQuette's book "Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot" it says something like; reading the books is like having someone introduce you to 78 people at a ball, but until you dance with them and get to know them, you don't "really" know them. I'm pretty bad at getting my quotes right but It would seem Mr DuQuette would agree with you. You develop your own relationship to the cards... therefor your own understanding.
I really wish I could understand the "Book of Thoth" I have read it twice now and still feel like I'm missing something. Maybe you have to be an initiate to be able to see where AC was coming from. I think either he or Lady Harris were ahead of their time when it came to developing the images in this deck.
ravenest
You don't have to be ... but it certainly helps.Raven134 said:
Or just tuned in to the present then (New Aeon) unlike most around them, living in the past, (Old Aeon).Raven134 said:
rachelcat
Jumping in here with my IDS study!
Crowley wanted to show evil as good and vice versa, but in reality have good reason to do so! Devil can be a very good card!
This is an ahem very masculine card. Tree, roots, leaping sap, yeah right. The people are waiting to be born/released. As previous posters have pointed out, there’s only one way to release them!
In the Maat deck (I think), the Devil is a woman giving birth to light. Devil is Lord of the Gates of Matter—not good, not bad, just material. He loves all material things, useful or not, beautiful or ugly.
Snuffin? says the critter in the right “globe” is a minotaur, symbolizing the animal part of humanity. Why is he holding the other people down? I did a very moralistic reading with the Devil once. I said the people on the left are lifting each other up, and the ones on the right are fighting to be number 1 by holding the others down. Both activities exist in life. Most times, we can choose which we want to do. Imagine the Devil telling us this!
I appreciate the previous posts about gametes being formed in the testes.
Snuffin and previous posters have mentioned the background is the canals of Mars. I thought they were stylized bat wings to go with the stylized wings of the Swords. Crowley says they are forms of the madness of spring. Anyway, life on Mars makes sense. Mars is exalted in Capricorn, and it of course rules the sex drive (and pretty much ALL drive).
And the “tree” penetrates the rings of Saturn. Saturn rules Capricorn. It is also the planet of Binah, the mother, so very appropriate. Crowley says the Devil can have sex with the sky/mother/Nuith OR the earth mother. It goes both ways!
IAO (a name of God) is 3 masculine cards:
I=ayin=Devil=post-pubescent man/father
A=aleph=Fool=youth
O=yod=Hermit=old man
Snuffin tells us the wand is the wand of the Chief Adept, which is used to invoke the fifth element, spirit. Another phallic symbol with snakes as testes. They wear the 2 crowns of Egypt, symbolizing union. Ok.
The goat is Capricorn leaping on the heights of the earth, in other words, cardinal earth and MC (medium cieli)—the uppermost sign in a chart of the zodiac. He has some serious horns! Spiral for DNA, spiral galaxies, return with progression. (In other words, the sun comes back to the same station each year, but we don’t go back to LAST Christmas!) He has very conspicuous cloven hooves. And that smile! And why not? It makes me thinks of “the smile is on the face of the tiger”! Also he is happy with all. But is it attachment to the impermanent or pleasure without attachment? Crowley says he is “delivered from the lust of result,” so that means action without karma. Good for Mr. Goat!
Ayin calls for the goat’s third eye. It third eye looks like the opening of a penis? (My notes now have a small spot of man-bashing that shall be omitted here with advantage!) Since he is a major card, he is spirit and so deserves his third eye. He knows the effect of matter/becoming/sex on spirit, but is he telling? Or just smiling?
Grapes on his head links him to Pan/Dionysius. Sex creates all=Pan. Are they simply gods of release for uptight Romans, like Victorian prostitutes? Or something more? Did the ancients worship the life force? (And why am I framing everything as a question?)
Worship of Pan is obviously worship of and in nature. Crowley mentions worship in high (and desolate) places.
It’s interesting to think of the Devil as the masculine counterpart to the feminine Lust.
As a card of the day, it definitely showed its negative side. Attachment to result all over the place! Nuff said.
In a reading: Look where pleasure and creativity are in your life. Are you creating what you really want? Is your pleasure true pleasure or “those things that are pleasing you are hurting you somehow.” And of course, look at the role of sexuality in your life—overindulgence? Repression? Loving? Fun?
Crowley wanted to show evil as good and vice versa, but in reality have good reason to do so! Devil can be a very good card!
This is an ahem very masculine card. Tree, roots, leaping sap, yeah right. The people are waiting to be born/released. As previous posters have pointed out, there’s only one way to release them!
In the Maat deck (I think), the Devil is a woman giving birth to light. Devil is Lord of the Gates of Matter—not good, not bad, just material. He loves all material things, useful or not, beautiful or ugly.
Snuffin? says the critter in the right “globe” is a minotaur, symbolizing the animal part of humanity. Why is he holding the other people down? I did a very moralistic reading with the Devil once. I said the people on the left are lifting each other up, and the ones on the right are fighting to be number 1 by holding the others down. Both activities exist in life. Most times, we can choose which we want to do. Imagine the Devil telling us this!
I appreciate the previous posts about gametes being formed in the testes.
Snuffin and previous posters have mentioned the background is the canals of Mars. I thought they were stylized bat wings to go with the stylized wings of the Swords. Crowley says they are forms of the madness of spring. Anyway, life on Mars makes sense. Mars is exalted in Capricorn, and it of course rules the sex drive (and pretty much ALL drive).
And the “tree” penetrates the rings of Saturn. Saturn rules Capricorn. It is also the planet of Binah, the mother, so very appropriate. Crowley says the Devil can have sex with the sky/mother/Nuith OR the earth mother. It goes both ways!
IAO (a name of God) is 3 masculine cards:
I=ayin=Devil=post-pubescent man/father
A=aleph=Fool=youth
O=yod=Hermit=old man
Snuffin tells us the wand is the wand of the Chief Adept, which is used to invoke the fifth element, spirit. Another phallic symbol with snakes as testes. They wear the 2 crowns of Egypt, symbolizing union. Ok.
The goat is Capricorn leaping on the heights of the earth, in other words, cardinal earth and MC (medium cieli)—the uppermost sign in a chart of the zodiac. He has some serious horns! Spiral for DNA, spiral galaxies, return with progression. (In other words, the sun comes back to the same station each year, but we don’t go back to LAST Christmas!) He has very conspicuous cloven hooves. And that smile! And why not? It makes me thinks of “the smile is on the face of the tiger”! Also he is happy with all. But is it attachment to the impermanent or pleasure without attachment? Crowley says he is “delivered from the lust of result,” so that means action without karma. Good for Mr. Goat!
Ayin calls for the goat’s third eye. It third eye looks like the opening of a penis? (My notes now have a small spot of man-bashing that shall be omitted here with advantage!) Since he is a major card, he is spirit and so deserves his third eye. He knows the effect of matter/becoming/sex on spirit, but is he telling? Or just smiling?
Grapes on his head links him to Pan/Dionysius. Sex creates all=Pan. Are they simply gods of release for uptight Romans, like Victorian prostitutes? Or something more? Did the ancients worship the life force? (And why am I framing everything as a question?)
Worship of Pan is obviously worship of and in nature. Crowley mentions worship in high (and desolate) places.
It’s interesting to think of the Devil as the masculine counterpart to the feminine Lust.
As a card of the day, it definitely showed its negative side. Attachment to result all over the place! Nuff said.
In a reading: Look where pleasure and creativity are in your life. Are you creating what you really want? Is your pleasure true pleasure or “those things that are pleasing you are hurting you somehow.” And of course, look at the role of sexuality in your life—overindulgence? Repression? Loving? Fun?
