Up or down the kabbalah tree?

Aeon418

jmd said:
Again, what is presented above by Aeon418 is a reflection of GD-style correlations - which is certainly not to be taken as the definitive view, in my own personal opinion.
Of course. But DewDrop's question was about Golden Dawn style correlations, The Fool on the 11th path and the World/Universe on the 32nd.
 

DewDrop

Aeon418 said:
The esoteric or inner teachings are usually the exact opposite of the external or exoteric teachings. Where the Fool's Journey is basically a moral message on how to live your life the esoteric tarot is,in one sense, a map of subjective states of consciousness or mystical awareness symbolised first of all by the physical plane of the World/Universe card and ending with the simple, undifferentiated consciousness of the Fool - The Divine Fool.

So if I understand you right when relating to my fist question; to go UP or DOWN the tree;there are three ways to go when learning Kabbalistic Tarot, all needed(in order to get the best result), and those would be;

* Road I; learn the meanings of the tarotcards, and get the material from striktly tarotistic sourses; the LWB corresponding to the deck of choise, and so on... Going from the Fool to the World(what would have been DOWN the tree if compared), and the Minor Arcana follows. - occult exoteric teaching.

* Road II; learn the meanings of the tree of life, going UP the tree, from Malkut to Kether. Here would The Complete Guide to the Kabbalah - Will Parfitt be a good choise. - esoteric teaching(well, the hermetic kabbalah is not so esoteric anymore).

* Road III: learn all the cards again, but now relating all the cards to the Three of life, going DOWN the tree(again), on all the roads suggested by Will Parfitt.
And here would the books by Stephan A. Hoeller and Radow Kliegman be a good choise. - occult exoteric teaching related to esoteric teaching.

This means that a Student would go BOTH up and down the tree.

How does this sound friends?

Thank you for your view Jmd, i could not have managed this without it :D
 

jmd

DewDrop, if the method you wish to work from is that based on the Golden Dawn, then indeed the methods indicated may take you in that direction.

I perhaps should also point out that to even talk of learning 'Kabbalistic Tarot' will itself depend on what correlations one determines 'belongs' to the Atouts.

For example, Wirth (and the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose Cross [OKRC]) certainly do not agree in the least with the manner in which the Order of the Golden Dawn has made its correlations: both make Kabbalistic attributions, and both use the glyph of the Tree of Life upon which to understand or illumine various cards.

The OKRC places the first ten Atouts (beginning with the first card - the Bateleur/'Magician') within the ten Sefirot in order of emanation.

Working Kabalistically with the Tarot, one either simply begins to follow what others have done (whether GD or OKRC or other), or one begins by gaining an understanding from which to discern whether the suggestions merit the very way in which devoted work will slowly alter one's own orientation in subtle ways - here is where I personally consider the books I mentioned in another thread to be basic Kabalistic ones, and certainly no more difficult, if used as a foundation, than those who write from a GD or other perspective.

If someone was to similarly and otherwise argue solely for the manner in which the OKRC works, I would likewise caution a jump into the system promulgated.

Of course, whereas the opening post did leave the various correlations open as to which were possible, some of the later postings do suggest a more GD-type attribution - and simply aim to balance this a little.

I should perhaps mention that I also tend to agree with one aspect indicated by Aeon418 (though in a mildly different manner, and with mildly differing connotation): the esoteric has an aspect which is inverse of the manifest.

This, however, does not in the least suggest that the way of a particular school of thought itself leads to that understanding.

...and DewDrop, I do personally agree that one may indeed work with the Tree in both directions - but some do not.
 

venicebard

LittleBuddha said:
It reminds me of how Buddha worked towards enlightenment and nirvana - that being the light/crown at Kether. As you move upwards, the receiving of light is greater.
Yes, but this is to somewhat misunderstand the actual Tree, methinks. AS implied in Aeon418’s quote I respond to below, the whole point is to GAIN 10 WITH the Light ‘in hand’, NOT retrace steps and return Light to its source, 1 – it is ALREADY united with its source and needs OUR effort (opus, the Great Work, tikkun) to free it from entanglements at the ‘bottom’ of the Tree and complete the task of circulatio.

Keter is the Light because it is the source. Remember that the Tree itself is the process of unfolding – from one whole or unit, to one ten-fingered that can reflect on it. (There are as many actual Trees as there are upright sentient beings.) Mentally following paths into the layers of the onion of what we have traversed to become selves... is like Jungian psychoanalysis, finding out what ‘makes one tick’.

But the process that leads to enlightenment is more specific than that, and it is this. In the great original wheel or Monad centered atop the head of standing Adam Qadmon, we have come from the 1st station, straight up, to the 10th, straight back. Now 10th is actually the end of the process 8-9-10 through which we progressed from being the fully developed earth or nature-matter (7) to being a conscious self: 8th departs FROM ‘straight down’ (earth’s crust) and thus represents desire (circumcision is on the 8th day), 9th is APPROACH to straight back (inner horizon) and thus thought, 10th IS straight back and thus self-knowledge. These are doer, thinker, and knower (Son, Holy Spirit, and Father to the Gnostic), self’s three aspects. Plato said that the eternal can be known and finite durations thought about but that of the fleeting present instant we (the doer) must remain ever ignorant (it vanisheth ere it can be considered). It can only act responsibly if guided by thinker and knower, those aspects of self dealing with things of finite duration and things eternal, respectively.

The human situation is most simply represented in the suit of Staves: 8 fails to accept guidance from 9 and 10 (both called Victory in the Bahir) but adheres rather to 7, the Holy Palace (physicality). In other words, we have already backtracked from where we should be and in a sense are: we ARE 10 (the Shekhinah or Presence) but act like mere 8s! or 7s even! what doofuses we be...

The situation in the other suits is more complicated (but still much simpler than general relativity).
Aeon418 said:
The "light" from Kether at the top, to Malkuth at the bottom is the same all the way. Only on it's way down it's form changes and becomes less fluidic and energetic. "Kether is in Malkuth, and Malkuth is in Kether.
Okay, I just sort of figured this out, so I’ll share it with those who triggered the understanding in my storm-clouded cognitive process.

Light, 1, is to be carried all the way to 10, whereupon it forms the totality 1-10. The next ‘level’ or layer-of-things would be 2-9, the next 3-8, the next 4-7... Now 3-8-9-2 represent the phases lead-mercury-silver-gold of the Great Work, in the Tree of Coins or rounds (where they are the cycles Saturn-Mercury-moon-precession). 3-lead is air/thinker instructing water/doer, 8-mercury is water/doer (us) opening up TO that instruction, 9-silver the (our) opening up to the Light itself (fire/knower), and 2-gold air/thinker’s OWN receptivity to the Light, in which we (water/doer) now share(s), having ‘reunited’ WITH air/thinker and, now finally, fully with fire/knower as well.

3-8 completes the first or ground layer of the Work in other words, 9-2 the second layer, and 1-10 the final layer, the Light itself (oneness with it, that is). So one does not so much ‘climb’ the Tree as stretch oneself out to its limits above AND below.
DewDrop said:
...we most often learn the Major Arcana from the Fool to the World... [yet] when compared to The Tree of Life, the Fool's Road start at the topp of the tree and the World's Road is the last road to enter Malkut at the bottom.
This confuses me!
It may help any not fully committed to the GD (or similar) ‘system’ if I point out that in the medieval (British/Irish bardic) system of correlating letters with numbers, Hebrew tav (T-tinne-holly) resides at XI Force, not XXI World. Careful analysis makes it clear 21 (17-21 remained secret) referred to bardic Aa-ailm-palm, one of two letters restored (hypothesized as explanation) by Robert Graves (the other being Ii-mistletoe/loranthus, which is OBVIOUSLY yod), Aa turning out (by process of elimination) to be Hebrew tet. If the letter-path correlation generally accepted happens to be correct (I can point to ONE piece of internal evidence it MAY be), tet marks the path from Chesed to Gebhureh. But in trump terms (being first-from-the-end) and poetically, XXI World is the outer aspect of unity, which is brought about of course by duality’s enabling more than one aspect to be so-distinguished (within unity). Unity's inner aspect is, of course, LeBateleur, the conductor: where attention is focused (that which motivates-toward-uprightness).

[Edited to add:] Oh, and the Fool by bardic numeration is H-huath-hawthorn, or chet, which by the commonly accepted correlations marks the path from Binah to Gebhureh. These correlations are in alef-bet-ical order starting at the top or root and thus show an unfolding motion from unity, not a dynamic of 'climbing back up' (which would be the alef-bet in reverse).
 

venicebard

And thanx, jmd, for your restraining rein of balance. I would like perhaps to peruse Robert M. Place's work to see if he makes a more complete case than I have seen heretofore, but I agree with your take for now. Certainly, though, as part of popular culture triumphs may well have contributed images, perhaps even the name triumphs itself, to the deeper symbolic picture bardic, Gnostic knowledge imparted to tarot (my take). And the trumps do seem more or less carnival-like, don't they...
 

DewDrop

jmd said:
The OKRC places the first ten Atouts (beginning with the first card - the Bateleur/'Magician') within the ten Sefirot in order of emanation.

Do you know of any kabbalistic books with the view of OKRC, that is related to Tarot?

jmd said:
...and DewDrop, I do personally agree that one may indeed work with the Tree in both directions...

It's nice to here i'm not alone with this thinking :)

Thank you for advices :D
 

DewDrop

venicebard said:
It may help any not fully committed to the GD (or similar) ‘system’ if I point out that in the medieval (British/Irish bardic) system of correlating letters with numbers, Hebrew tav (T-tinne-holly) resides at XI Force, not XXI World. Careful analysis makes it clear 21 (17-21 remained secret) referred to bardic Aa-ailm-palm, one of two letters restored (hypothesized as explanation) by Robert Graves (the other being Ii-mistletoe/loranthus, which is OBVIOUSLY yod), Aa turning out (by process of elimination) to be Hebrew tet. If the letter-path correlation generally accepted happens to be correct (I can point to ONE piece of internal evidence it MAY be), tet marks the path from Chesed to Gebhureh. But in trump terms (being first-from-the-end) and poetically, XXI World is the outer aspect of unity, which is brought about of course by duality’s enabling more than one aspect to be so-distinguished (within unity). Unity's inner aspect is, of course, LeBateleur, the conductor: where attention is focused (that which motivates-toward-uprightness).

[Edited to add:] Oh, and the Fool by bardic numeration is H-huath-hawthorn, or chet, which by the commonly accepted correlations marks the path from Binah to Gebhureh. These correlations are in alef-bet-ical order starting at the top or root and thus show an unfolding motion from unity, not a dynamic of 'climbing back up' (which would be the alef-bet in reverse).

I sense that you are suggesting that the Fool and the World are two aspects of the same thing, the Fool being the the inner aspect of unity, and the World the outher aspect of unity. Therefor (if taking that tav recides at XI Force) you would not climb up or down the tree, but to "stretch oneself out to its limits above and below". And this since we all resides in Tipheret, whereas is our center.

Am i understanding you right? Am I missing some other point here?
 

venicebard

DewDrop said:
I sense that you are suggesting that the Fool and the World are two aspects of the same thing, the Fool being the the inner aspect of unity, and the World the outher aspect of unity.
No, I meant I Magician (Bateleur) as the inner unity: he is our focus of attention. The Fool is mere potential, being no-thing (unnumbered, the Fool is the traversal of space): the measure of the unit the rest count is from the Fool to the Magician.
Therefor (if taking that tav recides at XI Force) you would not climb up or down the tree, but to "stretch oneself out to its limits above and below". And this since we all resides in Tipheret, whereas is our center.
I would point out that Teferet is the name particularly associated with 6 of Cups and thus strongly affecting 6 of Coins. But in Swords, 6 is the 'depth below', sealed with yud-vav-heh (in the version I follow). And in Staves it's the 'divine throne', meaning the approach to 'straight down' or 7, called 'Holy Palace'. Still, since we doers (where the problem inherent in the Fall resides and must be addressed) inhabit Ezekiel's third wheel, the world of Cups, this suit, it is true, is of central importance to us and the other suits primarily of interest to us as they relate to Cups. Yet the two suits preceding Cups are not stamped with the triadic Cups pattern but rather with their own dynamic, based on order of generation: 1 for Staves, 2 for Swords...

[Edited to add:] Yeah, you're right. It is the centralized nature of Tiferet that causes the 6s to be so well-aligned: approach to straight down (Baton), ‘depth below’ (Sword), the sixth angle yielding the seventh sign libra or straight down itself (Cup), and the cycle of the year or harvest as axis mundi (Coin).
 

DewDrop

I see that you (venicebard) has alot of knowledge about this theme. Unfortually for me, you do jump between your own conclusions without further explanation- this makes it hard to follow since i don't have your knowlege...
I see your perspectiv and the knowlege lying within, but i'm losing the point..

:(
 

Aeon418

Kabbalah ? Cabalah ? Qabalah ?

You have my sympathies DewDrop. You've been asking questions about this subject and everyone has been giving you their different points of view, including me. My advice again is pick one form of Qabalah that you like or that you have material to work with ie, books. Work with it and become comfortable with it. Then, if you want to, you can branch out to other systems from a position of knowledge and experience.

In the mean time I suggest that you make it clear which system you are working with. Otherwise you are going to end up getting several different answers to each question you ask and you're going to end up getting really confused.