Alligator/Croc in the Fool

ravenest

One good reference from ancient Egyptian mythology is Ammit (or Ammut), the Eater of the Dead. If the soul of a dead person was deemed impure, the punishment was being eaten by Ammit. This deity was a hybrid of several animals, but most notably, it had the head of an alligator.

So Christian had a point, and so did Punch and Judy. Maybe pop culture isn't as light as we think.

More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammit

I think the 'lightness' of pop culture is more in the approach, method and interpretation ... not the 'old tools' that it uses and tries to adapt into the current pop paradigm. One CAN hammer a nail in with an electric cordless drill ... one CAN ... but I wouldn't recommend that.
 

Zephyros

Of course, we mustn't forget sex. The crocodile, as a creature of the waters is also a powerful sexual symbol of leaping into the unknown, the ultimate quest and the fear and trepidation inherent in that. It could even be a symbol of the fabled vagina dentata.
 

samten

ARCANUM 22 - and THE CROCODILE

The Illustrated Egyptian Book of the Dead, a New Translation with Commentary, Dr. Ramses Seleem, Sterling Publishing Co., New York, 2001, p.37

The Medu-Netru is sacred. It uses symbols, not letters. A symbol exists in nature and has a geometrical value, volume, sound, energy, and effect, while a letter is merely an intellectual line drawing. This language, therefore, connects the individual with reality and the laws governing it in a direct way. When you write the word "crocodile' in Egyptian, you actually draw the crocodile itself. This puts you in direct contact with the crocodile as a living creature — more so, because the crocodile's biological functions reflect the natural laws governing this creature. The female crocodile, for example, has bird-like qualities since it lays eggs, and its heart and kidneys are similar to those of birds, but its lungs are those of a mammal. The crocodile, therefore, reflects duality in nature, and so the ancient Egyptian temples dedicated to the crocodile principle had two sanctuaries, as in the temple of Kom Ombo,

The crocodile is also like a fish. In that it spends the night in water, but like a mammal since it spends the day on land. This implies that the crocodile is a solar animal and is connected with the sun, emerging from the water when the sun rises on the horizon and disappearing into the water when the sun sets.

The female crocodile carries its eggs for sixty days and broods on them for sixty days. It has sixty vertebrae and sixty teeth, and lives for sixty years. Number sixty is the basic unit in astronomy and the measurement of time, since the minute is sixty seconds and the hour is sixty minutes. The crocodile, therefore, reflects the principle of time, and in the Egyptian word Sebek, meaning crocodile, the syllable, Seb, means time.
 

samten

ARCANUM 22 - THE CROCODILE

"The word 'Messiah' comes from the Hebrew verb 'to anoint', which itself is derived from the Egyptian word messeh, 'the holy crocodile'. It was with the fat of the messeh that the Pharaoh's sister-brides anointed their husbands on marriage."
Sir Laurence Gardner, "The Hidden History of Jesus and the Holy Grail"
 

samten

ARCANUM 22 - MORE CROCODILE

In the Sacred Tarot, the crocodile appears in Arcanum 22, The Materialist, the PLUTONIC card. The "darkness of the soul" referred to by the Egyptians, suggests that the crocodile is suitably ruled by Pluto. In Alchemy, the First State of Blackness was termed the NIGREDO. Jung associated the Nigredo with the unconsciousness:
"In their efforts to fathom the secrets of matter the alchemists had unexpectedly blundered into the unconscious, and thus without at first being aware of it, they became the discoverers of a process which underlies Christian symbolism among others."
The Crocodile is again shown in Arcanum 15, The Black Magician, ruled by Saturn, or Kronos, where it appears in the centre of the Typhonic frequency.
C.C.Zain describing Arcanum 15:
"This is the Spirit of Evil, of Fatality and of Chaos. It is represented by a hippopotamus with the head of a crocodile, the feet of a goat and the characteristics of a man and a woman. A snake emerges from his body to show that he begets nothing but evil; his wings, like those of a bat, show him to be the Spirit of Darkness. "
For a list of the Shrines of SEBEK, the Crocodile-god, see: Lanzone, Dizionario, pp.1033-6; Strabo xvii.38; Herodotus, ii,68; Diodorus, i.35; Aelian, X.21. And see also: Plutarch on Crocodile.
 

Teheuti

When Ed Buryn was designing the William Blake Tarot he discovered that the card he chose for the Fool can be perfectly lined up with
"the constellations of Orion (‘beautiful man’) of Greek mythology, Canis Major(containing the dog-star Sirius), and Hydra (Serpent). Blake was quite familiar with the constellations, and a glance at a star-chart shows that they line up exactly as Blake pictured their representative characters. (Interrestingly, the Hebrew name for Orion is Kesil, which means Fool)."

Since this image was chosen as being very much like the Paul Christian-inspired "Egyptianized" decks, it seems possible that this set of adjacent constellations was intended.

See page 11 of the pdf:
http://www.blaketarot.com/PDFs/Blake_Tarot_book_1.pdf
 

Yygdrasilian

Tears of Isis

In writing the name of their domain, the ancient Egyptians spelled KEMET with a crocodile scale [Km] and a cross enclosed within a circle [T]. While the latter was a determinative indicating distinct place, the former glyph meant Black, as in the “Black Land” colored by the annual inundation that deposited the nutrient rich silts upon which agriculture in the Nile valley depended. Like the amphibious reptile, the great river would climb over its banks and shed something of itself, but the meaning was perhaps further nuanced by the crocodile god SOBEK whose name could also mean ‘to impregnate’ or ‘to unite’, and was likewise associated with the healing of dismembered OSIRIS and conception of his son HORUS.

I suspect these notions were related to the crocodile features of RERET, a hippo-goddess form of ISIS whose constellation included the ancient pole star Thuban and who held a golden thread binding the MESKHETYU (Big Dipper) of Set's foreleg. As a ritual object utilized in the 'opening of the mouth', this foreleg was utilized below as above to release one's BA after death to join with its KA and thus become an immortal AKH.

http://www.iac.es/proyecto/arqueoastronomia/media/Belmonte_Shaltout_Chapter_6.pdf

While this may have little to do with the use of the crocodile and its association with the Greek Typhon in more explicitly occult variants of Tarot, it may be worth considering when viewing the Tree as a framework for the Divine Potter's wheel circumscribed by the Great MER of KHNUM-Khufu.
 

Teheuti

Could also be influenced by the crocodile god Sobek who is paired with the elder Horus at the healing temple of Kom Ombo (we're speaking Hellenistic and Roman Egypt here). They were worshipped together as of equal strength, as well as this being the location of the largest cache of crocodile mummies.

I'm thinking Fool/Horus + Crocodile/Sobek in a temple on the edge of a hill overlooking the Nile. It's possible that a mid-19th century occult, Egyptianized version of the Tarot could have drawn on information from the excavation of this temple.

http://photos.travellerspoint.com/172282/IMG_3902.jpg
Excavation drawing 1842-49:
http://www.medinaarts.com/EH087.htm

Kom Ombo is also known for this fabulous image of Ma'at surrounded by the four winds - a lion, bird, bull, and unknown (I believe the Nile god) - almost exactly like the World card. All above a niche through which one would commune with the gods (divination).
https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5094/5471801551_9c6fcb569b.jpg

It's one of my favorite places in Egypt.