a rosen kreuz by any other name would smell as sweet...
although, I am currently beginning a study of the Marseille deck that has recently been rebuilt by Camoin and Jodorowsky...
here are some of my previous notes about Crowley's shifting of attributions in the Sacred Tarot, FWIW:
x-posted from a private forum:
For what it's worth, I am rather partial to Crowley's shifting of Tarot attributions; but more astute magickians have tackled this issue long before I began my study of the cards.
For more info, q.v. The Book of Thoth/The Teory of the Tarot/The Evidence for the Initiated Tradition of the Tarot/The Nature of the Evidence... & for further elucidation, here's a clever article on the subject: QBLing With Crowley. But that's not all folks... if you act now, you also get: the controversy over the Hidden and Secret Meanings of The Court Cards...
Here are three early works which were crucial to revealing knowledge of the Tarot to the world: S.L. MacGregor Mathers' _Book T,_ Arthur Edward Waite's _The Pictorial Key to the Tarot,_ and Paul Foster Case's _The Tarot: A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages._
Some other useful reference books on tarot that I use include:
Decker, Ronald et al. A Wicked Pack of Cards. New York, NY: St. Martins Press. 1996.
Fairfield, Gail. Choice Centered Tarot. North Hollywood, CA: Newcastle Publishing Co., Inc. 1985.
Hulse, David Allen. The Western Mysteries. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Worldwide. 2000.
Knight, Gareth. The Magical World of the Tarot. York Beach, MA: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1987.
Lammey, William C. Karmic Tarot. Franklin Lakes, NJ: New Page Books. 2002.
Wang, Robert. Qabalistic Tarot: A Textbook of Mystical Philosophy. York Beach, MA: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1983.
However, there is this bit of warning from "the Society of Hidden Masters" correspondence with Crowley [Actually written by Crowley, to himself; the "Society" is fictitious as such.]:
` ` 16. In certain cases, in order to make sure that your doctrine of the New Aeon is clearly manifest as the spiritual-magical basis of the whole work, you have given new names to the cards. Notably Trumps XI, XIV, and numerous "small" cards. You have made the final correction to the attributions--Trumps IV and XVII, according to the Book of the Law given to you in Cairo April 8, 9, and 10, 1904. You have used "The Stele of Revealing" (see "The Book of the Law" Chap. I 49, III 19) to replace "The Last Judgment" (Trump XX) to affirm the supersession of the Aeon of Osiris the Dying God by that of Horus the Crowned and Conquering Child. The entire composition is soaked in and reeks of your own private and personal point of view with regard to Magick. ' '
I will also quote from Robert Wang, if for no other reason than to provide checks and balances between the post-modern and traditional perspectives:
` ` But the system, while drawing vitality from gentle modification, does not graciously suffer radical overhaul at the hands of any single individual. It appears intended to develop slowly, each authority incorporating some socially based alteration, making the discipline of greater value to the contemporary society. A system, whether cult, religion or meditative program, is an access pattern into the inner worlds, one agreed upon and strengthened by generations of use. It is a path into the unknown paved with culturally determined, though universally applicable, symbols. And within any given school, the symbols may be manipulated and variously applied. Certainly, I have no quarrel with those who have virtually turned the Tree of life upside down with their combinations and permutations of ideas. But to do so mitigates the powerful group effort called “tradition,” and potentially creates a new Path. Expressed in another way: It is the agreement over time on the meaning of a set of symbols which makes a system a Path. To this end I have given only those attributions which are now commonly accepted. This is not to imply that such attributions are immutably correct, rather to suggest that their accepted interlock is of greater immediate utility to the student than some of the many divergences.
In this regard, Gareth Knight makes a profound observation. In his Experience of the Inner Worlds he describes the workings of a group using the Tarot cards as psychic doorways. He states that “From a formal Qabalistic point of view it was found possible to start any Path working from virtually any Tarot trump which suggests that the sacrosanct and rigid application of Tarot correspondences to the Tree of Life is of little real importance.” ' '
The more I have utilized the Tarot, the more I have reinforced the idea that it is an extremely subjective system. There are no absolute, inarguable values for any of the cards. Everyone interprets them utilizing different attributions. The same could be said for most systems... that it is the flexibility of symbols which give them their usefulness. Of course, there must be some kind of general convention of grammar for a language, or we would all be babbling in garbled chaos (not to mention issues like distortion of signal, but I suppose that might be more of an aesthetic question in a post-hendrix cosmos). In an attempt to simplify the issue, perhaps one of the the real strengths of the tarot comes from its ability to allow the user to generate one's own personal interpretations of what the cards mean in connection with each other -- while another strength of the Tarot is found in meanings that can be derived from the cards when they are used as tools of communication between individuals in a community.
There is a description of the Tarot from Crowley's _Book of Thoth,_ that I have always found rather comprehensive and utilitarian (as scientific magick should be...):
` ` The Tarot is a Pictorial representation of the Forces of Nature as conceived of by the Ancients according to a conventional symbolism. ' '
On January 1st, 2004, I helped arrange a neuro-tarot project in which we experienced first-hand what we can do as a community when we come together and create divination-style systems of symbology through collage (inquire privately for a peek at the scans). Those collages were created in an 8.5x11 format, and I was thinking that if those could be considered something like the major arcana (a macrocosmic scale), we could finish out the divination deck with some cards done in a 3.5x5 or 4x6 index card size format for something like a minor arcana (a microcosmic scale).
here are some of my previous notes about Crowley's shifting of attributions in the Sacred Tarot, FWIW:
x-posted from a private forum:
For what it's worth, I am rather partial to Crowley's shifting of Tarot attributions; but more astute magickians have tackled this issue long before I began my study of the cards.
For more info, q.v. The Book of Thoth/The Teory of the Tarot/The Evidence for the Initiated Tradition of the Tarot/The Nature of the Evidence... & for further elucidation, here's a clever article on the subject: QBLing With Crowley. But that's not all folks... if you act now, you also get: the controversy over the Hidden and Secret Meanings of The Court Cards...
Here are three early works which were crucial to revealing knowledge of the Tarot to the world: S.L. MacGregor Mathers' _Book T,_ Arthur Edward Waite's _The Pictorial Key to the Tarot,_ and Paul Foster Case's _The Tarot: A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages._
Some other useful reference books on tarot that I use include:
Decker, Ronald et al. A Wicked Pack of Cards. New York, NY: St. Martins Press. 1996.
Fairfield, Gail. Choice Centered Tarot. North Hollywood, CA: Newcastle Publishing Co., Inc. 1985.
Hulse, David Allen. The Western Mysteries. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Worldwide. 2000.
Knight, Gareth. The Magical World of the Tarot. York Beach, MA: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1987.
Lammey, William C. Karmic Tarot. Franklin Lakes, NJ: New Page Books. 2002.
Wang, Robert. Qabalistic Tarot: A Textbook of Mystical Philosophy. York Beach, MA: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1983.
However, there is this bit of warning from "the Society of Hidden Masters" correspondence with Crowley [Actually written by Crowley, to himself; the "Society" is fictitious as such.]:
` ` 16. In certain cases, in order to make sure that your doctrine of the New Aeon is clearly manifest as the spiritual-magical basis of the whole work, you have given new names to the cards. Notably Trumps XI, XIV, and numerous "small" cards. You have made the final correction to the attributions--Trumps IV and XVII, according to the Book of the Law given to you in Cairo April 8, 9, and 10, 1904. You have used "The Stele of Revealing" (see "The Book of the Law" Chap. I 49, III 19) to replace "The Last Judgment" (Trump XX) to affirm the supersession of the Aeon of Osiris the Dying God by that of Horus the Crowned and Conquering Child. The entire composition is soaked in and reeks of your own private and personal point of view with regard to Magick. ' '
I will also quote from Robert Wang, if for no other reason than to provide checks and balances between the post-modern and traditional perspectives:
` ` But the system, while drawing vitality from gentle modification, does not graciously suffer radical overhaul at the hands of any single individual. It appears intended to develop slowly, each authority incorporating some socially based alteration, making the discipline of greater value to the contemporary society. A system, whether cult, religion or meditative program, is an access pattern into the inner worlds, one agreed upon and strengthened by generations of use. It is a path into the unknown paved with culturally determined, though universally applicable, symbols. And within any given school, the symbols may be manipulated and variously applied. Certainly, I have no quarrel with those who have virtually turned the Tree of life upside down with their combinations and permutations of ideas. But to do so mitigates the powerful group effort called “tradition,” and potentially creates a new Path. Expressed in another way: It is the agreement over time on the meaning of a set of symbols which makes a system a Path. To this end I have given only those attributions which are now commonly accepted. This is not to imply that such attributions are immutably correct, rather to suggest that their accepted interlock is of greater immediate utility to the student than some of the many divergences.
In this regard, Gareth Knight makes a profound observation. In his Experience of the Inner Worlds he describes the workings of a group using the Tarot cards as psychic doorways. He states that “From a formal Qabalistic point of view it was found possible to start any Path working from virtually any Tarot trump which suggests that the sacrosanct and rigid application of Tarot correspondences to the Tree of Life is of little real importance.” ' '
The more I have utilized the Tarot, the more I have reinforced the idea that it is an extremely subjective system. There are no absolute, inarguable values for any of the cards. Everyone interprets them utilizing different attributions. The same could be said for most systems... that it is the flexibility of symbols which give them their usefulness. Of course, there must be some kind of general convention of grammar for a language, or we would all be babbling in garbled chaos (not to mention issues like distortion of signal, but I suppose that might be more of an aesthetic question in a post-hendrix cosmos). In an attempt to simplify the issue, perhaps one of the the real strengths of the tarot comes from its ability to allow the user to generate one's own personal interpretations of what the cards mean in connection with each other -- while another strength of the Tarot is found in meanings that can be derived from the cards when they are used as tools of communication between individuals in a community.
There is a description of the Tarot from Crowley's _Book of Thoth,_ that I have always found rather comprehensive and utilitarian (as scientific magick should be...):
` ` The Tarot is a Pictorial representation of the Forces of Nature as conceived of by the Ancients according to a conventional symbolism. ' '
On January 1st, 2004, I helped arrange a neuro-tarot project in which we experienced first-hand what we can do as a community when we come together and create divination-style systems of symbology through collage (inquire privately for a peek at the scans). Those collages were created in an 8.5x11 format, and I was thinking that if those could be considered something like the major arcana (a macrocosmic scale), we could finish out the divination deck with some cards done in a 3.5x5 or 4x6 index card size format for something like a minor arcana (a microcosmic scale).