Posts Tagged ‘Thoth Tarot deck’

Or: The Twenty-two Trumps of the Tarot

(from “The Book of Thoth” by Aleister Crowley)

[Atu: House or Key, in Ancient Egyptian. Tahuti: Egyptian God of Wisdom, magick, Science, also Illusion. In Coptic, Thoth: in Greek, Hermes: in Latin, Mercury. The Hindu and Scandinavian Gods corresponding are debased forms.] Twenty-two is the number of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. It is the number of the Paths of the Sepher Yetzirah. These paths are the paths which join the ten numbers on the figure called the Tree of Life.

Why are there twenty-two of them? Because that is the number of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and one letter goes to each path.

Why should this be so? Why should these paths be arranged on the Tree in the way that the diagram shows? Why should there not be paths connecting the numbers 2 and 5 and the numbers 3 and 4?

One cannot answer any of these questions.

Who knows “How A got leave an ox to be, No camel, quoth the Jews, like G”. (Browning)? One knows only that this was the conventional arrangement adopted by whoever it was that devised the Tarot.

What is worse, it seems very confusing, very annoying; it shakes one’s faith in these great sages. But at least there is no doubt that this is so.

The letters of the Hebrew alphabet are twenty-two. There are three ” Mother” Letters for the Elements, seven “Double Letters” for the Planets, and twelve “Single” Letters for the Signs of the Zodiac.

But there are four Elements, not three. Or, including the element of Spirit (an important matter to initiates), there are five.

There are therefore two letters of the alphabet which have to do double duty. The element of Fire is very close kin to the idea of Spirit; so the letter Shin, belonging to Fire, may be taken to mean Spirit as well. There is a special reason why this should be so, although it only applies in later ages, since the introduction of the dogma that Spirit rules the four elements, and the formation of the “Pentagram of Salvation” connected with the Hebrew word IHShVH, Yeheshuah.

With regard to Earth, it was considered adequate to make the letter Tau, belonging to Saturn, correspond also to Earth.

These additions are clear evidence that the Tarot took definite and arbitrary steps to assert the new discovery in Magick some two thousand years ago; for no system is more rigid than a Hebrew system. And the system of the Sepher Yetzirah is the deepest rooted of all the elements of the Hebrew system, the most dogmatic of them all.

The Tarot is justified not by faith, but by works. The departures from the original bone-dry Qabalah have been justified by experience. The point (raised above) about the way in which the paths are selected to join certain numbers and not others, is found to express important doctrines connected with the facts of initiation. It must always be borne in mind that the Tarot is not only an atlas for recording facts, but a guide-book showing one how to travel through these countries previously unknown.

Travellers in China are somewhat bewildered at first when they are told that it is 100 li from Yung Chang to Pu Peng, but only 40 li from Pu Peng to Yung Chang. The answer is that the li is a measure of the time of marching, not of miles. The difference of calculation informs one that Pu Peng is a long way up the hill.

It is very much the same with the Tarot. The 6 of Wands is referred to Jupiter in Leo, and called the Lord of Victory. This dictates not only what victory is like, but also the conditions to be fulfilled in order to obtain victory. There is need of the fiery energy of the suit of Wands, the balance of the number 6, the stubborn courage of Leo, and also the influence of Jupiter, the little bit of luck that tips the scale.

These considerations are particularly important in dealing with the Atu, or Trumps. The Planets are already represented in the numbers or Sephiroth of the Tree of Life. But they have also attributions to certain of the Paths.

Some etymologists of a singularly idle disposition have tried to derive the French word “atout” from the ATU meaning House. It may seem simpler to suggest that “atout” is short for “bon atout”, meaning “good for anything”, because a Trump will take any card of any suit.

The Atu of Tahuti, who is the Lord of Wisdom, are also called Keys. They are guides to conduct. They give you the map of the Kingdom of Heaven, and also the best way to take it by force. A complete understanding of any magical problem is necessary before it can be solved. Study from outside, and action from outside, are ways abortive.

It is of the utmost importance to understand this extremely specialised character of the Trumps.

To say that the Trump numbered III, called The Empress, represents Venus, means something much less and also much more ‘than appears if Venus be studied from a strictly astrological standpoint. One abandons the contemplation of the whole in order to take practical advantage of a part. Just so Tactics differs from Strategy. A great general does not think of war in the abstract, but confines his attention to a minute part of his perhaps vast knowledge of the subject by considering the disposition of his forces at a given place and time, and how best to employ them against his adversary. This is of course true not only of the Trumps, but of all the other cards; and it must be true of any specialised studies. If one goes into a shop and asks for a map of a certain country, one cannot get a complete map, because any such map would necessarily merge into the Universe as it approached completeness, for a country’s character is modified by the adjacent countries, and so on for ever. Nor would even any useful map be complete in the most vulgar practical way without leading to confusion. The shopman would want to know whether his customer wanted a geological map, an orographical map, a commercial map, a map showing the distribution of population, or a strategic map; and so on for ever.

The student of the Tarot must not therefore expect to find anything beyond a careful selection of the facts about any given card, a selection made for a quite definite magical purpose.

However, the Tarot does try to resume, in a single pictorial symbol, as many as possible of the useful aspects of the idea. In studying any card, one ought not to neglect any of the attributions, because each class of attribution does modify the form and colour of the card, and its use. This essay will endeavour, in the section describing each card in turn, to include as many of the correspondences as possible.

Tarot major arcana with proper attributions and order. (Thoth Tarot deck)

by Gerald Schueler, Ph.D.

Abstract.

The Tarot deck contains archetypal symbols that can be related to the analytical psychology of the Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung. The Tarot deck, especially the major arcana or trump cards, can be used effectively in therapy. The client, with the assistance of the therapist, conducts a reading or uses several cards to tell a story and then discusses possible meanings of the symbols in his or her own words. The therapist then relates the symbolic meanings given by the client to the client’s problem in much the same manner as in Jungian dream analysis. This therapeutic process can be explained by using a chaos model. Using a chaos model of therapy, a period of psychic instability is deliberately induced by the therapist through stimulation of the imagination via the Tarot symbols. Concentration on the Tarot symbols induces bifurcation points that the therapist then uses to direct change toward desired attractors. This is similar to the well-known techniques of paradoxical communication, paradoxical intervention, and prescribing the symptom, all of which induce a temporary condition of psychic instability that is required for a bifurcation.

Introduction

Loye and Eisler (1987) see the roots of modern chaos theory, as it pertains to social science, extending all the way back to the ancient Chinese Book of Changes or I Ching. The I Ching, the oldest oracle still in use today, (Bannister, 1988) was used to make predictions by casting stalks, straws, or sticks. Today, this is usually done by throwing coins (Cleary, 1986). In the West, the oldest oracle still in use today is the Tarot card deck.

The Tarot is a deck of cards which can be used for meditation, psychic stimulation, or divination. It also can be used as a psychological tool to look inside the unconscious (Bannister, 1988; Nichols, 1984). The Tarot is medieval man’s equivalent of today’s highly respected Rorschach and Thematic Apperception tests (Schueler & Schueler, 1994). Wang (1978) describes the Tarot as “a system accepted by many respectable sources such as the school of Carl Jung, which views the Tarot images as agreeing perfectly with the archetypes of the collective unconsciousness” (p. 8).

The Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung, saw all of the Tarot images as “descended from the archetypes of transformation” (Jung, 1959/1990, p. 38). These archetypes include several of the primary archetypes that are encountered during Jung’s individuation process, a process of psychological maturation similar in nature to the aging of the physical body (Jacobi, 1942/1973). These include the shadow, the anima and animus, and the wise old man. The Tarot also contains symbols representing other important archetypes of transformative processes such as the hero, the sacrifice, rebirth, the mother, and the Self. In Jung’s analytical psychology, these archetypes comprise the major dynamical components of the unconscious which affect the human psyche in many different ways.

Modern chaos theory addresses complex systems, which are systems with a large number of interrelated parts. It also addresses dynamic systems. Every complex system, and especially every living system (living systems are usually referred to as self-organizing systems), is also a dissipative structure. Ilya Prigogine won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1977 for his work on dissipative structures, which he defined as any structure that takes on and dissipates energy as it interacts with its environment. A dissipative system, unlike one that conserves energy, gives rise to irreversible processes such as the growth of organisms (Nicolis & Prigogine, 1989). All systems that exhibit disequilibrium and self-organization are dissipative and have a dissipative structure (Briggs & Peat, 1989, p. 138). Dissipative systems are those which are able to maintain identity only because they are open to flows of energy, matter, or information from their environments (Prigogine & Stengers, 1984).

Not only is our body a dissipative system, but our psyche as well. Jung designated the ego as an ego-complex, because of the numerous components and processes with which it is comprised, and taught that the ego was one of many complexes that exist in the psyche. “The psyche is a self-regulating system that maintains its equilibrium just as the body does” (Jung, 1954/1985, p. 152). Designating the psyche to be a self-regulating system, Jung (1968) states that “Dreams are the natural reaction of the self-regulating psychic system” ( p. 124). By assuming the psyche to be a complex dynamic system, as well as a dissipative system, we can look at it through the lens of modern chaos theory.

Chaos, as an archetype, is well known in the Tarot where it is depicted fully in card 16, a trump card titled the Lightening Struck Tower. According to Wanless (1986), this card represents transformation. Jung taught that we can become conscious of the unconscious contents in our psyche by examining the symbols that come to us in our dreams. He details many of these archetypal symbols in his Symbols of Transformation (1956).

The Thoth Spread

Card 1: Represents the client and the nature of the question. It also represents the primary influences upon the situation.

A court card in this position refers to a dominant individual, influence, or personality trait affecting the situation.

Cards 2 and 3: Read this combination with reference to Card 1. All three cards are keys to describing the nature of the situation and the personality of the individual.
Cards 13, 9, 5 and 4, 8, 12: These two sets of cards indicate potential futures.

If the two sets compliment each other, the cards on the upper left are a development of the cards on the upper right.
If the two sets are in conflict, the cards on the Lipper right are the direction the individual will naturally follow. The cards on the upper left represent actions that could change the natural direction.

Cards 6, 10, 14: This set indicates the psychological basis of the issue.
Cards 7, 11, 15: This set shows the operation of forces beyond the individual’s control (destiny or karma), and how he can adapt to them. They are personal advisory cards.

NOTES

Princes and Queens often indicate actual men and women connected with the matter.

Knights mean the coming or going of a matter in accordance with the direction the Knight faces.

Princesses show ideas, thoughts, or opinions related to the subject.

LOOK FOR A MAJORITY OF CARDS IN ONE SUIT

A majority of Wands indicates great energy, quarreling, or opposition.

A majority of Cups indicates love, emotions, and pleasure, or intoxication.

A majority of Swords indicates either intellectual matters or sickness, depression, trouble, and death.

A majority of Pentacles indicates general business matters in general, possessions, and material success or failure.

A majority of Trumps indicates higher forces at work, therefore, the individual is not fully in control of the situation. This majority is a strong indicator of spiritual or karmic matters.

A majority of Court Cards indicates meetings, society and many people surrounding the individual or situation.

Source: tryskelion.com

The Naples Arrangement
(from The Book of Thoth by Aleister Crowley)

The Qabalists expanded this idea of Nothing, and got a second kind of Nothing which they called “Ain Soph”-”Without Limit”. (This idea seems not unlike that of Space.) They then decided that in order to interpret this mere absence of any means of definition, it was necessary to postulate the Ain Soph Aur-”Limitless Light”. By this they seem to have meant very much what the late Victorian men of science meant, or thought that they meant, by the Luminiferous Ether. (The Space-Time Continuum?) All this is evidently without form and void; these are abstract conditions, not positive ideas. The next step must be the idea of Position. One must formulate this thesis: If there is anything except Nothing, it must exist within this Boundless Light; within this Space; within this inconceivable Nothingness, which cannot exist as Nothing-ness, but has to be conceived of as a Nothingness composed of the annihilation of two imaginary opposites. Thus appears The Point, which has “neither parts nor magnitude, but only position”.

But position does not mean anything at all unless there is something else, some other position with which it can be compared. One has to describe it. The only way to do this is to have another Point, and that means that one must invent the number Two, making possible The Line.

But this Line does not really mean very much, because there is yet no measure of length. The limit of knowledge at this stage is that there are two things, in order to be able to talk about them at all. But one cannot say that they are near each other, or that they are far apart; one can only say that they are distant. In order to discriminate between them at all, there must be a third thing. We must have another point. One must invent The Surface; one must invent The Triangle. In doing this, incidentally, appears the whole of Plane Geometry. One can now say, “A is nearer to B than A is to C”.

But, so far, there is no substance in any of these ideas. In fact there are no ideas at all) except the idea of Distance and perhaps the idea of Between-ness, and of Angular Measurement; so that plane Geometry, which now exists in theory, is after all completely inchoate and incoherent.. There has been no approach at all to the conception of a really existing thing. No more has been done than to make definitions, all in a purely ideal and imaginary world.

Now then comes The Abyss. One cannot go any further into the ideal. The next step must be the Actual—at least, an approach to the Actual. There are three points, but there is no idea of where any one of them is. A fourth point is essential, and this formulates the idea of matter.

The Point, the Line, the Plane. The fourth point, unless it should happen to lie in the plane, gives The Solid. If one wants to know the position of any point, one must define it by the use of three co-ordinate axes. It is so many feet from the North wall, and so many feet from the East wall, and so many feet from the floor.Thus there has been developed from Nothingness a Something which can be said to exist. One has arrived at the idea of

Matter. But this existence is exceedingly tenuous, for the only property of any given point is its position in relation to certain other points; no change is possible; nothing can happen. One is therefore compelled, in the analysis of known Reality, to postulate a fifth positive idea, which is that of Motion. This implies the idea of Time, for only through Motion, and in Time, can any event happen. Without this change and sequence, nothing can be the object of sense. (It is to be noticed that this No.5 is the number of the letter He’ in the Hebrew alphabet. This is the letter traditionally consecrated to the Great Mother. It is the womb in which the Great Father, who is represented by the letter Yod which is pictorially the representation of an ultimate Point, moves and begets active existence).

There is now possible a concrete idea of the Point; and, at last it is a point which can be self-conscious, because it can have a Past, Present and Future. It is able to define itself in terms of the previous ideas. Here is the number Six, the centre of the system: self-conscious, capable of experience.

At this stage it is convenient to turn away for a moment from the strictly Qabalistic symbolism. The doctrine of the next three numbers (to some minds at least) is not very clearly expressed. One must look to the Vedanta system for a more lucid interpretation of the numbers 7, 8 and 9 although they correspond very closely with the Qabalistic ideas. In the Hindu analysis of existence the Rishis (sages) postulate three qualities: Sat, the Essence of Being itself; Chit, Thought, or Intellection; and Ananda (usually translated Bliss), the pleasure experienced by Being in the course of events. This ecstasy is evidently the exciting cause of the mobility of existence. It explains the assumption of imperfection on the part of Perfection. The Absolute would be Nothing, would remain in the condition of Nothingness; therefore, in order to be conscious of its possibilities and to enjoy them, it must explore these possibilities. One may here insert a parallel statement of this doctrine from the document called The Book of the Great Auk to enable the student to consider the position from the standpoint of two different minds.

“All elements must at one time have been separate.—That would be the case with great heat.—Now, when the atoms get to the Sun, we get that immense, extreme heat, and all the elements are themselves again. Imagine that each atom of each element possesses the memory of all his adventures in combination. By the way, that atom, fortified with memory, would not be the same atom; yet it is, because it has gained nothing from anywhere except this memory. Therefore, by the lapse of time and by virtue of memory, a thing could become something more than itself; thus, a real development is possible. One can then see a reason for any element deciding to go through this series of incarnations, because so, and only so, can he go; and he suffers the lapse of memory which he has during these incarnations, because he knows he will come through unchanged.

“Therefore you can have an infinite number of gods, individual and equal though diverse, each one supreme and utterly indestructible. This is also the only explanation of how a Being could create a world in which War, Evil, etc., exist. Evil is only an appearance, because (like “Good”) it cannot affect the substance itself, but only multiply its combinations. This is something the same as Mystic Monotheism; but the objection to that theory is that God has to create things which are all parts of himself, so that their interplay is false. If we presuppose many elements, their interplay is natural.”

These ideas of Being, Thought and Bliss constitute the minimum possible qualities which a Point must possess if it is to have a real sensible experience of itself. These correspond to the numbers 9, 8 and 7. The first idea of reality, as known by the mind, is therefore to conceive of the Point as built up of these previous nine successive developments from Zero. Here then at last is the number Ten. In other words, to describe Reality in the form of Knowledge, one must postulate these ten successive ideas. In the Qabalah, they are called “Sephiroth”, which means “Numbers”. As will be seen later, each number has a significance of its own; each corresponds with all phenomena in such a way that their arrangement in the Tree of Life, as shown in the diagrams (pp.266, 268, 270), is a map of the Universe. These ten numbers are represented in the Tarot by the forty small cards.

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