Major Arcana - Paul Christian

Major Arcana - Etteilla

Major Arcana - Jodorowsky

Minor Arcana

--- DICTIONARIES (in Dictionaries, in Quotes, in Chapters)

--- QUOTES [2 / 2 - 27 / 27] (in Dictionaries, in Quotes, in Chapters)

KEYS (10k)

   1 P D Ouspensky
   1 Eliphas Levi

NEW FULL DB (2.4M)

   2 Maggie Stiefvater
   2 Lon Milo DuQuette
   2 Elizabeth Gilbert
   2 Benebell Wen

1:An imprisoned person with no other book than the Tarot, if he knew how to use it, could in a few years acquire Universal Knowledge Gnosis, and would be able to speak on all subjects with unequaled learning and inexhaustible eloquence. ~ Eliphas Levi,

2:The fact that we question the Tarot as to whether it be a method or a doctrine shows the limitation of our 'three dimensional mind', which is unable to rise above the world of form and contra-positions or to free itself from thesis and antithesis! Yes, the Tarot contains and expresses any doctrine to be found in our consciousness, and in this sense it has definiteness. It represents Nature in all the richness of its infinite possibilities, and there is in it as in Nature, not one but all potential meanings. And these meanings are fluent and ever-changing, so the Tarot cannot be specifically this or that, for it ever moves and yet is ever the same. ~ P D Ouspensky,

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:It is the province of the tarot reader to move backwards, forwards, even sideways in time. ~ Sasha Graham,

2:The tarot card 'The Tower' seemed a chilling reflection of the events of September 11, 2001. ~ Neil Peart,

3:But the tarot is not exclusive to these faiths. It is used outside of faith in many walks of life and by people of all religious subscriptions. ~ Benebell Wen,

4:Using the tarot cards was like when he had begun learning Latin. He danced ever closer to that moment when he would understand the sentences without having to translate each word. ~ Maggie Stiefvater,

5:The gunslinger came awake from a confused dream which seemed to consist of a single image: that of the Sailor in the Tarot deck from which the man in black had dealt (or purported to deal) the gunslinger’s own moaning future. ~ Stephen King,

6:Remember that the Tarot is a great and sacred arcanum - its abuse is an obscenity in the inner and a folly in the outer. It is intended for quite other purposes than to determine when the tall dark man will meet the fair rich widow. ~ Jack Parsons,

7:The tarot is a perfect representation of the Tree of Life. The ace of each suit represents the top sephira (1) and the two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten of each suit represents its respective sephira on the Tree. ~ Lon Milo DuQuette,

8:The Tarot embodies symbolical presentations of universal ideas, behind which lie all the implicits of the human mind, and it is in this sense that they contain secret doctrine, which is the realization by the few of truths embedded in the consciousness of all. ~ A E Waite,

9:The Hebrew Kabbalah, the Chinese Book of Changes, the Tarot, The Egyptian & Tibetan Books of the Dead—should not be regarded as primitive & unsuccessful attempts at ‘science,’ but as attempts to express the depths of ‘lunar’ knowledge in their own terms. ~ Colin Wilson,

10:In the Tarot deck, the Fool is depicted as a young man about to step off a cliff into empty air. Most people assume that the Fool will fall. But we don't see it happen, and a Fool doesn't know that he's subject to the laws of gravity. Against all odds, he just might float. ~ Richard Kadrey,

11:Now we can see the real use of the Tarot pack. It is for living in and arranging our lives with. The cards are the exchange-symbols between inner and outer life…. Altogether the Tarots are a most valuable collection of psycho-physical currency convertible into either dimension. —Wm. B. Gray, Magical Ritual Methods ~ Mary K Greer,

12:A robed figure stood before a coin, a cup, a sword, a wand---all of the symbols of all the tarot suits. An infinity symbol floated above his head; one arm was lifted in a posture of power. Yes, thought Adam. Understanding prickled and then evaded him. He read the words at the bottom of the card. The Magician. ~ Maggie Stiefvater,

13:Fear is dangerous, not the tarot. The tarot represents the spectrum of the human condition, the good, the evil, the light, and the dark. Do not fear the darker aspects of the human condition. Understand them. The tarot is a storybook about life, about the greatness of human accomplishment, and also the ugliness we are each capable of. ~ Benebell Wen,

14:Because at the end of the day, it’s not about the tarot cards, or the crystals, or the special teas. That’s not where the magic lives. The magic is in the tiny moments. The small touches, the gentle smiles, the quiet laughs. The magic is about living for today and allowing yourself to breathe and be happy. My dear boy, to love is the magic. ~ Brittainy C Cherry,

15:I'm not an expert in the deck at all. My interest lies somewhere near a sense that words are like tarot cards, and that a poem manipulates unpredictable depths with its words. . . . I like the tarot because it works like poetry and because you don't really have to 'believe in' anything. It's there to be used. The symbols are remarkably durable and beautiful; they float out to encompass all kinds of meanings. ~ Alice Notley,

16:Love is private and primitive and a bit on the funky and frightening side. I think of the Luna card in the Tarot deck: some strange, huge crustacean, its armor glistening and its pinchers wiggling, clatters out of a pool while wild dogs howl at a bulging moon. Underneath the hearts and flowers, love is loony like that. Attempts to housebreak it, to refine it, to dress the crabs up like doves and make them sing soprano always result in thin blood. You end up with a parody. ~ Tom Robbins,

17:Both the five-year-olds looked at me with bewilderment and a bit of fearful uncertainty. I had a sudden horrifying image of the woman I might become if I'm not careful: Crazy Aunt Liz. The divorcee in the muumuu with the dyed orange hair who doesn't eat dairy but smokes menthols, who's always just coming back from her astrology cruise or breaking up with her aroma-therapist boyfriend, who reads the Tarot cards of kindergarteners and says things like, "Bring Aunty Liz another wine cooler, baby, and I'll let you wear my mood ring. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,

18:Both the five-year-olds looked at me with bewilderment and a bit of fearful uncertainty. I had a sudden horrifying image of the woman I might become if I'm not careful: Crazy Aunt Liz. The divorcee in the muumuu with the dyed orange hair who doesn't eat dairy but smokes menthols, who's always just coming back from her astrology cruise or breaking up with her aroma-therapist boyfriend, who reads the Tarot cards of kindergarteners and says things like, "Bring Aunty Liz another wine cooler, baby, and I'll let you wear my mood ring... ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,

19:Much of what I love about literature is also what I love about the Tarot - archetypes at play, hidden forces, secrets brought to light. When I bought the deck, it was for the same reason I bought the car: I felt too much like a character in a novel, buffeted by cruel turns of fate. I wanted to feel powerful in the face of my fate. I wanted to look over the top of my life and see what was coming. I wanted to be the main character of this story, and its author. And if I were writing a novel about someone like me, this is exactly what would lead him astray. ~ Alexander Chee,

20:Wearing an antique bridal gown, the beautiful queen of the vampires sits all alone in her dark, high house under the eyes of the portraits of her demented and atrocious ancestors, each one of whom, through her, projects a baleful posthumous existence; she counts out the Tarot cards, ceaselessly construing a constellation of possibilities as if the random fall of the cards on the red plush tablecloth before her could precipitate her from her chill, shuttered room into a country of perpetual summer and obliterate the perennial sadness of a girl who is both death and the maiden. ~ Angela Carter,

21:Ultimately, there are not fifty-six cards in the Minor Arcana of the tarot. There are only four—the four aces. The other fifty-two cards (the sixteen court cards and the thirty-six small cards), live inside the four aces. As we learned in chapter 8, if we look at the ace of any suit under a magic microscope, we first see the four court cards of that suit living comfortably inside. Let's not stop there. If we increase the magnification level of our microscope, we see that the nine small cards of the suit are nestled neatly inside in three rows of three cards. Isn't that tidy? ~ Lon Milo DuQuette,

22:Our future-focused, technology-obsessed world seems to be hurtling down a bad path. People are turning to ancestral practices for a sense of enduring longevity, and comfort. To help stay sane and grounded in the midst of so much cultural insanity. To source a different kind of power in hopes of making changes both personal and political. From learning meditation to fighting off a cold with some homemade fire cider; from indigo-dyeing your curtains to strengthening your intuition with the aid of the Tarot, such old-world practices are capturing our imaginations and providing us with meaningful ways to impact our world. ~ Michelle Tea,

23:What You Should Know to be a Poet" all you can know about animals as persons. the names of trees and flowers and weeds. the names of stars and the movements of planets and the moon. your own six senses, with a watchful elegant mind. at least one kind of traditional magic: divination, astrology, the book of changes, the tarot; dreams. the illusory demons and the illusory shining gods. kiss the ass of the devil and eat sh*t; fuck his horny barbed cock, fuck the hag, and all the celestial angels and maidens perfum’d and golden- & then love the human: wives husbands and friends children’s games, comic books, bubble-gum, the weirdness of television and advertising. work long, dry hours of dull work swallowed and accepted and lived with and finally lovd. exhaustion, hunger, rest. the wild freedom of the dance, extasy silent solitary illumination, entasy real danger. gambles and the edge of death. ~ Gary Snyder,

24:The initiation undergone by St. John of the Cross was a very high one, and one which Crowley fancied himself to have taken. He makes much of ‘The Wastelands’ and ‘Babe of the Abyss’ and one of his groups was called the Order of the Silver Star after the title of the Tarot Trump of this Path. But initiation is not merely a question of knowing the externals of symbolism, it is a state of being, and anyone can judge for themselves the extent of Crowley’s real condition by comparing his writings with those of St. John of the Cross, who achieved without any advanced knowledge of symbols, secret or otherwise, but purely by faith and spiritual will. An even more revealing and damning analysis would be to compare their lives. It seems necessary to emphasise this, not so much for the doubtful pleasure of kicking a man who is already down, but in order to act as a warning to the many who tend to injure themselves by trying to follow the Crowley system without sufficient knowledge of its pitfalls — some of which, sad to say, seem deliberately placed, either through malice or a misplaced sense of humour. ~ Gareth Knight,

25:McCarthy’s movie career wasn’t limited to The Stupids. In 1998, she had a small role in BASEketball and the following year in Diamonds , directed by John Asher, whom she married in September 1999. A few years later, on May 18, 2002, their only child, Evan, was born in Los Angeles. But all was not well. Following a chance encounter with a stranger, McCarthy knew that something was different about her son. “One night I reached over and grabbed my Archangel Oracle tarot cards and shuffled them and pulled out a card,” she wrote. “It was the same card I had picked over and over again the past few months. It was starting to drive me crazy. It said that I was to help teach the Indigo and Crystal children. [Later,] a woman approached Evan and me on the street and said, ‘Your son is a Crystal child,’ and then walked away. I remember thinking, ‘Okay, crazy lady,’ and then I stopped in my tracks. Holy shit, she just said ‘Crystal child,’ like on the tarot card.” McCarthy realized that she was an Indigo adult and Evan a Crystal child. Although Evan would soon be diagnosed with autism, McCarthy took heart in the fact that Crystal children were often mislabeled as autistic. According to Doreen Virtue, author of The Care and Feeding of Indigo Children, “Crystal Children don’t warrant a label of autism! They aren’t autistic, they’re AWE-tistic. ~ Anonymous,

26:He hopes at least after pulling himself up from one branch to another he will be able to see farther, discover where the roads lead; but the foliage beneath him is dense, the ground is soon out of sight, and if he raises his eyes toward the top of the tree he is blinded by The Sun, whose piercing rays make the leaves gleam with every colour against the light. However, the meaning of those two children seen in the tarot should also be explained: they must indicate that, looking up, the young man has realized he is no longer alone in the tree; two urchins have preceeded him, scrambling up the boughs. They seem twins: identical, barefoot, golden blond. At this point the young man spoke, asked: “what are you two doing here?” or else: “how far is it to the top?” And the twins replied, indicating with confused gesticulation toward something seen on the horizon of the drawing, beneath the sun’s rays: the walls of a city. But where are these walls located, with respect to the tree? The Ace of Cups portrays, in fact, a city, with many towers and spires and minarets and domes rising above the walls. And also palm fronds, pheasants’ wings, fins of blue moonfish which certainly jut from the city’s gardens, aviaries, aquariums, among which we can imagine the two urchins, chasing each other and vanishing. And this city seems balanced on top of a pyramid, which could also be the top of a great tree; in other words, it would be a city suspended on the highest branches like a bird’s nest, with hanging foundations like the aerial roots of certain plants. ~ Italo Calvino,

27: This Thing <i>For/with Penny </i> How to begin to define it this momentous thing between us? A monosyllable rhyming with “dove” and “above”, so dull and dubiously religious compared to the spirit of our connection. Not that talk of the numinous wouldn’t apply. Your penchant for the Tarot, mine for the Sufis, altogether I suspect more transcendental than the babble of necessity and hope desired by our former selves. Now I can’t say if “love” ever belonged to my former lexicon of merely being with someone. A confession? That wouldn’t become my professed agnosticism; but fate always the star of your astrological ciphers and my horoscope no doubt a serendipity 99 in the house of your heart. Mine, (forgive the war metaphors) a fortress reigned by the tyrant of solipsism until your ram battered the gates and your vanguard scaled the ramparts. Now the untied captives laze on the fields of your victory. The tyrant a cross between theologian and troubadour, no longer a threat to my peasants. But what have you gained from this conquest? Do I make you happy? What do you call this earth-shaking thing between us? I suspect your images altogether sharper than my medievalist detours, say animals—am I salamander to your unicorn or you a yellow crane perched on my tortoise? Or fairytale: you see yourself as a compassionate Little Red Riding Hood to my repentant wolf? Not very likely. I’ve never really 100 queried eating you; but you must’ve glanced the dangers of sharing life with a confused and brooding loner. A person of your insight doesn’t mess around in Blue Beard’s chamber. And I’m frankly just a diffused dragon. So do we call this thing domestication? What about the euphoria of escaping our house together and boarding planes? Am I your accomplice or live cargo? Does it sound like complaint? It’s in fact a celebration of the ecstatic thing between us. I ask you to comment. You say: “It’s a magical ever-changing intertwining of two lives on levels mundane and divine.” ~ Ali Alizadeh,

--- IN CHAPTERS (in Dictionaries, in Quotes, in Chapters)

25

   14 Occultism


   12 Aleister Crowley


   7 Magick Without Tears
   7 Liber ABA
   5 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah

1.00a_-_Introduction, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy      The Letter Kaph, Jupiter (Jehovah), the Wheel of Fortune in the Tarot the Atu X is a picture of the Universe built up and revolving by virtue of those Three Principles: Sulphur, Mercury, Salt; or Gunas: Sattvas, Rajas, Tamas has the value 20. So also has the letter Yod spelt in full.      --      On the other hand, you must be careful to avoid taking the correspondences given in the books of reference without thinking out why they are so given. Thus, you find a camel in the number which refers to the Moon, but the Tarot card "the Moon" refers not to the letter Gimel which means camel, but to the letter Qoph, and the sign Pisces which means fish, while the letter itself refers to the back of the head; and you also find fish has the meaning of the letter Nun. You must not go on from this, and say that the back of your head is like a camel the connection between them is simply that they all refer to the same thing.

1.03_-_The_Sephiros, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism   And so these cards have come down to us to-day, intact, and practically unspoiled. It is true that some artists, neither skilled in the intricacies of the Holy Qabalah nor   Adepts as were the originators of the cards, in painting copy sets of the Tarot cards have woefully misrepresented, misplaced, and in some cases entirely omitted some of the symbols existing on the original set of pictures. Yet any one with a knowledge of the arcane wisdom can reconstruct them with ease.      --   Its colour is grey ; its perfume the orchitic Musk, plant the Amaranth, which is the flower of immortality ; and the   Four Twos of the Tarot. Its precious stones are the Star   Ruby representing the male energy of the creative Star, and the Turquoise suggesting Mazlos, the Sphere of the   --   The Zohar also attributes to Chokmah the first letter   Yod * of the Tetragrammaton YHVH, a formula which will be more fully explained later. The Yod also has attributed to it the Four Kings of the Tarot. The attribu- tions of the Tetragrammaton should be very carefully followed, for much of Zoharic speculation devolves upon them.      --   THE SEPHIROS    origin within the dark womb of the oyster. Its Yetsiratic title is " The Sanctifying Intelligence " ; its sacred plants, the Cypress, Lily, and Opium Poppy ; and the Tarot cards appropriate are the four Threes. Its symbol is the brooding dove - the true Shechinah, or Holy Spirit. The letter of   Tetragrammaton is the first Heh n, and the Tarot attribu- tion is the four Queens.      --   The animals sacred to Chesed are the Unicorn and the   Horse, the latter because Poseidon in legend created the horse and taught men the noble art of managing horses by the bridle. Its plants are the Pine, Olive, and Shamrock ; its stone the Amethyst and Sapphire ; Blue is its colour, and the Tarot attributions are the four Fours, its metal being Tin, and its perfume Cedar.      --   Tobacco and the Nettle are correspondences, both because of their fiery and stinging nature. Its colour is red, obviously martial ; and hence the ruby, which is bright scarlet, is harmonious. Its sacred creature is the legendary   Basilisk of the staring eye, and the Tarot cards are the four Fives. According to the Sepher Yetsirah , Geburah is named " The Radical Intelligence ".      --      the Tarot cards are the four Sixes, and to Tipharas is given the title of Son and the letter 1 V of Tetragramma- ton, and the four Princes or Knights (Jacks) of the Tarot.   The Sepher Yetsirah denominates this sixth Sephirah as   --   Orange - derived from the Red of Geburah and the Yellow of Tipharas ; its Yetsiratic title being " The Absolute or   Perfect Intelligence ", the Tarot attributions are the four   Eights.

1.04_-_The_Paths, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism      the Tarot trumps furnish a complete set of symbols, but the great difficulty hitherto experienced in their attribution to the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew Alphabet is that these trump cards are numbered from I to XXI, accom- panied by another card marked O, which has always been the stumbling-block, being attributed by various people to various letters of the alphabet, depending - apparently - on their whim at any particular moment. It should be quite obvious that the only logical place for this Zero card is antecedent to I, and when so placed the cards assume a definite sequential meaning, profoundly explanatory of the letters.      It is essential here to make a remark regarding the nature of the symbols revealed by the Tarot and utilized by the   Zohar and Sepher Yetsirah. The symbolism which is so often definitely and decidedly phallic is merely utilized in order to make cosmic and metaphysical conceptions and processes more readily comprehensible to the human mind.   --   Order of the Silver Star. Since the Path of Gimel or the   Moon links the Supernal Triad with Tipharas, serving as the means of entry to the Inner College, it will be observed that the Tarot symbols are consistent. Yet some students have allocated this card to Bes.      --      the Tarot card is III. - The Empress, who bears in her right hand a sceptre, being a globe surmounting a cross, the astrological sigil of Venus, $. Her robe repeats this symbol, and at the side of her throne is a heart-shaped shield bearing also the sign of Venus. Facing her, is a field of corn, emphasizing the fact that she is a Goddess not only of Love but of Agriculture. She wears a green garland upon her head, and a necklace of pearls.      --      the Tarot card is IV. - entitled The Emperor, who has a red robe, and seated on a throne (in his crown are rubies), his legs forming a cross. His arms and head form a triangle.   We have, therefore, , the alchemical symbol of Sulphur, a fiery energetic principle, the Hindu Gunam of Rajas, the quality of energy and volition. On the arms of his throne are carved two ram's heads, showing that this attribution is harmonious.   --      V. - The Hierophant is the Tarot attribution. He is represented as raising his right hand in the sign of benedic- tion over the heads of two ministers, and in his left hand he bears a w r and or sacerdotal staff surmounted by a triple cross. At his feet are two keys, those of Life and Death, which solve the mysteries of existence.      --      the Tarot card is VI. - The Lovers. Ancient packs describe this as representing a man between two women, who arc Vice and Virtue, Lilith, the wife of the evil Samael, and Eve. Modern cards, however, show a nude male and female figure, with an angel or a Cupid with outspread wings hovering above them.    n-cH   --      the Tarot card is a most interesting one, VII. - The   Chariot. It denotes a chariot, the canopy of which is blue and decked with stars (representing Nuit, the night sky- blue, Space, and our Lady of the Stars). In the chariot is a crowned and armoured figure, on whose forehead glitters a   --      the Tarot card, IX. - The Hermit, gives the conception of an aged Adept, cowled and robed in black, holding a lamp in his right hand, bearing a wand or staff in his left.      --      the Tarot card is X.-The Wheel of Fortune which, in some packs, is a wheel of seven spokes, with a figure of   Anubis on one side bearing a caduceus, and on the other a demon with a trident. On the top of the circumference is a   --      the Tarot attribution is XI. - Justice, depicting a woman, very sombre, seated between two pillars, holding a   Sword in one hand, a pair of Scales in the other. Its sub- sidiary Tarot title is " The Daughter of the Lords of Truth.   --      the Tarot attribution is XII. - The Hanged Man, a most curious card, representing a man, in a blue tunic, hung head downwards (surrounded by a golden halo) from a      --      the Tarot attribution, XIII. - Death , continues this conception, picturing a black skeleton mounted on a white      --      the Tarot attribution is XIV. -Temperance, showing an angel crowned with the golden sigil of the Sun, clothed in beautiful white robes, and on his breast are written the letters of the Tetragrammaton over a white square, wherein is a gold triangle. He pours a blue liquid from a gilt chalice into another.      This Path leads from Yesod to Tipharas, the sphere of 0 the Sun. The Angel of the Tarot, would typify the Holy   Guardian Angel to whom man aspires. The keynote of the astrological sign, the arrow pointing heavenwards, is   --      the Tarot card is XV. - The Devil, showing a winged goat-headed satyr, with a pentagram on his brow, pointing upwards with his right hand, and his left hand clutching a flaming firebrand pointing downwards. To his throne are chained a nude male and female figure, both having the horns of a goat.      --      the Tarot card appropriate is XVI. - The Tower, the upper part of which is shaped like a crown. It is alternately      --      Tsaddi - a Fish Hook. Its astrological attribution is sss Aquarius, the sign of the Water-bearer. This idea con- tinues in the Tarot card, which is X VII. - The Star, depict- ing a nude female kneeling by a body of water, pouring water from two jugs, held one in each hand. Above her are seven eight-pointed stars surrounding a larger Star.   The subsidiary title is " The Daughter of the Firmament.   --      the Tarot card XIX. - The Sun, corresponds beautifully.   It seems extraordinarily difficult to believe that some writers on the Qabalah attribute this card to the letter   --      the Tarot correspondence is XX. - The Last Judgment, showing the Angel Gabriel blowing a trumpet, bearing a banner on which is a red cross. The dead break open their tombs, and stand erect, looking upwards, directing their arms in prayer to the Angel.      --      the Tarot card is XXI. - The World, showing within a flowery wreath a female figure, who has come to be known as the Virgin of the World, giving this Path added significance since it descends upon Malleus, to which the Zohar allocates the final Hdh, the Daughter, who is the reflection below of the Shechinah on high. At the four comers of the cards are the four cherubic animals of the Apocalypse ; the man, the eagle, the bull, and the lion.

1.04_-_The_Qabalah_The_Best_Training_for_Memory, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy      ("How many sets of attributions?" Well, certainly, the Hebrew and Greek Alphabets with the names and numbers of each letter, and its mean- ing: a couple of lists of God-names, with a clear idea of the character, qualities, functions, and importance of each; the "King-scale" of colour, all the Tarot attributions, of course; then animals, plants, drugs, per- fumes, a list or two of archangels, angels, intelligences and spirits that ought to be enough for a start.)

1.06_-_The_Literal_Qabalah, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism   The method of letter analysis, previously described, helps to clarify the general conception. 2 B is 9 Mercury, the Magician bearing in his hand the Wand representing his   Divine Will and Wisdom. * Y is the Tarotic Hermit ; also it is the symbol of innocence and spiritual virginity.   K* Sh is the Holy Spirit, his Divine Self which has been successfully invoked in the thaumaturgic rites, p Q is X

1.07_-_The_Literal_Qabalah_(continued), #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism      the Tarot cards likewise have been attributed to these four Worlds. The set of cards consists of Twenty-two   Trumps attributed to the Hebrew Alphabet ; four suits of fourteen cards each, entitled Wands, Cups, Swords, and

1.20_-_Talismans_-_The_Lamen_-_The_Pantacle, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy      But you will object why be silly at all? Why not say simply that the Lamen, stating as it does the Character and Powers of he wearer, is a dynamic portrait of the individual, while the Pantacle, his Universe, is a static portrait of him? And that, you pursue flattering, is why you preferred to call the Weapon of Earth (in the Tarot) the Disk, emphasizing its continual whirling movement rather than the Pantacle of Coin, as is more usual. Once again, exquisite child of our Father the Archer of Light and of seaborn Aphrodite, your well-known acumen has "nicked the ninety and nine and one over" as Browning says when he (he too!) alludes to the Tarot.      --      Then there are the Elemental Tablets of Sir Edward Kelly and Dr. John Dee. From these you can extract a square to perform almost any conceivable operation, if you understand the virtue of the various symbols which they manifest. They are actually an expansion of the Tarot. (Obviously, the Tarot itself as a whole is a universal Pantacle forgive the pleonasm! Each card, especially is this true of the Trumps, is a talisman; and the whole may also be considered as the Lamen of Mercury. It is evidently an Idea far too vast for any human mind to comprehend in its entirety. For it is "the Wisdom whereby He created the worlds.")

1.23_-_Improvising_a_Temple, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy      The Sword. The ideal form is shown in the Ace of Swords in the Tarot.

1.55_-_Money, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy      And the Fourth is the H final, the Daughter, Earth, the Disk, Pantacle, or Coin the Coin on which is stamped the effigy of the Word that begat it with the aid of the other forms of Energy. It is the Princess of the Tarot of whom it is written: "Great indeed is her power when thus firmly established."

1.63_-_Fear,_a_Bad_Astral_Vision, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy      Particularly useful against the fear of death is the punctual and vigorous performance of Liber Resh. Meditate on the sun in each station: his continuous and even way: the endless circle. That formula in the Tarot book is most valuable.      --      So, the noise making work rather difficult, one lies down in Shavasana (the "Corpse-Position" flat on the back, arms by sides, everything relaxed) or the Templar (Sleep of Siloam[119]) position, which is that of the Hanged Man in the Tarot. One then imagines a bomb dropping first in one place, then in another; one imagines the damage, and what one then has to do to counteract the new dangers perhaps a wall of your house has gone, and you must get clear before the roof falls in. And so on close the practice by a block-buster hitting you accurately on the tip of the nose.[120] This must be done realistically enough to make you actually afraid. But presently the fear wears off, and you get interested in your various adventures after each explosion: ambulance taking you to hospital, getting tools and digging out other people and so as far as your imagination takes you. After that comes yet another stage; your interest declines; you find yourself indifferent to the entire proceedings. After a few nights you can no longer distinguish between the real thing and your own private and peculiar Brock's Benefit. The fear will have vanished; familiarity breeds contempt. Finally, one is no longer even aware that the boys are out again on a lark.

1.65_-_Man, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy   {Larger version (1000 x 1500, 115K)}   GENERAL ATTRIBUTION OF the Tarot.

2.05_-_The_Tale_of_the_Vampires_Kingdom, #unset, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga   "I must tell you"-and this explanation can come only from the gravedigger-"on nights of the solstice and the equinox, that sorceress goes to the grave of her husband, whom she herself killed, she digs him up, restores life to him, nourishing him from her own veins, and copulates with him in the great sabbath of bodies that feed their worn arteries on others' blood and warm their perverse and polymorphous pudenda."   the Tarots depict two versions of this evil rite, so disparate they might seem the work of two different hands: one, crude, strains to represent an execrable figure, at once man, woman, and bat, named The Devil; the other, all festoons and garlands, celebrates the reconciliation of terrestrial forces with those of Heaven, symbolizing the totality of The World through the dance of a sorceress or nymph, naked and rejoicing. (But the engraver of the two tarots could be the same individual, a clandestine adept of a nocturnal cult, who sketched with rough lines the bogey of the Devil to mock the ignorance of exorcists and inquisitors, and lavished his ornamental skills on the allegory of his secret faith.)   "Tell me, my good fellow, how can I free my lands from this scourge?" the King must have asked, and, immediately seized once more by a bellicose impulse (the swords' cards are always ready to remind him that the superior strength is on his side), he may have suggested: "I could easily bring out my army, trained in the strategy of encirclement and pressure, in mercilessly using sword and fire, razing to the ground, leaving not a blade of grass, a moving leaf, a living soul.'.'.'."

2.06_-_Two_Tales_of_Seeking_and_Losing, #unset, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga   Two Tales of Seeking and Losing   The tavern's customers jostle one another around the table, which has become covered with cards, as they labor to extract their stories from the melee of the Tarots, and the more the stories become confused and disjointed, the more the scattered cards find their place in an orderly mosaic. Is this pattern only the result of chance, or is one of us patiently putting it together?   There is an elderly man, for example, who maintains his meditative calm in the midst of the turmoil, and each time, before putting down a card, he studies it as if absorbed in an operation whose successful outcome is not certain, a combination of trivial elements from which, however, a surprising result may emerge. The trim professorial white beard, the grave gaze in which there is a hint of uneasiness, are some of the features he shares with the picture of the King of Coins. This portrait of himself, along with the cards of Cups and gold Coins seen around him, could define him as an alchemist, who has spent his life investigating the combinations of the elements and their metamorphoses. In the alembics and phials he is being handed by the Page of Cups, his famulus or assistant, he examines the bubbling of liquids thick as urine, colored by reagents in clouds of indigo or cinnabar, from which the molecules of the king of metals are to be detached. But the expectation is vain; what remains in the bottom of the vessels is only lead.   --      The mosaic of cards that we are watching, fixed here, is therefore the Work of the Quest that one would like to conclude without work or search. Doctor Faust has wearied of having the instantaneous metamorphoses of metals depend on the slow transformations that take place within himself, he doubts the wisdom accumulated in the solitary life of a Hermit, he is disappointed in the powers of his art as he is in this dawdling over the Tarot combinations. At that moment a thunderbolt illuminates his little cell at the top of The Tower. A personage appears before him with a broad-brimmed hat, such as the students wear at Wittenberg, a wandering clerk perhaps, or a charlatan Juggler, a mountebank at a fair, who has laid out on a stand a laboratory of ill-assorted jars.      "Do you believe you can counterfeit my art?" So the true alchemist must have addressed the impostor. "What messes are you stirring in your pots?"   "The broth that was at the origin of The World," the stranger may have replied, "whence crystals and plants took their form, and the species of animals and the race of Homo Sapiens!" And what he names then appears in the transparent material boiling in an incandescent crucible, just as we now observe it in Arcanum XXI. In this card, which has the highest number of all the Tarots and is the one that counts most in players' scoring, a naked goddess framed in myrtle is flying, Venus perhaps; the four figures around her can be recognized as more modern devout emblems, but perhaps they are only a prudent disguise of other apparitions less incompatible with the triumph of the goddess in the middle, perhaps centaurs, sirens, harpies, gorgons, who supported the world before the authority of Olympus had subdued it, or perhaps dinosaurs, mastodons, pterodactyls, mammoths, the attempts nature made before resigning herself-we do not know for how much longer-to human dominion. And there are also those who, in the central figure, see not Venus but the Hermaphrodite, symbol of the souls that reach the center of the world, the culminating point of the itinerary the alchemist must follow.      --   "And can you restore my youth?"   Now the tempter shows him the Arcanum of Love, in which the story of Faust is mingled with that of Don Juan Tenorio, also surely concealed within the network of the Tarots.      --      Our neighbor seems to be deciphering in the Tarots a story still taking place within himself. But for the moment it does not really look as if we can expect any unforeseen developments: the Two of Coins with rapid, graphic efficacy is indicating an exchange, a barter, a dout-des; and since the counter-item in this exchange can only be the soul of our companion, it is convenient for us to recognize an ingenuous allegory of it in the fluid, winged apparition of the Arcanum Temperance; and if it is traffic in souls that the shady sorcerer is concerned with, there are no doubts about his identity as The Devil.      --      Wastelands stretch out in the Tarot of The Moon. On the shore of a lake of dead water there is a castle on whose Tower a curse has fallen. Amfortas, the Fisher King, lives there, and we see him here, old and infirm, pressing a wound that refuses to heal. Until that wound is cured, the wheel of transformations will be still, the wheel that passes from the light of the sun to the green of the leaves and to the gaiety of the equinox festivities in spring.      --      I do not know for how long (hours or years) Faust and Parsifal have been intent on retracing their routes, card after card, on the table of the tavern. But every time they bend over the Tarots, their story reads another way, undergoes corrections, variants, affected by the moods of the day and the train of thoughts, oscillating between two poles: all and nothing.      "The world does not exist," Faust concludes when the pendulum reaches the other extreme, "there is not an all, given all at once: there is a finite number of elements whose combinations are multiplied to billions of billions, and only a few of these find a form and a meaning and make their presence felt amid a meaningless, shapeless dust cloud; like the seventy-eight cards of the Tarot deck in whose juxtapositions sequences of stories appear and are then immediately undone."   Whereas this would be the (still temporary) conclusion of Parsifal: "The kernel of the world is empty, the beginning of what moves in the universe is the space of nothingness, around absence is constructed what exists, at the bottom of the Grail is the Tao," and he points to the empty rectangle surrounded by the Tarots.

2.07_-_The_Cup, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy   78:And here again we find difficulty with our thoughts. The grossness and stupidity of "simple impressions" cloud the waters; "emotions" trouble it; "perceptions" are still far from the perfect purity of truth; they cause reflections; while the "tendencies" alter the refractive index, and break up the light. Even "consciousness" itself is that which distinguishes between the lower and the higher, the waters which are below the firmament from the waters which are above the firmament, that appalling stage in the great curse of creation.   79:Since at the best this water footnote: The water in this Cup (the latter is also a heart, as shown by the transition from the ancient to the modern Tarot; the suit "Hearts" in old packs of cards, and even in modern Spanish and Italian cards, is called "Cups") is the letter "Mem" (the Hebrew word for water), which has for its Tarot trump the Hanged Man. This Hanged Man represents the Adept hanging by one heel from a gallows, which is in the shape of the letter Daleth - the letter of the Empress, the heavenly Venus in the Tarot. His legs form a cross, his arms a triangle, as if by his equilibrium and self-sacrifice he were bringing the light down and establishing it even in the abyss. Elementary as this is, it is a very satisfactory hieroglyph of the Great Work, though the student is warned that the obvious sentimental interpretation will have to be discarded as soon as it has been understood. It is a very noble illusion, and therefore a very dangerous one, to figure one's self as the Redeemer. For, of all the illusions in this Cup - the subtler and purer they are, the more difficult they are to detect. is but a reflection, how tremendously important it becomes that it should be still!   80:If the cup is shaken the light will be broken up.

2.08_-_The_Sword, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy      This is most accurately pictured in the Tarot Trump called "The Angel," which corresponds to the letter Shin, the letter of Spirit and of Breath.   The whole mind of man is rent by the advent of Adonai, and is at once caught up into union with Him. "In the air," the Ruach.

3.00_-_The_Magical_Theory_of_the_Universe, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy   especially that in which they are attributed to the planets, elements and signs, as   also to the Tarot Trumps, while their position on the Tree itself and their position   as links between the particular Sephiroth which they join is the final key to their

3.04_-_The_Formula_of_ALHIM, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy   attributions, which are sufficiently informative for the beginner.   [Crowley alludes to his reversal of the Tarot, astrological and related attributions   of h and x, following the statement in AL I. 57, All these old letters of my Book are

3.07_-_The_Formula_of_the_Holy_Grail, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy   Also: the Magical Memory   The Hieroglyph shewn in the Seventh Key of the Tarot (described in the 12th thyr, Liber 418, Equinox I (5)), is the Charioteer of   OUR LADY BABABLON, whose Cup or Graal he bears.   --   The letter M exhibits the termination of this process. It is the   Hanged Man of the Tarot; the formation of the individual from the   absolute is closed by his death.   --   back of the head, the cerebellum, where the creative or reproductive   force is primarily situated. Qoph in the Tarot is the Moon, a card   suggesting illusion, yet showing counterpartal forces operating in

3.18_-_Of_Clairvoyance_and_the_Body_of_Light, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy   mathematical structure. It therefore fulfils the required conditions.   The principal means of divination in history are astrology, geomancy, the Tarot, the Holy Qabalah, and the Yi King.1 There are   hundreds of others; from pyromancy, oneiromancy, auguries from   --   His, so that misunderstanding constantly interfered with the Work.   the Tarot and THE HOLY QABALAH may be discussed together.   The theoretical basis of both is identical: The Tree of Life.2 The 78   symbols of the Tarot are admirably balanced and combined. They   are adequate to all demands made upon them; each symbol is not   --   in several numbers.   [Principally, for Tarot: A Description of the Cards of the Tarot (Liber LXXVIII)   in I (8), and The Book of Thoth which comprised III (5); for Qabalah: A Note on   --      sthetic perceptions. The MASTER THERION finds that the Tarot is   infallible in material questions. The successive operations describe   --   natures.   the Tarot, on the other hand, being a book, is under Mercury, [161]   and the intelligence of each card is fundamentally Mercurial. Such   --   to knowledge beyond our own, but this is not to say that these   minds enjoy omniscience. HRU, the great angel set over the Tarot, is   beyond us as we are beyond the ant; but for all we know, the   --   proportion. Nor have we any warrant for accusing HRU of   ignorance or error if we read the Tarot to our own delusion. He   may have known, he may have spoken truly; the fault may lie with

APPENDIX_I_-_Curriculum_of_A._A., #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy     Liber LXXVII. (77) [] - Liber OZ. ::: The Thelemic declaration of rights of Man.     Liber LXXVIII. (78) [] - On the Tarot. ::: A complete treatise on the Tarot giving the correct designs of the cards with their attributions and symbolic meanings on all the planes. Part-published in Equinox VII, p.143.     Liber LXXXI. (81) [] - Moonchild. (The Butterfly Net). ::: An account of a magical operation, particularly concerning the planet Luna, written in the form of a novel. Published under the title "Moon-child" by the Mandrake Press, 41, Museum St., London, W.C.1.   --     Liber CCXXVIII (228) [B] - De Natura Deorum     Liber CCXXXI. (231) [A] - Liber Arcanorum ton ATU tou TAHUTI quas vidit ASAR in AMENNTI sub figura CCXXXI. Liber Carcerorum ton QLIPHOTH cum suis Geniis. Adduntur Sigilla et Nomina Eorum.:An account of the cosmic process so far as it is indicated by the Tarot Trumps. Equinox VII, p. 69.     Liber CCXLII. (242) [C] - AHA! ::: An exposition in poetic language of several of the ways of attainment and the results obtained. Equinox III, p. 9   --     Liber CCCCXVIII.     Liber CD. (400) [A] - Liber TAU vel Kabbalae Truium Literarum sub figura CD ::: A graphic interpretation of the Tarot on the plane of initiation. Equinox VII, p. 75.     Liber CDXII (412) [D] - A vel Armorum ::: An instruction for the preparation of the elemental Instruments. Equinox IV, p. 15.   --     Liber DCCCLX. (860) [C] - John St. John ::: The Record of the Magical Retirement of G. H. Frater O.'. M.'. A model of what a magical record should be, so far as accurate analysis and fullness of description are concerned. Equinox I, Supplement.     Liber DCCCLXVIII. (868) [B] - Liber Viarum Viae ::: A graphical account of magical powers classified under the Tarot Trumps. Equinox VII, p. 101.     Liber DCCCLXXXVIII. (888) [] - The Gospel According to Saint Bernard Shaw ::: A complete study of the origins of Christianity. Unpublished.

Liber_111_-_The_Book_of_Wisdom_-_LIBER_ALEPH_VEL_CXI, #unset, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga    FURTHER CONCERNING THIS    ON THE KEYS OF DEATH AND THE DEVIL, ARCANA OF the Tarot OF THE R.    C. BROTHERHOOD   --    with any Spirit soever; yet this shall serve thee most in common Life.    Also he Qualities are well defined in the Cards of the Tarot, so hat    thou hast a clear-cut Means of developing thy Powers according to the   --    Sun, Mercury, and Venus, whose sacred letters are R, B, and D. But the    last of the Diverse Letters is H , which in the Tarot is the Star whose    Eidolon is D; and herein is that Arcanum concerning the Tao of which I   --    DE CLAVIBUS MORTIS ET DIABOLI, ARCANIS TOU TAROT FRATERNITATIS R. C.    (On the Keys of Death and the Devil, Arcana of the Tarot of the R. C.    Brotherhood)

Liber_46_-_The_Key_of_the_Mysteries, #unset, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga    THE NUMBER NINE    THIS is the hermit of the Tarot; the number which refers to initiates    and to prophets.   --    {Illustration on page 108 described:    This is sub-titled below "THE TENTH KEY OF the Tarot".    It is a type of the Wheel of Fortune. The wheel itself is erected on a   --    themselves from one alphabet to another; and there is no doubt that    Trithemius was acquainted with the Tarot, and made use of it to set his    learned combinations in logical order.   --    twenty-two chapters, and the subject of each chapter is analogous to    the number and to the allegory of the corresponding card of the Tarot.    We {193} have made the same observation on a book of St. Martin   --    superstition when it fell into the hands of the ignorant priests and    the nomadic ancestors of the Bohemians who possessed the Tarot in the    Middle Ages; {194} they did not know how to employ it properly, and   --    The game of chess, attributed to Palamedes, has no other origin than    the Tarot,<    are worthless 18^th century fables. The "Bohemians", by which Levi   --    Astrological symbols and to the jumbled sequence.}    This key is that of the Tarot. There are four suits, wands, caps,{sic}    swords, coins or pentacles, corresponding to the four cardinal points

Liber, #unset, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga   Liber LXXVII. (77) [] - Liber OZ. ::: Liber Oz, The Book of the Goat - Crowley: 'The O.T.O. manifesto of the rights of mankind: moral, bodily, mental, sexual freedom, and the safeguard tyrannicde. The O.T.O. plan in words of one syllable.' .. The Thelemic declaration of rights of Man.   Liber LXXVIII. (78) [B] - On the Tarot. ::: A description of the Cards of the Tarot The Book of Thoth - Crowley: '... with their attributions; including a method of divination by their use.' and on TBOT, 'A complete treatise on the Tarot giving the correct designs of the cards with their attributions and symbolic meanings on all the planes.'   Liber LXXXI. (81) [] - Moonchild. (The Butterfly Net). ::: An account of a magical operation, particularly concerning the planet Luna, written in the form of a novel. Published under the title "Moon-child" by the Mandrake Press, 41, Museum St., London, W.C.1.   --   Liber CCXXVIII (228) [B] - De Natura Deorum   Liber CCXXXI. (231) [A] - Liber Arcanorum ton ATU tou TAHUTI quas vidit ASAR in AMENNTI sub figura CCXXXI. Liber Carcerorum ton QLIPHOTH cum suis Geniis. Adduntur Sigilla et Nomina Eorum.:An account of the cosmic process so far as it is indicated by the Tarot Trumps. Equinox VII, p. 69.   @Liber CCXLII. (242) [C] - AHA! ::: An exposition in poetic language of several of the ways of attainment and the results obtained. Equinox III, p. 9   --   Liber CCCCXVIII.   Liber CD. (400) [A] - Liber TAU vel Kabbalae Truium Literarum sub figura CD ::: A graphic interpretation of the Tarot on the plane of initiation. Equinox VII, p. 75.   Liber CDXII (412) [D] - A vel Armorum ::: An instruction for the preparation of the elemental Instruments. Equinox IV, p. 15.   --   Liber DCCCLX. (860) [C] - John St. John ::: The Record of the Magical Retirement of G. H. Frater O.'. M.'. A model of what a magical record should be, so far as accurate analysis and fullness of description are concerned. Equinox I, Supplement.   Liber DCCCLXVIII. (868) [B] - Liber Viarum Viae ::: A graphical account of magical powers classified under the Tarot Trumps. Equinox VII, p. 101.   Liber DCCCLXXXVIII. (888) [] - The Gospel According to Saint Bernard Shaw ::: A complete study of the origins of Christianity. Unpublished.

the_Castle, #unset, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga      In fact, the three who now started quarreling did so with solemn gestures as if declaiming, and while all three pointed to the same card, with their free hand and with evocative grimaces they exerted themselves to convey that those figures were to be interpreted this way and not that. Now in the card whose name varies according to custom and language-The Tower, The House of God, The House of the Devil-a young man carrying a sword, you would say for the purpose of scratching his flowing blond hair (now white), recognizes the platform before Elsinore castle when the night's blackness is rent by an apparition which freezes the sentinels in fear: the majestic march of a ghost whose grizzled beard and shining helmet and breastplate cause him to resemble both the Tarots' Emperor and the late king of Denmark, who has returned to demand Justice. In such questionable shape, the cards lend themselves to the young man's silent interrogation: "Why the sepulchre hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws that thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel, revisit'st thus the glimpses of The Moon?"   He is interrupted by a lady who, with distraught eye, insists she recognizes in that same Tower the castle of Dunsinane when the vengeance darkly prophesied by the witches will be unleashed: Birnam Wood will move, climbing the slopes of the hill, hosts and hosts of trees will advance, their roots torn from the earth, their boughs outstretched as in the Ten of Clubs, attacking the fortress, and the usurper will learn that Macduff, born through a sword's slash, is the one who, with a slash of the Sword, will cut off his head. And thus the sinister juxtaposition of cards finds a meaning: Popess, or prophesying sorceress; Moon, or night in which thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd, and the hedgepig whin'd, and newt, frog, and adders allow themselves to be caught for the broth; Wheel, or stirring of the bubbling cauldron where witches' mummy is dissolved with gall of goat, wool of bat, finger of birth-strangled babe, poisoned entrails, tails of shitting monkeys, just as the most senseless signs the witches mix in their brew sooner or later find a meaning that confirms them and reduces you, you and your logic, to a gruel.

youtube, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism      Each letter of the Qabalistic alphabet has a number, color, many symbols and a Tarot card attributed to it. The Qabalah not only aids in an understanding of the Tarot, but teaches the student how to classify and organize all such ideas, numbers and symbols. Just as a knowledge of Latin will give insight into the meaning of an unfamiliar English word with a Latin root, so the knowledge of the Qabalah with the various attributions to each character in its alphabet will enable the student to understand and correlate ideas and concepts which otherwise would have no apparent relation.      --      I began the study of the Qabalah at an early age. Two books I read then have played unconsciously a prominent part in the writing of my own book. One of these was "Q.B.L. or the Bride's Reception" by Frater Achad (Charles Stansfeld Jones), which I must have first read around 1926. The other was "An Introduction to the Tarot" by Paul Foster Case, published in the early 1920's. It is now out of print, superseded by later versions of the same topic. But as I now glance through this slender book, I perceive how profoundly even the format of his book had influenced me, though in these two instances there was not a trace of plagiarism. It had not consciously occurred to me until recently that I owed so much to them. Since Paul Case passed away about a decade or so ago, this gives me the opportunity to thank him, overtly, wherever he may now be.