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To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.consciousness.mysticism,talk.religion.misc From: catherine yronwodeSubject: Re: Qabalah and Tarot History (was Hermetic QBL ...) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 08:28:51 GMT James Revak: > >Additionally, in an enigmatic but very cute! > > passage in _The Pictorial Key_, Waite may imply > >that he rejects the important GD notion that the Fool, the > >"zero card", is the first of the Majors. In the subject passage he > >first rejects LÈvi's notion of placing the "zero card" or "zero > >symbol", i.e., the Fool, between Trumps 20 and 21. He also rejects > >what he describes as Etteilla's notion of placing the "zero card" > >last. These were two significant ways of dealing with the Fool in > >Waite's day. The only other significant way of dealing with the > >"zero card" in Waite's day, to the best of my knowledge, was to > >place it first, which is the teaching of the GD. But Waite says > >(and read him carefully), "I have seen yet another allocation of > >the zero symbol, which no doubt obtains in certain cases, but it > >fails on the highest plane. . . ." Gnome: > ***Placing it between 20 and 21 fails on every plane. **** And as i was taught, his "enigmatic" passage was designed to leave you to come to the obvious conclusion that, as zero, it DOES go first (duh) which is the GD way, but that he -- Waite -- had personal problems with this from a religious point of view. In other words, he was under Obligation to not completely reveal the GD system, then did so bass-ackwardly for "those with eyes to see" and THEN stated that although Obligated to conceal it, he had his own doubts about it. I saw this as the honest statement of a man caught on the horns of a dilemma. He could not in good conscience reveal the system completely in order to dispute some portion of it from a mystical standpoint (and you all can see his point about the problems "on the highest plane" of the Fool being aleph being zero, right?) -- so he gave the reader a simple 3-part multiple choice, demonstrated that two parts were incorrect, and then said that the third and only "correct" answer was something that bothered him. Made perfect sense to me in 1967, the first time i read it; makes perfect sense to me now. If you come at Waite from the standpoint of working WITH, rather than opposing or mocking his Obligation, you will find it a lot easier to read between the lines because you won't be frustrated by HAVING TO read between the lines. Analogy: In a very good scholarly book on archaeo-astronomy i read sweveral years ago, the authors noted that among the ancient Persians or Assurians or some-such there was some hero who was the son of a widow who had some connection to some star or constellation -- and in a footnote they said, isn;t it odd, just strange, you know, that when General Armistead fell at Gettysburg (US Civil War, for non-US readers) his last words were "Is there no help for the Widonw's Son?" and maybe this is evidence of some deep human linkage of ideas, along Jungian lines, blah blah blah blah blah -- or maybe not. Now you have two choices (at least) in interpreting that footnote: Either the authors were really, truly saying something about the Jungian collective unconscious ... or they were saying something about themselves, and were in fact passing along the Assyrian or whatever it is myth because they thought it would be of particular interest to certain people who might be familiar with the Civil War General or ... or something else entirely, which they don't wish to name. I sense this same quality in Waite's writing: he wanted to speak freely about the GD system, but was not in a popsition to do so. Hence that silly-wonderful three-way choice of where the Fool could go. It's classic: if you know, you know; if you don't, it's gobbledegook. cat (helping widow's sons since 1994) yronwode
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