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Page 1 of 41944 · PDF PAGE 265
…ive force of Mercury, that is of the balanced energy which has created the illusion of existence. It will be noted that the shape of the symbol shows the three Mother letters of the Hebrew alphabet, Shin, Aleph and Mem, in its three sections. The importance of this symbol is mainly that the Tarot is primarily the Book of Thoth or Tahuti, the Egyptian Mercury. For the understanding of this book it is necessary to learn how to transmute instinctively and automatically every simple symbol into every complex symbol and back again; for only so is it…
1944 · PDF PAGE 53
…e doctrine of Eheieh: “I shall Be”. Yet in the end these doctrines are identical. This babe is in an egg of blue, which is evidently the symbol of the Mother. This child has, in a way, not been born; the blue is the blue of space; the egg is sitting upon a lotus, and this lotus grows on the Nile. Now, the lotus is another symbol of the Mother, and the Nile is also a symbol of the Father, fertilizing Egypt, the Yoni. (But also the Nile is the home of Sebek the crocodile, who threatens Harpocrates.) Yet Harpocrates is not always thus represented.…
1944 · PDF PAGE 49
…he custom is therefore developed into the condition so admirably investigated by Fra‐ zer in the Golden Bough. (This Bough is no doubt a symbol of the King’s Daughter herself). “The king’s daughter is all glorious within; her raiment is of wrought gold.” How did such a development come to pass? There may have been a reaction against playing politics; there may have been a glorifi‐ cation, first of all of the ‘gentleman burglar’, finally of the mere gangster‐boss, rather as we have seen in our own times, in the reaction against Victorianism. The…
1944 · PDF PAGE 232
…nergy which are opposed. It needs a very powerful Mercury to upset Taurus; so the natural meaning is Intelligence applied to Labour. The symbol represents five disks in the form of the inverted Pentagram, instability in the very foundations of Matter. The effect is that of an earthquake. They are, however, repre‐ sentative of the five Tatvas; these hold together, on a very low plane, an organism which would otherwise disrupt completely. The background is an angry, ugly red with yellow mark‐ ings. The general effect is one of intense strain; yet…
1944 · PDF PAGE 65
…he Fa‐ ther with the Mother. Daleth is one of the three paths which are altogether above the Abyss. There is further more the alchemical symbol of Venus, the only one of the planetary symbols which comprises all the Sephiroth of the Tree of Life. The doctrine implied is that the funda‐ mental formula of the Universe is Love. [The circle touches the Sephiroth I, 2, 4, 6, 5, 3; the Cross is formed by 6, 9, 10 and 7, 8.] It is impossible to summarize the meanings of the symbol of the Woman, for this very reason, that she continually recurs in infi…
1944 · PDF PAGE 62
II. THE HIGH PRIESTESS This card is referred to the letter Gimel, which means a Camel. (The symbolism of the Camel is explained later.) The card refers to the Moon. The Moon (being the general feminine symbol, the symbol of the second order corresponding to the Sun as the Yoni does to the Lingam) is universal, and goes from the highest to the lowest. It is a symbol which will recur frequently in these hiero‐ glyphs. But in the earlier Trumps the concern is with Nature above the Abyss; the High Priest‐ ess is the first card which connects the Su…
1944 · PDF PAGE 214
… latent antagonism native to the suit. The Rose emits white rays, producing a geometrical pattern that emphasizes the equilibrium of the symbol.
1944 · PDF PAGE 122
…fact that his first disciple was a publican, i.e., tax‐collector. Note also Mercury as the deliverer of Prometheus. One half of the Fish symbol is also common to Christ and Mercury; fish are sacred to Mercury (owing presumably to their quality of movement and cold‐bloodedness). Many of Christ’s disciples were fishermen, and he was always doing miracles in connection with fish. Note also Christ as the mediator: “No man cometh unto the Father but by me”, and Mercury as Chokmah “through whom alone we can approach Kether.” “The Caduceus contains a …
1944 · PDF PAGE 52
about the vulture Maut). Not in spite of, but because of this, he was the symbol of the maxi‐ mum of creative energy. (Freud, as will be seen later, explains this apparent antithesis.) Once again, the animal kingdom is invoked to fulfil the function of fathering the re‐ deemer. On the banks of the Euphrates men worshipped Oannes, or Dagon, the fish god. The fish as a symbol of fatherhood, of motherhood, of the perpetuation of life generally, constantly recurs. The letter N. (Nun, N, in Hebrew means Fish) is one of the original hieroglyphs stand…
1944 · PDF PAGE 54
equivalent of initiation; as the mystic would say, “My soul is swallowed up in God”. (Compare the symbolism of Noah and the Ark, Jonah1 and the Whale, and others.) One must constantly keep in mind the bivalence of every symbol. Insistance upon ei‐ ther one or other of the contradictory attributions inherent in a symbol is simply a mark of spiritual incapacity; and it is constantly happening, because of prejudice. It is the simplest test of initiation that every symbol is understood instinctively to contain this contradictory mean‐ ing in itself…
1944 · PDF PAGE 91
XIII. DEATH This card is attributed to the letter Nun, which means a fish; the symbol of life beneath the waters; life travelling through the waters. It refers to the Zodiacal sign of Scorpio, which is ruled by Mars, the planet of fiery energy in its lowest form, which is therefore necessary to provide the impulse. In alchemy, this card explains the idea of putrefaction, the technical name given by its adepts to the series of chemical changes which develops the final form of life from the original latent seed in the Orphic egg. This sign is one…
1944 · PDF PAGE 239
…they appear interlaced, forming [?] the figure of Capricornus, the Sign in which the Sun finds his rebirth. It is the holy Hexagram, the symbol of the uniting of the Macrocosm and the Microcosm, the accomplishment of the Great Work, the Summum Bonum, True Wisdom and Perfect Happiness. Sic sit vobis!
1944 · PDF PAGE 74
…(in one tradition) the title of the card is “The Children of the Voice, the Oracle of the Mighty Gods”. From this point of view, he is a symbol of inspiration, descending upon the hooded figure, who is, in this instance, a prophet operating the conjunction of the King and Queen. His arrow represents the spiritual intelligence necessary in alchemical operations, rather than the mere hunger to perform them. On the other hand, the arrow is peculiarly a symbol of direction, and it is, therefore, proper to put the word “Thelema” in Greek letters on …
1944 · PDF PAGE 98
…ious and terrible. Panic suggested that Christian children were stolen, sacrificed, and eaten. The belief persists to this day. In every symbol of this card there is the allusion to the highest things and most remote. Even the horns of the goat are spiral, to represent the movement of the all‐pervading energy. Zoroaster defines God as “having a spiral force”. Compare the more recent, if less profound, writings of Einstein1. 1Compare Saturn, at one end of the Seven Sacred Wanderers, with the Moon at the other: the aged man and the young girl—see…
1944 · PDF PAGE 92
…represents the dance of death; the figure is a skeleton bearing a scythe, and both the skeleton and the scythe are importantly Saturnian symbols. This appears strange, as Saturn has no overt connection with Scorpio; but Saturn represents the essential structure of existing things. He is that elemental nature of things which is not destroyed by the ordinary changes which occur in the operations of Nature. Furthermore, he is crowned with the crown of Osiris; he represents Osiris in the waters of Amennti. Yet more, he is the original secret male c…
1944 · PDF PAGE 58
…ry), and the ivy sacred to his devotees. There is also the butterfly of many‐coloured air and the winged globe with its twin serpents, a symbol which is echoed and fortified by the twin infants em‐ bracing on the middle spiral. Above them hangs the benediction of three flowers in one. Fawn‐ ing upon him is the tiger; and beneath his feet in the Nile with its lotus stems crouches the crocodile. Resuming all his many forms and many‐coloured images in the centre of the figure, the focus of the microcosm is the radiant sun. The whole picture is a g…
1944 · PDF PAGE 219
…s the celestial Energy influencing the Kerub of the Man, thus showing intelligence and humanity. But there is much more than this in the symbol. The perfect balance of all mental and moral faculties, hardly won, and almost impossible to hold in an ever‐changing world, de‐ clares the idea of Science in its fullest interpretation. The hilts of the Swords, which are very ornamental, are in the form of the hexagram. Their points touch the outer petals of a red rose upon a golden cross of six squares, thus showing the Rosy Cross as the central secre…
1944 · PDF PAGE 215
…ate, but its children are monsters. This may mean the supreme tran‐ scendence of the natural order. Secrecy is here, and Perversion. The symbol represents the great Sword of the Magician, point uppermost; it cuts the junction of two short curved swords. The impact has destroyed the rose. In the background, storm broods under implacable night.
1944 · PDF PAGE 222
… in Gemini, crude rage of hunger operating without restraint; although its form is intellectual, it is the temper of the inquisitor. The symbol shows nine swords of varying lengths, all striking downwards to a point. They are jagged and rusty. Poison and blood drip from their blades. There is, however, a way of dealing with this card: the way of passive resistance, resig‐ nation, the acceptance of martyrdom. Nor is an alien formula that of implacable revenge.
1944 · PDF PAGE 237
…s. These may be marked with the magical images of the appropriate planets. As a general remark, one may say that the multiplication of a symbol of Energy always tends to degrade its essential meaning, as well as to complicate it.