research

[egypturnash]

In reference to this morning's entry with the idea for a Tarot art project, I grabbed prickvixen's copy of Crowley's book on the stuff, "The Book Of Thoth (The Egyptian Tarot)". I attempted to read the intro and the first couple major arcana on the bus.

My mental immune system is reacting against it.

I think that if I end up pulling any of the Majors to do, I shall number them in binary, rather than the traditional mixture of 0 for the Fool and Roman numerals for the rest (which, Crowley says, is to "avoid confusion with the Roman numerals of the Seprioth", the Seprioth being ten important symbols in the Qabalah - the word literally means "Numbers"). Why binary? Because. Because it generates everything from 1 and 0 and what's more mystical than the eternal dance of Thingness and No-Thingness, of the Male Phallic Principle of One and the Female Vulval Principle of Zero? Because the I Ching is very much a binary system, though there are those transformations applied during the process. Because I am a smart-ass person with hacker tendencies.

I also end up thinking that Crowley was a fairly intelligent man who was building vast towers of theory on complete and utter bullshit. Every "fact" he presents regarding the True History And Sekret Meaning Of Tarot seems to be the sort of thing that ultimately boils down to "because I said so" or "because it just sounds right" (he may not be the one doing the saying, in the case of references to one obscure tract or another, but if you chased the pointers, "because I said so" would be the ultimate justification for most of this); I can see the appeal of that sort of thinking, it's pretty, it's like putting together a grand jigsaw puzzle... but it's also imposing a very human structure on the essentially inhuman and messy universe. He packed his head with all this deliberately incomprehensible and obfuscatory bullshit, then made this mad effort to make sense of it. But I ultimately feel like I'm trying to make sense of the Time Cube guy or something. Elaborate crystals of hand-hewn bullshit.

Comments

[thaily.livejournal.com]

Crowley did not draw his own deck by the way, it was drawn by a woman who had very little knowledge of tarot.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

*nod* But she was working from sketches and descriptions by him. And "posessed in her own right the Essential Spirit of the Book."

I get this image of Crowley and Frieda Harris as the nightmare commission so many furry artists trade stories about. "Draw this". (Frieda draws and paints.) "No, it needs to have (twenty-seven precise details not specified in the original vague description)." (Frieda rolls her eyes and revises.) "Closer. But it needs (eighteen more annoyingly precise details)!" (Freida mentally jacks the price up by an order of magnitude and goes back to her easel.)

[prickvixen.livejournal.com]

I have the deck itself, if you want to see it, and don't get pizza smudges on it. :)

[prickvixen.livejournal.com]

The Book of Thoth is quite impenetrable. I've wanted to understand it, even believe it, but I don't see anything there. And yes, when you really scrutinize it, there doesn't seem to be anything to it where you can say 'Aha, yes, that's demonstrable.' I have the same problem with it that I have with something like the Bible.

It should be said, though, that science (valid science, at least) is based on what can be observed and demonstrated, and if the thing can't be observed by known methods, it might be there but won't be discovered. You'd think there would be worlds of difference between Crowley's nonsense and something like quantum theory, but it's much less than you'd think. Our faith in science is based on the same chauvanism which convinced people of the existence of witches and demons and evil spirits not so long ago. But it should also be said that quantum theory is ostensibly based on years of research in related fields, while Crowley seems to have just pulled a lot of this out of his ass. But 'seems.' I don't know.

I only have the book because somebody abandoned it in a house I was sharing and it looked interesting. When a book like that falls into your lap, you're supposed to either take it or throw it far away.

I've also never drawn a tarot card, oddly enough. I think a more interesting project would be to devise wholly new major arcana which are relevant to my own life.

How about a unary number system? One. This is it. That's all you get. Don't ask questions!

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

That explains the condition of the edges of the pages, then.

I'm not sure there is anything there. There's certainly nothing like a philosophy; it's just a lot of rambling about how this particular card symbolizes this and that and the other thing. It's a reference work, really. Except all his citations have this aura of bullshit.

[ilthuain.livejournal.com]

Try to read Bacon's The New Atlantis or the dread of The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkruetz. Bullcrap esoterica is hard to read because it needs to be... there is little wisdom contained within, save an excellent example on how to sound profound while saying nothing of import.

I've been reading this sort of drivel for our next project, and the frightening thing is, it gets secured deep within your brain. I now use the Sefirot in daily conversation.... scary.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

As long as you're making offhand sarcastic references to it, you're fine. It's no worse than making a casual reference to a bit of Greek myth or a supressed cartoon. It's when you start taking it completely seriously that it's time to worry.

True wisdom is blindingly obvious when you hear it, possibly with a little bit of clarification in the exceedingly succinct cases. False wisdom is only revealed after you have become a 826° 73' 851" Initiate of the Order of Wallet Flattening. And then you're told that it's a concealing lie when you pay the fees for the next level of initiation.