Moved from AT
Posted: 30 Mar 2012, 09:31
Yggdrasilian wrote on AT (but I don't know if he'll see this) -
"Frater Perdurabo said jokingly that everything contained the Truth, if you knew how to find it; and, being challenged, proceeded to make good. It is here inserted not for any value that it may have, but to test the reader. If it is thought to be a joke, the reader is one useless kind of fool; if it is thought that Frater P. believes that the maker of the Tarot had any occult intention, he is another kind of fool."
(based on Aleister Crowley, "An Interlude", Book Four, part 2, note)
This is a very slightly paraphrased passage from a chapter in which Crowley derives great mystical and magical, Qabablistic truths from children's nursery rhymes. He was so steeped in these subjects, that, like he said, you can find this "truth" in everything, in random places, wherever you look. Just like Court de Gébelin, who was steeped in his encyclopedic attempt to restore the pristine philosophy, even a simple game could be seen to possess the supreme Truth.
What shorter step than to think, having seen this Truth in a nursery rhyme, or an old game, that the maker of the game intended it in the first place? Well, at least we know what Crowley thought of such thinking.
Crowley seems to have believed that Tarot was made with such an intention, but with a little more knowledge he would probably have acknowledged that, like with the nursery rhymes, what occultists think they see in the Tarot is their own reflections, rather than what the maker intended.
To which I responded on the now-closed thread -Rather than contrive extraneous forums, Historical Research would benefit from a reappraisal of Tarot as QaBaLaH cypher. Whatever the motive for avoiding this discussion, be it the preservation of dominant paradigm, safeguarding of esoteric knowledge, or adherence to a methodology which arbitrarily favors external over internal evidence, the persistent evasion ultimately undermines this forum’s credibility.
manibus date lilia plenis
"Frater Perdurabo said jokingly that everything contained the Truth, if you knew how to find it; and, being challenged, proceeded to make good. It is here inserted not for any value that it may have, but to test the reader. If it is thought to be a joke, the reader is one useless kind of fool; if it is thought that Frater P. believes that the maker of the Tarot had any occult intention, he is another kind of fool."
(based on Aleister Crowley, "An Interlude", Book Four, part 2, note)
This is a very slightly paraphrased passage from a chapter in which Crowley derives great mystical and magical, Qabablistic truths from children's nursery rhymes. He was so steeped in these subjects, that, like he said, you can find this "truth" in everything, in random places, wherever you look. Just like Court de Gébelin, who was steeped in his encyclopedic attempt to restore the pristine philosophy, even a simple game could be seen to possess the supreme Truth.
What shorter step than to think, having seen this Truth in a nursery rhyme, or an old game, that the maker of the game intended it in the first place? Well, at least we know what Crowley thought of such thinking.
Crowley seems to have believed that Tarot was made with such an intention, but with a little more knowledge he would probably have acknowledged that, like with the nursery rhymes, what occultists think they see in the Tarot is their own reflections, rather than what the maker intended.