Re: Dummett's "Il Mondo e L'Angelo" & More

251
Huck wrote,
... the planet identification of Golden Dawn isn't bad, just one exchange looks wrong: 1 Pagat should be Moon (is given to Mercury), and Popess should be Mercury (is Moon)
But then after Venus (Empress) they have the next planet as Jupiter (Wheel). It should be Sun. And then where they have Sun (Sun), it should be Jupiter. So they two "exchanges" wrong, or four assignments out of seven not in SY order.

Re: Dummett's "Il Mondo e L'Angelo" & More

252
mikeh wrote:Huck wrote,
... the planet identification of Golden Dawn isn't bad, just one exchange looks wrong: 1 Pagat should be Moon (is given to Mercury), and Popess should be Mercury (is Moon)
But then after Venus (Empress) they have the next planet as Jupiter (Wheel). It should be Sun. And then where they have Sun (Sun), it should be Jupiter. So they two "exchanges" wrong, or four assignments out of seven not in SY order.
While the order of the planets could be ordered/numbered as either from or to the earth--similar to how the GD numbered the sephiroth for example (1-10; 2-9; etc.,), as far as I recall no redaction of the SY assigns the letters in reverse Chaldean order--you have reversed or 'corrected' it yourself for a better fit--no problem with that, but in doing so I don't see how you have any more claim of adherence to a more 'authentic' or historical SY authority than does the GD?

There is some authority for changing the order of assignments (whether your own or the GDs or anyone elses) in that the Gra did so after all, in order make a better fit between the SY and the Zohar and teachings of the Ari.

Of those versions clearly based upon the Chaldean order, there are some versions that don't start with Saturn, for example that used by Kircher: Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars. But that is still the usual chaldean/hourly order, just starting from a different hour (the first planetary hour of Sunday).

According to one modern GD author, the GD ordering of the planets is based upon 'the ascending order of exaltations', I have no idea what is meant by that (I know what the exaltations are, but not what is meant by their 'ascending' order). As far as I can see there is no relationship to their attributions and planetary exaltations. I think the author was confusing the attributions to the letters with the assignment of the letters/planets to the petals of the Rose-Cross, which is described in GD papers as being in accordance with their exaltations (although again, I can't make out how it does so).

Re: Dummett's "Il Mondo e L'Angelo" & More

253
mikeh wrote: But then after Venus (Empress) they have the next planet as Jupiter (Wheel). It should be Sun. And then where they have Sun (Sun), it should be Jupiter. So they two "exchanges" wrong, or four assignments out of seven not in SY order.
Well, I've modified the old ..

Image


... to the following, possibly with better overview:

Image


The whole is a number game, so not really of essential importance.

Somebody decided, that the 3 mothers should add to 32, cause the related object got the title "32 ways of wisdom", which had a mathematical background.

So you have a 32. Otherwise the letters were counted ...
0,1,2,3 ... till 21, which gives the number value 231 in total.
And the Sephiroth were counted 1,2,3 ... till 10, which gives the number value 55.
231+55 = 286 ... one couldn't avoid this number

For the "32" they took the first letter and the second last letter and then the letter, which was necessary to sum up to 32.
The last letter was given to Saturn, cause this was the math value (111111 / 000000) of highest importance (and it necessarily was a planet).

286 - 32 = 254

They wished, that the rest looked elegant: They divided 254 in 2 halves: 254/2 = 127. As the 55 must have been a part of one of the halves, they got 127-55 = 72 (another "nice number"). So they were satisfied and they arranged the number of the double letters in a manner, that the sum became 72. The sum of the simple letter numbers naturally became 127.

They had a preference for elegant numbers for the double letters.

The sun got the 19 cause of the Meton cycle (the Jews still use it as an internal calendar counting).
Jupiter got the 10 likely cause of the Tetraktys: 1+2+3+4 and as a sephira Jupiter got the 4. And it was elegant, that the 10 opposed the 21 in the cycle.
And the sun opposed the moon this way (in relation to the line between Jupiter and Saturn).
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Dummett's "Il Mondo e L'Angelo" & More

254
SteveM wrote: While the order of the planets could be ordered/numbered as either from or to the earth--similar to how the GD numbered the sephiroth for example (1-10; 2-9; etc.,), as far as I recall no redaction of the SY assigns the letters in reverse Chaldean order--you have reversed or 'corrected' it yourself for a better fit--no problem with that, but in doing so I don't see how you have any more claim of adherence to a more 'authentic' or historical SY authority than does the GD?
I don't claim "authority", but just "more number elegance", controllable by everybody, who just takes the interest to look for it.
I personally think, that the unknown SY author had some sense for "number elegance". The background of the author is very vague, estimations date the text with differences ranging over 5 centuries.
It seems rather clear, that the author used 32-127-127 as a basic partition. If true (and not just accidental), this tells at least, that the author acted with some number-taste.
There is some authority for changing the order of assignments (whether your own or the GDs or anyone elses) in that the Gra did so after all, in order make a better fit between the SY and the Zohar and teachings of the Ari.

Of those versions clearly based upon the Chaldean order, there are some versions that don't start with Saturn, for example that used by Kircher: Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars. But that is still the usual chaldean/hourly order, just starting from a different hour (the first planetary hour of Sunday).

According to one modern GD author, the GD ordering of the planets is based upon 'the ascending order of exaltations', I have no idea what is meant by that (I know what the exaltations are, but not what is meant by their 'ascending' order). As far as I can see there is no relationship to their attributions and planetary exaltations. I think the author was confusing the attributions to the letters with the assignment of the letters/planets to the petals of the Rose-Cross, which is described in GD papers as being in accordance with their exaltations (although again, I can't make out how it does so).
Well, I'm mainly interested in that, what the author of the SY had in this mind. The SY seems to have been the first, who have spoken of "double letters" and these seem to have been relevant for the practical pronunciation of letters, that some letters got a double value in language: just the double letters, as we know them, called the "bəgadkəpat" (bgdkpt) letters.
Resh, the 7th double letter in SY seems to haven't found any practical use (so it isn't found in "bəgadkəpat"), but the other 6 did with the time (or even before SY ?). I tried to find some information, when this started; I had no luck, I don't know dates. It's a complicated theme. Additional signs were invented, which were added to the single letters to indicate the pronunciation.

Gerschom Scholem gives a short note (with references):
http://books.google.de/books?id=SZ8iAAA ... en&f=false
Image

English version:
http://books.google.de/books?id=9dRi8v- ... ah&f=false

Generally ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_alphabet
... has a lot about the pronunciation system, but not really dates of invention.

Just thinking with humble mind about this problem:

1. The row of the alphabet is very old, about 1500 BC I've in my memory.

2. The SY is at least 1500-1600 years younger. The construction of the 7 double letters seems to follow number ideas implanted on the alphabet row, not practical wishes for "double pronunciation".

3. Possibly not every letter could have been used for double pronunciation.

4. Perhaps one has to calculate, that an old internal system existed long before the SY?
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Dummett's "Il Mondo e L'Angelo" & More

255
SteveM wrote
While the order of the planets could be ordered/numbered as either from or to the earth--similar to how the GD numbered the sephiroth for example (1-10; 2-9; etc.,), as far as I recall no redaction of the SY assigns the letters in reverse Chaldean order--you have reversed or 'corrected' it yourself for a better fit--no problem with that, but in doing so I don't see how you have any more claim of adherence to a more 'authentic' or historical SY authority than does the GD?
My proposal for tarot assignments assumes a late 15th century Florentine Christian milieu (extending into the 16th century). In that milieu, it seems to me natural that they would have translated the SY order that they had received, which starts with Saturn, into the reverse order, which was the one they knew from the medieval cosmographs.

Re: Dummett's "Il Mondo e L'Angelo" & More

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mikeh wrote:...So in Spain by the end of the 16th century, the French suit of trefles is called something like "basto" and the piques something like "spadille". No doubt the English terms "club" and "spade" derive from Spanish games with French suits. It would be logical that the English terms "diamond" and "hearts" came from the Spanish usage as well, as opposed to the French. "Hearts" could have come from France or Germany as well as from Spain, and is not at issue, So the question is whether the French suit of carreaux. which is not a word for the gem, was called something that meant the gem in Spanish. Looking in the online Spanish-English dictionaries, I see that the Spanish word for the suit of diamonds is "diamante", which is also the word for the gem.
In Portuguese French suits names are also derived from those of Spanish decks. Thus the French suit of coeurs (Hearts) is called Copas (cups), with variations "taça" (cups) and "coração" (hearts). The French suit of carreaux is called Ouros (gold), but also "losango" (diamond shape, lozenge) or "diamante" (diamonds), or, informally, "balãozinho" (little balloons) and "Doce de Leite" (sweet (condensed) milk). The French suit of piques is called Espadas (swords), with variations "espadilha" (sprat), "seta" (arrow), "lança" (spear), or informally, "punhal"(dagger) or "coração negro" (black heart). Trèfles are called "Paus" (clubs, wood, stick, penis), also "trevo" (clover) or "pé de pinto" (standing chick (prick, cock, penis)).

Re: Dummett's "Il Mondo e L'Angelo" & More

257
Thanks, Steve. So they use both the translation for the French word and the old Latin suit-names. I had not known the Purtuguese terms before: taça, ouros, espadas, paus. So baston in Italian becomes paus or pé de pinto in Portuguese, which also means "penis". That seems of interest. I wonder if that was also true of the Italian "bastone"--did it also mean "penis"? And the Spanish "basto"? If so, that might explain a few things, like why in the French cartomantic tradition batons are associated with generativity, and the type B King of Bastoni (Budapest and Metropolitan) has one protruding finger that looks like a penis. It might also give another layer of meaning for the "Marseille" court figures that carry clubs (the Page and the Knight). Like the English "rod", "verga" in Italian and Spanish. If "verga" why not "bastone"? But I find no verification.
cron