Overview of Work

 

Impressionism / Samuel Mutzner/ Springtime

I am plowing away at the Tarot currently, but I am trying to tie in the Qabalah at the same time, which makes things harder.  

The real problem is that the sources are so cluttered and so unalike in theory/practice/presentation that a lot of the time trying to create a solid system of one’s own takes a lot of work.  That is why over the past three weeks I have only managed to work through the basics of two trumps (the magician and the papess) and the Aces and the Twos.  I have a hunch that I am not all the way home there either.

Now, you might be asking why I am approaching the issue this way?  Well, in a sense you can blame JMG who edited/re-released/published a book named “The Doors of Tarot” by John Gilbert.  While this book has been very useful, I feel that I need to talk about this flavor of associated books as well as the social aspects of this kind of metaphysics.

People who head this way are usually just folks.  They have realized that the common cultural references are not really useful to them and are searching for something to hang their hat on.  But there isn’t much in the way of systematic study, and from what I have gathered, the folks who work at systematic studies tend to keep silent about their work (thanks for pointing this out Mssr. Levi)

So I have to cobble together my coursework as best I can from the readings over at JMG’s place and others.  JMG’s discussion of “Doctrine and Ritual” has been helpful a lot of the time, but I have scampered down a couple of rabbit holes that ended up nowhere.

What seems unfortunate is that I have had to break down my study into a couple of groups.  I refer to these as the “Cliff’s Notes” group and the “Syllabus” group.  

The “Cliff Notes” group is pretty fun, but a lot of the time, I am really careful when I use them.  John Gilbert appears to be a nice man with an easy to read writing style, but to me he appears to be a bit of a flimflam man.  Now, there will be those out there who will rise aghast and think that I am judging him harshly.  Not at all, he provides a great overview and decent, well thought out lesson plans, but I think that his “Whatever you want” attitude and the last four aspects of his “process” where the “start reading for money” and changing meanings at will kinda show where he is coming from.

Now, I want to make sure that you know that while I am judging Mr. Gilbert, that doesn’t mean that the judgement means that he is a bad person or that he is wrong.  I have learned a lot over the years from flimflam men.  Mostly what I have learned is that they have some good ideas and that they have to eat too.  Their writings are subtly slanted to get cash through the door.  I learn a lot from Mr. Gilbert, but I feel that his teachings have limitations.

The syllabus group is where I learn the most.   But it is hard slogging through some of these.  Yolanda Robinson did a pretty nice job on her book “The Revised New Art Tarot”.  She seems to have a solid handle on things even if she gets a little too “new-agey” for my taste sometimes.  Still a solid reference to date.  The  link that I referenced above is the color edition. I have the black and white edition and it seems to work just fine for a third the price.

Next is the star.  Robert Wang’s “The Qubalistic Tarot” seems rock solid to me.  I think that it explains things very well to someone of my bent (fallen scientist).  The ordering of the books seems odd at first, but is making more and more sense now that I have been using it for a while.  I foresee a bunch of those little post-it marker tabs sticking out of it and getting denser as I work through this process.

I do have the Eliphas Levi book (The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic) that JMG is working through in his extended tour over at Ecosophia.  I think that it does teach a way of thought, but while I use it, I have to put out a lot of effort to get around the turgid prose and Mssr. Levi’s tendency toward hand waving.  Yeah, yeah, I know that there is a bunch of meat there, but the sauce is a little too spiced for my tastes.

Finally, there is Alistair Crowley.  This guy is my conundrum.  He has the same overwrought writing style as Levi, seems to be as knowledgeable as anyone that has ever written about the subject, but I really kinda am turned off by his stuff.  I use (The Description of the Cards of the Tarot and The Book of Thoth: A Short Essay on the Tarot of the Egyptians, Being the Equinox Volume III No. V). I read them and use them, but when I work with them, I spend a lot more time trying to figure out what appears to me to be nasty traps waiting.   Still, I think that he knows what he is about when it comes to this subject.  My completely biased take is that there is a lot to learn here, but the books are full of traps.

So, that is my syllabus.  I suppose that if you want to use the cards differently you can choose a different set of reading material.  These appear to be the least new-agey and the most directed toward what I am trying to do.  

And just to make sure that everyone is on the same page, these aren’t recommendations, these are just what seems to work for me right now.