by Frater Hymenaeus Alpha 777 (Grady Louis McMurtry)
The following article appeared in
The Magickal Link, Volume 1 No. 12 Dec. 1981 e.v.
OK, Genesis 2, part 3. The Four Rivers of Paradise.
— So this guy had invented his own tarot. And that is
OK. After all how many times during that fantastic year
of 1969-70 e.v. did I say to anyone who would listen;
“when we get this Thoth deck published, it will cause
a whole new psychic vibration in the Universe.” ? And
that is exactly what has happened, and that is good.
Unfortunately something else is happening which is not good. Because this guy’s old lady came over to me when I was reading Tarot cards at Ren Faire (I drop back on the Waite or Rider deck on good. Because this guy’s old lady came over to me when I was reading Tarot cards at Ren Faire ( I drop back on the Waite or Rider deck on occasion just for variety. If anybody can find a set of the Manley P. Hall deck, for God’s sake forward it to me… I lost mine) and laid out a spread. It was rather interesting. After all, every Tarot reader has their Own way of reading the psychic mirrors we call Tarot.occasion just for variety. If anybody can find a set of the Manley P. Hall deck, for God’s sake forward it to me… I lost mine) and laid out a spread. It was rather interesting. After a ll, every Tarot reader has their Own way of reading the psychic mirrors we call Tarot.
But then she started to explain to me about how she was going to change the cards around on the Tree of Life. Unfortunately that is verboten. For a very simple reason. Those 22 cards, the 22 Major Arcana, happen to represent various aspects of your psychic body. For example, Binah happens to be the pituitary gland in the back of your head. sometime I must explain to you why Pisces is represented by a double moon that represents the back of you cranial cavity. Or why THE HIEROPHANT, the Taurus card, goes from Chockmah (your agna chakra) to Chesed.
But Aleister Crowley says it better. Note 1, page 7, MAGICK IN THEORY AND PRACTICE (the original), he says: “one who ought to have known better (Fr. Achad) tried to improve the Tree of Life by turning the Serpent of Wisdom upside down! Yet he could not make his scheme symmetrical: his little remaining good sense revolted at the supreme atrocities. Yet he succeeded in reducing the whole Magickal Alphabet to nonsense, and shewing that he had never understood it’s real meaning.
The absurdity of any such disturbance of the Paths is evident to any sober student from such examples as the following: Binah, the Supernal Understanding, is connected with Tiphereth, the human consciousness, by Zain, Gemini, the Oracles of the Gods, or the Intuition. That is the attribution represents a psychological fact: to replace it by the Devil is either humor or plain idiocy. Again, the “Fortitude,” Leo, balances Majesty and Mercy with Strength and Severity: what sense is there in putting “Death,” the Scorpion, in it’s stead?”
—if you see what I mean.
H.A.777
I wish to thank Frater Orpheus for making this page possible.