By Christine Payne-Towler
ArkLetter 90, NewMoon August 17, 2012
Here we are in the northern hemisphere's High Summer, watching the first signs of the upcoming change of seasons. NewMoon in late Leo puts us on notice that we have passed the halfway point in the season. The shift in day-length is also unmistakable to those who live in the far North or South of the globe. We are now engaged in the portion of the year called by the ancient Greek astrologers the Dry Way of Detachment. During this period the seeking soul follows the Sun as it slowly retreats from the heat and passion distilled during the alchemical peak signs of Cancer and Leo.
With the spiritual Sun at our backs, we now engage the current that will carry us out to the furthest edge of the Solar System again. This will grant us a perspective that is only available to the dispassionate, disconnected observer. In this half of the year, one leaves behind the orbits of the Planets one by one -- Mercury (ruler of Virgo), Venus (Libra), Mars (Scorpio), Jupiter (Sagittarius), penetrating to the orbit of Saturn, ruler of both Capricorn and Aquarius. As we cross each orbit we give back a piece of what was gained during the earlier half of the year, when the Sun was traversing the Wet Way of Involvement, path of pathos and engagement (which characterizes the arc from Aquarius to Cancer).
These two contrasting modes or ways form the bedrock of the astro-alchemy of the Tarot of the Holy Light. One can see this imprint embedded within the Zodiac by looking at our THL Icon and focusing on the Ladder of Lights at the middle of the diagram. The narrowest and tallest of the three interlaced rectangles represents the connection between the Saturn signs (Capricorn/Aquarius) and the signs ruled by the Lights (Cancer, Leo). The two sides of this narrow rectangle form the uprights of the Ladder, and all the horizontal lines that rise and fall across those uprights are its rungs. Each rung represents a planet with one appearance on the descending arc (the wet way) and one appearance on the ascending arc (the dry way). According to this teaching, human spirituality grows as we are "scrubbed up and down" this ladder by the rotation of the Sun, Moon and Planets. This can be envisioned as all taking place in one lifetime, or happening slowly over a sequence of incarnations. The whole time, as we circulate through the lessons that each stage brings to us, we are growing in understanding about what is Real (in the eternal sense) and what is illusory (limited to the appearances of time and space conditions).
I'm especially musing on this ancient mythic cycle because I recently heard from a dear friend Samten de Wet, whom I first met in the TarotL days (early 2000's). Longtime readers of this blog might remember previous mentions of Samten, who, like me, began his explorations of Tarot with CCZain's pack The Sacred Tarot. De Wet is by profession a scholarly researcher whose contribution to the back-story of Tarot is tragically overlooked. His article entitled 'The Serpent Lineage', (http://www.luxlapis.co.za/Lineage.html), was first published in 1986 by The Hermetic Journal, Edinburgh. In it he illuminates the coding and transmission of the Wisdom Tradition among the Reformation and Enlightenment magi, pointing out this tradition's long roots in history.
This very valuable article gives us a clue about how long de Wet has been researching and contemplating Tarot's utility as a catalogue of the teachings of history's esoteric philosophers. The age of this article also demonstrates that Tarot's more public historians have been fending off and resisting this particular line of thinking for three decades running! Whether the ideas de Wet expresses strike the reader as new and novel, or as old-hat and long-digested, that part isn't really the point. The issue I'm trying to spotlight is that this broad-minded inclusive approach exemplifies an essential scholarly technique that has gone missing among the present generation of Tarot historians. Such has been the case since this article was first published, and it remains so true, in the main, to this day.
1986 is also the year that Dr. Robert V. O'Neill self-published his hugely influential The Tarot. O'Neill also was trying to broaden his lens and embrace the widest possible field as a way of placing Tarot in its historical context. His effort was successful on many levels, though I would quibble with his lack of sympathy for occultism and Gnosticism, a sad blind spot considering the subject matter. One strange development that emerged in the wake of O'Neill's labor of love was that the historical Tarot conversation morphed into a weirdly competitive game-show mentality. It’s as if Tarot history debates across the 1990’s became a form of gladiator sports, where winners were declared based on which team could shout longest and loudest! In the resulting riot of virtual arguments, the partisan debate teams most favorable to modern Tarot styles declared that O'Neill "failed to prove his case" (however that case was being misconstrued at the moment).
Wisely, O'Neill grew tired after years of fierce contention and retired from the debates before he could see the positive results of his labors. In particular, he was rightly disappointed by the output of Decker, Dummett, and Depaulis, who took it upon themselves to declare Tarot's origins to be free of occultism and esotericism of any kind. Dr. O'Neil's departure from the Tarot roller derby has left a great hole, but blessedly, it allowed for a positive transformation his personal longevity and well-being. We are lucky that before he decamped for more fertile pastures, Dr. O'Neill contributed so many fascinating essays to the Tarot LIbrary over at www.tarot.com. Throughout, his analysis continues to be marked with his characteristic refusal to include the inner-circle esotericism in his purview. But in fact, that makes his contribution even more valuable because it highlights and details the secular context and general worldview that the true magi of the times were embedded within.
De Wet has a very different temperament, more of a quietist and far less willing to brawl over differences. His method has been akin to the Taoist sage who prefers his muddy riverbank and daily contemplations to the glittering court and its intrigues. He's not in resistance to the inherent esotericism of the Tarot, which leaves him free to make connections and associations without the pretense of ""jousting", "doing science on Tarot" or "proving one's contentions in kangaroo court". De Wet's mercurial desire to turn over every rock in the historical esoteric landscape, thus integrating Tarot's implicates into a larger and more inclusive context, represents the kind of effort our field still calls out for and sadly lacks. We desperately need this kind of interdisciplinary thinking practiced by more of our researchers, in order to rescue Tarot's roots from being buried alive in overspecialized treatments of modern Tarot fads. This type of holistic and multidimensional thinking represents our the best chance of rediscovering any remaining overlooked, unused openings that can lead us back to the unstated philosophy behind everybody's favorite playing-card deck.
When Samten checked in with me recently, he shared an extract he's made of a long conversation that happened in my old Yahoo group on Esoteric Tarot, where I wrote for a few years after I quit posting at TarotL (before Tarot University began). The Yahoo group is still open to new members, but people generally only join now to read through this conversation rather than to contribute. Samten has done us all a great favor by distilling out the part of the conversation that relates to the alphabetarian philosophy. Essentially, it's a discussion about why the letter A would never have been related to the Fool/Zero before the 20th century. In my recent article Doctrines of Correspondences I have detailed the linguistic reasons why A = 1 throughout the whole history of human culture. This extract deals exclusively with the theological and philosophical reasoning for rejecting this modern error.
Below is the extract as Samten de Wet sent it along to me. It starts out in my voice, and remarks from others are noted XXX. (There are several people under that fig leaf.) The group had been given a list of historical quotes that are regularly used in modern debates to support the A = 0 postulate. I was challenged to respond from my uber-traditionalist viewpoint:
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
Hi all --
Well, nothing like a little metaphysics to start off a Monday right, eh? ;-)
Knowing that we have several fans of Nicholas of Cusa here I am going to try to keep my comments short.
First let me recognize XXX's question: "Magical numerological astrology has a zero?" My sentiments exactly!
What strikes me from the below is that where <God=All>, the human has to make themselves <Zero=empty vessel> to let in that one true Reality.
Let's see what transpires as we go through the ideas. We may be arguing such a vanishingly small point that only the most well-educated and "modern" philosophers of the times would grasp it. So let's also keep our eyes open for instances in the 1300's and 1400's where the Zero penetrated into the magical practices of the times, since this is our theme -- the parallel development of Magic and Tarot.
XXX was quoting from an online bio of Nicholas of Cusa:
"Nicholas of Cusa lived from 1401 to 1464 CE. He is the author of
approximately 25 philosophical and spiritual works, but he also led a
very active life. He served the Roman Catholic Church as a papal
advocate before the imperial diets, cardinal-legate to Germany and
the Netherlands, bishop at Brixen (in what's now known as Germany)
and a papal adviser, vicar-general, and cameraius in Rome.
A pivotal point in his life occurred in 1437 when Pope Eugene IV sent
Cusa and two other bishops to Constantinople to help secure Greek
approval for a joint East-West council in Italy. His interaction with
Eastern Orthodox Christians provided him with a fresh vision of unity
and difference coexisting not only within the church but also in the
soul's experience of God and the world. During this trip Cusa also
reports having a profound, revelatory experience which he believed to
be a divine gift. It was a visionary experience of
the "incomprehensible" that opened up new ways for Cusa to speak
about the ineffable."
Christine Note: let's hang onto those two concepts, "incomprehensible" and "ineffable". They both relate to ~humans'~ inability with our five senses to perceive/comprehend the vastness of Creation. And neither concept invalidates the "thingness" of what is seen as incomprehensible and ineffable. Whether we comprehend (or *eff* it), or not, the 'thingness' of the item under examination does not change its nature.
(back to XXX)
"Hugh Lawrence Bond, the author of Nicholas of Cusa: Selected
Spiritual Writings, has included translations of five different works
by Cusa:
- On Learned Ignorance
- Dialogue on the Hidden God
- On Seeking God
- On the Vision of God
- On the Summit of Contemplation
The message of these works may be summarized as follows:
God as he exists in Himself is unknowable and incomprehensible."
Ch: So God "Exists". Is that a positive form of existence (Monad), or a negative form of existence? (Zero)
(XXX's quote:)
"Yet God as He exists in His creation is simplicity Itself, and this
invisible God can be seen within creation when viewed by an
individual whose intellect has become similarly simple.
Christ as Logos is the simple essence which sustains the universe
and the medium through which the believer is united to God."
Ch note: So Logos sustains the (manifested) universe. Logos is the Word (aka Wisdom, attributed to Sophia "who was with God", but given the name Christ when descended into this world in flesh). Logos is shared and distributed into this world through the Letters of Creation, the various sacred alphabets of the world. Are there any Letters which represent the Zero in any of the magical alphabets our early Renaissance Magi were working with?
(XXX's quote:)
"Union with Christ does not annihilate individuality, but rather
perfects it in Christ since Christ makes up for all the individual's
deficiencies.
The above points are approached again and again from many different
angles, using many different paradigms. It's worth noting that in the
first book of the anthology, On Learned Ignorance, Cusa uses a
geometrical paradigm in his presentation. If you are wondering if
this paradigm would be meaningful for you personally, consider the
following: a circle of infinite size has a circumference which
consists of an infinite, straight line. If you don't like reflecting
on this, you probably won't like reading On Learned Ignorance.
However if this has a certain appeal to you, you'll find that Cusa
uses such examples to illustrate that diversity manifests itself due
to creation's finiteness. Rather than considering a thing as it is in
itself (finite), consider it as it is in God (infinite). When you do
so everything converges back into one, just as circles and straight
lines do in the above geometrical example."
Ch: "Everything converges back into one, just as circles and straight lines do"... That's a +positive+ ONE, not an -empty nothingness- of ZERO, according to how I am reading this.
XXX: "(Nicolaus Cusanus), 1401?-1464, German humanist, scientist,
statesman, and philosopher, from 1448 cardinal of the Roman Catholic
Church. The son of a fisherman, Nicholas was educated at Deventer,
Heidelberg, Padua, Rome, and Cologne. He became bishop of Brixon
(Bressanone) in 1450 and instituted widespread, though temporary,
reforms of the monasteries. As papal legate he traveled throughout
Europe preaching and negotiating diplomatic affairs for the Holy See.
Nicholas' greatest achievements were in science and philosophy. His
researches and writings formed major advances in Renaissance
mathematics, astronomy, and mysticism. He held, before the time of
Copernicus and Newton, that the nearly spherical earth revolves on
its axis about the sun and that the stars are other worlds. He
described the Gregorian calendar reform in detail, before it
occurred. In mathematics Nicholas propounded significant concepts of
the infinitesimal and contributed to modern relativity theory. His
mystical religious philosophy was set forth in his essays De Docta
Ignorantia [of learned ignorance] (1440, tr. 1954), De Conjuncturis
Libri Duo, and De Visio Dei [vision of God] (1453, tr. 1928). It
anticipated the direction of growth of Renaissance conjecture
concerning the nature of man and his relationship to the cosmos. See
studies by Morimichi Watanabe (1963); F. H. Burgevin (1969); and J.
Hopkins (1986)."
So we have circles, straight lines and the 'ignorant' man:
1=0 and the 'Fool' perchance ["God can be seen within creation when
viewed by an individual whose intellect has become similarly simple"].
Ch: YOU have 1=0 "perchance". I still have 1=Monad at this point.
What do our other esteemed members think? Did our 1400's Renaissance Magi have 1=0 from the above?
<snip to second post on the same subject>
XXX:
From the Christianity of Nicholas of Cusa let us swiftly move onto
Judaic Kabbalah. The letter Aleph [one] is attributed to Kether which
is also connected to Ayin [nothingness, emptiness, non-being] and the
meditation on the Ayin is a spiritual exercise in which one
becomes 'empty headed' [like the 'fool'?]. Again, rather
than 'project' my own interpretations here are a few quotes:
quote 1:
"Even Judaism recognizes the importance of the "annihilation of
thought" in spiritual practice to attain emptiness, although the goal
is framed in terms of dissolving the ego in "ayin" or "nothingness,"
which is the Jewish term for emptiness:
One must think of oneself as ayin and forget oneself totally. … Then
one can transcend time, rising to the world of thought, where all is
equal: life and death, ocean and dry land. … Such is not the case
when one is attached to the material nature of this world. … If one
thinks of oneself as something (yesh) … then God cannot clothe
Himself in him, for He is infinite, and no vessel can contain him,
unless one thinks of oneself as ayin. -- Maggid Devarav le-Ya'agov,
Dov Baer, ed. Rivka Schatz Uffenheimer, (Magnes Press, Jerusalem:
Israel, 1976), p. 186."
Ch: Very good quote! I like it a lot, and it makes a great addendum to Cusanus. But let's notice that it's the human ego that is supposed to be dissolving into "an empty vessel". It is the "self" that becomes nothing, in order to prepare for God to come and fill the vessel. God remains infinite in a Monadic, positive sense, while the ~seeking soul~ has to learn to become nothing so as to be fit for a relationship with the infinite.
XXX: [2]
"In the cultivation practice of contemplating the Kabbalah, Azriel of
Gerona and his older contemporary, Ezra of Gerona, even recognized
the highest sefirah of the Kabbalah as "the annihilation of thought"
(afisat ha-mahashavah). The Kabbalah is the major means for Jewish
samadhi cultivation, which is achieved through the contemplation of
the sefirot:
The sefirot are stages of contemplative ascent; each one serves as an
object and focus of mystical search. In tracing the reality of each
sefirah, the mystic uncovers layers of being within herself and
throughout the cosmos. This is the knowledge that the kabbalist
strives for, supernal wisdom. However, there is a higher level, a
deeper realm, beyond this step-by-step approach. At the ultimate
stage, the kabbalist no longer differentiates one thing from another.
Conceptual thought, with all its distinctions and connections,
dissolves. -- The Essential Kabbalah: The Heart of Jewish Mysticism,
Daniel Matt, (Castle Books, Edison: New Jersey, 1997), p. 180."
Ch: As XXX acknowledges, this is a fine example of "samadhi cultivation", therefore again describing the experience of the limited human trying to dilate wide enough to embrace the All. The meditator is rupturing the tiny monad of the Self, so that the contents that had been sequestered there can flow forth and join the ALL. There is no loss or reality, manifestation, or "thingness" to the ALL, only to the self, who then becomes truly an "empty vessel".
This meditation is also called "neti, neti", meaning "not this, not that" in Hindu. In Christianity it is called "negative theology" and involves de-constructing the known world within one's own nervous system, so that eventually there are no more habituated reflexes or reactions being set off in consciousness, and the self dissolves into the "still pond" that reflects the heavens. This was a favorite technique of the Desert Fathers in the early centuries of Christianity, but I doubt the users of this technique forgot that it was *their own limited reality* which was being negated, NOT God/Monad/All.
XXX: [3]
"Hasidism also recognizes the importance of cultivating samadhi, for
it explains the existence of thoughts and emptiness (or cessation) as
follows, "When one attains the level of gazing at ayin, one's
intellect is annihilated. … Afterwards, when one returns to the
intellect, it is filled with emanation."
Ch: We lost the attribution there... same guy? Snip out the editorializing, just read the quote from the Hebrew, and we are again discussing the effect on the meditator should s/he succeed in rupturing the ego and participating in the Monad. The meditator is filled with "emanation", not "nothingness". (And notice, even the commentator defines "emptiness" as "cessation of thought", NOT "cessation of Being".)
But look here! These are quotes from a modern syncretist commentator; we should NOT be reading about samadhi in a Kabbalistic snippet at a forum dedicated to magic of the early Renaissance! This is the exact type of anachronistic mud I object to.
XXX: [4]
"To begin with just as Ayin, nothingness, expresses the character of
Ein-sof prior to creation, nothingness characterizes the human
subject in the initial moment of creativity. In this moment, the
creating or inquiring intellect is Ayin, empty or ignorant,
experiencing a lack prior to its initiating a creative work or
inquiry. In the initial moment when one seeks to create or inquire,
one stands before infinite plenum of possibility, which at the same
time is an emptiness, lack or void, one that is analogous to, if not
identical with the nothingness, Ayin which the kabbalists equate with
Ein-sof, the infinite God. We should here note that the Zohar equates
Ayin not only with Ein-sof, but also with the highest Sefirah, Keter,
which it also refers to as desire or will. Prior to creating, one
experiences a lack (an Ayin or void) and a desire which engenders a
will to generate or fulfill.
Ch: Beautifully poetic! The author is skirting back and forth between the "thingness" of SELF and the "thingness" of the Infinite Plenum of Possibility (sounds Monadic to me!), with the moment of contact happening when the SELF manages to lose its "thingness" enough to encounter the Plenum.
Actually, this quote looks like it's trying to explain how human creativity mirrors Divine Creativity. You have probably seen the series of illustrations that were put forth to explain where the "space" came from to create the Sephiroth in? The short form is, God expanded into the nothing, carved out a cavity, then withdrew, leaving a pregnant emptiness in which our reality could grow. It's the doctrine of Zimzum or Contraction as the First Manifestation. "Prior to creating, one experiences a lack and a desire, which engenders a will to generate or fulfill". (Echoes of Eros magic here!)
Again I get the sense that the goal is to enter into a "pregnant void" of the Monad type, even though the individual meditator has to acquire the Zero state to get there. This is what Cusanus was saying too.
XXX:
"In the moment just prior to speech or writing, we have said or
written nothing, yet the whole universe of discourse is potentially
before us. This "moment", prior to any speech or writing, is aptly
signified in the Lurianic equation of Ayin (nothing) with Ein-sof
(the infinite). A person takes up a pen and is about to write, or
takes a breath and is about to speak. In that moment it is possible
for him or her to write or utter virtually anything. Here we should
recall Sefer Yetzirah's dictum that the permutations of primordial
letters potentially constitute all that is or could be: "Twenty-two
foundation letters: He engraved them, He carved them, He permuted
them, He weighed them, He transformed them, And with them, He
depicted all that was formed and all that would be formed."
Ch: This is a very interesting "nothing", which is infinite with positive potential! There is a little bit of unwitting vocabulary-torture going on here, simply because of what happens in translating Hebrew originals into ~any~ other language whether Renaissance or contemporary. "Nothing" has been a convenient word for translators to use when working in these texts, but a "nothing" that is also a replete, self-existing Infinite Plenum of Possibility, is a rather liberally cast "nothing". That's why I replace "nothingness" with the construction "empty vessel" when I read these kinds of texts. (This end of the discussion leads into the idea of time and no-time in the Aeons of creation... also properly esoteric, and we'll get there if we want...)
Again, it is the "small I" which has to experience self-negation, if it is to enter into GOD, the whole universe.
What you are taking as an equating of Zero and One, I am reading as the "tipping point" where the individual ego is shattered and the limited self has an immersion in the ALL.
You see a horizon where being and non-being are relative. I see the meridian, rising to the Zenith, which is merging with God.
The limited self is not equate-able with the Monad. This is a fallacy bred into us by the astrologer's adoption of the symbol of the Pythagorean Monad (circle with a dot in the middle) for the sense of "self" (ego) in the chart of an individual person.
0=1 also suggests the curious narcissism of modern thought -- I am the center of the universe, if my sense of self is ruptured, then there is nothing.
Again, given that all possible permutations of the letters constitute all that is or could be, where is the letter for Zero?
[5] The highest Sefirah, Keter, is equated by the kabbalists with
Ayin, "nothing" (in Hebrew spelled AYN). They affirm that through the
emanation of the Sefirot, the hidden "he" of bara (the Sefirah Keter)
is transformed into the manifest "I" of Malchut. All of this occurs
via a transformation of the letters within AYN (nothing), which when
rearranged as ANY, form the personal pronoun, I. The creation of the
world is the manifestation of God's selfhood, the emergence of an "I"
or self out of a primal nothingness or will. This individuation
process is mediated through "relatedness", symbolized by the "thou"
of Tiferet/YHVH. Ein-sof thus becomes a personal God through his
relationship with humankind
[4] and [5] from Sanford Drob's 'Symbols of the Kabbalah'
and 'Kabbalistic Metaphors' [based upon Hasidic and Lurianic
Kabbalah] .
Ch: This "nothing" you are referring to is the state *before* Creation, marking it as "hidden" rather than "non-existent". Since God presumably had a "selfhood" prior to manifestation, that means the word "nothing" is being used to describe the ~appearance~ of God, not the BEING of God, which presumably exists in a positive sense even before manifestation. The "primal nothingness" is also called Will, so again we are attributing positive qualities to the as-yet-unmanifest, just like the Pythagoreans do.
I love that the Kabbalists see that the issue partially hinges on 'relatedness'. If one can anthropomorphize God to this degree (which is debatable!), the only reason for a self-existent Plenum to manifest is to be in relationship with the ensuing Creation. God emanates various orders of thingness out of the Infinite Potential in order to relate between the levels. Not only does God like to play with Her toys, S/he likes to discourse with them, and also engage in esoteric hermeneutical discussions through the ages...
There's very little non-Being in sight, however. Only just enough to engender the impulse to create! ;-)
Well, it has been fun "locking eyebrows" with the Kabbalists and Cusanus. Negative theology is a slippery beast, but a really important way to pare down the layers of illusion and delineate the outlines of the 'one needful thing'.
Back to the future, NewMoon of August 2012:
Samten's extract came into my e-mail box just as I was reading from Aryeh Kaplan’s Meditation and Kabbalah. I found a quote there from Rabbi Joseph Gikatalia's remarkable book Gates of Light (Shaarey Orah) that should be added to this roster of remarks about the Something and the Nothing. I include it here because I don't want anybody to think I an unsympathetic to the cause of penetrating into the bedrock of our ancestors' thinking! But here again we have to be scrupulous to differentiate negative and positive theology in this description. To my inner eye, Gikatalia is envisioning Keter in a similar light as the wasp waist of the Lemniscate, where the Visible disappears into the Invisible. Here's the quote from p. 136 of the Weiser paperback edition, 1985:
"The Sefirah [of Chokhmah-Wisdom] is called Somethingness in the Torah. The reason for this is that the first Sefirah, Keter-Crown, is hidden from the eyes of all. Since no one can contemplate it, it is called Nothingness. . . .
If a person seeks [Keter-Crown] he will find Nothingness. No one can contemplate the depth of its depth and excellence. It is for this reason that it is not connotated by any letter in the alphabet, but only by the apex of the Yod.
The beginning of thought, and the first revelation of the array, is the second Sefirah, which is called Chokhmah-Wisdom."
I trust that my readers can now determine for themselves what my answer would be in the light of the above. As you think about these remarks, remember that none of the Sefirah are associated with any letters -- the letters are found upon the Paths only. So Gikatalia was making that remark for effect rather than for exactitude.
I share this whole little exposition as food for mystical thought, dear friends. Let's keep these subtle points in mind as we move through the very distorted and illusory mass culture pouring out of the current media world. It is important that we cultivate habits of mind that help us to separate the multiplying shadows of the Moon card from the simple and self-existent positive Reality. There are many instances in which our failure to discriminate what IS from what ISN'T can cost us hugely in time, energy, money and/or respect. We see the trend in nutrition-less calorie-packed snacks and beverages, as well as in the many human hours poured into virtual and imaginary realities, whether that refers to Star Trek or Vampires or Bieber-mania. Billions of dollars are poured into entertainments that picture forth ever-more dystopian apocalypse scenarios, but we haven't bothered to find out whether every child in our neighborhood has eaten yet today. While we watch the open and empty (Zero'd) leading hand in the Magus' shell game, his hidden hand is pocketing the pea.
As in that wacky old song "Yes! We have no bananas!” many people control their environments by asserting the negative *in strong positivist terms*. By doing so relentlessly, one can even create the impression that a negative value or category is a "thing" on par with the world of actual, literal and positive things. Perhaps these kinds of ideas are useful in theoretical branches of science. But when it comes down to food for the family or gas in the car, "something" beats "nothing" every time! Just as in at the case of re-hypothecated gold stores and unfunded mandates, no amount of abracadabra can turn negative into positive once we shine the light of Being on the question. Stripped of the ambiguous shadows of seemingness, the Real and the merely-imagined will have no choice but to demonstrate their essential differences. Now that we are walking the Dry Way of Detachment until the Solstice in Capricorn, we need to sharpen our thinking and eliminate false premises that will lead us to infect our mysticism and occultism with vacuous, chaotic and disordered ideas.
It is my ongoing assertion that the language of theology has provided the vocabulary of spiritual physics back in the day before science took over. Nowadays we find modern science turning back to mysticism and esotericism again for concepts that explain what the scientists are finding. It seems the Orouboros has taken its tail into its mouth again! Perhaps the two sides of the human brain, the mystical and the material, are getting ready to bond with each other again and share more freely across the center line as we move in the future.
Towards that goal, let me recommend a very long but excellent discourse given by Susan Joy Rennison, who is a mystical geophysicist and a very fine researcher. Here we find a treasure-trove of real data on "the Nothing which is unquestionably Something". The following video presents the newest research on the emerging field of Electromagnetism and Space Weather. I have been sharing Rennison with friends and loved ones since I was pointed her direction a month ago. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-iXTT2nzwgg.
I forgot to mention that in the ArkLetter article on Courtly Love, http://www.tarotarkletters.com/2008/06/courtly-love-in.html , I did a long section on this very topic. In that it article it appears under the heading The Presence of Absence. Just scroll down below my little book-review section (at the beginning) and you'll find it. This same set of ideas is reviewed from a mythological perspective in the discussion of the Hymn of the Pearl in the article Sophia, Holy Word. http://noreah.typepad.com/tarot_arkletters/2007/05/sophia_holy_wor.html
For magicians and priesthoods, this deep focus on "Something from Nothing" started with the Emerald Tablet. To this very day all attention is focused on somehow "conceiving" a spark of our future selves, the ones who magically appear with fixes in hand for our present insolvable dilemmas.
Posted by: Christine Payne | Friday, 17 August 2012 at 12:09 PM
One might also stay with the Courtly Love article a little longer and read the review of Christopher Lehrich's fascinating _The Occult Mind; Magic in Theory and Practice_. It follows the above section under the title 'Tarot and the Mind of Magic'.
I can't emphasize enough that historians of Tarot will forever misinterpret the evidence they are digging up until they can recognize and understand the magical worldview of the Renaissance.
Posted by: Christine Payne | Saturday, 18 August 2012 at 12:12 PM
Here's a new archive Samten just made available -- we are so lucky he's such a collector!
http://arkanaroom.wordpress.com/2012/09/08/a-list-of-resources/
Posted by: Christine Payne | Saturday, 08 September 2012 at 05:20 PM