Path: shell.portal.com!svc.portal.com!sdd.hp.com!swrinde!howland.reston.ans.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!realtime.net!news From: Jess Karlin Newsgroups: alt.magick,alt.magick.tyagi,alt.pagan.magick,talk.religion.misc,talk.religion.newage,alt.religion.wicca,alt.pagan,alt.gothic,alt.tarot Subject: Elemental Questions (was Manley Hall or something) Date: Fri, 05 Jul 1996 10:13:24 +0000 Organization: Real/Time Communications Internet customer posting Lines: 77 Message-ID: <31DCEAC4.7CE@bga.com> References: <4plnie$j5j@crl9.crl.com> <4pmmqd$go9@newsbf02.news.aol.com> <4pqk3k$qrp@jobe.shell.portal.com> <4puef3$7pj@dfw-ixnews8.ix.netcom.com> <4qemvb$gpa@jobe.shell.portal.com> <4qi1a3$o81@nadine.teleport.com> <31d3371c.6039223@news.mira.net.au> <31d75931.17405402@news.mira.net.au> <31D78AEB.2613@bga.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: apm3-130.realtime.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-RTcode: 0433e72c31cd26a39add30fa X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.02 (Macintosh; I; PPC) Xref: shell.portal.com alt.magick:78355 alt.magick.tyagi:9222 alt.pagan.magick:954 talk.religion.misc:228198 talk.religion.newage:54054 alt.religion.wicca:33189 alt.pagan:165400 alt.gothic:193639 alt.tarot:8735 George Leake wrote: > >He apparently took that to mean I 'invented' the whole thing. > >Well, you can't control what people are going to think > >you mean---the dilemma of most occultists. > *well, I thought you said the system you used you invented. As far as the > system in WANG/THOTH-- What is Wang/Thoth? There is no 'system' in Wang. Wang was just acting as a copyboy, and not a good one. His list of meanings, in the 'divination' section of his 'Qabalistic Tarot' is taken directly from Mathers. One clue that Wang did not know much of anything about Thoth or Golden Dawn or anything really is that he includes Mather's explanations of the card meanings in the back (which include references to 'dignities') but the only thing he says about these meanings is that they are in the 'language' of Mathers. In this, I believe he means to say that he thought the odd use of the term, 'dignity' (which is the only unusual usage in these explanations), was some sort of affectation of Mathers. I've met other people who had this same reaction when reading about something being 'ill-dignified' for the first time. Particularly someone who is ignorant of astrology would NOT know what was being talked about. So, in other words, Wang probably had no idea of what was meant by the term, 'dignity'. And this view is bolstered by the fact Wang DID NOT bother to explain the use of dignities at all in the section in his book on 'divination', not even bothering to include something simple and basic, as Regardie at least does in the tarot section of Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic. And this is odd since he takes all this stuff from Regardie. If he appreciated what 'dignities' were he would have discussed it. This is typical of Wang's approach in this book, just scribbling down words and ideas which he did not understand hoping the readers might then be bothered to go do the work Wang should have in the first place. If this 'approach' reminds us of any dearly and recently departed it ought to. >how connected is that to your system, JK? OK, let's take this one step at a time---take notes--- 1. Thoth uses a system for generating alternative meanings in readings called 'elemental dignities'. 2. This system was, I believe, invented for or at least incorporated into Golden Dawn tarot methodology by Mathers. It is a far superior and more interesting system than using 'reversals', but it is also harder to learn. 3. The explanations for how to use it, or even how to get started thinking about it, are minimal. Certainly in Thoth there is little help on the thing. 4. Soooo---about 15 years ago, I devised a matrix by which I could establish some precise ways in which to determine the elemental effects of one card upon another. It was also a mnemonic jumping-off place for thinking about using the system and I've had reports from people who have used that it was helpful to them. That's the part that I was talking about as mine, not the original idea for elemental dignities. (jk)