Path: kudonet.com!kudo20!tyagi From: nagasiva@yronwode.com (nagasiva) Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.tarot,alt.divination,alt.magick Subject: BHeidrick: "The Emperor" and "the Star". Date: 11 Apr 1997 00:31:13 -0700 Organization: KudoNet On-Line Services Lines: 35 Sender: tyagi@bjt.net Message-ID: Reply-To: Bill Heidrick NNTP-Posting-Host: kudo20.kudonet.com Xref: kudonet.com alt.magick.tyagi:8943 alt.tarot:12956 alt.divination:8128 alt.magick:80371 [from thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org: Bill Heidrick ] 93, On Thu, 27 Mar 1997, Michelle/Tom Catlett-Tetzlaff wrote: > Freida Harris (the Thoth deck's designer) was working from AC's > interpretation, that of Heh=Star; Tzaddi=Emperor. Minor correction. Harris was not the deck's designer, but the deck's artist. Crowley designed the deck, specifying what symbols to use, where to put them and the colors. Frieda took that design and interpreted it. It seems like a hair-split, but lately some authors have been writing on the theme of Harris doing all the work, based on little more than Crowley's published Tarot material and a few supplimental notes. That does harm to the reputations of both, since it presumes that Frieda had no originality toward things like Tarot (her other work shows that she would have done something quite different if not following Crowley's ideas) and virtually eliminates the Thoth Tarot as a set of religious or mystical pictures supplemental to Liber AL and from the mind of the prophet of Thelema in re. Liber AL. Crowley went so far as to request the face of Harpo Marx on the Fool. Harris deviated from instruction to the point of misspelling ABRAHADABRA on the canopy of the Chariot and putting a water bug instead of a Scarab on the Moon Atu. Incidentally, the MS of Liber AL does not say "Tzaddi is not the Star". There is an inkblot or ambiguous mark in that passage which Crowley interprets as "Tzaddi". Examination of the MS on that spot reveals that the mark was re-touched several times, with the ink drying in discernable layers of slightly different appearance. 93 93/93 Bill Heidrick