Co Incidents

The Black Ferris

The Black Ferris

Chymist
“Thus, gradually, the pathetic, lusterless world he had made, and labored to make low, had rebelliously elevated itself beyond its surface decrepitude and assumed a kind of grandeur in his eyes. The naked limbs of what had once been trees and now were empty objects, hollow abstractions mocked by the sarcastic verdure of the green lamps, underwent transfiguration to inherit the suppleness of all symbols and the dignity of a dream. Each of the disfigured dolls, vile and insane mimics of the human nightmare, gave up their evil and revealed themselves as the protectors of countless inexpressible mysteries and myriad secret enchantments. And the precocious corpses upon the altar no longer drifted about pointlessly, embalmed in their wombs of foggy glass, but hovered serenely in becalmed fathoms of infinite wonder.”
Thomas Ligotti - “The Order of Illusion”
..
 
Dr. Bantham and I just became friends. After recieving my introductory PM, he returned to the Home page to find the above quotation and the fact that I had created this group.

This co-incident brings me to our first topic of discussion.
The use of the 'random' quotations as a form of divination.
Often times I find that the quotes begin to reflect the conversation I'm having more and more as I pay attention to them.
This should not however, devolve into a quotationary. An attempt at discussing the lessons of the divination should also be expressed. What are we learning?
 
Co Incidents makes me think divination through the tarot.

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Not only does it seem to work, but the tarot seems to acquire its own personality. Like an elderly maiden aunt, I think.
 
I suppose it could be argued that ALL that is observed is the aesthetic value of randomness.
Is randomness without meaning?
What is the value of meaning?
Are there skills to be learned, powers to be gained by giving and taking away meaning?
(A discussion on Free Belief COMING SOON!)

I've often wondered what a Ligotti Tarot might be like, from the images to designing new card values?
Anyone familiar with the Thoth deck? What do you think of what Crowley did to the traditional Tarot?
Anyone seen the Lovecraft Deck? I've heard it was nice to look at, but not very accurate.
 
Back to the home page to find:

“Even if it turns out that I'm making everything up, at least what you have left can be enjoyed as a story--no small value to my mind.”

Thomas Ligotti - Alice's Last Adventure
 
The Black Ferris said:
Anyone familiar with the Thoth deck? What do you think of what Crowley did to the traditional Tarot?
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I read The Book of Thoth from cover to cover in the 1970s, and am of the opinion that Crowley made less radical changes to the traditional tarot than he believed. (Or, perhaps more accurately, than he'd have liked other people to believe.) While I am no longer a great admirer of Crowley, I think that his treatment of the small cards and court cards in The Book of Thoth is excellent. I was still very much under Crowley's influence when I painted my own pack:

THE NIGHTMARE NETWORK - Odalisque's Album: Tarot Cards

You will note such names as "Lust" (for "Strength") and "Art" (for "Temperance") in my pack. That noted, I think that Crowley did little more than change the names of these cards.

Crowley's most useful work in painting the pack was 777 (tables of correspondences).
 
Of course, in so far as Crowley meant to imply Egyptian origins for the tarot in the title of The Book of Thoth, he was mistaken. (Or, more probably, deliberately misleading.)
 
Odalisque said:
Of course, in so far as Crowley meant to imply Egyptian origins for the tarot in the title of The Book of Thoth, he was mistaken. (Or, more probably, deliberately misleading.)
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Exactly. We now know the tarot originates from Northern Italy in the 15th century. Crowley was simply repeating the erroneous Qabalistico-Egyptian origin that mostly started with the assertions of Court de Gèbelin, Eliphas Levi, and Etteilla. Crowley was also influenced by Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge's translations of The Book of the Dead and Egyptian Magic, neither of which are treated seriously by Egyptologists today.
 
The New Nonsense said:
Crowley was also influenced by Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge's translations of The Book of the Dead and Egyptian Magic, neither of which are treated seriously by Egyptologists today.
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Budge! Not only are all of his works old, and mostly out of date, but the majority of them were inaccurate even by the state of knowledge at the time of publication. I believe that he acheived his enormous output (the bibliography of Budge's work is astonishing for its bulk) by having his students write most of the material. According to the version of events I heard, students, angry to be made to write books for which they would receive no credit, introduced a great many deliberate mistakes.

I believe that there is just one Budge book treated seriously by Egyptologists, and that is a facsimile of the Papyrus of Ani. Should anyone wish to check out the facsimiles made under the supervision of Dr E A Wallis Budge, they were reprinted by Chronicle Books of San Francisco in 1994 under the title The Egyptian Book of the Dead and subtitled The Book of Going Forth by Day. (Going Forth by Day is a translation of the Egyptian Title Prt m Hrw.) This edition also contains an excellent translation by Dr Raymond O Faulkner, and carries my full recommendation. The facsimiles are lovely, the vignettes bright and clear, every hieroglyph perfectly legible.

Supervising the making of these facsimiles is the one thing for which we should be grateful to Dr Budge.
 
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