Читать книгу Max Freedom Long HUNA in the Kabala & Tarot - Monika Petry - Страница 5

The TAROT CARDS were the parents of modern playing cards. In the Tarot pack, however, there were included four face cards (one missing from the modern playing cards. Also missing are the “Major Tarots, 21 in number.) The “Joker” of the common deck belongs to the original Tarot majors, but is given the number ZERO.

THE INITIATORY FIRST DEGREE of the several orders whose secret work has been based on the Tarot, sometimes is based on the Zero card named “THE FOOL,” and this will be our starting point. We will initiate ourselves because we lack initiate ourselves because we lack those already initiated to induct us. For the time being, lacking an order or a name around which to build one, we can be “The Ancient Order of HRA* Tarot.” The pass word will be “Cigbo,” and the grip an extended right paw, claws covered. As we have no initiatory work or ritual, we will do research and supply, through studies, the materials needed. The First Degree initiates into the A.O. HRA will be called “The seekers.” You can all select a chair to your liking in the imaginary lodge room for the present. Our Lodge shall be named, “Mother Father Lodge of the A.O. HRA T.” Our motto is, “Let us have fun while we learn.” If there are no objections, the Lodge now is in session. All of us, as candidates for the First Degree, will now assemble our degree materials, or at least make a beginning at the task. How is that?

ON THE CENTRAL ALTAR OF OUR LODGE we now place a pack of the Tarot Cards. Exposed on the top is the card of the Zero, titled “The FOOL.” Our success in passing the First Degree will depend on whether or not we are able, as studies progress, to make a faintly satisfactory answer to the question “WHAT DOES THE SYMBOLOGY OF THIS CARD HOLD AS ITS HIDDEN MEANING?” In the two sheets of illustrations included in this issue of N.H. will be seen a reproduction of the Zero Card as specified by Waite and drawn by Pamela Smith, published originally by Rider & Co. in England. The design follows fairly closely the older cards, all of which show a fool or beggar with a dog who either goes along or who bites the man. The man is about to step blindly over a precipice, taking the dog with him. In some designs the man carries a small bundle on a stick slung over one shoulder. In our design, he is carrying a flower in one hand. He is young.

(THE OTHER CARDS SHOWN IN THE ILLUSTRATION SHEETS are arranged in the secret order which will be discussed later on in our work. For the present, look them over, but do nothing with them. However, KEEP THEM, as one or more of them will need to be studied and compared as each succeeding degree is approached. Later we will have illustrated the lesser section of the deck which is used mainly as an adjunct in prognosticating PAST, PRESENT, and FUTURE with the full pack.)

THE LODGE SWEEPER NOW ARISES and amidst sighs and groans from all sides, uses his imaginary broom to sweep from the Lodge Room all former TEACHINGS concerning the Tarot. A CLEAN SWEEP is made because hundreds of books clutter the room, and not one of them, so far as has been discovered, has told of the secret order in which the cards of the major part of the pack should be laid out to reveal the hidden meanings of the symbols. More poppycock has been written about the meaning of the Tarot than about any other “occult” subject.

The scant material which we will find of value can be selected from the mass and brought back into the Lodge Room for discussion when needed.

WITH YOUR PERMISSION, I will hold, for the present, the chair of THE EXALTED HIGH CARD, and act as keeper of the source materials as well as suspicious judge of their values. As such, I will present the materials and invite additions and corrections of my evaluations. I have at hand the following items:

(or a speaking acquaintance with them.) (All of you who have elected to sit in the chairs of the EAGER BEAVERS for the sessions to come, as well as this sesson of the Lodge, will please quote page and cite authority, name book or teaching, etc., when calling attention to material which may be of value.) Now the list.

THE TAROT CARDS of the Pamela Smith design (Rider’s). We will use this pack. (Rider & Co. no longer supply this pack, but a fair reproduction of it is published over here by de Laurence Co. in Chicago at about $2.50 plus postage. They also can supply the book about the Tarot by Waite, The Key to the Tarot, a copy of which used to be included free with the Rider pack. Later you will want to own this Tarot pack.

THE BROTHERHOOD OF LIGHT pack, propounding a teaching based on the astrological values assigned to the cards, also their supposed connection with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

THE PAUL FOSTER CASE pack, based on the Smith. Hebrew letters of Kabalism, with personal teachings in a course.

A MODERN ITALIAN pack in colors and with all wording in Italian. Mixture of designs from various packs with original items.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE PACK WITH EGYPTIAN SYMBOLS are on hand in various books, also illustrations of old French packs.

SEMI MODERN FRENCH pack once owned by A. Crowley (on loan) with Crowley’s notes written over the faces of the cards. Notes were transcribed recently by a good friend for me.