The Holy Fool (Fool II)

[flowperson]

Hello Linda, and welcome to CR.

I believe the point of it all is that everyone who breathes and walks around on the planet is at times "played the fool" and is "left hanging". Just a normal and periodic human condition, and a most natural outcome in societies based upon choice and free will.

However if innocent people are manipulated into such situations more often than not against their will and intent, then we're looking at some quite dark activities. My opinion is that this is all at the root of racist and discriminatory activities within societies which some of us see going on all of the time. The current trend towards the demonization of immigrants by conservative factions in the U.S. would be another example.

And I've been there and done that quite often myself. It's no wonder that the cards feature such happenstances IMHO.

flow....

[China Cat Sunflower]

Hi Linda!

Let me give you a quote:

The Path of the Fool connects Kether, the Source of All, with Chokmah, the first activity toward manifestation. Aleph is assigned to this Path, the letter designated symbolic of absolute unity by the Zohar. ...Emanating from Kether , it borders on the source of the Cosmos, the Ain Soph, the Limitless Light which is not. Thus, we recognize that whatever can be said about Kether can be said about the subjective effect of its principles on the eleventh path

The eleventh Path is the Fiery, or Scintillating Intelligence. It touches a Limitless Light which is darkness to us, that Fiery Darkness which is at once the Primum Mobile, the possibility of motion or vibration, and the First Perception, or Will of the One having the potential for activity. Here, again, we return to the circuitous idea that the Primal Creative Energy of the Universe acts upon itself to emanate the Cosmos. The most concrete way in which this can be described is to say that from nothingness comes the potential for thought. Then thought appears and emanates mind, the vessel which contains the thought. The Fool is the initial potential for that thought which transcends reason.

Qabalistic Tarot, Robert Wang

A couple of points of interest on the Hanged Man:

The Hanged Man corresponds to the path of Mem which connects Hod and Geburah on the Pillar of Severity. Mem is one of the three Maternal letters: Shin, Mem, and Aleph. These are the three baptisms: Shin, the path of Judgement, is the baptism of Fire. Mem, the path of the Hanged Man is the baptism of Water, and Aleph, the Fool, is the baptism of Air. Since the baptism of water, or the experience of Consciousness- the First Principle of alchemy, is the essential, central, pivotal experience of the entire Tree of Life, the iconography of the Hanged Man card symbolizes a unique relationship with Kether, the Prime Mover. This becomes clear when one realizes that the upside down figure of the Hanged Man is posed in the shape of a Fylfot Cross (Swastica).

Chris

[Raksha]

Hi Chris!

You told me awhile back you were hanging out here, and I even registered and lurked on some of your posts a few times, but this is the first time I've ever done more than peer through the window to check out the scene. You were right as usual...this place definitely rocks, from what I've seen so far!

I've been hearing about the attribution of the Major Arcana of the Tarot to the paths on the Tree of Life for as long as I've known about either of those systems, but I've never studied them systematically, even though I've looked at any number of diagrams in various esoteric books over the years. But I never memorized them, so I can't tell you what any of those attributions are. I appreciate it that you're starting to tell me, without any unnecessary preliminaries.

Although I still don't quite get the connection between the Fool and the Hanged Man, your quotation about the Hanged Man grabbed my attention for another reason.

The Hanged Man corresponds to the path of Mem which connects Hod and Geburah on the Pillar of Severity. Mem is one of the three Maternal letters: Shin, Mem, and Aleph. These are the three baptisms: Shin, the path of Judgement, is the baptism of Fire. Mem, the path of the Hanged Man is the baptism of Water, and Aleph, the Fool, is the baptism of Air.

These attributions correspond to the three initiations I've been trying to describe elsewhere, although you may not have seen where I posted it. I always hate saying things like that on a public forum because it sounds so inflated, but ...what if it's true? It would be just as dishonest to say they didn't happen when I truly believe they did. It looks like you've just given me another frame of reference or symbolic language for trying to understand and assimilate them.

So the path of Mem connects Hod and Gevurah (as I spell it) on the Pillar of Severity, and its card is the Hanged Man. And yet it's the path of Shin that corresponds to the card of Judgment. It's almost scary the way those attributions "fit" what happened all those years ago, and now they fit my recollection of those events. The first initiation happened when I was eighteen, and it was indeed the initiation of Judgment. That's a very appropriate symbol for it.

Twenty years later (almost to the day), during my second initiation, I recalled and to some degree reconciled myself with the earlier events. I wrote a poem to commemorate and "finalize" that reconciliation, which my husband said was the best poem I ever wrote. Later I sent copies of that poem to two people I thought would appreciate it (which they did), but it was never published.

Somehow I lost my original during the chaos of all those forced relocations after my husband's death. I don't need to tell you about any of that, of course. Over the past week I've been trying to reconstruct that poem from memory, and I've ALMOST got it but not quite! I wrote it in May 1984, and title of it is "Gevurah."

Love and Light,
Linda

[I, Brian]

I really see the Fool as the negative aspect of the Hanged Man - and that really the both are just different sides of the same coin.

I mean, after all, what could be more Foolish to be the Hanged Man? The Hanged Man is a visionary who gives himself to help others but this will often look Foolish to others.

A Good Fool will always be condemned to be the Hanged Man in some way. A Bad Fool is foolishness that benefits no one, excepting perhaps the fool.

Hm...it's getting hard to explain without looking for my notes and pasting them in here. Maybe I'll need to find them.

[cyberpi]

Is there really anything more foolish than gouging out one's own eye or cutting off one's own ear? Is that not like hanging oneself? Doesn't that just sound crazy? But, it happens regularly because people choose to see what they want to see rather than to see, and to hear what they want to hear rather than to hear. I find that it is like playing with half a deck because the other cards were just too... too something... to see or to hear from. Surely I'm a fool now and then.

[China Cat Sunflower]

"I'll get you Dorothy, and your little dog too..."

It's interesting to compare Tarot decks. The Golden Dawn deck depicts the Fool and his dog as a child with a young wolf on a leash. This is the Fenris wolf which is destined to devour Odin, the father of the gods. The child and the wolf represent the balance of creator-destroyer. The implication is that the Creator's will to self expression holds in check the counter energy which seeks to destroy creation as it emerges. What Manly Palmer Hall calls "those mindless powers of nature that overthrew the primitive creation." But the wolf must eventually be freed to perform it's natural destructive function which is to return creation to the state from which it originally emerged from the Ain Soph Aur.

It is prophesied that at Ragnarök the wolf will at last break free and join forces with the enemies of the gods and will then devour Odin himself. After that Viðarr, Odin's son, will slay the wolf to avenge his father, either with a sword through the heart, or by tearing apart the wolf after placing one foot shod with a special shoe on its lower jaw and one hand on its upper jaw.

Fenrir - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The wolf devours Odin, then Odin's son slays the wolf. Then, presumably, the whole cycle starts again.

Chris

[Raksha]

It's interesting to compare Tarot decks. The Golden Dawn deck depicts the Fool and his dog as a child with a young wolf on a leash. This is the Fenris wolf which is destined to devour Odin, the father of the gods. The child and the wolf represent the balance of creator-destroyer. The implication is that the Creator's will to self expression holds in check the counter energy which seeks to destroy creation as it emerges.

Chris,

This is absolutely amazing...I mean what you said about the Fenris wolf. It's all new to me, but then I'm not too familiar with Norse mythology so I guess that isn't surprising. But how did you come up with the association of the dog in the Fool card of the Waite deck with the Fenris wolf? Is that your own association or did you read it somewhere?

--Linda

[China Cat Sunflower]

Robert Wang discusses it briefly in the Qabalistic Tarot book, but I had heard of it from other sources which I don't recall exactly. Maybe from Golden Dawn material or even Crowley. Normally the dog represents something like man's animal nature, but this puts a whole different spin on it. Actually, what you wrote elsewhere about Coyote reminded me of it.

Chris

[Raksha]

Chris,

It sounds like I'm going to have to get that Robert Wang book sometime in the near future. The reason the Fenris wolf struck such a strong note with me isn't directly related to Coyote (who really isn't all that bad, once you get used to him) but it's definitely related indirectly. I'll have to get back to you on that, though.

--Linda

[China Cat Sunflower]

Last I checked the Wang book had been out of print for a couple of years. It would definitely be worth hunting for, though. A much easier read than Meditations on the Tarot, but jammed with great information and tons of diagrams.

I don't associate Coyote with the wolf, it's just that my free associational way of thinking connected one canine with the other.

Happy harmonica!

Chris

[greymare]

hehehe..... wang.....hehehe.....(sorry, i feel like a teenager) hehehehe

[China Cat Sunflower]

Too bad his name isn't Richard Wang. Nrk, nrk.

Chris

[greymare]

LOL you a funny guy.

[esa888]

I have been the fool many times, and hopefully i am learning, through the mistakes i make, this fool figure is everywhere.