Tag: Qabbala

What is on the Cards – Tarot – V&A

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

I first started looking into Tarot around 2001. At the time I was an academic in Physical Chemistry at Imperial College London. I was very busy and a part of my job involved considering the second order non linear susceptibility of surfaces and probing these with femtosecond laser pulses.

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It probably wasn’t on the cards that I would share these two interests. Needless to say I did not soap box about tarot to my colleagues, lead ballons and all that.

Last night YouTube suggested a short video from the V&A about tarot and the history thereof. I watched it and found out about Minchiate and subsequently Sicilian tarot. I also found out that you can request to examine and handle some of the collection. The video was well made and interesting.

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« Le minchiate est un jeu de cartes du début du XVIe siècle, originaire de Florence, en Italie, qui n’est quasiment plus joué depuis le XXe siècle. Très proche du tarot, mais plus complexe, il se caractérise par le nombre important d’atouts qu’il utilise : 40, là où le tarot n’en comprend généralement que 21, pour un total de 97 cartes. »

The V&A has a nice web page on the history of Tarot, click here.

In the past I was more often found across the road in the science museum where I, on occasion, explained various exhibits to a little person. Often I would attract a small crowd who pretended not to listen in to what I was saying. The science museum seemed more natural, home turf.

The idea of emailing the V&A collection room to ask to inspect tarot cards from my old Imperial address tickled my fancy. Would they note it and find it odd?

Anyway I have a PowerPoint slide pack course in which I relate tarot to the Kabbalah tree of life and the various paths thereupon, to the Toltec Jewels of Awareness and to the evolution of inherent and evolving awareness. If I remember correctly Théun used to say that it was the Toltecs who invented tarot as a means of communication under things like the catholic inquisition. Anyone who threatened the supremacy of the church was subject to torture and death. The church had a stake in keeping control and power and it burned others on stakes. Tarot being arcane could be hidden under a cover story from prying eyes.

I’ll wager that more people use tarot than second order non-linear hyperpolarizability tensors. Hyperpolarizability is more arcane than tarot.

Back then I looked in detail at much so-called occult literature with the skill set of someone who can read matrices, and spot patterns. I found a lot of the published work shoddy and inconsistent.

I have a weak notion, that I am probably uniquely placed to relate so-called occultism, Toltec, Tarot and Buddhism with the critical thinking of a once pukka scientist.

In the 1990s I never knew that tarot was on the cards for me, though I had started to use I Ching for divination and shamanic journeying to request guidance from the universe. The shaman’s drum and the optical parametric oscillator do not see natural bedfellows. Seemed pretty darned normal to me.

The history of things like tarot will always be largely the overt and exoteric because the esoteric and hidden, is not in the public domain.

I personally cannot get on with the more modern tarot decks, using the tarot de Marseilles almost all of the time. I don’t do cartomancy but allow the major arcana to add pictorial clues to whichever Jewel of Awareness is in play or needs to be used.

I do dream tarot cards from time to time. This may not be common.

Let me be clear occult as I use it means difficult to see, partially hidden from view and not the bleeding obvious. It has nothing to do with Satan nor any dark ritual magic.

There are enough evil people in the world who are successful in the ordinary socio-political and pecuniary sense. They don’t need upside down pentagrams and goat heads. They are just nasty evil selfish people.

I still don’t know what is on the cards for the rest of this year / life …

Birmingham – Ex-wife – Cigarettes – Wanting to Be Right – Trail of Shit Dream 26-07-2024

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

This morning’s dream had within it a knowing that it is related to the Human Puzzle dream.

The dream starts of with me walking around and exploring a suburb of Birmingham. In the dream I am aware that it is the centre, the middle of the country and I take that metaphorically as the crux. I explore a few shopping parades and come upon a country park. I nip through a hole in the hedge onto an earthen path. The park is being renovated and there is machinery in one corner. Even though the path is muddy I do not gather mud on my shoes. The park is empty and well supplied with benches. I note that it is an oasis in the hustle bustle. I leave the park and am back on the streets I have a cigarette and note that there are only two Marlboro Lights left {old style packaging}. I will need some more for the night.

I am now indoors and have a large loud and vocal argument with my ex-wife. She is being intransigent adamant and vociferous. She is trying to justify all sorts of things. She is inaccurate and misguided. She is lying. My attempts to reason with her are completely unsuccessful. She is trying to manipulate me but without success. I see that I am wasting my time.

I turn to the audience observing this and say that Théun warned me that her lies and manipulations would hinder me for 13 years or more. I say that he was right in his predictions.

I am now inside with my aunt and ask her where the nearest Tabacco shop is.  She says it is just around the corner. It is the only part near here which I did not explore earlier. She asks me to get her 100 Lambert & Butler 100s and that she will buy my two packs of Marlboro. She hands me her hand bag and says that I should take it. I have no intention of doing this.  I take some money out of her purse. To buy her cigarettes not mine.

I leave and find an off licence shop. There I purchase the cigarettes and two cans of Stella Artois. The shopkeeper is friendly and we chat briefly.

The scene changes and I am in some kind of seminar room with a black board on an easel. Sat in front of me is a young Chinese man in a pin striped suit, he has a pudding bowl haircut and thick black rimmed spectacles. He is short sighted and I know him to have genius IQ. I am trying to explain to him the three triangles and the square of the tenfold Kabbalistic manifestation. I say to him that I am not good at drawing triangles. He concurs.

Every time I finish one part of the explanation he interjects and wants to draw complex integral mathematical formulations. Which he does in red marker pen upon a white board. He badly wants to win the argument.

I say to him that he is not listening and that his desire to argue inhibits his cognitive capability to assimilate. He disagrees. I say that he is being overly complicated.

I say to him that he so badly wants to be right and to win that he cannot understand because he is not motivated to do this. He disagrees.

I ask if he wants to win.

Yes.

I say to him that I do not give a shit about winning, nor being right. That is petty. If he does not want to learn I will not force him nor will I try over and over.

The scene changes and we are at a beach on a grassy verge. I am with a man and we are going to wash people to clean them up. To that end I have a huge 50 litre green panier of fresh spring water. In order to be ready, we have to go down some stairs to the beach where people will come to be cleansed. I navigate the large hewn steps with difficulty because of my hips. I take care not to spill a single drop of the spring water. My companion follows suit. We set ourselves up under a wide beach parasol.

The scene changes and we are on a wide concrete path inside a massive underground structure. The path heads uphill to a stone staircase leading onto a further path. The paths lead out of the cavern towards daylight. I can see a trail of what looks to be dog shit. With one lump every 30 cm or so. I follow it up the stairs. Where the colour of the shit is now grey and clay like. It leads to a massive turd which is the start point of the shit trail. The trial runs for 20 meters or so on each level and the volume of shit is truly massive with fist sized turds.

My companion catches up and we retrace the shit back down to the lower level. We are both amazed that anything could leave that much shit and live. There is a whole lot of shit which has not been cleared up. Masses of shit.

Dream ends.

Explaining Kabbalah Dream 14-06-23

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

« La Kabbale (de l’hébreu קבלה Qabbala « réception », forme anglicisée écrite plutôt Cabbale ou Qabale en français) est une tradition ésotérique du judaïsme, traditionnellement présentée comme la « Loi orale et secrète » donnée par YHWH à Moïse sur le mont Sinaï, en même temps que la « Loi écrite et publique » (la Torah). Elle trouve sa source dans les courants mystiques du judaïsme synagogal antique. »

Here is this morning’s dream. I should preface this with the statement that I have studied kabbalah from various published texts but with a background of someone skilled in the art of molecular group theory, symmetry, an open mind, and institutional understanding. I will add a few footnotes at the end. In no way do I see this, kabbalah, as satanic, nor is it some groovy thing a pop star might get a tattoo of.

The dream starts in the Department of Chemistry of Imperial College, South Kensington. I am in the fourth floor secretarial offices with Alan B. He is as I remember him but aged slightly and he is wearing a yarmulke on his head. This is surprising to me for although I knew his background, I never saw him thus attired.

He is standing by the printer waiting for a document to arrive. I greet him and he comments that the print queue must be long. Slowly out of the printer a sheet of A3 paper comes out and on it there is a kabbalistic otz chiim or eitz chaim. I glance at it and point out the common mistake which is deliberate in much of the published “work”. He says that he did not know that I knew about kabbalah.

I say that I have looked into it a little and see it as a model for the manifestation of the universe and how an idea or thought form comes into being, from before a germ of an idea.

I draw his attention to ein, ein soph and ein soph aur and explain that this is “deity” unmanifest often call God transcendent and this is a guess for what lies beyond the veil. An attempt of the seers of old to verbalise what they could not see. I point at the top trinity above da’ath and say that this is God imminent or that first part of deity which is, present participle, manifesting, in manifestation.

I say that the veil represents that which is in the very initial act of manifesting, that which is neither unmanifest or manifest. It represents the cusp of beingness, the as yet non nascent dream of existence.

He looks taken aback and says that he thought that kabbalah was pretty much a Jewish thing. I explain that yes that is where it was first started and that it goes way back. He points to da’ath on the tree.

I explain to him that herein lies the crux, because beyond {above} this we are dealing with models of deity which must be by way of conjecture. Whilst human I believe it difficult to conceptualise such states of awareness. In many ways da’ath encapsulates the mystery of beingness in that one cannot see beyond form whilst in form. The model of a triangle is reflected here with the apex of the triangle pointing up instead of down. Da’ath is a kind of lower reflection of the veil of existence.

Alan looks a little freaked.

The dream ends….

* Whilst working in pastoral care a student who had been on holiday at a rabbinical kabbalistic kibbutz had a big discussion on kabbalah with me and saw fit to give me a book on the subject. She was astounded that I could discuss such matters with her. 

*There is a Toltec interpretation of “Jacob’s ladder” the lightning strike of manifestation too.