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Total Barbelith Tarot: XXII-(22)- The Grail (take 2)

 
  

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Rex City-zen
19:06 / 06.11.01
Man, am I ever gonna hear about it on this one....
For the past several weeks we have been posting various meanings for each of the major arcana cards in the tarot.
When we started this thread,it's true, I did have an alterior motive.True, I did want a database compiled by some of the most brilliant minds I have had the pleasure to interact with, and I did want a beautiful new tarot set.What I wanted to do as well was to place the participants in "tarot" mind in order to perform this next excercise.

To comemorate the new aeon,the new age and the arrival of Horus, I propose the 23 rd card of the major arcana to be created.
No longer does one need return to being a fool- he can now visualize the end of his quest by way of the grail...

I hope you are all with me and will come up with some cool meanings for this card...

I myself am working on the card as we speak, so please tell me,
WHAT DOES THE GRAIL CARD SAY TO YOU?
 
 
grant
19:09 / 06.11.01
What's the diff. between the Grail and the Universe?

I view them as absolutely the same.

The quest's end, you know.
 
 
cusm
20:31 / 06.11.01
Neat idea, Rex.

I've always thought of the Ace of Cups as the grail, personally. Of course, I also like to picture the Ace of Swords as Excalibur...

Some things it evokes for me: Font of spirituality, recipient of divine blessing, enlightenment achieved at the end of questing, spiritual purity and attainment, gift from the Divine, immortality, perfection.
 
 
Mordant Carnival
20:39 / 06.11.01
[threadrot] quote:Originally posted by Rex City-zen:
...alterior motive...


Wow. Did you mean to do that? It's a really funky coinage- a portmanteau of ulterior and alternative. Like, you might have some selfish motivation for doing something but it's mixed in with another, broader agenda. Me like. Me steal for liberal usage. Sorry, you can have your thread back now. [/threadrot]

[ 06-11-2001: Message edited by: Mordant Carnival ]
 
 
Papess
22:42 / 06.11.01
Cheers REX!... Taking The Grail to new hieghts are you? This is an interesting toast to a new cycle. The menstral cycle! I got your Grail right here Baby! Pardon my being so crude but the correlation between this Worlds' bloody new cycle and the feminine cycle are all to tempting to pass up. After all, what the Grail is abstractly is materialized in the microcosom in Woman.
This is the birth of the new Aeon. The quickening...
(I just Thank God the PMS is over!)

[ 07-11-2001: Message edited by: May Tricks ]
 
 
Rex City-zen
17:12 / 08.11.01
Lothar Tuppan


Hmm... Since ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny I don't think there actually is a completion of the quest. There is no happy ending without the new beginning that can bring new chaos and pain, existence is cyclical not linear. Even the horrible end of the Kali Yuga gives way to the next Krita Yuga.
But, since I don't want to be a party pooper, maybe the grail, instead of the completion of the quest, is the structure that existence floats in. All the other cards, including the World/Universe is contained in the grail.

In the same way that when you break out of the wheel of Karma the horrible death god Yama can be seen in his true guise - the thousand eyed god of compassion - maybe the grail represents those moments when we can break out of the limitations of our flesh and our lives.

The container and source of what is behind the illusion.

[ 08-11-2001: Message edited by: Lothar Tuppan

REX SAYS: Just trying to tie the two threads together...when I originally posted, it was redirected both time so I'm very shocked to see replies....shutting down other thread, this one will be the surviving thread.

PS Mordant,Yes it was intentional and I'm glad you like the word...please spread it around like syphilus
 
 
Rex City-zen
17:14 / 08.11.01
By the By....if anyone has a better suggestion/name for this card, don't hesitate...
 
 
Kobol Strom
17:23 / 08.11.01
Lets try this again,

quote:Originally posted by Lothar Tuppan:

maybe the grail, instead of the completion of the quest, is the structure that existence floats in.

The container and source of what is behind the illusion.

[ 08-11-2001: Message edited by: Lothar Tuppan ]


I had this bizarre experience once that involved an astral visit to a temple to undergo one of the initial trials of a buddhist monk,The trial of water.I won't go into the details,but I think that the grail as a model for 'the support for what it contains' can be seen as a model for the Universe.The actual substance,which is spiritually linked to the substance 'water',is part of one of the universes illusions,and that is the existence in this universe of -The Lego of God!.
I think water is but one indicator to me, on a number of fundamental spiritual levels,of the existence in this universe of either : parts of the divine that lie scattered, or aspects of higher dimensional forms of which we are partly made up from.Or both.
Its not that we are the classic Star Trek adage:'Bags of mostly water',but that a part of our consciousness is actually the consciousness of water,which might explain how our consciousness can travel about the body and even across space.The Big Start to the universe is more of a breaking apart of a unity that once existed,for the purposes of either reforming itself,evolving into something else.The human experience is the creation of a universal reintegration of spiritual and psychic forms,in absence of any discernable fluid structures,but with the knowledge of patterns and chaotic models.
The cup contains us.The grail is the universe.Which is why Jesus says,'this is my blood' which is obviously a spiritual metaphor.
Parcival hands a cup of water to King Arthur after having failed to find the grail,but what he hands him,is in itself,exactly what Arthur needed,as well as being a model for the existence of a spiritual elemental destiny.

[ 08-11-2001: Message edited by: kobol strom ]
 
 
the Fool
19:17 / 08.11.01
Perhaps the grail is liquid information, from a higher dimension. Once comprehension of 3dimensionality gives way to 4dimensionality, information can be piped in from the next step. 5th dimensional possibility ominverse.
 
 
the Fool
19:21 / 08.11.01
quote:Originally posted by Rex City-zen:
To comemorate the new aeon,the new age and the arrival of Horus, I propose the 23 rd card of the major arcana to be created.
No longer does one need return to being a fool- he can now visualize the end of his quest by way of the grail...


We never leave the fool. The fool just wears different masks. It doesn't matter how far you go, zero is always with you. Like in the Monkey TV show when Monkey travels to the ends of the universe to escape Buddha's grasp, only to realise that he never left buddha's palm...
 
 
Rex City-zen
19:27 / 08.11.01
We always come back 2 u,eh fool?

Oh,it's true.
It's danm true...
 
 
What do you mean?
19:40 / 08.11.01
I like the idea of card 22. The numerology is sound (2+2=4 and all that comes with the number 4including fourth dimension, the four horsemen,the basic 4 circuits of leary and wilson etc...) plus it is a great homage to the new age of Whore-us.
What a wierd year eh? (As the writer goes off topic...) Nintendo and Sega, Bush and Gore, WCW and WWF, and two towers crashin to nothingness.
2001...like the spice girls said 2 become one <or none>

I'll leave now.

[ 08-11-2001: Message edited by: What do you mean? ]
 
 
Papess
23:14 / 08.11.01
Hey Rex
I have an idea about the name and concept of this proposed 23rd card. Seeing as all the cards fit appropriatly on the Tree of Life, perhaps this card can go beyond the Tree just as the viels of Ain, Ain Soph and Ain Soph Aur do beyond Kether. Or in english... The Light, The Limitless Light and The Limitless,Boundless Light. PerhapsThe Veil orThe Abstract are more appropriate titles for this card?
Ilove this whole concept and I believe this could be a historical event.

Love From
May Tricks


Wait I've got to stop posting before thinking. Isn't Malkuth in Kether but in a different manner? That's what I mean to get at in the folds of light. Tghisb is the crack between the worlds right here...
Ah dammit I'm having some sorta revelation here... maaking ...it hhharrrrd to type....
No, seriously I am having avision of this card. Iwould like to produce it and share it with you if you like where I am headed.
Okay?
May T.

[ 09-11-2001: Message edited by: May Tricks ]
 
 
cusm
00:16 / 09.11.01
Ain Soph Aur are the eminations above Kether from the infinite light/infinite darkness beyond, the flow of energy from the divine source, and the veils. Kether is the first crystalization of that energy into actual form. Interesting suggestion, May. There may be something to that...

Oh, and kether is in malchuth is in kether. Its complicated, in all the usual "the end is the beginning" ways. Each contain all 4 elements, one in primordial state and one in primal.

Another idea: The grail is all paths at once, the entire tree at ones. Or, the act of walking the paths at all.

The other missing bit other than Ain soph Aur is the Abyss, which I've seen as given a sepheroth as Daath. That doesn't seem to fit with the grail, though.
 
 
the Fool
01:43 / 09.11.01
quote:Originally posted by cusm:
The other missing bit other than Ain soph Aur is the Abyss, which I've seen as given a sepheroth as Daath. That doesn't seem to fit with the grail, though.


Perhaps the influx of exterior information from the grail is the Abyss, an abyss of infinite permutations, dissolving identity against trillion variations of itself. The grail holds a billion billion universes all drunk in a single mouthful. The abyss of infinite knowledge without reason, without identity as a guide.
 
 
What do you mean?
16:12 / 09.11.01
You go people.
Work it like you own it.
Or, it owes you money.

How about a collective card? We all add our own personal symbols as we go??
 
 
Rex City-zen
16:19 / 09.11.01
Kobol:
You are soooooo on track with your thoughts on water.

" And the earth was without form and darkness was upon the deep, and God moved upon the face of the waters..." Genesis 1
<< or something close to that anyways>>

We will definatley speak more on this topic.

PS: MAY- Wow. History making you say? How cool is that?!? By all means, if you have a concept in mind, go for it!! I am not a selfish fictionsuit...not this one anyways.
PEACE!

PPS: I hope that everyone will continue to contribute to the other tarot threads (by way of the index-"just klik!") so we can have the most incredible tarot archieve since...er...EGYPT!!
 
 
Rex City-zen
16:21 / 09.11.01
WOOO! Funky Coinage pt 2!!
WHORE-US!! I love it!

Hey...there's a cool fictionsuit name, Funky Coinage! Thanks Mordant!
 
 
cusm
18:53 / 09.11.01
"...and God separated the waters above from the waters below," or something like that.

Something has to hold all that water, right?

There's the world, and there's the stuff outside of it we can't understand or reach. The world is the completion of the reality we are a part of. The grail holds that, and all the rest of it, too. Rather like "The Universe" interpretation of "The World". Only, it implys more than what one has attained: the setting it was attained in.

ooo! This is fun
 
 
the artist formerly known as Rex
18:57 / 09.11.01
Firmament...that is what seperates according to Genesis.So then, space is composed of water?? Hee hee hee.

By the way, I am very impressed with the responses thus far.Keep it up!
 
 
Papess
19:20 / 09.11.01
I see Sexy Rexy has gone the way of princes. What happened to our King?


Allingoodfun

cusm
I was paraphrasing from Dion Fortunes Mystical Qabbalah. I do believe in retrospect I was giving a direct quote.

quote: Malkuth in Kether but in a different manner? [ 09-11-2001: Message edited by: May Tricks ]
Actually I believe she says
quote:Kether is in Malkuth but after a different manner?
As for the Abyss I hd also thought of that. I wanted to go beyond the Supernals with the concept of the 23rd card. If I am not mistaken this is what Rex was intending, origanally with his concept of The Grail.
The Abyss is often mistaken as the Place of Ain Soph Aur but Ain Soph Aur is beyond conception. The Abyss is a place of concepts albiet they are broken down or dispersed. This is why Da'ath is a virtual sephiroth, at this point is the realization that our concepts hold no real truth in the face of the absolute.

[ 09-11-2001: Message edited by: May Tricks ]
 
 
Mordant Carnival
19:44 / 09.11.01
I've been giving this one a bit of a think and I don't reckon it ought to be 22 at all. I reckon it either goes between Strength and my old mukker The Hermit, or maybe between Judgement and The Universe (space). Which would make it either 8.5 or twenty and a bit.

I would go for the 8.5 option. But that's just me.
 
 
the artist formerly known as Rex
19:46 / 09.11.01
I tried to post under a new fictionsuit (see above) but I typed in the wrong name- I wanted to use 'FUNKY COINAGE' but alas, I messed up...I am still Rex City-zen, dunt worry. (City-zen Rex)The cool part is: Rex is number 232 and The Artist is 1232, exactly 1000 members later.Pure coincidence but very cool.

And you?...Some wierd mojo taking place with your quotes. Dion Forune has not much to say, I guess??
Just kidding.
 
 
Mordant Carnival
19:47 / 09.11.01
quote:Originally posted by May Tricks:
I see Sexy Rexy has gone the way of princes. What happened to our King?


Oooh. And the land and the king are one... what does this portend?
 
 
Gek
20:04 / 09.11.01
Correct me if i'm wrong ( there's an understatement...) but wouldn't the 23rd path lead through the DAATH, like the middle pillar, connecting the Univers/Devil/High Priestess??

I'm not up on my Kaballa, so if anyone ever wants to explain it to me, I would be much obliged.Thank ya.
 
 
Papess
20:56 / 09.11.01
Rex,

I suppose I was getting at the destination.
If you've ever seen the image of the lightening bolt on the tree or the snake that coils itself about it, well the snake is generally the way a magician would pathwork her way up the tree. The lightening bolt would be conception. I am by no means an expert and I have been known to misunderstand even the most profound teachers,such as those who hve been so kind to teach me.

Love, May
 
 
Gek
16:16 / 13.11.01
It's funny. I seem to work with the tree constantly without even knowing it or what I'm doing.
I wish Godog was here.s/he was so adept at things of this nature.If you get a chance,check out the early posts for the tarot threads.Incredible.
This 9/11 thing sure messed alot a people up and forced many 'lithers into hiding.
Which is odd,considering the types that post here...
Come back Godog.Rex misses you.
 
 
Papess
03:18 / 14.11.01
Rex, as promised, here is my interpretation of Major Arcana 22
I hope you like it. Please send me any comments you may have .

Love
-May

[ 14-11-2001: Message edited by: May Tricks ]
 
 
Papess
09:02 / 15.11.01
Thank-you grant, I just can't seem to post images, just urls.

By the way the space in the righthand corner is for the number 22.

-May

[ 15-11-2001: Message edited by: May Tricks ]

[ 15-11-2001: Message edited by: May Tricks ]
 
 
Rex City-zen
09:02 / 15.11.01
May,
What an incredible piece of art.The image truly captures the idea for the card.How did you create it,may I ask??
 
 
Papess
09:02 / 15.11.01
Ooh Rex, You flatter me!
The image is totally digital.
Just cut and paste and render.

Here is poem for you.

The 23rd Path leads you beyond the abyss.
Beyond the Supernals.
Cleansed in the blue fire,
Given life by the Grail,
Darkness cannot live here,
It all merges into the Light,
The Limitless...Boundless, Light.
Come Home, to my pink bosom


-May Tricks



P.S: You don't think it's too Ace-of-Cupsy?

P.S.S: This is the 23rd path right? Imade another error. Ihave been awake for almost 3 days, I am a bit wonky. Hey that reminds me I had a dream about the 23rd path over 10 years ago. And people thought I was just crazy!Well they were close.


[ 15-11-2001: Message edited by: May Tricks ]

[ 15-11-2001: Message edited by: May Tricks ]
 
 
penitentvandal
09:02 / 15.11.01
As far as concerns the whole 'higher-dimensional-system-the-universe-is-embedded-in' theme, how about 'the Hologram' as an alternative name?

A little less medieval-sounding than 'the Grail', less Ace of Cups confusion, and a little more Invisiblesesque...
 
 
Gek
16:17 / 15.11.01
May-would you mind sharing your dream? Have others acknowledged the 23rd path pror to this excercise? I'm curious...

Thanks.
PS: God, I just caught the play on your name May.I am sooooooo...slow....sometimes.

PPS: I hope everyone will continue to post interpretations for the other cards still.As well, we still have some cards that are uncreated as of yet...any volunteers?

[ 15-11-2001: Message edited by: City-zen Rex ]
 
 
Papess
16:41 / 15.11.01
Rex,
My dream of the 23rd path happened over a decade ago. I barely remember it but... I do remember dancing in a room full of people and seeing my Hermetic Magick Teacher come towards me. He asked me what I was doing and I said I was embarking upon the 23rd path.
That's all I remember, but when I had told my Teacher he told me he simply told me there were only 22 paths. I have been almost dyslexic-like about this ever since.

P.S - There is a play on my name? Who's winning? *groan*

Love
-May Tricks
 
 
) + (
17:07 / 15.11.01
Unfortunatley,no one can tell you what the May Trick is...you have to see it for yourself.
 
  

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