Book of Thoth - Tarot

[anagogy]

The truth is these comparrisons are just a falsification of truth, spreaded by Zeitgeist, Dan Brown etc. A fallacy repeated many times. There is no such correspondence. However I acknowledge archetypes in stories and myths. They are universal and don't have to be literal or copied. Similarly Ra said about archetypes and densities: "The relationship is tangential in that no congruency may be seen. However, the progress through the archetypes has some of the characteristics of the progress through the densities. These relationships may be viewed without being, shall we say, pasted one upon the other."

You're right. Upon further research, the connection is dubious among those myths. But as you said, it isn't that important in lieu of the universality of archetypal motifs.

Regarding Kabbalah, Cabala and Qabala. Kabbalah is a part of the Jewish tradition. As I understand you have to completely accept Judaism to really study the Kabbalah. Cabala is a Christian rendering and Qabala is further rendering by occultists. I don't know if this combinations were just pasted even though Christianity and Judaism are closely related.

This is correct, except that I don't believe you have to completely accept Judaism to study Kabbalah, anymore than you have to completely accept Ra to study the archetypal system they presented. I think that's basically just dogma. If the knowledge is available (in books, in people, the internet as a whole), then you can study it with no problem whatsoever.

I guess my problem with most of these systems is, if you are not trying to see the relationship between the tarot, the tree of life, and astrology, it feels kind of pointless to me. I don't feel like it is a case of "choose whatever you like, there is no wrong answer!" There is a correct architecture, and an incorrect architecture (or at least, a slightly distorted architecture). I want the least distorted architecture, and that is what I seek, and anything I feel is less than correct goes by the wayside when that realization is made. But due to the subtle nature of how these archetypes connect with one another, even the truth is hard to prove once it is realized. It is difficult to show people your "inner math".

I feel like a lot of these systems are not actually detailing the archetypal mind, rather they are merely rote systems of mental association -- memorization of correlations between various aspects (which most of the connections I find quite dubious for example, in Aleister Crowley's case). In other-words, I think most of it just gibberish and superstition. Thus, they have no real connection with the original tree of life, which was at least an attempt to map the archetypal mind (keeping open to the fact that there could be errors here as well), but instead are just attempts at lobbing on to their lexicons, because it gives the systems an air of authenticity (no matter how undeserved).

Another random question... what is an ipsissimus? Ra has said in the LOO that it is an adept who has mastered the Tree of Life on the negative path. Therefore it would be a secret grade. Dion Fortune mentioned it in her book but not in a negative way, but as the highest grade in initiation on the Tree of Life.

My understanding is it is an individual who has worked their way up the tree of life in the reverse path of the lightening flash of creation. As Ra said it is the mastery of the Tree of Life by a negative adept. It is the "Path of the Wizard" as opposed to the "Path of the Saint" (the STO adept).