grgr (34): "the tower" (747)

[Otto Sell]

----- Original Message -----
From: Lorentzen / Nicklaus <lorentzen-nicklaus at t-online.de>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Tuesday, August 22, 2000 4:50 PM
Subject: grgr (34): "the tower" (747)


>
>
>  "it is a puzzling card, and everybody has a different story on it." (ib.)

"die dieser Karte zugeschriebenen okkulten Erklärungen sind mager und
zumeist verwirrend."
A.E. Waite: Der Bilderschlüssel zum Tarot, p. 79
(sorry, got no English copy)
>
>  this might be the case or not. on the "subjective" level the card is
quite
>  clear: --- complete ego crack-up.
>
> kfl

The Tower returns in the last poem of the novel again and you must not read
the Crowley explanation but the A.E. Waite interpretation. The tarot-deck is
also called "The Rider-Waite-Deck," but you can see it in the Crowley-deck
too.

"His cards have been laid down, in the order suggested by Mr. A. E. Waite."
(738) which is, of course, the Celtic Cross, where the tenth card is called:
"what is to come." (724)

There is a Hand to turn the time,
Though thy Glass today be run,
Till the Light that hath brought the Towers low
Find the last poor Pret'rite one . . .
Till the Riders sleep by ev'ry road,
All through our crippl'd Zone,
With a face on ev'ry mountainside,
And a Soul in ev'ry stone. . . . (760)

Wenn der Turm, der im Tarot die Mächtigen repräsentiert, durch den Blitz
vernichtet worden ist, kehrt sich dessen Wirkung um, das Licht kann die
Übergangenen erreichen.
(When the tower which represents the Elect is destroyed by lightning, the
destroying effect is reversed to healing and now the healing light can reach
the Preterite) - what TRP again has is about is the reversal of the binary
oppositions.

Otto
-------------------------
o.sell at telda.net
http://www.itap.de/homes/otto/pynchon/gr73.htm
http://www.itap.de/homes/otto/pynchon/part1.htm