AtDTDA: (8) 231-232 The Fool

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

The charming and beautiful Madame Eskimoff speaks:       

        "You ae well advised, Mr. Basnight, to take the 
        Icosadyad every bit a seriously as you do. I was 
        among them, once, as the Fool---or 'Unwise On,' 
        as Eliphaz Levi prefered---perhaps the most 
        demanding of all the Trumps Major. Now I have
         a flock of suburban punters believing, poor soul, 
        that I possess intelligence they will find helpfi;. 
        Being unwise as ever, I cannot bring myself to 
        disabuse them."
        231. 38/40 232

Pynchon (in his introduction to Jim Dodge's "Stone Junction") 
speaks, displaying an awareness of Eliphaz Levi he must have 
been possessing for quite some time.

        He takes the Diamond, and then the Diamond takes 
        him. For it turns out to be a gateway to elsewhere, 
        and Daniel's life's tale an account of the incarnation 
        of a god, not the usual sort that ends up bringing aid 
        and comfort to earthly powers, but that favorite of 
        writers, the incorruptible wiseguy known to 
        anthropologists as the Trickster, to working alchemists 
        as Hermes, to card-players everywhere as the Joker. 
        We don't learn this till the end of the story, by which 
        point, knowing Daniel as we've come to, we are free 
        to take it literally as a real transfiguration, or as a 
        metaphor of spiritual enlightenment, or as a description 
        of Daniel's unusually exalted state of mind as he 
        prepares to cross, forever, the stone junction between 
        Above and Below -- by this point, all of these 
        possibilities have become equally true, for we have 
        been along on one of those indispensable literary 
        journeys, taken nearly as far as Daniel -- through 
        it is for him to slip along across the last borderline, 
        into what Wittgenstein once supposed cannot be 
        spoken of, and upon which, as Eliphaz Levi 
        advised us -- after "To know, to will, to dare" as 
        the last and greatest of the rules of Magic -- we 
        must keep silent.

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_stone.html

Some historical background on "Eliphaz Levi":

        Usually known by his pseudonym "Eliphas Lévi 
        Zahed," which is a translation of his name into 
        Hebrew, this Parisian was almost single-handedly 
        responsible for the popular resurgence of the 
        Secret Traditions in the 19th Century. Lévi 
        synthesized Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, 
        Qabalism, Gnosticism, Masonry, Rosicrucianism, 
        Alchemy, Tarot, Mesmerism, Spiritism, along with 
        the writings of Boehme, Swedenborg, Paracelsus 
        and Knorr von Rosenroth into what we know today 
        as "occultism."

http://www.hermetic.com/sabazius/levi.htm

http://altreligion.about.com/library/texts/bl_sanctumregnum.htm

http://altreligion.about.com/library/texts/bl_historygoldendawn.htm

Just as much as Pynchon would want us to know who built the V-2, 
he would want us to know who built modern occultism.

Thelma sent me:

        The fool is the classic journey card. We are all 
        the fool of our own decks and there is a serious 
        thought that the only card that really exists is the 
        fool. He is happy go lucky and utterly carefree. 
        In various decks he is depicted as a variety of 
        characters. Always though with a song in his 
        heart and spirit of adventure.

        He is Percival from the Arthurian myths. Pure 
        of heart and spirit. It is a "fools journey" that 
        the tarot describes. Look at the major arcana 
        and you can trace his steps and all of the 
        wonderful entities he meets along the way. In 
        the end he meets the beautiful sleeping 
        princess of discs - gives her the cosmic kiss 
        and it all starts over again....

        He is often characterized as the start of our 
        magickal path. Being the Fool of Telegraph 
        Avenue is a high compliment indeed!

        On the Thoth he is represented by the Hebrew 
        mother letter Aleph. It is the Alpha of the old 
        testament. Within him all cards are contained. 
        He is the start and the beginning.

Madame Eskimoff is quite observent of certain rituals:

        It seemed each British mystical order claiming 
        Pythagorean descent had its own ideas about 
        those taboos and bits of free advice known as 
        akousmata. . . .232. 10/11

        Pythagoras of Samos: (Greek:
        circa 580 BC – circa 500 BC) was an Ionian 
        (Greek) philosopher and founder of the 
        religious movement called Pythagoreanism. 
        He is often revered as a great mathematician 
        and scientist, however, careful scholarship in 
        the past three decades has found no evidence 
        of his contributions to mathematics or natural 
        philosophy. His name led him to be 
        associated with Pythian Apollo; Aristippus 
        explained his name by saying, "He spoke 
        (agor-) the truth no less than did the Pythian 
        (Pyth-)," and Iamblichus tells the story that 
        the Pythia prophesied that his pregnant 
        mother would give birth to a man supremely 
        beautiful, wise, and of benefit to humankind. . . .

        . . . .The key here is that akousmata means 
        "rules", so that the superstitious taboos 
        primarily applied to the akousmatikoi, and 
        many of the rules were probably invented 
        after Pythagoras's death and independent 
        from the mathematikoi (arguably the real 
        preservers of the Pythagorean tradition). 
        The mathematikoi placed greater 
        emphasis on inner understanding than did 
        the akousmatikoi, even to the extent of 
        dispensing with certain rules and ritual 
        practices. For the mathematikoi, being a 
        Pythagorean was a question of innate 
        quality and inner understanding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras

Madame Eskimoff's favorite akousmata:

        . . . .happened to be number twenty-four 
        as listed by Iamblichus---never look into a 
        mirror when there's a lamp next to you.
        "Meaning one must rearrange one's entire 
        day, making sure one is finished dressing 
        well before nightfall---. . . ."  232. 12/15

We leave with the couple discussing "hatpin issues".