LITTLE LECTURES ON MAGICK, PART 2: THE QABALAH AND THE TAROT

...Eliphas Levi declared that by arranging the Tarot cards according to a definite order man could discover all that is knowable concerning his God, his universe, and himself. When the ten numbers which pertain to the globes (Sephiroth) are combined with “22 letters relating to the channels, the resultant sum is 32--the number peculiar to the Qabbalistic Paths of Wisdom. These Paths...are analogous to the first 32 degrees of Freemasonry, which elevate the candidate to the dignity of a Prince of the Royal Secret. Qabbalists also consider it extremely significant that in the original Hebrew Scriptures the name of God should occur 32 times in the first chapter of Genesis...

Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages

Kabbalah is an esoteric discipline for reading, and discovering, hidden knowledge encoded in the Torah.  This is, at least, it's original purpose.  One of Kabbalah's methodologies is gematria, based on the fact that the Hebrew alphabet--as with the Greek, Roman, and many others--served as numerals as well as sounds.  This means that Hebrew words are themselves all values.  For Jewish mystics, shared values between words indicated deeper connections which demonstrate the hidden construction of the world.  The most common example is that the Tetragrammaton, YHVH, has a value of 26.  26 is also the value of ABHA and AChD, "Love" and "Unity," which the Kabbalists read as insight into God's nature.

To better investigate the hidden meanings of words, Hebrew Kabbalah embraced Pythagorean numerical mysticism, and this more than anything made the discipline attractive to those outside of Judaism.  Aside from gematria, Kabbalists constructed a diagram--based on Pythagorean concepts--called the Etz haChayim or "Tree of Life" after the one in Eden.  This was said to be a blueprint of Creation, showing not only the structure of the Universe and Man, but the mind of God.  Hermetic Kabbalists--commonly referred to as Qabalists to distinguish them from Judaic mystics--adopted gematria and the Tree of Life to build their model of the universe.

The Tree of Life is constructed from the Numbers we discussed in the last chapter.  0, 1-10, and 22 are the most essential.  The entire schema is an attempt to "Square the Circle," or unite Earth and Heaven.  For this reason its skeleton is based on 3 and 4. 

For starters, the Tree of Life is made of four overlapping circles.  These correspond to the letters of the Divine Name, YHVH.  Y is the letter of Fire, the Father, and Atziluth, the Divine Plane.  H is the letter of Water, the Mother, and Briah, the Archangelic Plane.  V is the letter of Air, the Son, and the Angelic Plane of Yetzirah.  The final H is the letter of Earth, the Daughter, and the Elemental Plane of Assiah.  Where these circles or Planes overlap, Ten Spheres or Sephiroth are formed.  These Sephiroth correspond exactly to the values of the Numbers we discussed in the last chapter, so that the highest sphere is "Unity" and the lowest is "Completion."

The four Planes or Worlds are meant to show the process of manifestation.  The best way to understand this is by example.

There is a coffee cup on the table in front of me.  It Atziluth, the highest plane, it isn't really a coffee cup...it's a swirling pattern of atomic particles beyond my senses.  This is the "Divine Fire" that forms the true substance of Creation.  But the next plane, Briah, is the Ideal plane of consciousness.  This is where my idea of "cupness" resides.  It is the repository of all such ideas.  In Yetzirah, Fire and Water (Father and Mother) come together to form Air, the Son.  In this plane my senses read impressions from the cup (its shape, it's color, it's texture) and uses these to marry the phenomena to one of the ideas in my head.  The final result of this process is Assiah, the material world, where the object is not atomic particles but is now--for me--a cup. A coffee cup.  From a Qabalistic view we are all the Creators, using the ideas in our head and our senses to manifest the entire world from Fire.

It is easy to see, at this point, how nicely the ten Numbers fit into this plan.  Where Ultimate Reality (Y) and Ideal Reality (H) meet we have the three numbers of Heaven, Unity, Division, and Space.  Where Ideal Reality (H) meets Sensual Reality (V), we have Matter, Time, and Individual Consciousness.  Sensual Reality (V) meets with Physical Life (H) to generate Individuality, Sensation, Learning, Creation, and Completion. 

Two more things must be noted. Above the Tree is what the Qabalists call Ain, or "Nothing" (the blue curve in the diagram).  The Tree of Life is understand to grow downwards, rooted in Heaven, from the concept of Zero.  It is best then to think of the first Sephiroth as the trunk of the Tree and the tenth as the summit.  Zero, then, exists above the Ideal Plane of Briah. We can have no conception of it.

Between the upper three Sephiroth and the lower seven (the 3 and 7 of Heaven and Earth) is a gap where no Sephiroth exists.  This is the Abyss, the gulf between Heaven and Earth caused (in mythology) by the Fall.  The Tenth sphere at the base of the Tree  replaces this gap.

Before we continue, please note that this arrangement creates three columns of Sephiroth, or "Pillars."  These grow down from and reflect the highest three Sephiroth of Heaven.  The right pillar grows from 2, and reflects Maleness and Force.  The left pillar grows from Space and reflect Femaleness and Form.  The middle pillar grows from Unity and reflects Consciousness.

So far we have seen how the basic framework of the Tree is based on the numbers of 3, 4, and 1-10.  But the number 22 is also crucial here.  As we noted, 22 comes from the three vectors of the Cube, the seven points of the Cube, and the twelves edges of the Cube.  As 3 and 7 are also Heaven and Earth, we see in 22 the sum total of creation.

Hebrew letters are themselves divided up this way.  There are three Mother Letters, seven Double Letters, and twelve Singles.  Since this is not a study in Hebrew, we needn't dwell on what that means.   What is important to us here is that Kabbalists believed the universe was something that Yahweh (YHVH) spoke into existence, using the letters of the Hebrew alphabet (again, simultaneously sounds and numbers).  Qabalists have a similar concept, in that the Mind creates the universe from numbers and letters as well.  The 3, 7, and 12 letters of the Hebrew alphabet thus form "paths" between the static Sephiroth.  They may be thought of as bridges or roads between the spheres, or conduits for the Divine Fire.  On the Tree of Life three are horizontal, seven are vertical, and twelve diagonal.  They correspond to the Elements (Fire, Water, and Air...Earth is the final Sephiroth at the base of the Tree), the Planets (Sol, Luna, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn), and the 12 signs of the Zodiac.

Taken together, this schema give us 32 categories of Creation.  This is again the Union of Heaven and Earth.  Think of One (Unity) doubling six times (the number of the Cube), 1 - 2 - 4 - 8 - 16 - 32.  This is the also the number of times God is mentioned in Genesis.  Into these "slots" the Qabalist is encouraged to categorize all phenomena, turning the Tree of Life into an elaborate memory palace.

Let us take as our example the 6th Sephira, called "Tiphareth" (Individual Consciousness in our Pythagorean model).  We know 6 is the faces of the Cube, connecting it to Earth, but it is also the product of 1 and 2 and 3, the  numbers of Heaven.  So we can see it as a sort of mediator or bridge between Heaven and Earth.  This makes sense; looking at the Tree again it is positioned in the Middle Pillar between 9 (the Ego, or Lower Self) and 1 (Unity, the Divine).  Six is then the Word Made Flesh, the Christ described by John.  It is the link between God and Man.  We should not be surprised then that the Cube, flattened out, makes a Cross.

It's Hermetic planet is Sol, the  Sun.  Again, this works; the Sun is the Son.  But the Sun is also our local star, and thus a sort of personal god, a bridge between Earth and the Heavens.  And the Sun rises and sets; in ancient mythologies Sun gods die and are resurrected.  So we assign other deities here, such as Osiris, Ra, and Dionysus.  Solar associations also give us metals like gold, animals like the Phoenix, and gems like the yellow diamond.  The list goes on and on and on.  Apply the same to the 31 other categories and soon we have an entire conceptual model of the universe built up on our Tree.

The Tarot

An imprisoned person with no other book than the Tarot, if he knew how to use it, could in a few years acquire universal knowledge, and would be able to speak on all subjects with unequalled learning and inexhaustible eloquence.

Elphias Levi

The Tarot was not created as an esoteric tool; it was a deck of cards for gambling.  The Italian tarocchi and its French cousin, from whom we get the word tarot, was played with four suits and an extra set of Trump cards.  It began to transition from a card game to a divinatory device in the late 18th century.  Antoine Court de Gébelin, a Protestant Freemason, speculated the cards were actually of ancient Egyptian origin.  Elphias Levi later connected them to the Kabbalah.

Even if they were not made as a divinatory tool, they certainly seem made for it.  By chance (?) the cards are built along the exact same Pythagorean principles as the Tree of Life.  To wit, there are 4 suits that correspond exactly to the Four Qabalistic worlds, each with 4 Court Cards that perfectly mirror the formula of the Tetragrammaton (Father, Mother, Son, Daughter) and 10 lower cards that correspond to the Sephiroth or Pythagorean Decade.   The Trumps, with evocative titles and images like the Devil, Death, and the Sun, are 22 in number (like the letters of the Hebrew alphabet or the dimensions of the Cube).  Even better, of the 22 Trumps one, the Fool, is numbered "zero," leaving 21 others...3 sets of 7.  The Tarot couldn't have been better suited to Hermetic purposes if it had been designed by an initiate.

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn made the Tarot central to its doctrines (alongside Qabalah and Enochian), and its most infamous graduate, Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) made it a centerpiece of his teachings.  In The Book of Lies he wrote;

The Great Wheel of Samsara.

The Wheel of the Law.

The Wheel of the Taro.

The Wheel of the Heavens.

The Wheel of Life.

All these Wheels be one; yet of all these the Wheel of the TARO alone avails thee consciously.

Meditate long and broad and deep, 0 man, upon this Wheel, revolving it in thy mind!

Be this thy task, to see how each card springs necessarily from each other card, even in due order from The Fool unto The Ten of Coins.

Then, when thou know'st the Wheel of Destiny complete, may'st thou perceive THAT Will which moved it first. [There is no first or last.]

And lo! thou art past through the Abyss.

Towards the end of his life Crowley worked with British painter Lady Frieda Harris (1877-1962) to create what must be one of the definitive esoteric Tarots, the Thoth Deck.  His companion volume, the Book of Thoth, is a masterpiece.  In it, he takes the Golden Dawn's encyclopedic correspondences and associations and brings the new Thelemic formula of the New Aeon to them (see the next chapter).  His Tarot, on the Tree of Life, is as follows;

The meanings of the small cards derive directly from the Pythagorean Decade, filtered however though the Element or Plane of each suit.

Wands: Fire, Y-The Father,Will and Action

Cups: Water, H-The Mother, Emotion and Ideals

Swords: Air, V-The Son, Thought and Definition

Discs: Earth, H-The Daughter, Matter and Senses

Thus, the Two of Wands signifies Separation or Polarity in Will, whilst the Two of Swords is the same in Thought.  The Eight of Cups is Learning from an Emotional experience, while the Eight of Discs is learning from Material ones.

The Court Cards, then, show the manifestation of the Tetragrammaton in each World.  The Knights represent the Fiery element, the Queens are Aqueous, the Princes are Airy and the Princesses are Earthy.  So the Knight of Wands is the paternal, Fiery portion of Air.  The Queen of Discs is the Maternal, Aqueous portion of Earth. 

The 22 Trumps are somewhat more complex, deriving their meaning from the Element, Planet, or Zodiacal sign they are associated with (by way of the Hebrew alphabet).  To get the reader started, I provide here Crowley's short poetic descriptions of each from The Heart of the Master;

0. The Fool

Know Naught!

All ways are lawful to Innocence.

Pure folly is the Key to Initiation.

Silence breaks into Rapture.

Be neither man nor woman, but both in one.

Be silent, Babe in the Egg of Blue, that thou mayest grow to bear the Lance and Graal!

Wander alone, and sing! In the King's Palace his daughter awaits thee.

I. The Magus

The True Self is the meaning of the True Will: know Thyself through Thy Way!

Calculate well the Formula of Thy Way!

Create freely; absorb joyously; divide intently; consolidate completely.

Work thou, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent, in and for Eternity.

II. The Priestess

Purity is to live only to the Highest; and the Highest is All: be thou as Artemis to Pan!

Read thou in the Book of the Law, and break through the veil of the Virgin!

III. The Empress

This is the Harmony of the Universe, that Love unites the Will to create with the Understanding of that Creation: understand thou thine own Will!

Love and let love! Rejoice in every shape of love, and get thy rapture and thy nourishment thereof!

IV. The Emperor

Pour water on thyself: thus shalt thou be a Fountain to the Universe.

Find thou thyself in every Star!

Achieve thou every possibility!

V. The Hierophant

Offer thyself Virgin to the Knowledge and Conversation of thine Holy Guardian Angel! All else is a snare.

Be thou athlete with the eight limbs of Yoga; for without these thou are not disciplined for any fight.

VI. The Lovers

The Oracle of the Gods is the Child-Voice of Love in thine own Soul! hear thou it!

Heed not the Siren-Voice of Sense, or the Phantom-Voice of Reason: rest in Simplicity, and listen to the Silence!

VII. The Chariot

The issue of the Vulture, Two-in-One, conveyed; this is the chariot of Power.

T R I N C : The last oracle!

VIII. Adjustment

Balance against each thought its exact opposite!

For the Marriage of these is the Annihilation of Illusion.

IX. The Hermit

Wander alone; bearing the Light and thy Staff!

And be the Light so bright that no man seeth thee!

Be not moved by aught without or within: keep Silence in all ways!

X. Fortune

Follow thy Fortune, careless where it lead thee!

The axle moveth not: attain thou that!

XI. Lust

Mitigate Energy with Love; but let Love devour all things.

Worship the name _______*, foursquare, mystic, wonderful, and the name of His House 418.

(This Name to be communicated to those worthy of that Initiation.)

XII. The Hanged Man

Let not the waters whereon thou journeyest wet thee! And, being come to shore, plant thou the Vine and rejoice without shame.

XIII. Death

The Universe is Change: every Change is the effect of an Act of Love; all Acts of Love contain Pure Joy. Die daily!

Death is the apex of one curve of the snake Life: behold all opposites as necessary complements, and rejoice!

XIV. Art

Pour thine all freely from the Vase in thy right hand, and lose no drop! Hath not thy left hand a vase?

Transmute all wholly into the Image of thy Will, bringing each to its true token of Perfection!

Dissolve the Pearl in the Wine-cup: drink, and make manifest the Virtue of that Pearl!

XV. The Devil

With thy right Eye create all for thyself, and with the left accept all that be created otherwise!

XVI. The Tower

Break down the fortress of thine Individual Self, that thy Truth may spring free from the ruins!

XVII. The Star

Use all thine energy to rule thy thought: burn up thy thought as the Phoenix!

XVIII. The Moon

Let the Illusion of the World pass over thee, unheeded, as thou goest from the Midnight to the Morning!

XIX. The Sun

Give forth thy light to all without doubt: the clouds and shadows are no matter for thee.

Make Speech and Silence, Energy and Stillness, twin forms of thy play!

XX. The Aeon

Be every Act an Act of Love and Worship!

Be every Act the Fiat of a God!

Be every Act a Source of radiant Glory!

XXI. The Universe

Treat time and all conditions of Event as Servants of thy Will, appointed to present the Universe to thee in the form of thy Plan.

And: blessing and worship to the prophet of the lovely Star!

LITTLE LECTURES ON MAGICK: NUMBER SYMBOLISM

The Apologia for this System is that our purest conceptions are symbolized in Mathematics. "God is the Great Arithmetician." "God is the Grand Geometer." It is best therefore to prepare to apprehend Him by formulating our minds according to these measures.

By "God" I here mean the Ideal Identity of a man's inmost nature...

Crowley; Magick: In Theory and Practice

At the root of the Western Esoteric Tradition which informs not only Enochian, but the Tarot and the Qabalah as well, lies a set of symbolic numbers. These originate mainly with Pythagoras (circa 570-495 BCE). "The numerals of Pythagoras," wrote Porphyry in the 4th century CE, "were hieroglyphic symbols, by means whereof he explained all ideas concerning the nature of things." This is exactly how they are understood in Magick today. Crowley adds to this;

Let us say, once again, that the magical language is nothing but a convenient system of classification to enable the magician to docket his experiences as he obtains them. Yet this is true also, that, once the language is mastered, one can divine the unknown by study of the known, just as one's knowledge of Latin and Greek enables one to understand some unfamiliar English word derived from those sources...

Numbers, because of their universality, are generally understood to be the best tools for classification at the Magician's disposal. They are a shorthand for very complex ideas, and because Magick often deals with highly subjective concepts, a way to ensure as much clarity as possible in communicating such things. Thus, without further ado, let us look at the numbers essential to Tarot, Qabalah, and Enochian Magic.

Zero

Zero, also known as Silence, Nothing, or the Void, is the Infinite. It contains and is the sum of all opposites within it (0 = n + -n). Creation ex nihilo is simply zero dividing back into paired opposites (see Genesis 1). One useful way to think of zero is infinite potential; a blank sheet of paper has the potential to become anything...a love letter, a laundry list, a recipe, an origami crane. It is empty, but by virtue of this has infinite potential.

Zero exists beyond time, beyond definition, and beyond thinking. It is the highest level of reality in multiple traditions, from the Hebrew Ain Soph which exists above the Tree of Life to the Buddhist nirvana.

One to Three; the Heavens

Ancient Near Eastern, Classical, and Indian traditions divide the universe into two; the Heavens and the Earth (though some traditions include a third realm, the underworld, it is generally considered to exist within or under the Earth). The Heavens are the Ideal Plane, existing beyond time or matter, and they are usually symbolized by the Circle or Sphere. The Earth is the material world, symbolized by the Square or Cube.

One: the Point is very nearly Nothing. It has no length, no breadth, no depth. It has no mass. It only has position. Yet, like the Nothing it emerges from, it contains all the other numbers inside it. Every other number is made of it. This is the fertilized egg before it begins to divide. This is the breath you draw before uttering a word. This is the nucleus of the Big Bang.

Two: the Opposite, the Other, the Double (Devil). The moment One emerged from anything, Two was born, because "this" implies "not that." One is Unity; Two is Division, Opposition, and Expansion. Two points make a line, a direction.

Three: She is the Queen of Heaven. The moment Separation occurs at Two, a Third element is created...Space. This third point defines and measures the first two, establishing limit. Three is Geometry; she is the Circle (Centre, Radius, Circumference), the Triangle, and the Creatrix of Three Dimensional Space (Up/down, Left/Right, Front/back). Finally, she is the Gate between Heavens and Earth.

Four to Ten; the Earth

Four: After Space is created, a fourth point allows the creation of the Tetrahedron, the first Pythagorean solid. Four is Matter, the Four Elements of Creation. It is the Tetragrammaton, YHVH, the Demiurge who mistakenly believes he is the highest god because he cannot see beyond the Abyss yawning between the Heavens and Earth.

Five: This is Matter in Motion, and therefore Time. It is the Tesseract and the Pentagram, which creates stability through motion.

Six: Now that Matter has a past and a future, it is capable of Individuality and Consciousness. It can say "I was that, I am this, I will be that." It can grow and change. Six is also the Emissary of the Heavens, the Word Made Flesh. 1 + 2 + 3 is 6, the Three Supernal numbers incarnating as the six faces of the Cube.

Seven: Six, given Individuality, now interacts with the other individuals around it. Seven is Sensation, the Self reaching out to Experience the World (the center of the Cube reaching out to the six faces). Further, just as the triangular prism breaks white light into seven colors, there is a special relationship between 3 and 7 (seven being a direct extension of the three vectors--up, down, left, right, front, back, and now a center). 3 is Heaven, 7 is Earth and together they are One and Zero (10).

Eight: the Individual experiences Sensation, and moving through Time, Learns from its experiences. Eight is Learning, and the means the means to record Learning...Language and Communication.

Nine: the Individual experiences Sensation, Learns, and cireates a sense of Self from its unique adventures, an Ego. But this is the Created Self, the Lesser Self. It is a reflection of the True Self at Six. Nine is the Number that Always Returns to Itself. It is the Waking Self of daily life, not in control but responsive and prone to illusions. But it is also desire, and the desire to create. It is the Self that most people identify with.

Ten: Here the cycle is complete. The Point has expanded, incarnated, and created a Universe to experience and better know itself. It has formed a world for itself, and now yearns to Return.

The Planets; The Path of Return

If One through Ten marks the path of descent and manifestation, the planets associated with these Numbers show the reverse path, Ascension, return to the infinite.

Ten is Earth, the Material World. It is the Mother who gives birth to us. Nine is Luna, the Moon. This is the Virgin, the Child that believes itself to be the center of existence, lost in illusions and dreams.

Eight is Mercury, the Student. It is the mischievous child between infancy and adolescence, clever and capricious. Seven is Venus, the Adolescent who begins to yearn for the other. Six is Sol, the Golden Youth in the prime of life. Five is Mars, the Adult, fighting to make a mark on the world. Four is Jupiter, the Father, who now has a family and children. He has conquered the world and is passing it on.

Three is Saturn, Old Age, the Wizard and the Crone. It sits on the edge of the Abyss. Saturn is also Death, the portal back to the Infinite. Two is the Zodiac, expanded space. One is the Sphere of Fixed Stars.

The Numbers of the Cube

There are a few more significant Numbers, and they all relate to the Cube, the symbol of Material Space.

We have discussed how 3 and 7 relate to the Cube. 8 is also related, as it constitutes the number of points or corners. The next Number is 12, the number of edges. It is associated with the signs of the Zodiac, which guard the borders of the cosmos. 13 is the 12 edges plus the center. It is the Sun moving through the belt of the Zodiac.

After 12 and 13, two more numbers merit discussion. The first is 22, or 3 + 7 + 12. 22 is the whole of Creation, the Heavens and the Cube. We will be discussing it in more detail when we get into the Qabalah and Tarot.

26 is similar to 22; it is the 8 corners of the Cube added to the 6 faces and 12 edges. Again, this number will become critical when we discuss Qabalah.

Finally, we must discuss 37. This is again a manifestation of the relationship between 3 and 7, Earth and Heaven. But it is also the "seed number" of the Triples, all of which have great significance. 37 x 3 is 111, 37 x 6 is 222, 37 x 9 is 333, 37 x 12 is 444, 37 x 15 is 555, 37 x 18 (6 + 6 + 6) is 666, and so on.

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HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD: A REVIEW OF THE SCRIPT

LEAVE IT TO J.K. ROWLING to come up with the only thing worse than being an orphan fated to confront the most terrible dark wizard of all time...being the son of the man who saved the world from Voldemort.

Albus Potter is not the wizard wunderkind his father was.  He is not terribly good at spells, he is lousy at Quidditch, and he is the only Potter sorted into Slytherin rather than Gryffindor.  From his first day at Hogwart's forward, everyone is clucking their tongues about how disappointing he must be to his father.  Even his cousin Rose--Hermione and Ron's daughter--turns her back on her childhood friend.  The only companion he has is another "cursed child," Scorpius Malfoy, the son of Harry's old rival Draco.  Scorpius has his own baggage, not the least of which are dark whispers that his father was really Lord Voldemort.  These two social outcasts from the teen wizarding world form a bond, and a wild plan, to right certain wrongs and redeem themselves in the eyes of their families and peers.   

I will not be spoiling the plot here, but Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was not at all what I expected.  Then again, maybe it was.  It is trademark J.K. Rowling in the way it uses the utterly fantastic to showcase real human feelings of frustration and pain, to shine a spotlight on the uncertainties of adolescence in the middle of a wild adventure tale.  At the same time, it seems even more grounded in reality than the seven novel saga that spawned it.  Yes, there are still puzzles to solve and spells to cast, but instead of the classic Arthurian myth of the boy hero raised in obscurity and destined to save the kingdom, we have two boys who want nothing more than to be accepted.  And Harry, now a middle-aged father, has never seemed less magical.  True, he is the Boy Who Lived, but he is now the Man Who Grew Up Without a Father and Has No Idea How to be One Himself.  He tries very hard but fumbles, at one point shockingly, setting the entire plot in motion.  

John Tiffany and Jack Thorne's script (based on a story by Rowling) brings back many of the characters from the novels, now all grown up.  Hermione Granger (who kept her maiden name when she married Ron) is the Minister of Magic and Harry's boss (he's the Head of Magical Law Enforcement).  They have problems of their own.  Defeating Voldemort did not necessarily mean an end to the Death Eaters.  In a way these two characters seem scarred by their childhoods, still obsessed with the only thing they seem to know how to do (fight Voldemort).  Ron seems to have escaped, inheriting Weasley's Wizard Wheezes and making a living producing novelty magical items, but there seems something sad even about this.  The story doesn't romanticise; amazing kids have grown up to be fairly normal adults.  Even old Draco seems powerless and diminished, unable to save his beloved wife from terminal illness.  Their pasts and obsessions inevitably haunt and complicate the lives of their children, leading to a tale in which Harry's latest case entangles Albus and Scorpius up in it.

This is about all I can really say.  The reader needs to be prepared for the fact that this is a play script, a collection of dialogue and stage directions.  It doesn't read or unfold the way the novels do.  The reader also needs to be prepared for what is the most adult Harry Potter fable.  Just as the books grew up with their protagonist, from the "aw shucks" wonder of Philosopher's Stone to the grim angsty confrontation with life and death in Deadly Hallows, Cursed Child is about middle age, about being caught between your own childhood and the childhood you have given your offspring.  It's heart-tugging, uplifting, and occasionally disappointing, just like you expect parenthood and adulthood to be.  

Three out of Five stars. 

GODZILLA RESURGENCE (SHIN GODZILLA) : A REVIEW

IT'S EASY TO FORGET, after decades of rubber-suited wrestling matches and plucky Japanese kids, that the original 1954 film Godzilla was a horror movie.  Most of you have likely never seen it.  Ishirō Honda's tale about a gigantic, radioactive monster that emerges from the deep to terrorise a nation is an exorcism. Just nine years after the end of the Second World War, Japan was still traumatised not only by the tens of thousands killed by the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but by the hundreds of thousands killed by the carpet bombing of its cities.  This was a country that had seen a staggering number of men, women and children burned alive, blasted to pieces, and crushed under rubble. A titanic, unstoppable monster with radioactive breath was the war personified, the collective echo of a million terrible memories.  It's a frightening movie, and a melancholy one.

The one that some of you probably do remember is the 1956 Godzilla! King of Monsters.  This was Honda's film severely edited, with all the social, nuclear, and anti-war elements carefully removed and English speaking Japanese Americans and Raymond Burr added in.  All the horror of the original was gone from this American-friendly adaptation; it wouldn't do, after all, to try and sell those "horror of war" bits to the very country that had bombed you.  A commercial success, this is the film that kicked off the "dumbing down" of Godzilla.  Soon there would be a crowd-pleasing match up against King Kong, followed by a long series of marauding kaiju, or giant monsters.  But throughout these Godzilla got cuter and cuter, dancing his little victory jig after saving Japan from the bad guy beasties, while adoring school kids cheered and yelled out his name.  This feel-good Godzilla wasn't just an international crowd pleaser, it was a proud Japanese export in an era where the country was known largely for cheap toys and transistor radios.  Godzilla became a kind of symbol of the rising Japan to the post-War baby boomer generation.

This isn't to say that there haven't been attempts to bring real terror back to the Godzilla franchise, or that some of the films didn't manage to sneak in social issues and concerns.  Yet the recent 2014 American Godzilla is pretty typical of what the films have become.  There is more action and thrills than pathos or terror.

シンゴジラ, or Shin Godzilla (plans to call the English release Godzilla Resurgence have apparently been scrapped by Toho and it will be released under the Anglicised spelling of its Japanese name) is the first Japanese Godzilla movie in twelve years, and a fresh reboot of the series.  The story bears no relation to the 2014 Hollywood version, or any of the Japanese versions before.  Writer-Director Hideaki Anno's film (co-directed with Shinji Higuchi) is a break with all the others, and the spiritual ancestor of the original Honda movie.  It is not a kids movie.  It's not a feel good movie.  There is more political drama than guys in rubber suits knocking down fake buildings.  It is a shockingly realistic film (half the time it looks like a documentary) that seems to ask one very compelling question...what the hell would really happen if a giant monster came shambling up out of the sea?

Like Honda's movie, there is a lot of collective soul searching, conscience wrestling, and trauma facing.  The film comes just five years after the historic earthquake and devastating tsunami that left more than ten thousand dead and a city irradiated.  It comes at a time when neighbouring China is flexing its military muscle right on Japan's doorstep.  It comes in the midst of an American election when one of the Presidential candidates seems ambivalent about looking out for his allies, and Japan fears having to go it alone.  And yes, it comes when the conservative leaning Japanese government is starting to think its long-standing "pacifist Constitution" needs amending.  All of this uncertainty, this fear, feeds into Shin Godzilla, making it a much deeper and richer film.

The plot is simple.  The sudden devastating collapse of the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line, a bridge and tunnel allowing traffic to cross the bay, leaves the government scrambling to figure out if this was a terrorist attack or a natural disaster.  Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Rando Yaguchi (played with steely certainty by Hiroki Hasegawa) has reason to believe it might actually have been caused by a giant creature.  No one believes this idea, of course, until a monstrous tail emerges from the waters of the bay, and later, the creature comes ashore.

One of the most frightening Godzillas ever

I say "creature" because this is not your father's Godzilla.  Drawing on the elements of alien body horror he fuelled his Evangelion series with, director Anno gives us a Godzilla that is a sort of colony organism, a sickening fusion of multiple forms of life bred in the polluted and irradiated depths of the Pacific.  The monster is constantly mutating.  He emerges first as a slithering, limbless horror and gradually, over the course of the film, evolves into something more similar to the Godzilla we know.  But this is not our irradiated dinosaur.  It is a hideous mess of rippling tendrils, ragged teeth, and even the suggestion of little eyes, mouths, and fused spines in the tip of its tail.  As it rampages, it keeps growing and adapting.

Note the tip of the monster's tail

Like Spielberg's Jaws, however, Godzilla actually has surprisingly little screen time in the film.  As with Jaws, Shin Godzilla is far more concerned with the repercussions a disaster like this might have and the way people might respond to it.  The beginning is a long political debate over the use of force, with politicians going head to head over it.  After the Japanese Defense Force fails against the creature, there is mounting pressure from the international community--and especially Japan's neighbours, who worry once this thing is done tearing up Japan they might be next on the menu.  What would happen if Beijing, fearing Godzilla might head its way, might decide a pre-emptive nuclear strike on Tokyo was in order?  These fears are intensified as the nature of the monster becomes clear, and the possibility that just blasting pieces of it off might cause them to grow into separate Godzillas.  All this leads to a long subplot with the Americans, who eventually arm twist the beleaguered Prime Minister into agreeing to a city wide evacuation of Tokyo so that a nuclear weapon can be dropped on it, and Japan--which is strongly against such a strike, races against time to find a solution before it comes to that.

I won't give away the ending, but it should be clear by now this is unlike most of the other Godzilla films before it.  That is a good thing.  It is not a flawless movie--Satomi Ishihara's character, "Kayoko Ann Patterson" who is the American President's special envoy, has some cringe-worthy moments when she tries to play her image of what a brassy American girl should be like--but it is probably the best Godzilla movie since Honda's.  It's effects, a mixture of CGI and traditional Japanese model making and guys in rubber suits, are excellent and have the feel of an authentic Godzilla film. Shirō Sagisu's score is excellent, and incorporates several notes from the original 1954 movie.  All in all this is the right blend of contemporary drama and nostalgia, a surprisingly adult and profound giant monster flick.

We give it four out of five stars.

CYPHER SYSTEM SUPERHEROES: KRYPTONIANS

SUPERHEROES, and especially a character on the level of Superman, are a tall order for any system to replicate.  The following was a bit of test run, seeing how well the Cypher System could handle the Man of Steel.  This version is a bit closer to the New 52 Superman, especially in earlier issues, where he can still be injured and is often battered and bruised.  It also tips its hat to Clark from Smallville.  

Obviously, the Superman we all know would be a Sixth Tier character, with access to all the following powers.  He would have concentrated on Might and Speed, building large pools and three or four points of Edge in each.  I also assumed he bought additional Power Shifts, giving him 5 in Strength and Resilience each (see below).  Rather than present his full stats (I saw him as a Tier 6 Mild-Mannered Reporter Who Hails From Krypton) I have decided to post just his Focus.  It might be useful for players who want a young Kryptonian slowly growing into his powers.

The Tier abilities are drawn from various other Foci around the core rulebook (X-Ray vision from Sees Beyond, Heat vision from Blazes With Radiance, and even Teleportation from the Magic Flavor tweaked into Supersonic flight.  

HAILS FROM KRYPTON

While race is usually best handled as a Descriptor, as the source of all of their powers and what makes them unique, Kryptonians take their race as a Focus. Survivors of the doomed world of Krypton, Kryptonians outwardly appear to be human but are immensely more powerful. Their cells absorb and metabolize solar energy from yellow stars like Earth's sun, giving them powers they wouldn't possess under Krypton's red supergiant, Rao. This, combined with their incredible molecular density, is the source of their abilities on Earth.

Kryptonians apply their 5 Power Shifts (p. 270) to Might-based Strength (3 Shifts) and Resilience (2 Shifts) rolls, giving them base attack damage of 9 and 2 points of natural armor. Additional Shifts can be purchased for either category at a cost of 10 XP each, adding +3 damage or +1 Armor. The presence of the radioactive mineral Kryptonite cancels out these Power Shifts so long as the Kryptonian remains in short distance of it. In addition, being in immediate distance to Kryptonite causes the character to take 5 points of damage per round, first from Might, then from Speed and Intellect.

CONNECTION

1. Pick one PC who knows your secret and believes that you have been sent to the Earth with a great purpose, such as providing an example to the rest of humanity with your actions and deeds. Not living up to these expectations can be greatly disappointing to that character.

2. Pick one PC who suspects your alien origin and is suspicious of you, seeing you as a possible threat to humanity or the scout of an invasion force.

3. Pick one PC that you would do anything to protect, and who you will race to the side of whenever they are in danger or need.

Minor Effect Suggestion: Your amazing actions inspire your allies around you, giving them all a +2 to die rolls the next round.

Major Effect Suggestion: You do something so amazing that bystanders and your opponents are stunned, doing nothing but gaping in awe. If you don't already have it, this gives you and your allies the initiative the next round.

TIER ONE

Man of Steel: In addition to making Might Defense rolls against toxins, diseases, and environmental damage, the Kryptonian can also use his Might in place of a Speed Defense against physical attacks. In effect, instead of dodging an attack, the Kryptonian lets it hit and just shrugs it off. Note that his or her Power Shifts affect the roll. Enabler.

   Rapid Recovery: Your ten-minute recovery roll takes one action instead, so that your first two recovery rolls take one action, the third takes one hour, and the fourth takes ten hours. Enabler.

TIER TWO

X-Ray Vision (3 Intellect Points): The Kryptonian can see through matter as if it were transparent. You can see through up to 6 inches (15 cm) of material for one round, although some materials might be harder to see through than others, and lead blocks this power completely. Action.

TIER THREE

Heat Vision (3 Intellect Points): As an Intellect action, the Kryptonian shoots beam of fiery red light from his eyes at a target within long range. This heat melts and burns, dealing 5 points of damage. Action.

TIER FOUR

Faster Than a Speeding Bullet (4 Speed Points) The Kryptonian moves with blinding speed up to 1,000 feet (305 m) in one round. Action.

   Up to Speed. If you do nothing but move for three actions in a row, the Kryptonian accelerates greatly and can move up to 200 mph (about 2,000 feet each round) for up to ten minutes (about 35 miles), after which he or she must stop and make a recovery roll. (Move up to 322 kph [about 610 m each round] for up to ten minutes [about 56 km].) Enabler.

TIER FIVE

Super-breath (+5 Might Points): The Kryptonian emits a blast of cold from his or her lungs in a wide cone in front of him or her up to short range. This blast instantly freezes water and extinguishes flames. All within the burst take 5 points of damage. If Effort is applied to increase the damage rather than to decrease the difficulty, 2 additional points of damage per level of Effort are dealt (instead of 3 points), and targets in the area take 1 point of damage even if the Kryptonian fails the attack roll. Action.

TIER SIX

Look! Up in the Sky! (4 Speed Points): The Kryptonian can float and fly through the air for one hour. The power is an expansion of Tier Four "Up to Speed." By doing nothing more than move for three rounds, the Kryptonian accelerates to 200 mph (322 kph). Anything he or she can normally carry can be carried while flying.

   Supersonic (6 Speed Points): The Kryptonian launches himself or herself at unearthly speeds, traveling almost instantaneously (mere minutes) to any location that he or she has seen or been to, no matter the distance, as long as it is on the same world

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LAMENTATIONS OF THE FLAME PRINCESS WEIRD FANTASY ROLE-PLAYING; A Much Belated Look

IF YOU WERE, like me, a second generation Dungeons & Dragons player (by which I mean you started with John Eric Holmes' 1977 blue boxed set rather than the original 1974 game), then you were probably one of the nerdy kids in the beginning of E.T. (or more recently Netflix's Stranger Things).  You were likely a boy (though my little 6th grade gaming group included *gasp* two girls), bookish--or worse comic bookish--with an overdose of imagination, and hovering right there on the precarious edge of adolescence.  To you, the original D&D was something the "big kids" or possibly even the adults did.  You snuck glimpses of Greyhawk and Eldritch Wizardry the same way you did your older brother's back issues of Heavy Metal under his bed or your dad's Playboys hidden in the closet.  They were something enticing and dangerous that you didn't fully understand.

Eldritch Wizardry

You see, the original 1974 game was written for adults; it was meant for wargamers with weird fiction leanings, not daydreaming eleven-year-olds.  It caught on first with the highly experimental 1970s college crowd, and in their hands took on heady overtones of sex and drugs and post-Vietnam PTSD before eventually trickling down to us.  But the '77 Blue Box began a long process of sanitising all that, making it safe for the kiddies.  Editor Holmes was a professor of neurology and a child psychologist, and in his capable hands D&D became something to stimulate developing imaginations.  That was where I first found it, in the Gifted and Talented Education classes my school stuck me in.  Unlike the early issues of Dragon magazine, there was no nudity, profanity, or adult elements in its pages.  Don't get me wrong, Blue Box was thrilling.  There were dragons and wraiths, goblins and pit traps, but the older edition had the scantily clad warrior ladies, the nude sacrifices, and demons that hinted at dangers of an altogether different kind.

The Child-Friendly Blue Box 

'77, of course, also happened to be the year geekdom was forever transformed by something called Star Wars, and this pretty much drove the stake through the heart of D&D's darker, weirder overtones.  From there on in every edition of D&D was going to be good versus evil, black against white, with epic heroes and lots of action scenes.  First it went more Tolkien than Howard, eventually jettisoning even Tolkien's moral complexity for Dragonlance.  And when the reactionary and deeply paranoid 80s rolled around, D&D was forced to get even more squeaky clean in response to witch hunters like Jack Chick and MADD who themselves were so incapable of separating fantasy from reality that they assumed D&D player's couldn't either.  In response, terms like "gods," "demons, and "devils" (anything that might offend the Inquisition) were changed to "powers," "tanar'ri," and "baatezu" respectively, and the 1989 Writer's Guidelines for Dragon magazine expressly forbade "profanity, graphic violence or sexual activity, or any other adult topics."  Any elements that could possibly have made D&D "weird" rather than "fantastic" was cast out into the void.

20 years later, an American expatriate living in Finland decided to go looking for them.   

Now before I set someone off (and Lamentations of the Flame Princess: Weird Fantasy Role-Playing has a history of setting people off) I am not saying author James Raggi faithfully recreated old school D&D.  What I am saying is that he managed to capture the impression of it that existed in the minds of those of us who came to the game in the late 70s and 80s...that feeling that our Holmes and Moldvay sets were full of magic, but that the original set possessed a darker magic, a stronger sorcery that the adults had made forbidden to us.

What Raggi did was to re-imagine a D&D that rather than gradually downplaying and starving its weird elements, took the weird home, gave it a cozy place down in the basement to sleep, and fed the weird by luring the neighbouring kids home for it to eat.  Now it is grown into something Lovecraft would be proud of...

Let's cut to the chase; Weird Fantasy Role-Playing is what the title tells you it is.  "Weird fiction" as a term predates the modern "horror" and "fantasy" genres, and described stories that were macabre or unsettling.  "Weird Fantasy" then pretty much explains that what you are getting here is a fantasy game with dark, surreal, unnerving elements.  What Raggi did was to re-imagine a D&D that rather than gradually downplaying and starving its weird elements, took the weird home, gave it a cozy place down in the basement to sleep, and fed the weird by luring home the neighbouring kids for it to eat.  Now it is grown into something Lovecraft would be proud of.

What is this "Weird?"  Author James Raggi writes in the Referee Book;

The main thing that separates a Weird Tale from a conventional horror story is the forces completely out of the control of those who encounter them. A thing that cannot be explained, cannot be defeated, cannot be solved.

He goes on to point out this is easy to achieve in a piece of fiction, where the author has complete control, but poison to a successful roleplaying game, where players must have freedom to act as they will.  The trick then is to take that sense of overwhelming alienness, of hopelessness, of incomprehensible powers and load them into the game...then letting the player's respond to them without railroading.  Much of what makes Weird Fantasy work is tone.  Mechanically, it is little different from any old school B/X edition; the Weird comes from the grim tone of the writing, the sensational and shocking artwork, and the willingness to deal head on with graphic violence, sexuality, and the surreal.

Some reviewers have classified it as a "retro-clone."  It isn't.  Retro-clones appeared when D&D became the property of new publisher Wizards of the Coast, and in a marketing strategy to popularise their new version of the game but of the game's content was made public property.  The idea was that third party publishers would capitalise on the brand name to produce a whole slew of content for the new edition. The flip side of this was that those who were not enamoured with the new version, or who longed for previous, out-of-print editions, could use the open content material and "wed" it back to the earlier mechanics (mechanics cannot be copyrighted, only their artistic presentation).  So independent designers created "retro-clones" like Swords & Wizardry (a close imitation of original D&D) or Labyrinth Lord (a clone of the 80s Moldvay/Cook edition).  These games felt like, and played like, the originals.  James Raggi took advantage of the same realities that made retro-clones possible, but Weird Fantasy Role-Playing doesn't actually recreate any older edition.  Mechanically it is very close to original D&D, but it is very much its own game.

Something it did borrow from old school D&D is the gritty, "fantasy Vietnam" aspect.  Weird Fantasy Role-Playing is very much of the spirit of the original edition in that hit points are low, the world is lethal, and death comes very quickly.  It brings to mind the now-famous "Calithena" post to an old school D&D forum on Dragonsfoot and quoted by Rob MacDougall; 

“When you’re in an old-school dungeon you’re in @*%!ing VIETNAM. Check EVERYTHING. Clear out EVERYTHING. Don’t take ONE STEP MORE than you have to until you’re COMPLETELY SURE it’s clear. Check EVERYTHING for traps. Search EVERYTHING. … THE GM WILL USE IT TO @*%! YOU OVER. Be PROACTIVE: set traps and ambushes for the monsters before they do it to you. Find a position of tactical advantage and DUMP FIREBALLS, FLAMING OIL, AND BARRAGES OF ARROWS on your enemies. And even if you do everything right, you STILL might get screwed by wandering monsters.”

Be Careful What You Touch

This is very much the case in Weird Fantasy.  In many of the post-Star Wars editions of D&D, you could feel confident that you were the "hero" and would survive to see the credits roll.  Not so in Raggi's game.  Going into a dungeon is Hell and there are no assurances everyone is coming out intact.  Worse still, no-one is promising a good death, a heroic death, or even a meaningful death.  A careless mistake, a lack of caution, an overabundance of curiosity can easily get your character killed.

Added to this old school lethality is a heavy layer of grim. Weird Fantasy uses the four standard old school character classes (Fighter, Magic-User, Cleric and thief-like "Specialist") plus the optional racial classes (Elf, Dwarf, Halfling),  These are presented mechanically close to their D&D cousins, but considerably darkened.  Fighters are those who have been "willing to slaughter at another's command" and "immersed in the worthlessness of life."  They "have seen the cruelty of battle, have committed atrocities that in any just universe would damn them to Hell, and have survived."  Screw "fantasy Vietnam," that reads like "fantasy Apocalypse Now."

The Current Edition's "Rules & Magic" Book

Magic-Users, meanwhile, do not cower from the supernatural like sane and normal people, but instead "revel" in its "darkness."  "They see the forces of magic as a new frontier to explore, a new tool for the attainment of power and knowledge.  If it blackens the soul equal to that of any devil, is is but a small price to pay." Clerics are just as likely to be religious fanatics and witch hunters as beneficent healers, and Specialists (the rogues or thieves) are "inspired by greed, boredom," and "idle curiosity" to risk "life and limb simply because a less active life is distasteful to them."  

The demihumans aren't treated with kid gloves either.  Dwarves are a "dying race" incapable of change and adaptation.  The world has moved on and their can't move with it.  Elves are creatures of Chaos, the magical Fae, who like Dwarves are fading and no longer belong in the world. 

Arguably none of this makes Weird Fantasy Role-Playing any different really from a game like Warhammer.  This isn't bright and shiny "high fantasy," its more of gritty real-life mind-set stuck into a fantasy world.  Where Raggi's game goes off on its own and really begins to (darkly) shine is its "weirdness."

...feelings of vulnerability and helplessness are important to Weird tales...knowledge equals power (and) familiarity equals boredom...destroy familiarity by not using, or subverting, cliche elements of game worlds or adventures...Players may show up expecting the usual six-ability-scores-with-classes game, with opponents taken out of a manual and treasure generated off a chart or a list.  Don't give it to them!

- James Raggi, "The Weird" 

One of the tools Weird Fantasy uses to achieve the uncertainty of the Weird is its utter lack of a bestiary.  There are no lists of goblins, hippogriffs, and trolls here.  Instead there are guidelines for creating your own, unique, monsters.  These are meant to be used sparingly; Raggi actively discourages conjuring up comfortable hordes of orcs for players to kill and recommends replacing them with human adversaries instead.  Humanoids are, after all, the safe and tidy "high fantasy" answer to giving the players something to fight while simultaneously skirting around the whole "murder" issue.  Weird Fantasy rubs your face in it.  Fighting animals can be used for spice, but monsters--real monsters--should be used sparingly.  They are horrors and aberrations that challenge the nerve and sanity as much as battle prowess. 

From "The God That Crawls" Adventure

In addition to the adversaries, the supernatural wielded by player characters was made darker and weirder too.  While the Cleric and Magic-User spell systems operate just like old school D&D, and many of the spell names read the same, they have been extensively rewritten to give them an eerie, eldritch feel.  New spells have been added, like the spectacular "Summon," which allows the creation of a random horror right then and there.  This is consistent with the game's overall approach to the supernatural as something alien, intrusive, and corrupting.

The overall effect is the creation of a gritty, old school D&D game suited perfectly to more surreal settings and horrifying adventures.  This is a game of atmosphere and mood, more Call of Cthulhu than Dungeons & Dragons 3, 3.5, 4, or 5e.  As we shall see in upcoming reviews, this has generated a lot of support for the game, with darker and more horrifying scenarios and supplements than we have seen for fantasy roleplaying in a long time.  It gives Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Role-Playing that freshness, that awe, that chill old school D&D delivered when we were kids first exposed to it, an manifests that "eldritch, primordial" D&D we imagined we had missed.  If you are looking to feel twelve again, playing D&D in the darkened basement, heart pounding as your character turns every corner, this game might be for you.