First Operation [of the OOTK]
Part-1

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This shows the situation of the Querent at the time when he consults you.

1. The pack being in front of you, cut, and place the top half to the left.

2. Cut each pack again to the left.

3. These four stacks represent I H V H, from right to left.

4. Find the Significator. It be in the HB:Y pack, the question refers to work, business, etc.; if in the HB:H pack, to love, marriage, or pleasure; if in the HB:H pack, to money, goods, and such purely material matters.

4b.) The Book of Thoth version of the last line;
Find the significator. If it be in the Yod pack, the question refers to work, business, etc.; if in the He pack, to love, marriage, or pleasure; if in the Vau pack, to trouble, loss, scandal, quarreling, etc.; if in the He final pack; to money, goods, and such purely material matters.

5. Tell the Querent what he has come for: if wrong, abandon the divination.

6. If right, spread out the pack containing the Significator, face upwards. Count the cards from him, in the direction in which he faces. The counting should include the card from which you count.

For Knights, Queens and Princes count 4.
For Princesses count 7.
For Aces, count 11 [5].
For small cards, count according to the number.
For trumps, count 3 for the elemental trumps; 9 for the planetary trumps; 12 for the Zodiacal trumps.

Make a "story" of these cards. This story is that of the beginning of the affair.

7. Pair the cards on either side of the Significator, then those outside them, and so on. Make another "story," which should fill in the details omitted in the first.

8. If this story is not quite accurate, do not be discouraged. Perhaps the Querent himself does not know everything. But the main lines ought to be laid down firmly, with correctness, or the divination should be abandoned.

'Breaking Down the First Operation of the OOTK'

Okay then ... what a mess, LOL.

The 'First Operation' of the OOTK is actually two separate operations and NOT just one.  The first section of the operation deals with the 'Overview of the Question' and second section actually deals with 'the situation of the Querent at the time when he consults you'.

Line #1
1. The pack being in front of you, cut, and place the top half to the left.

In the introduction of the OOTK I said it was screwed up and that the word cut should have been shuffle/shuffling.  That's because we are going to cut the cards now into 4-stacks/piles so why cut and then cut again [unless you want too].  Line #1 above is poorly written even though it is correct.  Hughes-Barlow does a bit better job explaining it on his supertarot website - but not much.

1. With the deck on the table before you [pile #1] cut the deck to the left creating pile #3, while leaving space for another stack/pile to the left of each of these first 2 stacks/piles [marked with an x in the layout that follows].

x = empty pile space

First Cut
x . 3 . x . 1

So you simply cut the deck as 'closely in half' as possible and set the top half to the left leaving space for two more piles.  One to the left of pile #1 and one to the left of pile #3. At this time the cards should be FACE DOWN.

Line #2
2. Cut each pack again to the left.

Now you cut the cards in pile #1 again - to the left.
And then cut the cards in pile #3 - to the left.
Making 4 piles or stacks of cards.  All these stacks should be as close in size as possible.

Second Cut [c=stack to cut, <=cut direction]
..<.......<..
4 . c . 2 . c

Which leaves us with;

4 . 3 . 2 . 1
... F ..... F [F=First Cut]
....... S . S [S=Second Cut]
T . T ....... [T=Third Cut]

Or viewing a neat image it would look like this;
OOTK Cutting Method

If you by chance have read the book The Golden Dawn by Regradie [R-GD] he has you cutting the cards to the RIGHT.  So there is some argument as to which is the correct way to cut the cards.  I believe cutting them to the left as outlined above is correct and either Regardie;

  1. Just got it wrong.
  2. It was printed incorrectly [as there are many booboo's in the book].
  3. Or .. cutting to the right was intentionally done wrong in the book as a 'blind' - and was an attempt to retain some of the Golden Dawn's secrets.  If you turn the book 'upside down' then it's right [cutting to the left].

I'll get to some of my reasons for cutting left as I continue onward and upward.

Line 3
3. These four stacks represent I H V H, from right to left.

Oh CRAP!

This would have been so much easier just using the suit/element meanings instead of cluttering it up with the IHVH goodies - or rather the more commonly used YHVH - or even JHVH.

Note that they want IHVH [or YHVH - I'll use the Y] backwards. Why? Because we are dealing with Hebrew and Hebrew is read from right to left [instead of left to right].  So here is one reason to cut from right to left [to the left].

YHVH - Yod, Heh, Vau, Heh
Backwards - but read from right to left;
HVHY - Heh, Vau, Heh, Yod

But what be up with this YHVH stuff?
The Tetragrammaton is the holy "four-lettered name" of God. Remembering that Hebrew is read from right to left, this name, yod-heh-vav-heh, is most properly transliterated as YHVH, but sometimes as YHWH (Yahweh) or JHVH (Jehovah). The name is considered so sacred in Judaism that it is never spoken aloud and is always replaced by euphemisms such as Adonai ('Lord') or ha shem ('the name').

The Tetragrammaton is often employed in ceremonial magic, and each of the letters can be considered as corresponding to one of the Four Worlds of the Kabbalah.

And the Four Worlds of the Kabbalah can and are associated with .. guess what?  The four elements.

The Four Worlds of the Kabbalah
Atziluth - Archetypal World (World of Emanations) or Divine World [Fire/Yod]
Briah - Creative World or World of Thrones [Water/Heh]
Yetsirah - Formative World [Air/Vau]
Assiah - Manifest World [Earth/Heh]

Thus we actually have an order for the 4 elements Fire, Water, Air, and Earth.  But we need to read these backwards in order to assign them to YHVH in this operation of the OOTK.

. 4 ...... 3 ....... 2 ...... 1 .
Earth ... Air .... Water ... Fire

You will note in the next line that one of these [elements] is actually missing.  Line #4 came from both the online versions of S.L. MacGregor Mather's 'Book T' and from the 'Equinox' [most of the Equinox stuff was written by Crowley but there is no name attributed to the OOTK instructions].

4. Find the Significator. It be in the HB:Y pack, the question refers to work, business, etc.; if in the HB:H pack, to love, marriage, or pleasure; if in the HB:H pack, to money, goods, and such purely material matters.

Y= Fire = questions refering to work, business, etc. [stack #1]
H = Water = love, marriage, or pleasure [stack #2]
V = Air = ???? [stack #3]
H [Final] = Earth = money, goods, and such purely material matters [stack #4]

4b.) The 'Book of Thoth' version of the last line - with some additions by me in brackets []:
Find the significator. If it be in the Yod pack [stack #1/far right], the question refers to work, business, etc.; if in the He pack [stack #2/2nd from the right], to love, marriage, or pleasure; if in the Vau pack [stack #3/2nd from the left], to trouble, loss, scandal, quarreling, etc.; if in the He final pack [stack #4/on the left]; to money, goods, and such purely material matters.

As you can see and read in Line 4b from Crowley's Book of Thoth - things got changed/fixed.

Yod pack [Fire/far right], the question refers to work, business, etc.
He pack [2nd from the right/Water], love, marriage, or pleasure
Vau pack [2nd from the left/Air], trouble, loss, scandal, quarreling, etc.
He final pack [on the left/Earth]; money, goods, and such purely material matters.

As you can see the suit/element associated with Vau-Air [normally Swords] is fairly scary, 'trouble, loss, scandal, quarreling, etc.'.

Again we have a problem.  Regardie in his book The Golden Dawn gives different meanings for the position/suits/elements - and even states the suits each is associated with.

Y and Wands - Energy and strife
H and Cups - Pleasure
V and Swords - Sickness and trouble
H final and Pentacles - Business and money

Frankly I'd go with my own [your own] associations for the suits.  But why is this important?  Note what both lines say.

"Find the Significator".  Which probably should read, 'Find the pile/stack the Significator is in - without disturbing the arrangement/order of the cards'.

Note also that nowhere does it tell you to turn the piles/stacks over - as Hughes-Barlow tells you to do on his supertarot site.  Hopefully I'll get back to this, and why I think you should turn each stack over and read the top 4 cards [which are actually the bottom 4 cards of each stack] as the 'Question/Situation Overview'.

Looking at the next line tells us why we need to know what each stack position means.

5. Tell the Querent what he has come for: if wrong, abandon the divination.

Recall that 'the reader is NOT suppose to know the question'.  This is a kind of test for both the tarot and the reader to see if the question the seeker is asking jives with the stack position meanings where the Significator is located.

Say the Significator is the King of Wands.
You find the King of Wands in pile/stack #2 [Heh/Water/2nd from the right].
According to [Crowley] this pile/stack means the question is dealing with, "love, marriage, or pleasure".
If the question actually dealt with the job, business, etc. and not pleasure in the job or business then you are suppose to;

"Abandon the reading" - according to everyone but Regardie in his book The Golden Dawn.  He says to find the significator and do the second section of the First Operation.  I can't find anywhere where he says to abandon the reading if the question/situation and the pile/stack the significator is in don't match. For me, if someone is going to pay you good money for a reading then do the damn reading, [g].  But again - this is up to you.

Let me return to my reasoning about cutting to the left.  The first cut is going to cut the two Active active element positions - Fire and Air - basically starting with the 'conscious intent' to find some answers.  And then  cutting the two Passive suits - Water and Earth - trying to get to the unconscious/subconscious hidden goodies going on.  Also, cutting to the left is natural for me since I have been doing it for years [cut to the left three times and reassembling the piles to the left].

I will continue in the breakdown in Part-2 of the First Operation of the OOTK.

Don S.

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