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Crowley |
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NUMBER
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Two is the number for this card. It emerges simultaneously from Zero and One. The number One cannot appear if the number two does not come up and vice versa. Where there is light, there is shadow. |
Where there is shadow, then a light shines somewhere. If we invent or believe in a being as the perfect personfication of good, we are inventing, whether we like it or not, the absolute personification of evil. It is no coincidence that the most fanatic religious devotees are seeing and exorcising satanic creatures every day. If all the numbers are multiples of one, then they all may be written as the sum of the powers of two: 1=12, 2=2; 3=2+12; 4=2+2; 5=2+2+12,... The Two and the One constitute the first great duality on which movement and life depend. If One reperesents Unity, then Two is Polarity. If One is the Masculine Principle, then Two is the Universal Feminine Principle. According to the chinese tradition, before there was any distinction between the Heavens (Yang) and the Earth (Yin), Chaos had the appearance of a chicken egg. After 18,000 years the egg opened up. The heavy elements formed the Earth and the light ones made up the Heavens. According to the Pythagorists, two is the number of opinion.
| One symbolizes: | Two symbolizes |
| The Sun | The Moon |
| The Masculine | The Feminine |
| The conscious | The unconscious |
| The active | The passive |
| The immutable | The mutable |
| The creative | The receptive |
: In reality, all of the manifestations of the Universe are combinations of these two principles.
"All is double, all has two poles, a pair of opposites. Opposites are identical in nature yet different in degrees; the extremes touch each other. Every truth is a semi-truth, every paradox can be reconciled. Everyone has their period of progress and retrogression; everything moves like a pendulum; the extent of its movement to the right is the same as its movement to the left: the rhythm of compensation". The Kabalion
In Crowley's words: "We must always realize that each symbol is ambivalent. The insistence on any one of the inherently contradictory meanings is only a sign of ineptitude, brought about by biases. Nothing is true if it is not a function of the contradiction contained within itself."
In the more poetic language of the Tao Te King:
"When a man knows the beautiful he also knows the ugly when he knows the good he also knows the bad Because heavy and light high and low silence and sound before and after Being and Non-Being engender each other."
