The Aleister Crowley Tarot

[Aeon418]

Continuing with the examination of the cards....

 

Atu X - Fortune.

 

This card is basically a simplified version of the Thoth original. Gone are the circle of stars at the top of the card, the triangle behind the wheel, and the plumes of the swirling vortex. Does this stripped back version still work? Yeah. 

 

The four bright stars at the top of the card aren't mentioned by Tania Ahsan. They sit in the place occupied by the circle of stars in the original image. The number 4 suggests law and order, which is appropriate to a card corresponding to Jupiter. The stars point to cosmic law and order. In the wider context of this card it brings to mind Crowley's oft repeated aphorism, "Stability is change, change is stability." The cosmic order is assured and continually expressed through constant change.

 

The triangle on the Thoth card is missing on the A.C. Tarot card. But to be fair Crowley does not mention it in the Book of Thoth either. I interpret the symbol as the balance and aspiration needed to exist within the swirling forces of continual change. How much readers will miss this symbol is debatable as I suspect most people focus on the change aspects of the card. But how one responds to change, whether it is seen as good or bad, might indicate how well aligned one is with the cosmos and the Star at he centre of individual existence, symbolised by the Axle of the Wheel.     

[gregory]

They responded.

 

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Thanks for getting in touch about our Aleister Crowley tarot.

 

The second more expensive set is actually our US and Canadian edition which is sold under our imprint for this area, Sirius. The RRP for this edition isn’t higher, but it looks like the seller has upped the price due to international shipping costs.

For all intents and purposes, the ISBN 978-1398820432 is the correct one for the UK. This is just a bit of an Amazon quirk due to their international reach, and I guess it’s useful if our UK edition goes out of stock.

I hope this helps!

 

 

[Aeon418]

2 hours ago, gregory said:

They responded.

 

I guess that's sorted then. Although it still doesn't explain how you managed to get a very cheap Arcturus in Canada.

[gregory]

No - I did mention that and she has no idea !

[gregory]

2 hours ago, Aeon418 said:

 

I guess that's sorted then. Although it still doesn't explain how you managed to get a very cheap Arcturus in Canada.

 

She answered.

 

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Ah yes, to make things even more confusing some US/CA bookshops such as Indigo bought stock of this title that belongs to our Arcturus imprint. So you’re right, there’s a mixture of the two editions in these areas.

 

(Indigo was where I bought it.)

[Aeon418]

Atu XI - Lust.

 

I'll come straight out and say it. I don't like this card. To be fair, the original Thoth Tarot Lust card is iconic and a very, very tough act to follow. Even so, I feel they dropped the ball on this one in the Aleister Crowley Tarot. It just seems a little too cutesy to me and intentionally designed to ameliorate the concerns of people who feel uneasy with Crowley's co-opting symbolism from the biblical Book of Revelation. In the companion booklet, Tania Ahsan advises the querent to see past the apocalyptic imagery.

 

And that lion/Beast looks more like a feral dog, maybe a Lurcher. Gone is the multi-headed Beast 666. I assume the artist wanted it to look a bit wild and ferocious. But it just looks like it needs a good grooming. And that serpent-tail!!! 😲 It should be alive with the vibrant, life giving serpent force. But instead it looks like the lion/dog has got a dietary problem and needs to be put on dry food for a few weeks. Seriously!

 

Okay, I've got that off my chest and will try to be fair to the card. I admit that some people are a bit put off by the "full on vibe" of the original Thoth card. This gentler alternative might be more appealing to them. So I will try to be objective.

 

The dog with the stomach upset is supposed to represent what has been referred to as the "evolutionary energy" within humanity, elsewhere called Kundalini. This "la Force," when exclusively channelled through the root or Muladhara chakra manifests as sexual desire or Lust. It is that basic animal drive that continually prompts all forms of life to reproduce. However, the Lust card points to the practice of consciously harnessing and redirecting this energy for the purposes of spiritual development through all seven of the chakras. This symbolism has been a little watered down in the new card. Crowley personified this force in his LIBER STELLÆ RUBEÆ.

 

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62. But I will overcome thee; the New Life shall illumine thee with the Light that is beyond the Stars.

63. Thinkest thou? I, the force that have created all, am not to be despised.

64. And I will slay thee in my lust.

 

What is slain in this process is the petty ego-self and its limited conception of itself as separate from the rest of the universe. The image of the 10 serpents at the top of the card is emblematic of energy that simultaneously destroys and recreates in the same explosive instant of enlightenment.

 

The "Saints" in the background of the card, which Tania Ahsan does not mention in her description, are people who, having opened themselves up to the flow of the serpent-energy, have simultaneously surrendered their individual selves into the chalice of Universal Life - the Holy Grail or Cup of Babalon, held aloft by the Scarlet Woman. In the original Thoth card she passionately gazes back at the secret eighth head of the Beast. LIBER STELLÆ RUBEÆ again. 

 

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54. I leap with joy within thee; my head is arisen to strike.

55. O the lust, the sheer rapture, of the life of the snake in the spine!

56. Mightier than God or man, I am in them, and pervade them.

 

I feel these energizing and empowering sentiments are a little lost and watered down in the A.C. Tarot card in an attempt to make it "safe" and more comfortable for people who find the Thoth image a little too strong. But surely "strength, and the joy of strength exercised" is the whole point of this card. Trying to cutesy it up risks softening the intensity of this iconic card. In the A.C. Tarot card it seems like the Scarlet Woman is being portrayed as a kind of "snake charmer," trying to lure the serpent (turd) to rise upward towards higher manifestations of the life force, which she is on the Thoth card as well. It just seems a little too subtle compared to the raw energy and passion of the original card, which well deserves the name - LUST.

 

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65. Thou shalt scream with the joy and the pain and the fear and the love—so that the ΛΟΓΟΣ of a new God leaps out among the Stars.

66. There shall be no sound heard but this thy lion-roar of rapture; yea, this thy lion-roar of rapture.

 

Edited May 28, 2024 by Aeon418

[Aeon418]

An extra observation on the Lust card in the A.C. Tarot. The front paw of the Beast looks really awkward. But I think it is meant to symbolise the Beast trampling on the Saints. The biblical allusion is to the winepress of the wrath of God, mentioned in Revelation chp.14 and elsewhere. This points to the Thelemic principle of taking a seemingly negative symbol and reinterpreting it in a positive way. The wrath of God is now the liberating grace of the Beast with echoes of the sentiments expressed in Liber VII, chp.3:56.

 

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56.  Thou shalt crush me in the wine-press of Thy love. My blood shall stain Thy fiery feet with litanies of Love in Anguish.

 

The "blood" is the symbol of individual consciousness that is liberated in union with universal consciousness symbolised by the Cup held by the Scarlet Woman.  

[Aeon418]

At first glance Atu XII - The Hanged Man in the Aleister Crowley Tarot deck looks quite similar to its Thoth Tarot counterpart. However, there are a few interesting differences. 

 

If you look closely at the top of the card where the rays emerge from the sphere of white brilliance, you can see a series of tidal marks where the water has flowed in and out. This is the "other shore" of Buddhism that signifies enlightenment or nirvana. The teachings of the Buddha Dharma are supposedly a raft to carry devotees across the waters of illusion. Crowley uses this symbolism in his verse summary of card XII on page 257 of the Book of Thoth. (Although he would argue the new Dharma (Law) is now Thelema in which the bitters waters of existence are transmuted into the New Wine.) 

 

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

 

But beyond this there is the notion of rhythmical, cyclical change that Crowley felt was a necessary component of the peace and silence inherent in the element of Water. Coupled with this is the concept of cyclical regeneration and change symbolised by the Serpent. But Crowley refers to this card as an "evil legacy from the old Aeon," and a "spiritual vermiform appendix." (BoT p.97) What he is implying by this is a limitation of consciousness and it's inability to answer the fundamental questions of existence. Where do we come from? Where do we go when we die? What is the meaning of life? Our ancestors saw these questions reflected in the daily solar cycle and the archetype of the Dying God arose from the collective unconscious. While we might suffer in life and die, provided we make the right sacrifices, we, like sun, have the hope of resurrection into a new life. But it's an illusion. The sun never dies, nor is it reborn every day. I just looks like that from the surface of planet Earth -  incarnation. Likewise the immortal principle within ourselves, symbolised by the sphere of light at the top of the card, while it may appear to continually manifest through the minds and bodies of individual people, IT never dies. It is an increasing perception of this immortal principle in human consciousness that Crowley calls the Aeon of Horus.

 

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Behold! where are now the darkness and the terror and the lamentation? For ye are born into the new Aeon; ye shall not suffer death. Bind up your girdles of gold! Wreathe yourselves with garlands of my unfading flowers! In the nights we will dance together, and in the morning we will go forth to war; for, as my Father liveth that was dead, so do I live and shall never die.

 

This is why Crowley seems to have such dim view of the Hanged Man card and regards it as a bit of a throw back to an earlier time. The suffering and enforced sacrifice that appears to be represented in this card is actually a reflection of our limited consciousness. But as consciousness expands it gives birth to and awakens the manifestation of the life principle in our lives. Which is symbolised by the coiled serpent at the bottom of the Thoth card, and what I think may be Leviathan on the Aleister Crowley Tarot card.

 

Instead of the Thoth's cross-hatch pattern on the water, which symbolises the manifestation of multiplicity out of unity created by our minds. The Aleister Crowley card has cloudy water, which could symbolise the way our limited minds cloud our existence. We suffer needlessly by reflecting back on a past that can no longer be changed, while endlessly generating anxiety inducing imaginary scenarios of a future that is not here yet and may never even happen. But the A.C. Tarot's Hanged Man's face looks serene and peaceful. Is he he asleep in life? Lost in a dream existence in which he believes he has no control? Or is he learning to still the ceaseless chatter of his mind in a attempt to clear the cloudy waters of existence and awaken the life principle submerged in the depths of his consciousness. 

Edited June 1, 2024 by Aeon418
Typo

[Aeon418]

Tania Ahsan's commentary on the Death card (p.58) opens with a bit of an oddity.

 

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The Death card always causes consternation in those unfamiliar with the Tarot. Popular culture would have you believe that when the Death card appears, you are being warned that somebody - maybe even you - might be on your way out. This is nonsense. The card does not relate to death in a literal sense ....

 

Really? When did the Death card cease to include the idea of actual death? Surely, this is where the name of the card comes from in the first place. I can understand the need to ameliorate the concerns that some people may have around the name and imagery of the card. But come on!

 

The card in the Aleister Crowley Tarot is basically a redraw of the Thoth Tarot card. The transformative figure of Death still sweeps his scythe through the collective water of Life (singular) and cuts it up into separate Lives (plural). Although the Thoth card's sense of motion and continuity through change seems to be missing. The "bubbles" of separate life just seem to be spread at random around the Aleister Crowley Tarot card.

 

But the main symbols of the 'transmissive' fish and the tripartite forces of change are all present. The Eagle of transcendence, the Serpent who undulates between different phases, and the Scorpion who submits itself to the 'appearance' of catastrophic change of form are all present. Although the colour palette has shifted away from the muted and drab tones of the original Golden Dawn colour scales, towards orange and yellows, which I assume is meant to symbolise the fiery nature of Scorpio heating the surrounding water with energies of change.     

Edited June 3, 2024 by Aeon418