Tarot Time Traveller
Page 23
—François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel
It is this lifestyle, philosophy, and sense of elegant freedom Crowley sought to emulate and promote in his own life. It might be argued, however, that in reality (for example, the abbey he created at Cefalu in Italy), the philosophy was hard to manifest without some form of finance.
Crowley took the Thelemic doctrine of “Do What Thou Wilt” from Rabelais (and Augustine), and others had also adopted it as a lens through which to view the world. Whilst little-known, Walter Besant (brother-in-law of Annie Besant, a prominent author and theosophist) wrote a book styled on Thelema, The Abbey of Thelema. Charles Robert Ashbee was another, whose book The Building of Thelema is a unique socialist tract promoting the virtues of a Thelemic lifestyle suited to the working man. Ashbee was a fascinating character, influenced in his life by a fellow homosexual, the poet Edward Carpenter (who might also be considered Thelemic). Ashbee was possibly a member of the Order of Chaeronea, a group exploring homosexuality in a time when it was illegal. He was also a major influence in the Arts & Crafts movement.
Our list of Thelemites is:
v1. Augustine of Hippo (354–430), Homilies.
v2. François Rabelais (1494–1553).
v3. Sir Francis Dashwood (1708–1781).
v4. Walter Besant (1836–1901), The Monks of Thelema (1878).
v5. Charles Robert Ashbee (1863–1942), The Building
of Thelema (1910).
v6. Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), The Book of the Law (1904).
For Crowley, the tarot was an illustration of his philosophy of the “true will,” the natural state of a person in finding their own course in life, like the orbit of a star, unique to every individual. We can see this in his cards such as the Hermit or the Star.
He also picked up on the work of Eliphas Lévi, a great influence on his own magical development, in using tarot as a language built from correspondence and as a structure on which to base his own writing. He wrote:
The Tarot is a pictorial representation of the Forces of Nature as conceived by the Ancients according to a conventional symbolism.
We will now look at how we can learn the tarot’s structure from Crowley and apply it to our own model of the universe.
The Secret Structure of the Thoth Tarot
At the time of the writing of the Book of the Law, Crowley was some forty years ahead of his major work on the tarot, the Book of Thoth, designed with Lady Frieda Harris between 1938 and 1943. He was, however, already immersed in the teachings of the Golden Dawn and working on developing the system of correspondences to his own predilections. This development set the backdrop for not only the Book of the Law but the Thoth tarot some four decades later. Linking both ends of Crowley’s timeline, we can now provide the essential components of his system to examine the Thoth tarot’s foundation.
Crowley based his structure of the minor arcana meanings on astrological decans. Thinking of the zodiac as a wheel (360º), each sign takes up thirty degrees of the whole. Decans are ten-degree increments of which there are three for each sign, e.g., Aries 1 (0º–10º), Aries 2 (10º–20º), and Aries 3 (20º–30º). Each decan also has a planetary ruler.
The 2 of Wands for Crowley at that time was not so much based on the “meanings” for that card but rather the combination of Mars in Aries. As Crowley was eclectic, the correspondences to the planets and signs did not just have astrological significance but were connected to a range of biblical, Kabbalistic, hermetic, and alchemical systems, up to and including even the Grail cycle.
Mars, then, would suggest to Crowley an idea of might and warfare, a standard correspondence. However, Aries was applied to the Christian symbol of the lamb, through the connection of Aries being a ram. The combination of Mars in Aries would then suggest the idea of Christ (the Lamb) in his role as the vengeful warrior following the last judgment, i.e., Mars. In this way, Crowley was also able to equate Christ with a form of the ancient Egyptian god Horus—a vengeful solar force.
This use of tarot allowed Crowley to bridge and unify all these systems—magical, religious, philosophical—into a single narrative and personal cosmology.
As we saw in the Golden Dawn’s Book T, the 2 of Wands was to their system, “Strength, domination, harmony of rule and of justice. Boldness, courage, fierceness, shamelessness, revenge … ” so it carries across into Crowley’s cosmology in this same sense. By the time of the Book of Thoth some three decades later, it remains the Lord of Dominion and represents “the energy of fire; fire in its best and highest form.”
Building Your Universe with Tarot
We will now remind ourselves of the slightly earlier teaching of the Golden Dawn who assigned the decans of astrology to the tarot which influenced Crowley in his earliest studies. We will then see how such a system of correspondences can allow us to create our own model of the universe—a creative cosmology.
The Golden Dawn Astrological Correspondences
2 of Wands: Mars in Aries
3 of Wands: Sun in Aries
4 of Wands: Venus in Aries
5 of Wands: Saturn in Leo
6 of Wands: Jupiter in Leo
7 of Wands: Mars in Leo
8 of Wands: Mercury in Sagittarius
9 of Wands: Moon in Sagittarius
10 of Wands: Saturn in Sagittarius
2 of Cups: Venus in Cancer
3 of Cups: Mercury in Cancer
4 of Cups: Moon in Cancer
5 of Cups: Mars in Scorpio
6 of Cups: Sun in Scorpio
7 of Cups: Venus in Scorpio
8 of Cups: Saturn in Pisces
9 of Cups: Jupiter in Pisces
10 of Cups: Mars in Pisces
2 of Swords: Moon in Libra
3 of Swords: Saturn in Libra
4 of Swords: Jupiter in Libra
5 of Swords: Venus in Aquarius
6 of Swords: Mercury in Aquarius
7 of Swords: Moon in Aquarius
8 of Swords: Jupiter in Gemini
9 of Swords: Mars in Gemini
10 of Swords: Sun in Gemini
2 of Pentacles: Jupiter in Capricorn
3 of Pentacles: Mars in Capricorn
4 of Pentacles: Sun in Capricorn
5 of Pentacles: Mercury in Taurus
6 of Pentacles: Moon in Taurus
7 of Pentacles: Saturn in Taurus
8 of Pentacles: Sun in Virgo
9 of Pentacles: Venus in Virgo
10 of Pentacles: Mercury in Virgo
Now that we have these correspondences for the minor cards, we can provide the keywords and associations from Crowley’s earliest notes on the tarot by reverse-engineering his writings of the time.
First, the overall theme of the suits in Crowley’s mind at the time was:
Wands: God/religion
Cups: Grail/temple
Swords: War
Pentacles: Earth
We should remember where we are in the time-stream at this point, in 1904, a decade prior to the First World War. There is a substantial amount of prophetic writing in Crowley’s notes, correspondences, and the Book of the Law itself on protracted periods of war and terror in the future. These warnings and intimations of social change were to have a huge impact on Crowley’s life as they repeatedly came to pass.
We now give the keywords for the planets based on Crowley’s original writings on the tarot:
Sun: Triumph, resurrection, temple of the Grail, rule
Mercury: The mind, reason, persecution, affliction
Venus: Babylon
Moon: Imagination, the blood of the saints
Mars: Wrath, war, fire/flame
Jupiter: The father, lust, wisdom
Saturn: En
ding, rest, repose, terror
And now the correspondences and themes of the signs of the zodiac. In these cases, although they are sometimes simply the description of the sign, in Crowley’s mind they take on a wider significance. When he talks about Taurus as “earth” he means the whole planet throughout time. It is in these correspondences that Crowley places his blend of other systems, such as the sign of Cancer being the charioteer (through its correspondence to the Chariot card in the Major Arcana) that bears the Grail; Leo being the “Beast” of the Apocalypse in the Bible; and Gemini being the twin-warrior forms of Horus, the ancient Egyptian deity. It is a heady mix:
Aries: The Lamb, Christ, Son of God, the Bride of the Lamb
Taurus: Earth
Gemini: Twins, dual force, two wands of power
Cancer: Chariot, charioteer
Leo: The beast
Virgo: The virgin
Libra: Balance
Scorpio: The great dragon
Sagittarius: The rainbow
Capricorn: The goat
Aquarius: Purification
Pisces: The night, darkness of the temple, shadow
We can now see that any card can produce a piece of mythic narrative from the combination of these correspondences.
We can unlock the 10 of Swords, for example, by first looking up its zodiacal correspondence, which we see is the Sun (triumph) in Gemini (twins). We then take the keywords for that correspondence and merge it with the keywords of Crowley’s Aeonic correspondence, in this case Kingdom/Earth (10, Malkuth) and War (Swords).
When we put these two together we might get “war upon the earth” and “the twins triumphant.”
We can see how this tarot system influenced—and indeed is likely the secret structure of—the Book of the Law in which Crowley was to write as he reached the final lines of the book, “Hail! ye twin warriors about the pillars of the world! for your time is nigh at hand.” [III.71] 153
There are additional concepts that Crowley brought into his tarot, based on a mapping of the Tree of Life through the lens of ancient Egyptian initiatory myth.
He saw the cards arrayed from ten at the bottom, corresponding to the area of the “Abomination of Desolation,” arising through the nines to the fours through the “Chambers of the Pylon” to the “Temple of The Abyss” marking the division from the lower (higher numbered) cards to the threes, twos, and aces, which dwell in the upper part of the Tree where the “City of Pyramids” may be found.
If we take the 3 of Pentacles, we get the correspondence of Mars in Capricorn and the keywords of “wrath” and “goat.” The energy is very earthy and angry but when applied, becomes very constructive and capable of breaking through any limitations or constraints.
When Crowley wrote about this card thirty years later, he writes:
It is ruled by Mars in Capricornus; he is exalted in that sign, and therefore at his best. His energy is constructive, like that of a builder or engineer. 154
He goes on to say:
The pyramid (on the card image) is situated in the great Sea of Binah in the Night of Time … the sides of the pyramid have a strong reddish tint, showing the influence of Mars. 155
Perhaps these enigmatic quotes will now appear a bit more relatable, as we can now consider them with the structure on which they were built in mind.
Exercise: Build Your Own Cartomantic Cosmology
Create your own list of the signs of the zodiac and the planets as we have given, and against each of them write down your own keywords and themes from your experience. If possible, make these mythic or based on your own philosophy or religious outlook.
As an example, you might be a pagan or druid and correspond Virgo to Diana, the moon goddess. Similarly, you might correspond the Sun to Apollo, her brother. The 8 of Pentacles is “Sun in Virgo,” so you could create a line of verse such as: “In learning the language of the land (Diana), we may come to natural prophesy (Apollo).”
If you work with alchemy, the planet Saturn might correspond to the base metal lead, and the sign Leo to the corrosive power of sulphur and all it represents in your life. We would then see that the 5 of Wands, Saturn in Leo, might be phrased, “There is Necessary Chaos when Lead is Corroded by Sulphur.”
As you work through the cards, you can go back and refine cards to create a consistent feel to all the verses, and you may tweak your keywords as you go along. There is no “right answer” to this exercise, and the creation of a personal cosmology structured on the tarot is an evolutionary experience; you may often come back and with new insight, re-write parts of your narrative. You can also design your own tarot deck based on your work.
The Ranks Renamed
Aleister Crowley took the names of the Court Cards and slightly altered them, based on his Golden Dawn lessons, enough to cause a lot of confusion in later readers. Here is how we remember them:
“A Thoth Knight is a King, a Prince is a Knight, a Princess is a Page, but a Queen is always a Queen.”
The Natural Landscape of the Court Cards
One of the many gems hidden in the depths of the Book of Thoth is a table of the natural elements of the Court Cards according to their elemental qualities. This is called by Crowley “Triplicities of the Zodiac” and can be summarised in the table below:
Court Card
Element (of)
Element
Correspondence
Knight (King) of Wands
Fire
Fire
Lightning
Prince (Knight) of Wands
Air
Fire
Sun
Queen of Wands
Water
Fire
Rainbow
Knight (King) of Cups
Fire
Water
Rain, Springs
Prince (Knight) of Cups
Air
Water
Sea
Queen of Cups
Water
Water
Pool
Knight (King) of Swords
Fire
Air
Wind
Court Card
Element (of)
Element
Correspondence
Prince (Knight) of Swords
Air
Air
Clouds
Queen of Swords
Water
Air
Vibrations, Resonances, Echoes, Ripples
Knight (King) of Disks (Pentacles)
Fire
Earth
Mountains, Gravity
Prince (Knight) of Disks (Pentacles)
Air
Earth
Plains, long-lasting life
Queen of Disks (Pentacles)
Water
Earth
Fields, supp
orting life
Crowley uses as the basis of this system the concept that the cardinal sign of each element represents its birth, the Kerubic sign its life, and its mutable sign the passing over of the element into its ideal, archetype, or spirit. The princesses (pages) here represent the spirit of the element, not yet formed. This develops the Golden Dawn system and is built on the same issue regarding making a correspondence of sixteen court cards to twelve zodiacal signs. The pages or princesses are removed from the correspondence by (in effect) making a nominal correspondence to “spirit” or the “nascent” (unborn or unformed) aspect of the elements.
Method: Creating a Landscape of Change
In this method, we take Crowley’s elemental correspondences and apply them to a situation we want to change. It is quite often the case that to change a situation, we must do something differently than we have done; in doing so, we become a different person. Whilst we may all be every aspect of the whole court at times, it is often difficult to step out of our usual nature and become a totally different person.
We will use the twelve court cards (minus the pages or princesses) in this method to lay out a landscape of change.
Select the court cards from your deck—a Thoth tarot deck is ideal, but any deck will suffice; the Druidcraft deck has excellent landscapes built into the Court cards and the Mythic Tarot has a good foundation in the astrological correspondences for the courts.
Take out the four pages (or princesses) of the sixteen court cards.
Take the remaining twelve cards and shuffle whilst considering your question or situation. This method is ideal for situations with questions such as “What should I do that is different to change this situation for the better?”