John the Baptist and The Chariot

It may be strange to connect John the Baptist to VII The chariot, but there is good reason for doing so. The Nativity of John the Baptist, celebrated each June 24th, roughly coincides with the transition into the sign of Cancer on the 21st. Cancer, of course, is the sign associated with VII The Chariot. Cancer also being the cardinal sign of water represents the initial onrush of that element. Remember that John baptized with water, as opposed to Christ, whose coming John foretold, but who baptized "in the Spirit."

The Chariot is associated with the Holy Grail, the womb of life, the cup of the Goddess, in which is poured blood. In Christian symbolism blood and water are synonymous, which is particularly interesting given Cancer's watery nature.

The transition into Cancer on the 21st, coinciding with the Summer Solstice, represents the pinnacle of the sun's strength throughout the solar year. The solstice is the longest day of the year and all subsequent days steadily shorten. On this day the sun is at the height of its power, and in the scheme of the solar year, is when it seems most indestructible. This is a theme carried out in the Roman celebration of Sol Invictus, though this holiday was celebrated around the time of Christmas (around December 24th when the sun seems to "regenerate" after its steady decline in force through the fall).

Perhaps what remains mysterious is why the Church decided to place John the Baptist's Nativity a the same time as the transition into Cancer and the Summer Solstice. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that John himself "was not the light, but came to testify to the light." Because of this we can see his connection to Cancer (being watery), and a more general connection to the sun (as Cancer is not ruled or associated with the sun directly in any way). Therefore John's association is more aquatic than solar. In some ways we can see John as the Cup Bearer, he who bears the Grail filled with the Blood, which is solar, which is synonymous with Christ. Perhaps we can even vaguely associate John with a form of Binah, the Goddess. Indeed, John the Baptist is often depicted as an effeminate youth in Renaissance art. John conveyed the solar redemptive message, but was not the essence of redemption itself.

Let us also take note of The Chariot's associations with paths and directions. Being the bridge between Binah, the Mother of Form, and Geburah, the Power of God, The Chariot represents the form of power, or rather form being empowered. Really the distinction is irrelevant. Regardless, the energy of Geburah is given form through the Understanding the Soul is capable of. Enlightened by Wisdom, the Understanding first begets Mercy, whose main operation is to generate, but so that all things may be balanced Understanding also begets Power, whose primary function is to energize and destroy. The Chariot therefore destroys all other paths but the One True Path, which is True Will, which is Destiny, which is the cornerstone of personal Salvation, which is the Holy Guardian Angel, which is Christ.

Remember, too, that John the Baptist is always associated with the prophecy of Isaiah that says, "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, 'Prepare, ye, the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.'" John prepared the way, clearing it for the future sowing and reaping represented in Christ's Life, Death, and Resurrection. John made the path straight, much like the path of the Chariot. In other words, the Chariot represents a direct route for energy to take. It teaches us that the most potent energy, the most triumphant energy, is that which is grounded to only one direction and purpose. Ultimately that purpose must be solar in nature (and therefore connected to Light, Life, Love, and Liberty), must be geared towards Self, and must therefore be self-redeeming. Baptism, as we know, destroys original sin. It washes away our transgression and wipes us clean. Clearly this is a reference to Geburah's destructive and cleansing quality. Sin is the condition of life in which the consciousness is swept side to side by distractions, impulses, and desires. It is the condition of multiplicity, of disorder, and disobedience. It is to have no power over the world because one does not have power over oneself. The only recourse is purification through destruction. Through metaphysical baptism (which the ritual and sacrament of Baptism reflects), one may transcend to the victorious state of the Chariot. This is a state of being in which one becomes a vessel, a conduit for the Living God, and follows His precepts. And to follow His commandment is to Love Him, and truly "there is nothing that can unite the divided but love." The Chariot therefore also represents a condition of intense love in which the individual is lost in the mystery of the Eternal Self, which is the God of the personal Universe - the architect of one's experience over the Aeons. "There are love and love. There is the Dove and the Serpent Choose ye well!" Love, we must remember, must eradicate differentiation. In The Chariot, one is so knit to the Path of God by the power of love that one becomes as the prophets Elijah and Enoch, and "goes to walk with God." To do so is to never be known again and is akin to Nirvana. 


This condition is thus a state of grace and perfection - remember that the Chariot's number is 418, ABRAHADABRA, the cipher of the Great Work, and the word that opens all doors. When one delves deeper, one also draws the connection between ABRAHADABRA and Harpocrates, the god of Silence, the Babe in the Egg of Blue, whose Silence is the secret key to all locks, whose amorphous essence is the answer to all mysteries. Being associated with Kether, Harpocrates is also the Spirit. 


Everything connects. Baptism through water, which is blood, leads to grace, which is victory over the world and the self (an interior version of the exterior projected world); the path of grace leads to baptism in the Spirit, which is Salvation. Salvation is love of the Eternal Self to such a degree that one commits to following the path laid out by the Eternal Self in all things. Their path becomes straight, though surrounded on all sides by the desert. 

The Story the Thoth Trumps Tell

Here is my attempt to read the trumps as a circle, given their esoteric meanings. I hope it's relatively clear! I tried to keep it simple.

0 The Fool
The Universe as complete Nothing. The sum potential of existence before it has manifested itself as something.
I The Magus
The Masculine Will of the Universe. Presents the doctrine that the unmanifested Being is a unity, or God. This Will is capable of organizing the original chaos of Nothing into categories, though at this stage it is difficult to say that there is concrete differentiation between these categories. There is only the potential for these categories to exist.
II The Priestess
The Feminine counterpart to the Will, or the image of that Will. She is the body of light the Universal Will will shape its creations from. She is therefore the Truth of form - all form is an illusion of the Divine Light.
III The Empress
The result of the affinity between the Will and the Light - impregnation. Because the Will has moved within the Divine Light, there is a concrete something waiting to be born.
IV The Emperor
The sovereign individual point who is Lord of his own Universe. This is a point of perspective and consciousness that may conceivably distinguish itself from the macrocosmic Universe. It itself is a Unity, and therefore a God.
V The Hierophant
The individual learning through experience. Alternatively, this individual point is master of its own knowledge and truth.
VI The Lovers
The doctrine of duality. There is a firm distinction between microcosm and macrocosm. But the two could be considered twins, as they bear the same attributes. Because of this separation, the individual point is capable of drawing insight from the Whole and vice versa.
VII The Chariot
The point endowed with a soul for a vessel. This allows the point to move within the body of the Universe as is its will. Because of duality, the illusion of space and time is now possible. The idea of indestructibility is also implied.
VIII Adjustment
Now that the point is capable of motion and experience, it must now learn the virtue of Free Will, and the karmic repercussions of that. For every action there is a reaction.
IX The Hermit
Now we finally have the concept of the physical body, which, perhaps because of Free Will, has fallen into a less desirable state. But the Godhead (the point), which dwells secretly within the body, is the initiator of the True Will - the path of Rectitude and Virtue for that given point of consciousness. It has inherited this from the Will of the Universe. In secret the Godhead of the individual works to "redeem" the physical body from its state of disobedience, and guides it towards maturity and self-understanding.
X Fortune
The resulting combination of all these forces. The various parts of the human being vie for supremacy, and thereby create various events in the individual's life. The point remains the axle of the wheel, and therefore does not move. It is perpetually the center of its own universe.
XI Lust
A particularly interesting response to Fortune. One reading shows that it is the fusion of all the individual's components through the act of "love under will." The energy contained in each part can be guided toward the realization of a desired outcome - i.e. a magickal act. Another reading reveals this to be the Red Tincture, or lion, of the alchemists. It is the masculine, solar, creative energy bound up in the individual. At its most basic level, this stage represents the sexual act in general.
XII The Hanged Man
From the perspective of ritual magick, this represents the sacrifice of the potential life in the male semen as a result of orgasm. It may also appear as the illusion of the creative urge being stifled as a result of the orgasm. If the sexual act is used for procreation, however, the card can represent the infusion of the spirit in a new life form. Being associated with water, both acts are seen as a kind of baptism; the former is a baptism for the magician, the latter is a baptism for the newly conceived physical being.
XIII Death
The mystery of Resurrection on several levels. Firstly, it represents the recovery of the male after the "death" of orgasm. Despite the supposed "death" of the libido after its release, it eventually returns. The libido is immortal, and can only be transformed into various guises. Secondly, it represents the reincarnation that took place in Atu XII, in which a baby was conceived. The idea is that this infant is at its core is an indestructible point itself, and that whatever form it decides to take in this life is a result of its experiences and choices in previous lives. Lastly, the card represents the White Tincture, or the eagle, of the alchemists. It is the feminine, lunar creative impulse, which is passive and destructive, as opposed to the masculine, which is active and creative. One must remember that both Creation and Destruction are polarities that makeup the general idea of Life.
XIV Art
Having undergone the process of Creation and Destruction, the individual is prepared for the actual moment of Resurrection. This is the culmination of the INRI formula (which I encourage you to look up). It is the representation of the doctrine of evolution; the positive plus the negative equals a third thing which is different from the original two, but bears some of their traits. This card is also the fulfillment of VI The Lovers and IX The Hermit. The individual has been able to fuse the masculine and feminine parts of his/her identity and has thus become androgynous. They have disintegrated the boundary between higher self and lower self, and has become whole, as well as an entirely new Being. By doing this, they are set on the path of the True Will. Lastly, the card speaks of the alchemical command to "find the hidden stone." This is none other than the original point of consciousness concealed in the physical being.
XV The Devil
The god Pan and the above-mentioned "hidden stone." In this stage, Pan is Pangenitor, All-Begetter. This is the newly created individual after having undergone the formula of Resurrection. They are complete, and have ascertained their original godhead. They also have discovered the nature of their True Will, and they set out to manifest it with utmost ambition and enjoyment, despite the response from other people. This person now may be misconstrued as "a devil" because they have attained autonomy, and therefore are not dependent upon the consent of others. They are unapologetic for fulfilling their purpose, and by doing so they infuse the material universe with prosperity. The union of the highest and the lowest has been complete, and the individual has begun his/her work to redeem the material universe.
XVI The Tower
This is Pan as Panphage, All-Devourer. Because of the individual's reformation process, their perspective on the material world has been entirely eradicated. They have learned that the material plane is one of illusion. The distinction between Self and Other has been destroyed, and all material events and things are seen as an extension of Self.
XVII The Star
At this point, the veils covering the Divine Self are removed. One realizes they are a unique conduit for the Divine Will of the Universe, and are allowed to be because they are a royal child of the Universe. Perhaps we could say that as much as the material universe is the full extension of the individual, so is the individual the full extension of the unmanifested Universe. This is the optimistic revelation that, through one's existence, the limitless potential of the Universe comes to be. Internal change results in external change. What seems impossible is possible with God.
XVIII The Moon
The revelation of the Universe as stagnant without the intercession of the individual's action on the path of True Will. The True Will is creative, and is culmination of the Divine Will. The Universe as a metaphorical womb is left stagnant and infertile as long as this Will is left unfulfilled. Sin is the result of inaction, or action taken in a direction away from that of the True Will.
XIX The Sun
Fertility reasserted. Triumph and victory over darkness. Light is brought to the darkness by the virtue of the individual. The realization of the True Will resulting in Love, Liberty, Light, and Life.
XX The Aeon/Judgment
As a result, stagnation is purged from the world, and the world is redeemed. The proper order of things is established. The beginning of a new era because of the work done by the individual.
XXI The Universe
The individual point of consciousness, having completed the Great Work, finally returning to the Origin of All, the Nothingness of unmanifested Being. But there is the implication that the sum total of All was always Nothing all along, and that the whole experience was but a game, or a play. As Goethe writes, "Alles vergängliche," "all is allegory." The process is now ready to repeat itself, not for any purpose, but for the sake of Universal evolution and enjoyment.

The Sacred Feminine: The Christian and Thelemic Perspectives

The Hodegetria

Since we are in a Marian devotional month in the liturgical calendar, I have of course been meditating a lot on the Virgin Mary and her allegorical purpose. Personally, I believe that she is one of those figures in the Bible that cannot be taken at all literally, and that she must solely be interpreted allegorically. Otherwise she makes no logical sense, and of course we must always put our faith to trial by the fires of intellect and experience. In recorded history prior to the invention of artificial insemination, there are no births by Virgins as far as I am aware. There are many in mythology, however! So quite clearly Our Lady, like many figures from the Bible, is a mythological personage who expresses a sublime philosophical idea regarding nature. This is not to lower her position or to degrade, for by all means she is still mightily exalted. Thus we must regard her nature as such, and not view her with certain mundane interpretations.

I think what my first issue thinking about Mary was that she is known as "the mother of us all." Now, I understand that to many this would have to do with the fact that Mary is also the Church, and through her we are baptized in the name of Christ. Thus we are "reborn." But are we not already baptized in Christ merely by existing? For "through Him all things were made." He is that which is, and through Him beings have their ability to exist. Nothing may be said to exist unless it partakes in a fundamental union with the Logos. (I prefer to refer to Christ as the Logos for that is what He represents. It is better to use general terms such as these in order to not exclude anyone who is not necessarily "Christian." Because of course the Logos/Christ is not a concept only contained in Western thought, and we should remember this.) Again, the Logos is that fundamental defining purpose for an existing being. It is its DNA, if you will - the coding for its manifested existence.

But the Logos in and of itself is useless. Like a man with no female partner, it cannot create by its own means. Therefore it must create for itself a feminine counterpart, or a passive extension and image of itself. If we look at the Sephiroth, this is clearly illustrated for us. Kether, sometimes referred to as the first Logos, first mover, etc., begets Chokhmah and Binah, the Father and the Mother respectively. Kether is the original point of unextended, impartial existence. Nothing can be said about it other than the fact that it exists. Chokhmah, the more overt Logos and the first sephirah on the Pillar of Mercy, is Kether's first more defined force or wisdom. Now we can say something about the original point of existence - we can characterize its will. However, we cannot really understand it. Binah, understanding and the first sephirah on the Pillar of Severity, teaches us the limitations of this wisdom and thereby balances out Chokhmah's infinite stream of force. The harmony between these two factors, the masculine active will and the feminine passive will, or the Will of God with the Image of God, results in the birth of something definitive and glorious. It is the birth of the Word made Flesh.

I hope now you see the obvious correlation between the Sephirotic/Neo-Platonic philosophy and the Christian Mystery of the Incarnation. They are strikingly similar. The Virgin Mary is a representation of Binah, the Divine Feminine, and Christ is more or less Chokhmah and Kether sort of conglomerated, or the Divine Masculine. It's difficult to really fit Christ into the Sephiroth because they're simply different systems of interpretation, and they do not intersect seamlessly. Christ is somewhat akin to the Ain Soph, Kether, Chokhmah, and Tiphareth all at the same time. I believe it depends on how we are talking about Him. If we refer to the Logos as that which is coeternal with the Father, then we are referring to the Ain Soph. If we mean Him to represent the Cornerstone of any existing being, then we mean Kether. If we speak of Him as the Life or Will of any existing being, then we mean Chokhmah. And finally, if we mean to speak of Him as Jesus Christ, the dying and resurrecting man-God, then we mean to say Tiphareth, or consciousness at the level of Tiphareth.

Regardless, the Virgin Mary still fits very neatly into the category of Binah, or even the Ain Soph Aur. For our purposes, however, let us stick to the idea of Binah, and leave the Ain Soph Aur for even more lofty discussions. Frankly, the whole business of Ain-anything is really confusing, and is meant to be so. Being at the very top of the Tree of Life, it is the most hidden, the most esoteric, the most difficult to describe, and yet it best describes the idea of God as unmanifested, unmade Being. But leaving all that aside, let us instead return the original Marian myth: the Annunciation. In the story, Mary is visited by the angel Gabriel, who pronounces her to be the future Mother of God. She humbly accepts the divine command issued by the archangel, calling herself "the handmaid of the Lord," and as a result is infused with the Holy Spirit and conceives Jesus. By giving birth to God, Mary in effect gives birth to all things that are made, and essentially baptizes all those things in the waters of her womb in the name of Christ. Note that Mary's name has the obvious etymological connection to the word "mare" in Latin, which translates to "sea." St. Jerome was the first Christian writer to write about this connection prominently, and it is from him that we get the imagery for the famous Marian hymn Ave maris stella (Hail, Star of the Sea). Mary therefore has an overt connection to the ocean and the womb. In Genesis as well, remember that "the Spirit of God moved across the waters" and brought life from chaos.

Atu III The Empress represents the Feminine
as the Vessel of Nature. Her letter is Daleth
which means "door." Her path on the
Sephiroth connects Chokhmah to Binah.

Mary then is not just a humble maiden mother. She is the womb of Nature, and is the Feminine will to live. She is rightly called "the door of life," for through her all things are born. The sacred Word that Christ represents is "Life," and she is its vessel. When she accepts the Divine Will to Live, she accepts Life in its most chaotic form. Remember that Chokhmah is barely defined, and Kether has virtually no definition. Chokhmah in particular is simply the infinite force and vigor of Life itself, the original impartial point of existence extending its energy outwards. With the third point, Binah, that energy is confined in the shape of a triangle - a metaphorical womb. Mary is associated with virtue and prudence because she Understands the proper course for Life. She is coequal with the Father, Chokhmah, and is the final direct expression of Kether, the Crown. By her means, Kether is able to manifest itself in space and time, and thereby experience itself as a made Being.

However, because she is "virtuous" does not mean she is so in any human sense of the word. Virtue is highly subjective, and in this case the example she sets for us by her humility does not mean we should humble ourselves to the point of absurdity. For example, women should not necessarily be housewives and remain subservient to men. Chastity is not necessarily a "good" thing, for by it we restrict the force of Life. Mary's passivity is the acceptance of Life in whatever form it can come in. She is understanding of God's wisdom because she knows how best to limit it for its own wellbeing. This limitation is more or less known as death. The Divine Feminine is the great recycler, being both the Fertile Mother and the Sterile Mother. She is fairness and justice in its highest notion, for she is balanced. For as much life she brings forth she also brings forth as much death. But this is how existence is allowed to remain intact. Can you imagine if nothing died? It'd be anarchy! In some ways we should be really thankful for death, even though it's obviously something most of us don't look forward to (myself included).

Now to bring in Mr. Crowley on this. Crowley equates Binah with the Whore of Babalon, and Chokhmah with Father Chaos, which of course all sounds very Satanic and icky. But at the same time, these descriptions make sense. Chokhmah has no sense of restriction, whereas Binah is the original notion of restriction. However, Binah does not restrict herself from impregnation with God's Will, no matter what form it decides to come in. We are more than aware of the diversity of Life - Life constituting all existing things, be they "alive" or "inanimate." The Divine Will to create Life then is equally diverse, and infinitely so. Binah/Mary as the humble Feminine accepts these creations and births them, but on the condition that they must eventually die. Binah/Mary as the Virgin remains ever fruitful, for her womb is never deprived of its fertility. She loves all of her creations equally, and subjects all of them to the same fair treatment out of this love. The love she has extends beyond the individual and encompasses the Universe. This is how the desires of the individual are not necessarily equivalent to what is actually best for that individual, given their relationship to the Universe at large.

So those of us who are lucky enough to raise their consciousness to the level of Binah effectively "die." They lose all sense of individuality, because they have ascertained their connection with the World. Their personal desires and identities are rendered meaningless in the sight of all that is made. Binah, like the Virgin Mary, shows us the Way of God, which is in Christ. She is our Guide, our Fountain of Life, our Protector, our Mother. The medieval tropes that continue to survive in modern Marian prayers certainly have some validity to them. By knowledge of the Mother we may come to knowledge of the Father/Son, and through knowledge of Him, we attain knowledge of God.

Gabriel with his scroll dispenses the
Will and Word of God to the Virgin
in the form of the Holy Spirit.

I'm sure some of you are still feeling weird about the correlation I have drawn between the Virgin Mary and the Whore of Babalon. I admit it is a stark comparison. First of all, remember that Crowley's whole linguistic methodology was based on juxtaposition. He used old concepts and renamed them things people found repulsive. By doing this he teaches us a great lesson - we cannot decide what God should and should not be based on subjective personal or cultural preference. God simply Is. Second of all, remember what Crowley says about existence above the Abyss, that "contradiction is unity." The concepts of virginity and whoredom are polarized against each other. But who can really say one is "positive" and the other "negative?" Above the Abyss, their contradiction becomes unity, and they come to represent the same thing impartially.

I think what is most important about all this is to see the foolishness of Christian morality regarding sexuality and women. It is not necessarily God's Will that everyone should be chaste, nor is it possible that he prefers chastity to sexuality. It is not reasonable to say that woman is below man. Outside of the realm of sexuality and women, it is also foolish to say that baptism only occurs through the Church, when simply by being born we are baptized through Mary in the name of the Logos. Etc.

Eheieh: The Major Arcana and the Great Work

The Major Arcana are often seen as a representation of the individuation process, or the means by which man returns to God. There are of course 22 of them in total, but the last one, The Universe or The World, is numbered 21. Curiously enough, the gematria value for one of Kether’s divine names, Eheieh, equals 21 as well. Eheieh itself translates to “I am,” or “I shall be” – very interesting given what we have just said about the Major Arcana.

Another way of looking at the Major Arcana is by seeing their positions on the Rose Cross, depicted on the back of Crowley’s Thoth cards. Without getting too absorbed in an explanation of this complex symbol, I will simply say that it could be seen as another representation of the Sephiroth, or the way God manifests itself and then relates to its creation. From the single point of white in the center of the symbol emanates a rose and cross, followed by additional petals and a much larger cross. The single point represents Kether (Eheieh), the unity, or Hadit if you are thinking in terms of Crowley’s Liber AL. Surrounding this first small cross is a ring of three petals, followed by a ring of seven petals, and a third ring of twelve petals. Here is where we find our Major Arcana.

The first three correspond to the three elemental majors, which in turn are associated with the three “mother letters” in Hebrew (Aleph - air, Mem - water, and Shin – fire/spirit). These would be 0 The Fool, XII The Hanged Man, and XX The Aeon respectively. Technically there is a fourth elemental card, The Universe representing the element of earth, but since it does not correspond to one of the mother letters it is not placed in this first ring of petals.

The next ring of seven corresponds to the planetary trumps, these being I The Magus (Mercury), II The Priestess (Moon), III The Empress (Venus), X Fortune (Jupiter), XVI The Tower (Mars), XIX The Sun (Sun), and XX The Universe (Saturn).

The third ring of petals on the greater rose represents the zodiacal trumps. These are IV The Emperor (Aries), V The Hierophant (Taurus), VI The Lovers (Gemini), VII The Chariot (Cancer), VIII Adjustment (Libra), IX The Hermit (Virgo), XI Lust (Leo), XIII Death (Scorpio), XIV Art (Sagittarius), XV The Devil (Capricorn), XVII The Star (Aquarius), and XVIII The Moon (Pisces).

What this symbol tells us is that each ring is a subsequent emanation of the ring before it, a further distillation of the meaning inherent in the cards prior. What I propose is that we can group the cards in families based on element, and thereby come closer to pinpointing what the 21-fold path to God is intimating.

Fire:

First, let’s deal with the fire cards, since Kabbalistically, fire is the first element, followed by water, air, and earth. This set is governed by XX The Aeon, which stands for the element of fire and spirit simultaneously. We are told that this has to do with the consumptive and enflaming quality of spirit. Fire is also attributed to the letter Yod of Tetragrammaton, and Abba, the Father who is represented by Chokhmah on the Sephiroth. XX essentially represents the Second Coming of Christ – the divine Self – who destroys the individual’s worldview and comes to rule over the soul as a lord. This, as we will see, is the overarching theme to the fire trumps. It is echoed in the two fiery planetary trumps, XVI The Tower and XIX The Sun. The former symbolizes the destruction of the ego’s fortress by the spirit. It is akin to the Harrowing of Hell by Christ following the Passion, when the Lord descends to the depths to liberate those trapped in Hell who did not deserve to be there (namely the beatific characters of the Old Testament). XIX on the other hand represents liberation, particularly from self-deceit, victory and triumph, the return of innocence, the Crowned and Conquering Child. Both of these planetary cards can clearly be seen as further developments of the original main idea contained in XX The Aeon.

The three zodiacal trumps for fire, IV The Emperor, XI Lust, and XIV Temperance, all also deal with these themes, but in a more specific fashion. The Emperor speaks of self control and self-lordship. He is a man of war being also associated with the alchemical sulfur. He is sudden in his actions and occasionally destructive without care. We can see that this represents the war against the ego, which flies about with little sense of direction. To tame it, we must be equally sudden and sometimes ruthless in our governance. We must consider its losses as a delight, and not something to mourn for. This is man’s innate “will to power” put to good use; rather than using it to destroy one’s peers, we can use it to destroy our false selves and thereby attain true Power. XI Lust also has the same nonchalance when it comes to its potency – what it destroys in its unleashing is quickly forgotten about. Lust represents the erotic union between masculine and feminine energies that are both inherent in the human being. The energy generated by this is enough to cause the Kundalini serpent, coiled at the base of the spine, to rise. Being situated in that place on the body, the serpent represents a very wild, natural energy form that can be seen as an effect of our “lower sensibilities.” By causing it to rise, we are bringing these “lower” essences more in line with our divine energies. We allow them to be governed more easily by spirit, or the Divine Self. XIV Art again deals with the harmonization between masculine and feminine, itself being a depiction of the androgyne. These energies are refined to their purest forms and then fused back together into a unified androgynous being – a more accurate representation of the Divine Self.

Understanding this, we can see that the fire trumps all deal with the War against the false self, as well as the governing of the human being by spirit, the Logos as represented by Christ.

Water:

Next comes water, which represents the Divine Feminine, the Mother, Binah on the Sephiroth, Aima, the Heh primal of Tetragrammaton, etc. So while fire represents the Divine Will, water is the actual understanding or interpretation of that Will. Therefore, we should expect the water trumps to further explain the fire trumps in a more passive way. Its elemental trump card is XII The Hanged Man, which is a curious and sometimes frustrating card in my opinion. It’s one of the trumps that Crowley felt needed revision since it so obviously depicts the mysteries of the Aeon of Osiris which has supposedly now passed. Primarily, he rejects it as a symbol of sacrifice conflated with morality. But while sacrifice may no longer be a relevant action today, the card still represents the descent of the Divine Self for love – not love in the sacrificial sense of Christ, but in the ecstatic form described by Nuit in the Liber AL (“for I am divided for love’s sake, for the chance of union”). An important aspect of the Hanged Man is that he is upside-down, meaning that his perspective is seemingly opposite to our own. Yet, Crowley writes that water is an element of illusion, and it would seem that the Hanged Man’s perspective is actually correct, and our own is deceptive. Thus, we “understand” the effect of XX The Aeon. The Aeon rectifies our perspective, and demonstrates to us that we are actually divine beings.

II The Priestess, or the Moon, is the one planetary trump for the element of water. Again, the card represents the truth concealed behind illusion. Manifested existence is simply a lovely guise for the One Truth – the One God, who hides himself therein. Now, we must compare her to the fiery planetary trumps, XIX The Sun, and XVI The Tower. These two cards also represent the shattering of illusion by Spirit, the Second Coming. The Priestess is the passive version of this, secretly telling us through our intuition that the form represented by the Tower was false, and that the only Truth is that of the Sun. We must remember that in Neo-Platonic thought, the sun was the closest representation of the Monad man could conceptualize. Mystical experience with the True Sun in this philosophy was the first major step towards union with the Source, as the two are so similar. The fact that the Priestess hints at the secret unity of life shows that she is in a direct relationship to XIX The Sun. So far, both the fiery and watery trumps have expressed practically the same ideas within their specific hierarchic levels. (In other words, the elemental cards express the same idea, and the planetary trumps together express another idea.)

The zodiacal water trumps are a bit trickier, though our theorem is still applicable. VII The Chariot represents control over the soul by the hidden One God. Ultimately, all actions of the soul are set in motion by God. By further defining the Hanged Man, we can see that whatever agency we believe ourselves to possess is false, and the only real authority possible is divine. Additionally, the card’s meaning is similar to IV The Emperor, but we see that the Emperor’s agency comes not from man himself, but from God alone. The Emperor is the pure idea of divine authority, the Chariot is a deeper (and therefore less pure) interpretation of that governance. Another, more simple way of comparing them is by noting that both are images of war and conquest. Though, while the Emperor is more spontaneous and active as a conqueror, the Chariot is simply directed and does not have a specific target of conquest.

XIII Death is also a card full of illusions and misconceptions that must be wiped away by the Spirit. While unaware of divinity, we believe in and fear corporeal death. It also speaks to the Dying Man-God Formula espoused by the Aeon of Osiris and the Hanged Man, as it represents Osiris himself. Osiris is the closest analogy to Christ we can find in the Egyptian Mysteries, and was most likely the ultimate predecessor to the archetypal story of Christ’s Passion. This card seems to be the most layered in its relationships to the element of water and its complement, XI Lust. Lust, as we know, represents the erotic fusion between masculine and feminine archetypes within the individual. On one hand, Death could therefore represent the death of orgasm when the two halves no longer distinguish differences between each other. On the other, Death shows us that whatever manifestations our personality goes through, each one is ultimately brought about by our pure Divine Self, who seeks to rectify our nature. Death purges us of unnecessary things, which causes us to feel “pain.” But this pain is a sort of divine ecstasy as it brings us closer to God.

Lastly, XVIII The Moon is entirely about deception and fear of the unknown. Without knowledge of God, we flounder through life feeling lost and confused about the future, our ambitions, who we are, almost anything you can imagine. Yet, buried deep under all that muck lies the sun waiting to be reborn. Note that each zodiacal water trump has depicted the Divine Self or Christ in some form, almost always in a solar aspect. The Chariot represents the “blood of the Sun” contained within the Holy Grail; Osiris, a god of vegetation and rebirth is naturally quasi-solar; and Kephra, the beetle, rolls his solar disk through the underworld. But XVIII is once again a hieroglyph of truth concealed in illusion. It resonates with XIV Art in that both of them show a sense of direction. While Art shows the path to balance and the Divine Self, the Moon demonstrates the need to stay connected to that solar middle path. It also speaks to the confusion created by the separate needs and desires of our masculine and feminine halves, as the cards two towers stand darkly opposing each other. The path between them is tread by Kephra, the sun.

It seems clear now that the water trumps depict the passive side of the “War” against self. They show different sides of the fire trumps by giving them more definition.

Air:

Air is the element attributed to the Son, the Vav of Tetragrammaton, and Tiphareth (the sun) on the Sephiroth. This is the heart of the Divine Self and the active consonance between the Divine Will and the Divine Understanding (fire and water). It is primarily defined by 0 The Fool, the letter Aleph. The Fool represents the wandering prince/knight-errant, perhaps even the incarnated Christ. He stands for divine mania, innocence, purity, fertility, ecstasy, androgyny, etc. He is the result of the fusion of masculine and feminine – by doing so he has regained his divine nature, and life becomes less of a grim struggle and more of a playground with little intrinsic meaning other than enjoyment. He can also be seen as the opposite and real nature of the Hanged Man.

The two planetary trumps for air, I The Magus and X Fortune, both speak of power and agency. The Magus shows that, with the War being won, the individual is free to craft their reality as they choose, since they will have discerned the illusive quality of existence and transcended it. Also, the Magus represents the alchemical substance of merucury, which is considered to be androgynous and a hybrid of sulfur and salt. Fortune echoes this, for the card tells us that as long as we are not in control of our multiple personas and powers, we are equally not in control of our lives and the seemingly “random” events that occur in them. Being an aspect of the Fool, we learn that all of the events that we want to take seriously really are just neutral events that are there to instruct us. In the case of the Fool, however, he is in control of the hand that turns the Wheel. Note that the Wheel of Fortune has a clenched fist engraved on its rim at the bottom; from this radiate six violet rays. Six is the number of the sun, as it is the number of Tiphareth on the Sephiroth. Essentially, the “hand of fate” is our solar, divine, Christ-like True Selves. The Fool, having recognized this, is free to manipulate his own destiny. Additionally, the Magus may further be a representation of the incarnated Christ, as the god Mercury is also a psychopomp, meaning he guides the souls of the dead. He is able to connect the highest to the lowest (“As above, so below”) and thereby redeem the lowly. Perhaps the ultimate message is that our highest good in the material plane expresses itself through our desire for freedom without prejudice against others. The Fool is indiscriminate because he is too innocent to pass judgment.

Which, of course, makes VIII Adjustment so interesting. Adjustment has nothing to do with any moral evaluation, only equilibrium. I believe we will find that the three zodiacal air trumps deal with the power and agency of the incarnated Christ, though I admit the air cards are particularly difficult to pin down (which makes sense, given the nature of air). But Adjustment, coming as a reaction to the harmony between the Emperor and the Chariot, teaches us that any action taken will have its repercussions in nature. Now that the individual has gained mastery over themselves by attaining Divinity, their lower selves (the Heh final of Tetragrammaton, the Princess) have been rectified and equilibrated. Its usual pendulum-like behavior has been balanced, thereby placing the Daughter on the throne of the Mother, Binah. Remember that Crowley writes that this card depicts that moment prior to her enthronement. She holds the sword of the Magus because with it she has focused all of her being toward this one goal.

XVII The Star, interestingly enough, comes as a response to Lust and Death, and depicts the manifestation of Nuit, the goddess of infinite space and nothingness. The letter associated with the Star is Heh, the letter of the Mother and Daughter, or Binah and Malkuth on the Sephiroth. The Star tends to represent that infinite potential of the universe encapsulated within the divine human being. All events for her are representations of the universe’s love. Primarily, we can see how this is connected to the ideas of the Magus and Fortune – as a divine being, man can access the infinite power of Divine Will (note that she pours upon herself the liquid spiral energy of a golden, a.k.a solar cup or bowl). She herself has become the conduit for the Divine Will and dispenses her blessing on the manifested Universe itself. Remember also what Crowley says, that all events are “a play of Nuit.” So after the ecstatic union achieved in Lust, understood to be a sort of release from the false self in death, the Star sees herself not as a divided being, but as one who contains both masculine and feminine impulses within herself, or perhaps rather the potentials for both.

Lastly, we have VI The Lovers, which is the counterpart to XIV Art. The former represents the alchemical act of solve while the latter is coagula. Both represent marriages of some kind. Let us remember that all magical working deals with these two activities – one can either divide or assemble when it comes to the goal of a magical operation. In fact, these are the only two operations of the Universe as a whole. Again, we see the empowerment metaphor of the Fool/Christ as reigning Lord. In response to Art and The Moon, the Lovers seems to decidedly advocate for separation, as the Hermit or Logos stands in the Sign of the Enterer, as if to authorize the marriage between man and woman. But, remember that The Lovers has a strong female element, as it is the influence of the Mother Binah upon the Son in Tiphareth. Perhaps we can see this card as a reminder to the Son of what his primary goal is – to marry the Princess and redeem her. In this light, perhaps the Prince has been given all this power and agency to entice the Princess.

It intrigues me that even though the element of air is meant to deal with the Son of Tetragrammaton, the reigning Christ after his fiery return in XX The Aeon, there is a strong presence of femininity in the zodiacal trumps. While we can suggest this is only natural given the Fool’s androgynous nature, it may also be intended to remind us of the Tetragrammaton cycle and the process of apotheosis. The Prince is always intended to marry his sister the Princess and set her upon the throne of her Mother, whereby she awakens the Eld of the All-Father and becomes one with God. So in the air trumps, we see the actual goal or focus of all the activity in the fire and water trumps – the redemption of the Princess. It is as if the entire force of creation surges to save her in loving joy.

Earth:

The last of the elemental trumps is XXI The Universe, which represents the Daughter fully enthroned in the New Jerusalem or Eden. It is akin to the Assumption of the Virgin into Paradise. At this point in the apotheosis formula, the Prince, along with any sense of individuality, has been sacrificed, allowing the Princess to be a complete vessel for the One True God – or rather, to actually become one with God. It is the fulfillment of the prophecy that the Kingdom of Heaven shall come to reign on earth.

The Universe is also Saturn, and along with III The Empress, constitutes the planetary majors for earth. As definitions of the New Eden, they both possess a sense of longevity and eternity. The Empress is the alchemical substance of salt, which represents death, slowness, inertia, etc. Saturn similarly represents the heaviness of time and its procession onwards. So having attained Godhead, the individual has also become one with Eternity. There is only one moment in this state – an eternal present; the past and future are not relevant. Furthermore, what was begun by the Masculine (IV The Emperor) has found completion in the Feminine (III The Empress). Venus as a planet represents beauty and love, and thus we see once again that all the work of the Universe has been ultimately an act of love. Paradise has regained its greenness as Hildegard von Bingen would say, and is once again beautiful.

For Crowley, XV The Devil is a representation of Kether, the single and only true perspective in the Universe. He is a symbol of mastery and initiation, but is also ruled by Saturn. The card is also a representation of the incarnation of the divine in matter, represented by the large phallus depicted in the card. But the idea is that God chooses to manifest Himself for better or worse. Let us also recall the traditional Neo-Platonic mythology surrounding apotheosis. Upon returning the unity, the individual is expected to return their eros or life energy to the demiurge so that He can create new forms. This is what it means to “pour one’s blood into the Cup of Babalon” and to thereby “awaken the Eld of the All-Father.” One has completed the work of self-mastery set out in The Emperor, The Chariot, and Adjustment. By becoming one with God, one partakes in the profoundly beautiful act of creation.

V The Hierophant is the hieroglyph of teaching and spiritual guidance, of exoteric revelation. As Crowley would say, he has become Master of the Temple by reaching Paradise. It is his duty to now instruct others who have not received initiation, to guide them toward Truth. His letter, Vav, means “a nail,” and is again a phallic symbol. He must generate spiritual progeny by infusing others with his inspiration. Even though he has completed the Great Work, he must continue to participate in it.

One last card, IX The Hermit (phew). Let us recall that the mutable zodiacal trumps have tended to do with the direction of willpower. Sagittarius directed it toward the Divine; Pisces hid the divine goal from the will and let it wander alone; Gemini taught the will to cleave to the Divine, but also to embrace the properties of division inherent in the Universe. Now the Hermit is a representation of the Divine Will working silently throughout nature, as its sign, Virgo, is ruled doubly by Mercury. But Mercury as psychopomp also seeks to redeem the individual soul – hence the depiction of Cerberus in the card’s lower right corner. And in the Hermit’s hand, he bears a lantern containing the sun. Through the guiding hand of the Logos, the Universe is cultivated and returned to its paradisical state. Again, we have a call to continue the Great Work until the whole Universe is integrated. It is no longer about the will of the individual, but about the Will of God. Also, we see a spermatozoon in the lower left corner, demonstrating the impregnating effect of this Will. But it is of course yet another phallic symbol.

Therefore, the earth trumps deal with Garden of Eden, Paradise, the New Jerusalem on Earth. They complete the apotheosis of the individual, but by doing so makes them an even more integral part of the Great Work for existence itself. On a personal note, I must add that this is exactly what Hildegard von Bingen writes about. She constantly talks about the need to return Paradise to its original green state prior to the Fall and the Incarnation of Christ.

Wrapup

We have talked about every single trump, and I’m exhausted. But I believe I have touched upon something very important, and I hope it clarifies the apotheosis process for all of us. I also hope it shows us how the trumps are all thematically related, and do ultimately demonstrate Eheieh, the unity of life.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

Why the New Age "Movement" is Unhelpful

As a tarot reader, sometimes I get a tad self-conscious. I find myself discrediting certain bits of my analysis because they're based on a mythology that my querent doesn't regard as necessarily sane. Not having the patience to explain to them in the moment why what I'm saying actually has some academic relevance, I end up leaving these readings feeling like I've let my cause down. Lately I've been questioning where this general phobia of all things occult comes from. Of course, we can easily point to the general Judaeo-Christian bias in the West, which in a post-Enlightenment, post-modern world vehemently frowns upon such things like tarot and magic. But there's something else too inherent in the average person's skepticism, a kind of mocking insistence that practices belonging to the occult are "pseudo-sciences," and are therefore rendered useless. These things become mere entertainments that don't supply us with anything profound.

The more I explore the history of tarot and use it in my everyday life, the more I am convinced it is anything but a pseudo-science. Firstly, we must understand that tarot as we see it today is a product of 19th and early 20th-century occultism. The two founders of modern tarot, Arthur Edward Waite and Aleister Crowley, were both members of the same hermetic order, and were rigorously educated in multiple related systems, namely the Qabbalah, alchemy, astrology, geomancy, and mythology. Each of these systems possesses its own language of symbols that must be assimilated by the occult student. Thus, the tarot operates on an intricate, symbiotic network of symbols and myths from various religions and philosophies, and by doing so professes to divulge a general universal truth. It is literally a deck of hieroglyphics. Secondly, its intended use was for communication with divine powers and to ascertain the nature of one's unique life purpose. The deck is therefore designed with this lofty spiritual purpose in mind, and the original spreads created by orders such as the Golden Dawn were not intended for minor, mundane things, but for deeply important matters. Thirdly, my experience in only a little under two years has proved to me that the system is far from faulty. The tarot, when used properly, will tell you or your querent exactly what you need to know. I only do cold readings for querents, rarely asking them questions so that they will be as unsettled as I am by the cards' accuracy. This unnerving moment is absolutely crucial! It suggests to us that all is not entirely as it seems, and that perhaps there truly is something out there that knows better than we do what's best for us in a given situation. Disputing the reading becomes far more difficult this way, and the querent comes to trust your abilities far more, albeit with a bit of quiet uneasiness.

Therefore, how can we call tarot a pseudo-science? Like science, it is based on a coherent linguistic system; it strives for accuracy; and operates on the assumption of the existence of some pre-existing truth that awaits discovery. However, there is an entire breed of tarot readers out there who create this unfortunate stigma for the art. Here I must entirely blame the so-called "New Age movement," which, at its worst, is a vaguely lucid, barely coherent, hodge-podge amalgam of dreamy, semi-formed ideas, wholly ignorant of effective methodology and solely interested in the touchy-feely gift of intuition. Now, I warrant that self-discovery and individual perspective are wonderful virtues, but there is a fine line between these and ineffectual day-dreaming about auras and crystal healing. While these too are also systematic in scope and effective for certain people, this whole mindset of the new age individual is poisonous. I have met or heard of far too many tarot readers who claim one can read tarot without needing to understand Qabbalah. This would be like suggesting that one can properly evaluate the quality of a house without knowing a thing about architecture and design, as the Qabbalah is literally the framework of the tarot. Sure, I can superficially guess that the quality of said house is good based on its general aesthetics, or by whether or not I "feel good" in that space, but I cannot, without a doubt, make any truly profound or knowledgeable statements about the house's identity or essence as a unique structure.

The decks created today are infused with this same sort of bland understanding of the tarot, and their artists are motivated by new age demands for absurd themes such as fairies, paganism, and vampires. Half of these decks, mind you, have little to no long-term aesthetic appeal. After their novelty wears off, one is left grasping for their original reason for buying such a toy in the first place. This is not the sort of relationship one should have with their deck. One look at the top ten decks of 2010 on aeclectic.net (http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/topten.shtml), plainly demonstrates this trend.

The top-selling deck, the Shadowscapes Tarot, contains a set of soft, fluid, effeminate

images of fairies (surprise, surprise). The cards have no obvious label, nor do they remotely seem to depict anything one could possibly divine from, but I guess they sure are pretty! A deck should be able to speak to both genders simultaneously, as legitimate tarot can help us come to find that we have both genders within our personalities. A deck of all feminine or all masculine images is relatively useless for real introspection.

The Tarot of Vampyres is second on the list, and this too lacks any

coherent language system. This image of IX The Sun from this deck, here on the left, has actually left me stumped. No definition of the Sun I have ever read includes the fusion of opposites like this - that is usually depicted by XIV Art. Why is there a skull on the sun when the sun represents rebirth, not death? Even the mundane definition of love and relationships is rarely, if ever, associated with this card. The four of wands from this pack is

also largely irrelevant. How this naked woman covering herself before a set of four candles is supposed to represent the celebratory and governmental nature of the four of wands is beyond me. The deck's creator, Ian Daniels, writes that, "The vampyre legend is rooted in darkness and seduction, but its enduring message is one of spiritual hunger - to drink the everlasting divine." Right. This sounds like a really poor attempt to fuse the new-age appreciation for mythical creatures like vampires with its misguided quest for accessing God. Vampires are creatures that drink the blood of mortals, usually virginal young women. It is not as if they traditionally do so in order to try and replicate the blood of Christ, or any other sacrificial god. It is to perpetuate their own survival and sexual lust - not much else.

Tarot readers who buy into this sort of nonsense greatly concern me. Recently I had my cards read by a woman in San Francisco, mainly for S & G, as I was curious what "professional" and "psychic" readers were like. I probably should have asked for my money back as soon as I saw she was using only half of poor Arthur Edward Waite's deck, the other half despondently remaining on her coffee table. This is another bit of self-determining bull that compromises the validity of the system. Some readers read only with the majors... To those readers, I would like to ask, "Does the universe often give you a choice to tell it how to constitute itself?" To return to my story, the woman began by placing half-pack of cards against my forehead and invoking the Goddess and the light, and a slew of other stuff. Her selected spread was unique but her reading method was entirely positional. She proved to be a good story teller, but not a good advice giver, asking as she did incorrect questions, or suggesting the exact opposite of things I'd been feeling or thinking in the same day. I knew I was entirely sunk when she told me my chakras were dark and that I needed to have her light a big white pillar candle in order to remedy this. I declined her "generous" offer and instead offered to read her cards, as I had brought my own with me. My reader became immediately concerned and defensive and hastily said, "No, I'm going to say no to that because I've put energy into you and I don't want that energy coming back to me." Indeed. Let me tell you, the ENERGY I felt upon leaving that woman! My goodness, it was exhilarating... Not in the least, my friends. The only energy I felt was the vibes of frugality leaving my wallet, as I was then out $20 dollars.

Ultimately, this is a difficult issue to solve. I'm a strong proponent of using whatever means necessary in order to discover one's personal Truth. But at the same time, Westerners want to believe that beatification can be achieved without methodology, without structure. We want to believe in "spirituality," not religion, as the latter term implies restriction, bigotry, and difficulty. We must remember that the Great Work, or whatever you'd like to call it, is difficult, and requires patient struggle. It's not as if systems such as monasticism, hermetic orders, and priestly hierarchies were invented out of the blue. Humanity needs some sort of structure, even if it's only to understand that God isn't a being who particularly cares for such boring things like structure. Therefore, in order to better use the tarot - truly one of God's many gifts to mankind, and one of the best tools we have in helping the Great Work along - we must accept that the tarot's connotations and defining attributes are deeply, inherently, crucially important. Even if we as a community begin to pay more attention to these things in order to stave off skeptical criticism of non-believers, it will be an improvement. And I also believe that it's perfectly possible to maintain individual perspective while working within a particular guiding framework. The new age movement with its utter diffuse and unfocused nature cannot get us anywhere, and it will only continue to generate meaningless tarot decks, fueled by the whims of capitalism.

Atu XV The Devil: "Ye shall be as gods"

Atu XV, the Devil, is easily the most misunderstood card in the entire pack, and yet, for Crowley, it was a card of tremendous importance. Of course, the idea of Satan was deeply significant to Crowley, so much so that Crowley is often described as "the father of modern Satanism." This is a subject endlessly up for debate, but I believe it's important to try to figure out what Satan meant to Crowley as an esoteric symbol. One can obviously draw biographical connections between Crowley and the Devil (remember his mother called him "the Beast," which led him to adopt the title for himself as the prophet of Thelema; he also had issues with his father, who I believe represented the demiurgic god of law and authority for Crowley), but what does he actually have to say about this symbol in regards to tarot? How can we come to fear the Devil less as Crowley learned, in order to strip ourselves from backward thinking?

Firstly, we must reevaluate the mythology of Satan. As we know, the devil was the serpent which caused the Fall of man and woman, resulting in their expulsion from Eden. Yet, a line that is often overlooked in Genesis is 3:5, "For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Additionally, in Genesis 3:22, God says, "Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever..." Clearly the Devil wasn't lying, so why should he be known as the deceiver? Also important to understanding the devil is a well-known bit from Qabbalistic Gematria. Both the words for messiah (Meshiach) and serpent (nachash) add up to 358. Therefore, there is some deep-seated connection between the devil and salvation. Additionally, Crowley reminds us that Satan is associated with Set, the Egyptian lord of the desserts in the south, as opposed to Nuit who rules the northern regions.

Like any tarot card, trump XV has a number of Qabbalistic and astrological attributions that we must also look into if we are to truly understand its overall message. The Devil represents the sign of Capricorn, which is ruled by Saturn, Mars is exalted therein. It is therefore associated with the depths of winter, when the sun starts to move northward from the southern hemisphere. XV also connects Tiphareth to Hod and is therefore the influence of the True Self (or Christ Consciousness) upon the reason. This is absolutely crucial to understand if we are to see the Devil in a more positive light. The True Self or Christ-like identity is the hub of the individual consciousness. It is the highest expression of individuality within the consciousness as it stems directly from Kether, the original concealed point of singular consciousness that is beyond the abyss. The Devil thus represents the affirmation of true divine individuality within the intellect, the rational mind. Individuality is ultimately "proven" to our intellects by our integration of sensory knowledge, for if I feel pain, I believe that only I am feeling it; likewise, if I touch an object, my brain knows that I was not what received the touch, but rather was the one who touched something else.

The connection between XV The Devil and the senses is confirmed by the fact that the trump's letter is Ayin, which when spelled out in full is the word for "eye," or "fountain." Let us also remember that Capricorn is the cardinal sign of earth, the element of physicality. Given the meanings of the other zodiacal earth trumps, the Devil's association with the senses is not implausible; if the Capricorn is the senses, then the Hierophant as Taurus represents rote custom and practice that the body is taught to do, and Virgo in the Hermit is that same body ready to undergo cultivation and redemption.

This relationship between the Devil, the senses, and individuality is analogous with the mythology of the Devil. He is a figure who taught mankind independence from God, and thereby condemned them paradoxically to misery and greatness. For that reason he must not be seen as evil, but as entirely ambivalent; as Crowley says in his description of the trump: "The sign of Capricornus is rough, harsh, dark, even blind; the impulse to create takes no account of reason, custom, or foresight. It is divinely unscrupulous, sublimely careless of result."

And yet, oddly enough, the Devil is clearly associated with salvation. He stems from Tiphareth, the Christ-like redeeming sun; as the Serpent he numerologically corresponds to the word Messiah; and finally, in Liber 777, Crowley associates the 26th path on the Tree of Life (the path of XV the Devil) with the god Bacchus, a Roman deity very much associated with both divine ecstasy and human salvation.

Let us return to the what Crowley has to say about Atu XV: (I'll sum up the main points)
- "This card represents creative energy in its most material form..."
- "The card represents Pan Pangenetor, the All-Begetter," who also leaps "upon the highest and most secret mountains of the earth."
- It is associated with the divine madness of spring and high desolate places.
- The phallus in the background pierces "the ring of the body of Nuith." His wand extends into the depths of the earth. Therefore, the Devil exults in all things from the lowest to the high. "He represents the finding of ecstasy in every phenomenon, however naturally repugnant; he transcends all limitations; he is Pan; he is All."

Clearly the most obvious emphasis here is on the Devil's role as the creator of all materiality. How could that possibly be? Crowley also tells us that, as the later Ayin, O in other words, the Devil takes part in the name of God, IAO (a Golden Dawn god name for the Holy Guardian Angel). It is therefore part of a trinity with the Hermit and the Fool (Yod and Aleph respectively) which make up a hieroglyph of masculine creative energy as expressed in the HGA. Let us remember that the Masculine corresponds to the primary source of divine individuality within an entity. The Devil therefore fits nicely in with this triad. And as far as creation is concerned, we must return to the connection between XV and Ayin, "eye" and "fountain." We must note that this is clearly suggestive of the phallus, seen in the background of the card, which has has a sort of "eye" and is also a "fountain" of creation. But can we not also suppose that the analogy works backwards? Can the human eye itself be a kind of phallus, constantly creating everything? Can we furthermore extend the "eye" to all the senses, as we mentioned before all the senses were integral in understanding the Devil? Therefore, the doctrine would state that the senses of the individual point of consciousness perpetually create existence without any discrimination, as we cannot prevent our eyes from seeing what is in front of them. What does happen is the brain discriminates the information it receives through the senses and filters out the information it doesn't know how to process, mainly because it hasn't experienced that information before and therefore has nothing in its neural network to compare it to. Could this be why the Devil represents things we fear? It's the totality of the universe that we are aware of on a remotely exalted level (the secret mountains of the earth), but which we are ultimately afraid of. It is the frenzied awesomeness of the unknown. We must be open to the divine madness of the Devil in order to expand our understanding of what is actually possible, as opposed to what we think is possible.

This certainly puts reality into context, and affirms the old Magickal doctrine that "every act is a Magickal act." By sensing things through the body we come to believe that those things are in fact real, and thereby collapse the infinite waves of potential which make up matter into a single possibility that we can experience and integrate into our knowledge. We are creating life around us constantly. We must know this in order "to be as gods." Here is the hub of the Devil's ultimate message - you are a god because, through your individuality, you create everything around you. Perhaps Satan/Set rules the desert because this "reality" is ultimately barren as it exists below the Abyss, in the real as opposed to the ideal. This forces us to entirely reevaluate the Fall. Was it humanity that sinned or God himself? This is what certain sectors of Qabbalistic theory suggest - that the Fall occurred when God became curious about its own potential nature. Indeed, how can a Being that is ultimate and infinite come to know itself if it is in fact everything and cannot conceive of any difference within itself? Given all this evidence, it is clear why, as the founder of Thelema, a philosophy/religion that, at its heart, focuses on personal liberation and apotheosis, Crowley would undoubtedly have seen the archetype of the Devil as crucial in his cosmology.

Thus, in a tarot reading, we can confidently add a new set of divinatory meanings for the card: confidence, self-initiative, revolution in the name of one's desires, powerful creation of physical things, general carnality, assertion of the self, perhaps even being shown the truth through physical evidence. The standard definitions of obsession, addiction, dark thoughts, evil, imprisonment, etc., can be relegated to the ill-aspected section of the Devil's definitions. For we are all aware of how enticing the senses can in fact be, and how we can sometimes be slaves to them. Yet, in this regard, we must be careful - note that the Devil does not fall upon the sephira of Netzach, the passions and emotions, but rather on Hod, the intellect. So in this light he does not grip us by our desires, but instead enslaves our minds, convincing them to see stubbornly and narrowly. In his lowest form, therefore, he can be associated with ignorance, as Crowley suggests.

Ultimately it is all very mysterious but we must stop viewing the Devil in an anachronistic light. The Christian concept of the Devil is worthless. He himself is not evil - he is indifferent, and is in the right by simply following his Will and purpose. More importantly, he is an exalted aspect of you, not some external wickedness. That's absurd. We as confused beings create evil with our myopic concepts of reality, enforcing stagnant modes of living upon individuals, causing damage to others in our foolish embrace of the illusory ego.

This is the nature of the Fall, and how the Devil can be simultaneously condemner, savior, creator, imbecile, Satan/Set, and God. He is truly Pan. He is All.

Katy Perry's "Firework" and the New Aeon

Hey! It's been a month! Only because with school I've been mildly crazed. At least in the meantime the world of popular music has delivered us with something to talk about!

I will begin just by saying I absolutely love Katy Perry's new song. By love, I mean I can listen to it on repeat for a day and will want to dance wildly to it throughout the whole process. As it popped up on the radio today though, I couldn't help thinking about it a little more than usual, especially in terms of our present culture (four-hour drives will do that to you). I would like to discuss some of these thoughts with you all and look at the song through the lens of Crowley's explanation of the New Aeon (are you surprised?). The Book of the Law informs us that the current Aeon is all about the conquering child, and will be a period marked by innocence, violence, force, sexual liberality, and heightened individuality.

Textually, the song reflects many of these themes. In it, Perry extolls the virtues of individuality and the value of showing that off to everyone. When life leaves you feeling empty and useless, you have to remember that "there's a spark in you, you just gotta ignite the light and let it shine." Similarly, "it's always been inside of you." This could quite easily be equated with Crowley's concept of Hadit within all of us - the concealed and burning source of individual perspective, the main source of impetus for all action.

Secondly, the metaphors employed by the writer are utterly juvenile. I'm sorry, but the opening line, "Do you ever feel like a plastic bag" is just ridiculous. The comparison between the fireworks and the brightness of the moon-moon-moon is equally simplistic. It really is as if a five-year-old came up with the concepts for this song. However, a firework could be seen as a similar analogy to "Every man and woman is a star." It also expresses the explosively creative divine force present within the self as represented by the point, Hadit. Regardless, the child-like quality of the text with all its cliché statements ("You're original, cannot be replaced," "After a hurricane comes a rainbow.") and lack of profundity is pretty obvious.

Now, also obviously, the text reflects nothing sexual. For that, we must turn to the music itself. Has anyone noticed that popular music lately is ALL dance-based? I haven't heard so many disco beats since... well, ever, at least in my life time. Listening to common music today reminds me of listening to techno from the 90's sometimes, back when that stuff was decidedly not mainstream. Everything has gone electronic, and is based on steady beats you can drink and dance to. And of course, these practices are almost synonymous with youth sexuality in this country. The driving, easy-to-dance-to beat of Firework is contagious. There is a direct correlation between this kind of beat and attention to the body.

The driving beat in conjunction with Perry's vocal style could be considered an expression of that bit about forcefulness. Perry belts that chorus with abandon - to the point where it almost sounds painful (at least to the trained singer). Perhaps it is also amusing to contemplate the fact that Perry is, in the first place, a woman, and we must remember the quote, "let the woman be girt with a sword before me." Women are to take on a more militant posture in this Aeon, whether Crowley thought they were subservient to men or not. (Which he unfortunately did.) Also, the dissonances in the vocal harmonies in the last chorus are intriguing. They seem to speak to the discord of the New Aeon (5 of Wands, anyone?). Even harmony in the modern era has been radically redefined. Dissonance is used to a shocking degree (not that it's a bad thing, it's just unprecedented) to great effect. Firework is no exception.

I suppose you could read this and think, wow, that's the most absurd way of looking at a song I've ever heard. But in my defense, this is a highly medieval way of looking at the world, and this blog, after all, is meant to be medieval. So yes. What do you guys think? Could this be an anthem of the New Aeon? Is there another song you think also would be appropriate for this category? Leave a comment!

The Dreaded 10 of Swords

What makes the 10 of Swords one of the most dreaded cards in the pack? Waite includes "pain, affliction, tears, sadness, desolation" in his list of divinatory meanings; Crowley writes that it is "reason divorced from reality." For him, it represents the "damping down of the Creative impulse, weakness, corruption, or mirage affecting that principle itself."

But what makes the sun ruling Gemini so disastrous? To understand, we must remind ourselves that 10's are housed in the material, tangible world. As the swords are all about logic, abstract understanding, and theory, it makes sense that they would have little positive capability in this environment. Furthermore, we must equate the sun with the truest, highest sense of self, as well as the redeeming God of creation - the principle which in Tiphareth conjoins physical man to the highest godhead in Kether, and which is a manifested reflection of that godhead. Let us also note that Gemini is a symbol of ultimate division, of two halves constantly struggling against each other to become whole. Gemini's often have "split-personalities," and can change their moods on a dime.

So now we can see the 10 of swords as representing the divine solar principle being refracted by the mercurial principle inherent in Gemini into multiple

parts. The princess of Malkuth (you and I) is unable to perceive herself as one with godhead because she has limited herself by self-imposed mental road blocks. Rather than understanding the freedom of her true self, she has confined her options in order to conform to the incorrect whims of others, and has therefore lost sense of her connection with the solar God through her very identity. Thus, the card represents the breakdown of self, the division of godhead, ultimate isolation as promised by the 3 of Swords. This is the source of suffering - the progeny of Binah/Sophia's great experiment is sadness, complete manifested separation. The card reminds us that the more we think our ways into boxes, the more closed-off we feel, and this is the antithesis to the religious experience as the mystic understands it. The colliding of the sense of "self" with another being is at the heart of the mystical experience, and in order to achieve it, we must shed our mundane, unnecessary, and repetitive thinking, and embrace the possibilities of selfhood as liberally as possible. It also neatly explains Aleister's obsession with destroying Victorianism.

An Apology of Sorts

So recently I have been tremendously humbled by information that I really should have known before, but simply was ignorant of. As you may have read, I wrote a post earlier this month defending Aleister Crowley on the grounds that people were misunderstanding his interpretation of the word "will." I would essentially like to rescind that defense, as, after reading more about him in a lovely book on the history of sex magic by Hugh B. Urban, I have found that Mr. Crowley was in fact culpable of intense hedonism. Now, I had already known about his sexual antics and drug use, but I was unaware that he filed these practices under the heading of "do what thou wilt." Needless to say, I am heartily disappointed. As a side note, the ego for Crowley is based on the Freudian concept, which in turn is based on the sexual identity. Therefore, by completely destroying the conventional sexual self, one can supposedly liberate the ego from its restrictions - this would explain why the eating of feces in the heat of sexual passion if one is motivated to do so is not necessarily a bad thing... At least according to Crowley. I'm not sure how I feel about that, frankly. I believe that there is something to that that could be considered relevant, however, at the same time, much of these believes of his were invented to feed his own growing drug addictions and personal licentiousness.

With that being said, I feel it is necessary for me to redefine law contained in The Book of the Law for myself as such: submit to the virtues of the highest-self, and commit to fulfilling this will with a sense of courage and purpose. Take it upon yourself to interpret the Law as works best for you as an individual, but do not take it upon yourself to blaspheme the Law by appropriating it to fit the cravings of your lowest-self. To do this seems utterly backwards to me, seeing as hermeticism arises from a tradition focused intently on the redemption of the lower-self through the glory of the highest-self.

Ultimately, perhaps I can't shake off my upbringing as a Christian. Maybe part of me just really wants to hold on to those traditions that I appreciate so much in medieval culture. However, I still respect Crowley for his sophisticated and witty writings, as well as his penchant for testing the boundlessness of God. I respect that he is one of the few Qabbalists to stand by the fact that if God has created everything and is truly omnipotent, then God must be equally "evil." Crowley tried very hard to prove that the darker aspect of life, what we term "evil" because we are afraid of it for whatever reason, is not necessarily evil in the eye of God. God transcends the limitations of "good" and "evil," and does not consist wholly of one or the other. It would be naive to assume that It does.

Anywho, this is just some further food for thought. This also does not mean that I will stop using the Thoth Tarot, nor will I stop contemplating what Thelema could mean for people, being a highly individualistic belief system. But I will admit that I have lost some faith in one of my main esoteric teachers and influences. This is what we must do as contemplative beings though; take piecemeal what we admire in one person's cosmology and forge to it our own, or the thoughts of others, until we have a vast network of concepts that is equally independent of the influence of others and is entirely unique unto ourselves. To be sure, each man is a master of his own temple - that's one Crowley quote that I'll keep under my belt.

Cybele and the Queen of Wands

So recently I had to read about the cult of Cybele for one of my religion classes, and I was so intrigued by the description of her in our text book. In her book Religions of the Hellenistic Roman Age, Antonia Tripolitis writes that "In the earliest extant representations dating from ca. 6000 B.C.E., she is seated on a rocky throne, a woman of immense proportions. On either side of her throne stands a leopard, and on each leopard's head she rests a heavy hand protectively and triumphantly." This is quite clearly the same description of the Queen of Wands from Crowley's Thoth Tarot.

The connection is intriguing, as Cybele is a goddess associated with domination and ecstasy, and is revered with wild dancing and loud music. She is also incredibly magnetic and jealous, as her beauty alone caused her consort Attis to castrate himself out of awe. This would explain the Queen of Wands' swooning facial expression, as well as her Bacchic staff symbolizing the mysteries of bliss attributed to that god, and her hand placed on top of the leopard. Furthermore, Cybele was known as "the mother of the gods," and was associated with Chronos's wife Rhea. This matches perfectly with Crowley's Liber 777, in which he too equates Cybele to Rhea and places them in the sephira of Binah, as Binah is also the Great Mother.

This begs the question then: what are the attributions of the other queens in the Thoth deck? I have a guess that the Queen of Disks is a form of Juno, and that the Queen of Swords is Kali (which would explain the random sarong she's wearing), but I can't seem to nab the Queen of Cups. Could she be another iteration of Isis? Her lotus resting upon the ibis crane because she was the mother of all invention in the Hellenistic period? Perhaps.

If anyone knows of a source that explains this, either in Crowley or in Israel Regardie (these would be the first authors I would check), please let me know! I'd love to know if anyone has noticed this before, and if this kind of logic is useable for the entire court. Some of the Princesses are relatively easy to decipher, but the Princes are pretty difficult to pin down, perhaps for a reason.

The Misunderstanding of Thelema

In 1904, Aleister Crowley produced one of the most profound and bizarre books ever written - The Book of the Law. Some see it as a masterpiece, others see it as absurd, even obscene. The heart of this Law is this: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law," and, "love is the law, love under will." Any Thelemite will know these phrases by heart, as they are repeated endlessly throughout Crowleyan literature. But what do they mean? What mainly frustrates me is this ignorant, mainly Christian, fear of the first phrase, as many read it as a legitimization of hedonism. To make this assumption is to completely disregard the rest of the entire Book of the Law, and to essentially obfuscate all the actual usefulness of Thelema. This is backwards thinking, as well as absolutely foolish. I am not a Thelemite, nor do I adhere to all of their beliefs, but I do understand where our man Aleister was coming from, and I am equally aware that he was not a total lunatic. Crowley's writings exhibit some of the most profound genius and inspiring commentary I have ever read, and I believe it is about time we dismantle this bogus myth that Crowley was a huge raving Satanist.

To understand "Do what thou wilt," one must first understand what will actually is. How can one effectively condemn a practice without understanding the semantics of its literary origin? Will is the most sublimely individual divine purpose intended for each being, each "aggregate of experience," which are gods in and of themselves. You are a Buddha/Christ/god, but you simply don't know it yet. You are unaware of your infinite potential because you are so entranced by the world around you. You accept living at face value, and you do not accept the infinity of Godhead. These are the conditions of true sin - the denial of the radiant godliness within you. This connection to macrocosmic godhead is what Kabbalists term the Holy Guardian Angel (HGA). Knowledge and Conversation with this essence/being is essential to understanding one's true will and nature. Everything we do in the name of our foolishly sacred egos is flawed. You are also connected to everything else, and when you make decisions that revolt against the flow of the macrocosm, the macrocosm will shut down on you, and quickly rectify your revolt. This is the law of karma, the God of revenge portrayed by Zeus and the LORD of the Israelites. Becoming aware of your place in the flow of the macrocosm is crucial to becoming an enlightened, considerate, and effective being, as knowledge of this allows you to shut your individuality up for 5 seconds in order to perceive everything else as a part of you. Why would you wish to do harm to that which you see yourself as being one with? At least this is the old Christian concept. In Thelema, we have a slightly different opinion, one that describes God as very impartial to human desires, and simply wanting to experiment with its own infinite possibility as the Logos of All (Pan; Pamphage, Pangenetor). This does open up the potentially distressing door that suggests God has created evil, and actually is evil, yet, if we believe that God has created everything, then we must be mature enough to then draw the conclusion that God has also created evil out of its infinite, impossible to understand, love of ALL.

Therefore, to "do what thou wilt," is to submit to the true will of God. It is Islam. It is the monastic asceticism of the Christians. To call it "Satanism," simply because Crowley was a sex fiend and a drug addict is absolutely stupid. St. Augustine was a sex fiend too; Hildegard von Bingen may have been an epileptic; and Julian of Norwich was so obsessed with the blood of Christ, she wanted to experience the passion for herself. But are these people considered crazy? Of course they are, to some extent. But does that throw into question the validity of their cosmologies? Religion is not logic. Religion as the expression of an individual's connection to the All has existed far longer than science, in fact, it is one of the core aspects of human experience, and yet, now because the idol science has emerged triumphant from the so-called "darkness" of the Middle Ages, we all lay prostrate to it with our faces planted in the ground, as opposed to looking at the sun. Human reason is a mere offshoot from a Godhead that has no limits to what it can conceive of. What hubris and vanity the human race flaunts when it parades its harlot Science in the face of an incredibly indifferent God! I lament with Jeremiah when he wails, "Jerusalem, Convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum!" We have forgotten the face of our gods-as-one-God, and in doing so, we have turned our back upon the true human tradition. If conservative Christians want to argue for the merits of tradition, surely they should revisit the ancient traditions that begat "Christianity" in the first place, which had come from even older pagan traditions. All of these faiths are synonymous. Christianity is nothing new: God-in-man-the-redeemer sacrifices himself to save the maiden trapped in Hell and brings her to the throne of the stars. This is the human mythological doctrine in short, and "do what thou wilt" is simply a part of it. You must submit to God in order to be saved by God. This is also supposedly in the Christian theology, though they would prefer to call the entire Bible the Word of God and then selectively partition this Word as the see fit. Need to preserve slavery? Go to the Bible. Don't want gay marriage? Go to the Bible. Don't want women to say what's on their mind? Go to the Bible. But shall we also stone these women when they have affairs and make mistakes? Shall we also have our eyes gouged out because we've looked at someone we find attractive and lusted after them, even though we are not married to that person?

To conclude, religious law is riddled with social constructs imposed for the sake of maintaining order. Yet, for Crowley, none of these are necessary if we all simply listen to the Divine Law stemming from Godhead, which descends upon our deaf ears like the flames of the Holy Spirit. This is Will. Thelema is hedonistic in its doctrines promoting the enjoyment of life's abundance, which God chose to make. Love it for its idea, and experience the lust inherent in physical life, but condemn it as an empty shell, and instead listen to the siren song of inspiration that crafted the shells in the first place. "Do what thou wilt," therefore, is not hedonistic, nor is it Satanic. Crowley believed in God, he simply reconfigured it to be something different that it is capable of being. The Goddess is both the Queen of Heaven, the Whore of Babylon, the Earth Mother, Mary, Isis, Nepthys, Nuit, Hathor, etc. She is ALL of these things because she is the highest source of femininity, and none of these are better than the other, for they all love their creations equally, and do not differentiate between them.