Reading Tarot

I read tarot cards as well as books, and sometimes I read books about tarot. I just finished one: Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot by Lon M. DuQuette. It's an exhaustive study of the most fascinating tarot deck yet drawn. The Thoth tarot contain astrology, Qabbala, ancient Egyptian references, and more. There's no end to the imagery and what can be elicited from them.

While astrology placed Earth at the center of the universe for millenia, Crowley boldly sweeps that away with his new deck. DuQuette writes, "The individual is now to be recognized as the primary and preeminent unit of society. It is now possible for humnaity to awaken to the liberating fact that each of us is a star, as unique and self-radiant as our celestial counterparts." A new age has begun, and with it, new cards for the new deck. Justice is replaced by Adjustment, Strength by Lust, and Temperance by Art. The crowning change is the elimination of the Judgement card with the advent of the Aeon card. All of these substitutions speak to the new dawn of human spirit glorifying the power of the individual.

I've read tarot for well over a decade, and when I first encountered these new cards, I honestly didn't know what to make of them. I doubt that many tarot readers do. Once it is understood that Crowley meant his deck to be the crowning symbol of a new age, they make more sense. Justice is an absolute, existing outside people and acting on them. Adjustment, on the other hand, is an individual act. The new card points to the person's responsibility to place himself in harmony with the universe. While Strength is measure all on its own needing no other reason to exist than itself, Lust calls to each of us and to the strength of our own passions.

I don't think it's strange at all that Crowley would rid his deck of the Temperance card, that chaste angel measuring the questioner's worth. In its place, he gives us Art. It is a halting picture of a single figure with a double face pouring both water and fire into the cauldron of creation. Isn't that what creating is? Aren't artists preeminent creators? This new card combines the masculine and feminine in a new form forged from the combination of opposites.

Judgement is replaced by the Aeon. The Judgement card in traditional decks gives us an angel sounding the horn calling for the dead to rise again. It's a chilling portrait with all those open graves, and always makes me wonder about the unopened ones. Crowley proclaims a new age has begun, a new Aeon. The card is decidedly Egyptian. The goddess Nut arches her star-studded body across the sky to cover the seated god Ra-Hoor-Khuit. The god Hoor-Pa-Kraat stands superimposed transparently before the others. From this, we are to gather that the era of fear-based existence is at an end. Indeed, our fear of the end or death is to end, and we are to understand our own immortality.

Reading tarot is fun for me. Reading the Thoth tarot is pure enjoyment. The colors are striking. The images pull ideas out of me. I have half a dozen different decks, but this one gives me the most to work with. The figures of the trumps exude mastery. The court cards clearly define different kinds of individuals. Finally, the numbered cards call out their meaning in ways that other decks do not. I am enamored with these cards.