II "the priestess" THOTH TAROT CARD: ANALYSIS AND READING.

 

"The Priestess", which is the 2nd card (II) of the Major Arcana Thoth Tarot.  And quite possibly Aleister Crowley's most significant card in it attribution to his Gnostic Christian influences, which are undoubtedly became interfused with his esoterica beliefs throughout the course of his life.  That covered both the Western and Eastern spectrum of the occult.  Yet, the contradictions that Crowley projects, seen with the accompanying The Book of Thoth, can at times, be too much for the reader to bear, as the so called contradictions are a mishmash of ad hoc manifestations that were derived from 500 years of Occultism.  And as discussed with these studies of the Thoth Tarot, Crowley's drug use, manly amphetamines, unfortunately lead to an overlap in its rambling dialogue in some of explanations of the tarot cards, which can be difficult to decipher in any rational manner.  It is only when certain other cards represent an even flow of wording, despite their cryptic meanings, the Thoth Tarot can hold a relevancy.   

Crowley was more inclined to be a sexist rather than a self professed 'feminist', when he passed in 1947, and his belief structure was relooked at, particularly Thelma in the reemergence of the late 1950s and 1960s counter cultures.  Crowley's 1900s Enlightenment period of Occultism was no match for the sexual liberation of the 1960s and 1970s, where Witchcraft and Satanism took centre stage as an aesthetical reference to which both men and women were able to reflect a degree of equality within their rituals of the Occult.  Crowley was not a Satanist, nor purveyor of Witchcraft, rather he descended from a rigid template of male oriented secret orders, that evolved from Hermeticism and Freemasonry and solidified their patriarchal romanticism of Egyptology and Hermetic Qabalah.  Which, very much like the Age of Enlightenment, saw that the newfound intellectualism of empirical discoveries in engineering and the sciences, came from men, not women.  This seeped into 18th and 19th Century occultism, and Crowley's own manifestation of the occult, as way of deciding where women were to be placed within the esoteric orders of the 1900s.  To which they were more symbolic in meaning, rather than any manifestation of equality. That the 60s and 70s counter cultures, as mentioned did represent.

The Priestess card heavily borrows from the Rider-Waite traditional The Priestess tarot, elaborating further the mythos that the card represents the Virgin mother, in which Crowley, from The Book of Thoth, decrees that The Priestess is "Wholly Feminine, and wholly Virginal"  equating that "purity" is only found in the female virgin.  Without creating a metaphor that the virgin, could be a rediscovery of sexuality, to be reborn into a ritual of the self.  And, ironically A.E. Waite hinted that his version of The Priestess card is more aligned with the pre-Islamic religious cults of the Middle East, ala the Astarte goddess of fertility and sexuality.  Other symbolisms seen on the card are fruit, flowers, diamonds, and a camel,  also noted is the Hebrew letter Gimel, which means, "kindness" or "to give".  And the crescent moon (feminine).  Crowley's The Priestess is not only outdated, but misses the point of how powerful the Virgin can be used in non binary sexual metaphor.  Thus, my reading will attempt to correct and realign the card into a contemporary portrayal. 

Reading:

In its purity, there is no purity.  But, only to be reborn.  To begin again, within the day.  Is to learn again, within the moment.  I am taught by the innocence, that is not innocent.  And yet, I yearn to redefine.  Did I take it all for granted?  Was I tainted by association?   Who will judge me?  I ask of this, as I begin to see everything anew, like the camel of lore, determined and driven.  To quench the thirst, is not a journey.  But a lesson.  Through the desert of my spirit, it has to be released.  Allow it to leave, so I may look at the material world as I did when I first arrived.  What I give, I want to receive, equally.  What might seem chatable, I do not offer prosperity.  As the fruit bears a new beginning, so do the diamonds, that transcend all of creation, as a reminder of the untainted, the unaffected.   I am no virgin.  But, I wish to know the carnal again.  Not to relive, but to enjoy.  And I am no priestess, nor goddess.  Only a conjurer of the self.  The Moon is barren, dead.  The Sun, reborn from the horizon, holds the golden light, as it fades into the evening.  Rejoice, for the flower once opened, also closes.     

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(A.Glass 2024)

All Thoth analysis and readings to date:  chiasmusmagazine.blogspot.com/search/label/Thoth%20Tarot%20reading