"6 of Cups. Pleasure" represents Aleister Crowley's fascination with the 10th Century Tantric or more specifically Kāmakalā sexual practises to evoke a meditation towards attaining "Godhead", by ingesting the transmission of the "Bindu" (sacred fluid) from the male and female Hindu deities, also seen in Tibetan Buddhism between Yogini female 'Buddhist' cults and their sexual rituals in understanding and freeing oneself from the restriction of transcendence, that being of the material body and its realm of suffering. Sexual interactions in unorthodox Buddhism were also seen as a way of attainment. Crowley during the 1900s traveled extensively throughout the Middle East and Asia, as from era that was the 'Age of Enlightenment', the West began to draw in ideas from the East. However, antinomianism had already been prominent throughout the Christian domination of Europe and America even as its theology began to split. So, it wasn't a new practice in challenging the taboo within Christian/Judaic and Muslim theocratic belief structures. Yet, it was the Hindu/Buddhist/Taoists that took it further as a ritual of sexual alchemy, to which Crowley was heavily influenced by, reverting the ritualized ingesting of sexual fluids into his "Sex Magik" requirements from his own Thelema religion. And interestingly, as discussed with numerous studies of Crowley's Thoth tarot, is his contradiction of aligning himself with Proto-Fascist metaphor of strength and control under a masculine guise. As Tantric and Kāmakalā were very much in revering the power of the feminine deities, combining the masculine seminal fluid, with her sacred elixirs (Bindu) into an alchemical potion.
As also mentioned in this analysis of the Thoth Tarot, is Crowley's influence by Occultist and Western/Russian mystic Helena Blavatsky (d1891), who devised the Theosophical society in 1875, which later petered out in the 1920s, was very influenced by Eastern religions. But, criticized the Tantric, by deeming it as a transgressive "Left Hand Path", possibly showing up as Western Colonisation and its moral standards over the East. This can also be seen with Crowley's Thelema beliefs, which may have been a way of selling these Occultist practices/societies to a conservative 1800s and early to mid 1900s, pre the countercultures of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
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Reading:
View the Six Lotus flowers tilted South, as they point towards the divine transgression, that is the Earthly realm. Allowing the flow of the feminine elixir to fill the equal amount of ceremonial glasses, but also see, that they are never overflowing. As Six is the perfect number, equal to itself. Balanced between the infinity of Three, that is both of the masculine and the feminine, combined it is of the most powerful fluid. Created by the mortal, like a primordial Earth, it gives life. So, do not waste it, and do not take it for granted. The ritual of joining two, to create the flow of one from the eros, is metaphoric in its action. A practice of mediation, may pleasure be attained, but not for its own sake. This is of the highest calling, and it is from the self, a release from the material realm and its burden of the material body. Enjoy the sexual transcendence, the pleasures of meditation, albeit fleeting in its climax, it is however sustained by flowing back into body. Taste its desire, be released and nourished.
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"1 Ace of Swords"
Aleister Crowley's (d1947) more rambling interpretation for the Thoth Tarot card which represents the 'Root of Air', where Crowley attaches mostly the Qabalah explanation in describing the sacredness of wind/air, quoting it as an "all-embracing, all-wandering, all-penetrating, all-consuming" And in his spiritual interpretation of air and wind, Crowley demotes the element of air as a secondary directive to Fire and the Earth. When in fact, air and wind, are powerful cleansing meditations, particularly when a spirit is needed to be released. And by walking into the wind, it is one of the most intense ways of confronting and being purifying by the natural construct. The wind, particularly in Middle Eastern nomadic tribes, was worshipped as an entity that either brought luck or misfortune. In Gnostic and Christian literature the wind and air, it is Satan, that controls the power of air, residing on the Earthly realm. The Sword pointing upward, also holds a defiance towards the omnipotent and that burden of nature brought the human condition. That we are indeed are own light bearers. As Crowley does offer the Phallus as a potent symbol of strength, to which the masculine as an entity, when trained through the male and female mortal, may weld with discipline be it a symbolism of liberation. The light, through darkness albeit temporary, could be an interpretation of the orgasmic bliss towards radiance. That I may transcend, and see through the darkness. From The Book of Thoth, "Sends forth a blaze of Light, dispersing the dark clouds of the Mind".
Reading:
It is the wind, the power of air, the most cleansing comes from the South West, which carries that scent of self awareness, the light of phallic and its climax piercing through the confusion. For you may view this light, and let it ascend into the clouds. Be those details, like the cat, which only requires a very slight illumination to see through the darkness. And yet, it does not miss any angles. So let the wind pass through you, and be purified, breath the air, take in the ages and exhale, release the wandering spirits, the relestess ghosts. And mediate within the chaos.
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(A.Glass 2023, 2024, 2025)
All Thoth Tarot readings to date: chiasmusmagazine.blogspot.com/search/label/Thoth%20Tarot%20reading
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