"5 of wands. Strife." and "2 of Wands "Dominion" THOTH TAROT CARD: READING/s. These cards were pulled as a double reading, as a single card has been read in past tarot readings on chiasmus. The Order of the reading is from left to right

 

Five of Wands, which is "Strife" of the Thoth Tarot, is correlated to, according to 'The Book of The Thoth' to be from the Fifth Sephirah from the Qabalah Tree of Life, Geburah.  And if you have been following my analysis and readings of Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot, you would know that he had a fondness for Jewish mysticism and its esoteric teachings from the Qabalah, which was utilized in 16th Century Western alchemy as a way using Hebrew to code and number explanations of alchemist practises.  So, essentially it was taken from medieval esoteric Qabalah and morphed into a non-jewish ritualized system, such as the various occult societies that formed in Europe during the Age Enlightenment.  

And these Western occult societies fused all aspects of Eastern practises into their beliefs, Crowley was very much a product of his time, before he passed away in 1947.  His own structured belief system Thelema, was heavily influenced by his tenure with the occult society "The Golden Dawn".  Where the new found exoticism of Egyptology and Middle Eastern estorica, including to a lesser degree Islam Sufis (Crowley spent time in Morocco in the late 1800s), were all these predominate occult aspects became infused with Western astrology, ceremonies and recent scientific findings.  

The Fifth Sephirah, Geburah of Jewish Qabalah represents "Fire" and "Judgement", and this would be as close as you would get to the similarities of Jewish and Christian esoterica.  That I feel Crowley had very much aligned himself within his own belief system Themela and the Thoth Tarot.   That being Fire and Judgment handed down by God, in which the human soul, if not guided by God's law and teachings, will be unruly and unbalanced.  Crowley's own interpretation, once again holds a vagueness to the card's overall meaning, but emphases that the card represents fire and strife though and though, if it was not balanced by the Horizontal Chief Adept wand (Golden Dawn ceremonial staff).  Indicating Crowley's desire for structure or control within his belief systems.  So, the symbolism holds a curiosity of Crowley's own definition to the Qabalah and Tree of Life, where he attempts to find balance in the card's artwork by Lady Frieda Harris (d1962) within her 1940s geometric cubism style.  By incorporating the balance between the masculine and the feminine to tame that fire in us all. 

Reading:

Is the spirit restless?  Does the fire, which lies deep within, burn in disarray?  Note the Qabalah Tree of Life, that it is the Geburah of Fire and Judgement, the Fifth Sephirah.  Also meaning, Power and Strength.  If the spirit is restless, you may need to learn these terms, that there is no Fire in Judgment and no Strength in Power.  Rather than tame the Spirit, free the Spirit.  Order can be an illusion and strife a clarity.  Do we not live in tumultuous times?  Yet, it is claimed that we have order?  Order over nature?  Order over our on folly.  Do we really need structure?  Use the fire within so that one may not be subservient.  If you do indeed seek control, than learn to master thyself.  Or be exploited by the structure.  Therefore "Strife" of the Five of Wands should be inverted.  So, we may praise strife and turmoil.  To reveal  the turmoil in ourselves, not to be judged by a flawed world or sent to hell.  Rather, to heal and overcome.  Blessed are the balanced.  

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2 of Wands "Dominion"

Analysis/Reading 

Aleister Crowley's  Proto-Fascist  influences resurface with the 2 of Wands "Dominion", as noted with my double reading of "The Emperor" and "Victory".   And as discussed with the simpler Thoth Tarot cards, when Crowley is less drug affected, and as a product of his time, his choice of drugs were mostly amphetamines, there appears to be a clarity of his mindset, particularly with the less dramatic Thoth cards.  Crowley passed away in 1947, at the cusp of the pragmatic consumption and hyper industrial 1950s, so was the warring and nationalistic fervor under a Cold War, with a thermonuclear arms race that had begun in earnest.  Crowley's own Thelema religion, which operated out of the Ordo Templi Orientis in California throughout the 1940s had drawn in two famous and infamous aherenets, Jack Parson the rocket engineer and L. Ron Hubbard, who stole money from Parson via his and Parson's investment idea (selling yachts to wealthy Americans in Miami) and thus he was able to begin his own religion Scientology, which was loosely based off Crowley's version of the Ordo Templi Orientis occult society that started in 1895.  All these secret societies and occult/cults had a Right Wing aura of order and control, pre the counter cultures that began in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s which removed the rigidity and formality of these societies, yet they were all fueled, originally, by drug use.  Which shows the oxymoron element to the foundations of Crowley's Thelema religion, that did not stand the test of time after his passing in 1947, when alternatives in religion/spirituality in the decades that followed gained interest, of a society that was less patriarchal, less conservatively minded and more open. Two of Wands "Dominion" very much falls into the Strength through Power political and social manifesto, how significant Fascism was as a precursor to establishing order.  

To which Western society was flirting with its idealisms within the early part of the 1900s, until Benito Mussolini was able to implement it into Italian society in the 1920s.  Yet, it would be German Nationalist Werner Sombart, who further elaborated the Marxist term 'Creative Destruction' (capitalism destroys wealth), conjoining it to Western economic and social philosophy misinterpreting Eastern mysticism more so Hinduism and esoteric Buddhism, that destruction is necessary for creation.  Crowley has, as you would expect, muddied the waters further with the Two Tibetan Dorje's crossed, and the card representing the suit of Fire, being the Jewish Qabalah Chokmah, as a way of justifying the Fascist creed of physically destroying to create the new.   All mentioned with Crowley's own reading of the "Dominion" card, of destruction and domination as a necessity.   When "Destruction" in Eastern thought, is destroying the ego and ignorance, not as a physical action but a meditative metaphor.  The card is relevant to Israel's current Total War destruction, genocide of Gaza/Lebanon and their reshaping of the Middle East:  Destroy, Create and Dominate. 

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(A.Glass 2023, 2024, 2025)

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