"XX. The Aeon" Thoth Tarot card: analysis.

 

One of Aleister Crowley's (d1947) more Egyptian mythologically based cards, when put into context, shows how important Egypt was to the early occultists.  Seen in their rituals and ceremonies, while combining mediaeval Hermeticism and alchemy practices.  These were basis of 18th and 19th Century magic societies, which, as discussed were also part of the New Age movements of the early 20th Century, that had connections to Fascism of the 1920s and 1930s.  Crowley, as many Western privileged men believed, who were at the cusp of The Age of Enlightenment, that Western superiority should, and must tame and industrialize the Eastern world.  When in irony they used, on many occasions Eastern iconographic images, infamously, it would be the Nazi swastika (derived from Hindu/Buddhist symbolism).  And digging deeper, originates from 19th Century pseudoarchaeology, of a mythical 'white' superior race which built the Pyramids, and other structural marvels of the ancient Middle Eastern/African/South American world.

From Crowley's "The Book of Thoth", for the "XX.  The Aeon" Thoth Tarot card he fuses everything from Greek mythology, Egyptian, and Jewish/Hermetic Qabalah to his own belief of the 'Thelema' religion that the "The Aeon" is now upon us, which is part of the "Age of Horus" that had began in 1904.  And will herald in an age where the Abrahamic religions will diminish, and human advancement, self realization will thrive.  Of course Crowley contractionary elements are all over his own reading of the card, that this will be a process of transferring the spiritual path to the one of freedom from the bondage of the old ways, as he quotes in his explanation from 'The Book of Thoth': "The time for the birth of an Aeon seems to be indicated by great concentration of political power with the accompanying improvements in the means of travel and communication, with a general advance in philosophy and science, with a general need of consolidation in religious thought.  As you can see, very much keeping in tune with his Proto-Fascist belief of structural change achieved through power, rather than spiritual. 

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(A.Glass 2023, 2024, 2025)

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