"5 of swords. defeat" and "7 of disks. failure" THOTH TAROT CARD: READING/s. These cards were pulled as a double reading. The Order of the reading is from left to right.

 

Once again Aleister Crowley's (d1947) Proto-Fascism shows up in quite an intensive manner with the 5 of Swords "Defeat" Thoth card.   With the explanation from The Book of Thoth, claiming that the card represents "The intellect has been enfeebled by sentiment"  and that "defeat is due to pacifism".  With bent and damaged swords formed over an inverted pentagram (an early Christian motif), which French occultist of the Enlightenment Period Éliphas Lévi Zahed (d1875) decreed when he created the inverted pentagram symbol, that it represents, "...is a symbol of evil and attracts sinister forces because it overturns the proper order of things and demonstrates the triumph of matter over spirit. It is the goat of lust attacking the heavens with its horns, a sign execrated by initiates."  Most 18th Century occultists were not Satanists, and were more aligned with Gnostic Christianity rather than devil worshipping, in which Satanism evolved out of the 1960 countercultures more as a theatrical setting.  The inverted pentagram as a symbol for the Devil was very much a 20th Century creation.  Yet, Enlightenment period Occultists held a view that subversion could be a societies undoing, paradoxical as it might sound.  Crowley, who was a rampant drug user that had male and female lovers, did indeed subscribe to early Fascist theories on social order and control.  As many early 1900s Proto-Fascists also adhered to, in their various fanatical ways, utilizing racial scapegoats as easy targets that will disrupt an orderly European society.  What is alarming about this card's explanation via The Book of Thoth is Crowley blaming the Fall of Rome on 'Pax Romana' (Rome Peace) of 27 BC to 180 AD, causing the "Decay" of "Virtue".  Very Fascist sounding take on Rome's fall, worst of all was from this racist quote, in relation to the '5 of Swords (Defeat)' card, "...Rites of the true Solar- Phallic gods; until finally (the masters having lost the respect, and so the control, of the plebs, native and alien) the lowest of all the slave-cults, dressed up in the fables of the vilest of the parasitic races, swept over the known world, and drenched it in foul darkness for five hundred years..."

Can I save this card?

Reading:

Are you defeated by Peace of Mind?  Do you wish to be a war, for stability achieved by conquest?  Order, by destruction.  Delusion is abound to the mind of the unstable.  This card is cursed.  Created by a tortured mind, who yearned for order and control. But, perished as a mortal.  Is of nothing, and went to nothing.  Inversion is not to be feared, nor is subversion.  Let us find peace through the melding of cultures.  Do not fear the Earthly realm.  If you wish, turn this card face down towards the Earth and vanquish its curse. 

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Seven of disks from the Thoth tarot is less aligned with Aleister Crowley's fusion of Westen, Eastern and Middle East esoteric, although the card mostly has a connotation with astrology as the Seven of Disks represent Taurus, note the symbol at the bottom of the artwork.  Also noted is the 17th Century geomancy, which many occult astrologists would combine as a complete reading.  This can be seen by the seven disks, Four symbolising Saturn, Three representing Taurus, as the inverted glass shape of Rubeus (red), which if read from a traditional tarot card reading would mean bad luck.   Yet, with Crowley, he has further tarnished the card with the withered leaves that are now a dull purple, from phosphorous deficiency and blight.  A dying landscape.  Hence, the card's title of "Failure". 

Reading:   

Apparently, if the Rubeus was revealed to the Tarot receiver, the reading would end there and then.  I suspect to keep things balanced, this card would be read with another Thoth card, but since I do single, at this point in time, card readings twice a week; Fridays and Sundays, the 'Failure' would be read as a one.   So, I would create a riddle, to accompany the Seven of Disks (Failure) card.  As follows:  "What shape does two pyramids make, when joined at the bottom?"

If answered correctly.  I would say:

"Then may you reside within the chaos, in all of its decay and decline, with great calm and detachment.   For you are, your own guiding light."

If answered incorrectly.

"From lofty highs, the restless spirits await."

7 of Disks "Failure" 

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(A.Glass 2023, 2024, 2025)

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