"5 of cups. Disappointment", "Knight of Disks" and "The Aeon" THOTH TAROT CARD READING/s. These cards were pulled as a triple reading. The Order of the reading is from left to right.

 

 "5 of cups.  Disappointment" is one of the more negative of the Thoth tarot cards, akin to 5 of Disks "Failure", both representing the geomantic "Rubeus", from  17th Century geomancy, which many early occultis used as a way of discerning patterns in nature as divination and patterns that were devised to create a foretelling.  Rubeus being seen as an inverted glass, within its dot symbolism, and is latin for "Red" and essentially means evil if it is revealed to the participant of the reading.  The card shows five empty cups in the formation of an inverted pentagram, the lotus flowers leaves are falling from the "fiery winds" sitting above a "dead sea", and according to Aleister Crowley's (d1947) interpretation, the card represents the beginning of destruction.  "5 of cups.  Disappointment" is ruled by Mars over Scorpio, apparently also a bad omen.

Reading: 

Is the Earth, another planet's hell?  Is the hell state of the mind?  Do the unsettled thoughts, create the stagnant waters?  The dead sea within?  Did you expect that all would be well from a lofty heights, and you did not expect to fall?  Then you have entered the hell realm, and from here, one must face the fiery winds, the turmoil, as what points down, is the inversion of the will of the self.  But it can be ruled, overcome, and reclaimed.  Self destruction is not your only salvation.  Watch the Lotus flowers wither and die in this place, and see this as only temporary, to withstand is to elevate, and leave this place.  Like the Unorthodox Hindu Aghori sect, who meditate within a ring of fire.  Understand, that the five cups, being the fire senses, can be dulled, controlled and switched off, so I can endure.  And, when liberated, may the cups be filled again with the water of life, the sacred elixir. 

___

The Knight of Disks is probably Aleister Crowley's most Right Wing or Conservative minded card relating to his political beliefs of his era, that being 1900s technological progress and the taming of natural environments, strength through conflict, whilst aligning with the Age of Enlightenment period of innovation.  Which, in its historic manifestation of humanism, did assist in heralding in new and modern techniques of warfare and killing technology.  I have covered a lot in my analysis of Aleister Crowley of his esoterica, spiritual beliefs that were formulated under what could be deemed the early aspects of New Age spirituality, which does have its roots in 20th Century Fascist ideologies.  Particularly throughout Europe in the early to mid 1900s.  Crowley was not a Satanist or practitioner of Witchcraft, he was heavily influenced by early esoterical societies and beliefs which were primarily  associated with gnostic Christian teachings, incorporating Egyptology, and Eastern and Middle Eastern metaphors.  Please refer to my earlier Thoth card readings for deeper analysis of Crowley.

I perceive the Knight of Disks as a negative, and-to-be wary of this Thoth Tarot card.

Reading:

To conquer, is appealing.  To change, feels powerful.  Do I have the answers for the generalist?  Is strength through superiority the ultimate progression?  At times you may ask yourself these questions.   Look into your past.  They told you to be strong, to be brave.  Is to cut through the unknown, with a hunger to change the world.  To slay the wrongdoers, and tame the unruly.  Force the knowledge of our civilization onto the primitives, show them the power of strength.  For this, is both of the male and female mindset, equal they can be deluded by the aggressive urge as time runs short, and that desire for structure will be at any cost.  To be ruled, and to rule.  So, I ask you to be wary of this path.  There has been never been a golden era, and no utopian dream has ever worked.  What was forced onto, is then forced back.  So if you wish, ride through the fields of victory, and it will be pyrrhic in reflection.  And as a mere mortal, you will suffer the forever torment of wars without an end.   To defy nature is to redefine the self, not the world.  That is of the truest bravery.

___

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. 

___

(A.Glass 2023, 2024, 2025)

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