"XI Lust", "Princess of Swords", "10 of cups. Satiety". THOTH TAROT CARD READING/s. These cards were pulled as a triple reading. The Order of the reading is from left to right.

 

"XI Lust" is certainly Aleister Crowley's (d1947) more sexual orientated Thoth Tarot cards, which is solely attributed to the divine feminine, and its carnal energy.  Although Crowley was not an anthropologist, he was however a keen purveyor of Eastern Religions, and it's variations of antinomianism.  To which his own religion "Thelema" did encourage sexual rituals, with his "Sex Magick" techniques as a way of awakening the Age of Aeon.  While offering a plethora of contradictions to Crowley's conservative and Proto-Fascism beliefs, seen in other Thoth Tarot cards.  The height of Crowley's Sex Magick practices were held in late 1940s within the Californian branch of Ordo Templi Orientis, under its assigned senior member, instilled by Crowley, rocket engineer Jack Parsons who can be credited for developing a stable rocket fuel that NASA used to send astronauts to the moon in 1969, yet was tragically killed in 1952 in an accidental explosion at his house, while developing rocket fuels.  Many of the Occult societies of the late 1800s, and throughout the 1900s did encourage a degree of open sexuality, as way of conjuring or seen as a ritualizing technique, borrowing heavily from  Tantric Hinduism, and Tantric Buddhism in viewing the female as conduits of energy and thereof able to transmit this esoteric knowledge, through sexual rites.  These sexual rituals had nothing to do with satanism or Left Hand Path practices, or even free love and later sexual liberation/hedonism of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.  Although one could argue that Tantric, albeit unconsciously, did have an impact of the West, as a sexual ritual, be it a Friday night out, and a one night stand, with very little ego involved.  It was sex, for sex's sake, whether it was also used to conjure or release spirits, would be up to the individual.

Crowley passed away before the counterculture years that followed after his death, and would have most likely not approved of the more open sexuality that society became renowned for at that point in time, for Crowley, sex was a ritual performed to evoke his "Scarlet Woman", which was a 1800s occult reworking of the "Whore of Babylon", also portrayed in Gnostic Christianity as the "Great mother" and Western Jewish Qabalah teachings as the "Binah" from the Tree of Life, attempting to, in a theological sense, at redefining Babylon as not seductive or evil, but misunderstood.  And Crowley saw Babylon not as a metaphor, but as an entity, hence he requested that Jack Parson's and L.Ron Hubbard (of Scientology fame) commit to a series of Sex Magick rituals, under the influence of amphetamines and psychedelics, in the Mojave Desert, to manifest this Babylonic red haired woman.  Which according to lore, had Parson's and Hubbard masturbating and ejaculating on ceremonial Thelema seals.  And a woman had indeed been manifested from these 'rituals' as that "Scarlet Woman", and it was the red haired socialite, bohemian and artist Marjorie Cameron who coincidently turned up at Parson's house one day after these rituals, and they ended up marrying.  Who, after Parson's death, Cameron became mentally unstable and ended up trying to form doomsday, UFO cults of the late 1950s, before her death in 1995, she was very much part of the early 1960s counterculture years and the California art and underground movie scenes of the 1970s and 1980s.   

I will attempt to rework the reading of this card, and make it more open and nonduality.

Reading:

View the divine self pleasuring, unaffected, in rapture, disconnected and in bliss.  Synchronized with the other, but unrelated.  The ecstasy is of the same, the sacred energy prolonged, she mediates on a thought that radiates from the sexual realm, while the male requires the imagery.  She does not.  As the feminine holds the key in unlocking lust, and controlling it, without viewing it.  See her riding the Chimera, the fluidity of desire.  For she may be aroused by all, but selective, of who she requires to fulfill that need.  Do not assume this as an invitation, but be enthralled at her energy.  And yet, she may indeed conjure herself, if the position shifts and faces the direction of the other.  The connection, and transfer of energy may be required.  For the ultimate transmission, and the Two may become one.  So, saviour her elixir, while she holds in her left hand the wand of pleasure. 

___   

"Princess of Swords" is one of Aleister Crowley's more sexist and degrading cards of the feminine.  The quintessential male trait of writing off the misunderstood female as an unruly and misaligned with an orderly patriarchal society.  Lies mostly in structured Abrahamic belief systems that she is chaos personified, and needs to be tamed.  And also in the historical content of Aleister Crowley is that he was not a Satanist, or interested in witchcraft, he was part of Proto-Fascist occult societies that were more aligned with a Western take on the Eastern esoteric.  So, when Crowley passed in 1947, he was of course unable to see and even perceive the counterculture years of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s 'spiritual' concepts that were more aligned with the feminine, and yes, her rebellious nature, to defy the restraints of the male oppressor.  And to be free, to rule over her own body.

The card has the mythos of Prometheus and/or Lucifer written all over it, as a defiant entity, staring up at the heavens, while being banished from it, pointing her sword downward, with her right hand, towards the Earthly realm, with her left, towards the darkness of the Earth.  Indicating, from Crowley's critique of the card, that the Left Hand Path is the antithesis to the occultist, as decreed by 19th Century occultist Helena Blavatsky Theosophical mysticism that it is an "immoral path", which assisted in laying down the groundwork for Nazism in the 1930s, as quote from The Book of Thoth, re: the unruly, defiant feminine: "...The explanation is that a Princess as such, being “the throne of Spirit", may always have the option of throwing everything overboard, “blowing everything sky high”. Such action would account for the characteristics above given for the card when well dignified. Such people are exceedingly rare; and, naturally enough, they appear often as “Children of misfortune..."  Crowley also offers a paradoxical insight to the card.  "...The character of the Princess is stern and revengeful. Her logic is destructive. She is firm and aggressive, with great practical wisdom and subtlety in material things. She shews great cleverness and dexterity in the management of practical affairs, especially where they are of a controversial nature. She is very adroit in the settlement of controversies..."  Possibly Crowley being seduced by the rebel female's qualities or the Lucifer myth.  Either way, I will make the card the way the image is depicted as a homage to the Left Hand Path, feminine power and wisdom, and her ultimate defiance against male control over her body.

Reading:

Reclaim your defiance against the omnipotent, the male oppressor.  Who bares down on all, guided by the illusion of order, rule and control.  The body is not a battlefield, and it is mine to claim.  Not yours.  It soothes and it gives me pleasure, these are my temple scriptures, that you do not take, unless I allow for you to view.  And I choose to defy, view the sword, it is drawn as a warning, pointing South of the Heavens, and my left hand point down towards the Earthly realm, the darkness below.  The Left Hand Path is my path, and you may see me as the sinister, the antithetical, the neurodivergent.   But, I am free in my inverted world, that I rule, and I rule alone.  So, let be know, it is better to reign in chaos, than serve.  I am not a slave.

___

"10 of cups. Satiety" is one of Aleister Crowley's more balanced and oracle like cards, and a warning of destabilisation, in Crowley's eyes the planet Mars in Pisces which rules over this card, metaphorically, is seen as a "gross, violent and disruptive force", which he is actually correct. Mars is a radiation filled dead planet, with little or no atmosphere and is constantly pounded by asteroids, massive dust storms and basically nothing can live on that planet. Why would we want to visit it? The balance of the card is the Water, pouring through the Ten of cups, which is to pacify the Mars influence, also equating to Crowley's fixation with the Tree of Life ala the Qabalah.

Reading:

Meditate on the Ten, the first decade of years lived, allow the water to pour through. Be nourished by its flow, as it creates the balance, for the living organism. The bases of elixir and alchemy, the fluid of life. Yes, Mars is a warning, a dead planet, as it moves over Pisces, ravaged by radiation, its atmosphere is thin, unlivable, pounded by the asteroids of chaos. A reminder of destruction and turmoil. Earth is beautiful. It is our home, our lifeforce. Protect it.

___   

(A.Glass 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026)

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