part0009

Crowley first learnt tarot in 1898 when he joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. He came to define the tarot as “a pictorial representation of the Forces of Nature as conceived by the ancients according to a conventional symbolism”. [9] However, he not only saw a tradition to the tarot but also had a revisionist attitude and a specific drive to create a new form of tarot deck. In this he followed fellow esotericist A. E. Waite, who had intended to offer a “rectified” tarot in his preliminary design of the tarot co-designed and drawn by Pamela Colman Smith in 1909.

He had certainly toyed with the idea of creating a tarot deck at least once prior to the creation of the Thoth Tarot in 1938-1943. He painted a small series of oil studies for tarot some seventeen years earlier in 1921, during his time in Cefalu, Sicily. This apparently commenced after receiving a dream or vision of the Hermit card. The Hierophant, Moon and Sun survive from this series, and show a crude and forceful design with strong, vibrant colours. [10]

The ‘Hierophant’ features a phallic headdress and “666” on the robe of the main figure. The Stele of Revealing is shown in the upper-right corner of the image, indicating Crowley already saw the tarot as a vehicle to illustrate the law of Thelema. The ‘Moon’ card develops the usual symbolism of that card, featuring elaborate buildings instead of towers. It also adds the Anubis figures and the Khepra beetle to replace the crayfish, again showing that Crowley associated the ancient Egyptian deities with the deck. [11] The Sun is a likely self-portrait, showing Crowley as the vehicle of light for the New Aeon. He also sketched designs for Frieda Harris, many of which survive, as well as her several drafts. [12]

Crowley wrote that his endeavour in modifying the designs of the deck were “to preserve those essential features of the Tarot which are independent of the periodic changes of Aeon, while bringing up to date those dogmatic and artistic features of the Tarot which have become unintelligible”. [13]

His aim was to identify and preserve the esoteric teaching within the tarot – and to illustrate it anew with a modern sensibility; a sensibility he described as being a “new Aeon” or age. He believed he had a peculiar and unique insight into this new age of mankind, and that his philosophy of Thelema – a Greek word meaning “will” – was the statement of this Aeon.

Obviously, the Tarot itself as a whole is an universal Pantacle – forgive the pleonasm! Each card, especially is this true of the Trumps, is a talisman; and the whole may also be considered as the Lamen of Mercury. [14]

The totem card of the Thoth deck is not the Magician, nor the Fool, nor even the Devil; it is rather the lowly Princess of Disks, the final card, the last of the Court Cards and the earthy part of earth. In this lowest manifestation of everything, Crowley finds redemption and the fruit of his philosophy of Thelema. He may as well have been talking about the Thoth deck itself when he speaks of this card; we can imagine too, that like the Princess of Disks, the Thoth Tarot “bears within her body the secret of the future”. The deck contains “attributes which will be pure in themselves, and not necessarily [be] connected with any other attributes which in the normal way one regards as symbolic”. Most of all, both the Princess and the deck itself will share a “general reputation … of bewildering inconsistency”. [15]