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Behind the figures of the Beast and his Bride are ten luminous rayed circles; they are the Sephiroth latent and not yet in order, for every new Aeon demands a new system of classification of the Universe. [328]

Image : A naked woman sits astride a beast with many heads. She reaches up to the sky and holds a chalice of blood. She appears to hold a rein with her left hand, the colour of blood. Snake-like symbols adorn the top of the scene and in the floor are faces and praying hands.

In this most provocative of images, Crowley replaced the traditional image of a woman holding a lion with a drunken Babalon astride the Great Beast of Revelations. The card is now termed Lust to indicate the “joy of strength exercised”. [329] This is based on the location of the card on the Tree of Life, as it corresponds to the path between Chesed, ‘loving kindness’ or ‘mercy’, and Geburah, ‘severity’. Thus, it illustrates the relationship between these two aspects of existence, whether it be at a mundane or mythic level.

Crowley states that this card is the “most powerful of the twelve Zodiacal cards” and “represents the most critical of all the operations of magick and of alchemy”. [330] It can be compared with Atu VI and Atu XIV in terms of the symbolism of sexual magick. Here, the woman is ‘astride’ the Beast; she is “more than a little drunk, and more than a little mad”, whilst the Beast is aflame with lust”. [331] It is not only lust but the action based on lust – a provocation to our client in a reading to actually get on the ride, not merely want to think about buying a ticket.

This union takes place below the Abyss but above the Veil on the Tree of Life; there are three horizontal paths on the Tree; corresponding to the Empress, Lust and Tower. At this level, the union is of the “primitive, creative order; it is completely independent of the criticism of reason”. [332] The Empress is pure love, Lust is pure lust, and the Tower is pure destruction – the very engines of the universe are bound together in this triad.

Crowley uses this card to illustrate not only the biblical revelations but his own – of the Aeons. In additional commentary on the Aeons, he further adds zodiacal correspondences:

In this set of correspondences, we can see that Crowley has made an equation of the New Aeon of Horus commencing in 1904 to that of the zodiacal Age of Aquarius, albeit with the additional fire and fury of Leo.

The central fable of the Aeon of Osiris, according to Crowley, is that of incarnation, which this card illustrates, and was also implied in the Hierophant card. It is sometimes difficult to know whether Crowley thought there would be a new physical incarnation of an avatar for the New Aeon, whether he felt himself as that incarnation, or whether it was an abstract concept where humanity as a whole was the incarnation of each current.

However it is, Lust “portrays the will of the Aeon”, which has devoured all that has been before it. We might use this card as an illustration in a reading for the tendency to regard change ahead “with intense horror and fear”, seeing every change as “catastrophic”. [333] In our own personal narrative – and in the lives of our clients - there are times when personal revelation can be seen as an apocalypse.

The first of the biblical beasts in Revelations is described as “having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy” [Revelation 13:1]. It is this beast to whom Crowley identified as being an anti-Christian prophet. He said that this anti-Christian stance came from his “instinctive love of terrors” in the biblical stories to which he was subjected as a child. [334] He wrote that he “preferred the Dragon, the False Prophet, the Beast and the Scarlet Woman as being more exciting” [335] and suggested that this arose from a “congenital masochism”. [336]

This symbol is of a primal nature; it advises passion, sensation and rapture. There are no half-measures when it comes this card in a reading, for even the reins held by the Scarlet Woman symbolise the passion of her relationship with the Beast.

The heads of the Beast, as with many symbols in the Thoth Tarot (or, for example, the symbols of the ‘Seven of Cups’ in the Waite-Smith Tarot) can be unpacked in a reading to offer staged advice, points of decision, or different choices and perspectives. Crowley describes them in the Book of Thoth by quoting from his chapter ‘Waratah-Blossom’ in the Book of Lies :

The head of an Angel: the head of a Saint: the head of a Poet: the head of an Adulterous Woman: the head of a Man of Valour: the head of a Satyr: and the head of a Lion-Serpent. [337]

Angel: What aspects of the desire are leading to a deeper relationship to the universe? What is being communicated by the desire?

Poet: What is the role this desire plays in the narrative of your life-story? How will you describe it when you look back on it?

Satyr: What aspects of the desire feel wild and unfettered? What will break free and what might you find in the open places of your soul?

There are other ways in which a reader might apply these symbols, such as depicting seven stages or aspects of a relationship, and this is a method that can be applied to any sets of multiple symbols of any card in any deck. [338]

Crowley saw sex as a sacrament of which the Eucharist was the physical fluids of sex. There is also another level to this sacrament, in that the physical surrender to sexual desire can echo the mystics surrender to unity. The “bloodless images of the saints” have given not only their blood to the Grail, but their individuality has been absorbed in the unity of understanding – the literal title of Binah, above the Abyss. [339]

The ten circles containing spoked wheels and arranged in an organic manner throughout the background of the card are the Sephiroth of the Tree of Life. However, they are not yet arranged in any fixed order. Crowley suggests that each Aeon requires new systems of thought and arrangements of relationships – another way in which we can apply this card in a reading.

At the top of the card, arising out of the grail, is a light from which stream ten rays, terminating in spheres, from which issue ten serpents. These are the new creations – the seeds of a new Tree of Life - arising from any apocalypse; new thoughts and new ways of being. The sacrament of dissolution has been affected, the alchemy of internal ferment has been distilled, and a new strength is exercised in lust.

Lust is neither of Latin nor Greek derivation, but a hearty Germanic word brought into Old English, meaning ‘pleasure’ and ‘delight’. It’s connection with sin is something not lost on Crowley in the Thoth Tarot, and as a result, this card tells us to “take your fill and will of love as ye will, when, where and with whom ye will! But always unto me”. [341] In a general reading, it signifies the decision which will bring most delight, rather than the one which might appear to make sense.