part0060

Image : A pair of Anubis figures stand in front of two towers to either side of the scene. A beetle holds a solar image at the base of the scene, and a lunar sphere rests between the towers. A graph-like background is at the base of the design and deep curves create a channel in the middle of the towers.

Crowley depicts this card as the darkest of the deck in no uncertain terms. It is the Dark Night of the Soul, the remotest depth of the unconscious mind, the furthest place of the shadow. It is the Moon as the literal Moon, barren and breathless, rather than the higher symbolism found in its correspondence to the High Priestess. Here, the Moon corresponds to Pisces, the final sign of the zodiac, and the gateway to resurrection. This card is true midnight.

At least, as such, there is, as Crowley quotes Keats, “a budding morrow in midnight”. [446] The sacred beetle Khepra – the dark (Kheph) sun (Ra) – carries the light through the darkness.

Whilst Crowley does not make it explicit, this card depicts the cycle of life through menstruation. He refers to “nine drops of impure blood”, “tabu”, and “water which is tinged with the graphs of abomination”. [447] The word ‘menstruation’ derives from the Latin mensis (month), which in turn relates to the Greek mene (moon).

Crowley arguably followed a path of transgression, a liberation of consciousness through the breaking of social convention. [448]

Crowley depicts the Moon as the “waning moon”, the moon of “witchcraft and abominable deeds”. [449] His definition of witchcraft is not as we would understand it today, in the context of neo-paganism and wicca. He uses the term to refer to a debasement of magick:

All the works of witchcraft are illusory; and their apparent effects depend on the idea that it is possible to alter things by the mere rearrangement of them. [450]

He is defining witchcraft as a sterile act of magick, which does not transmute matter into a spiritual state, but rather simply re-organises the material of a situation. It is clear he was already associating the moon with witchcraft in this sense, as early as the writing of Magick some thirty years prior to the Book of Thoth :

It is for this reason that their method [witchcraft] has always been referred to the moon, in that sense of the term in which she appears, not as the feminine correlative of the sun, but as the burnt-out, dead, airless satellite of earth. [451]

These quotes are from a section in Magick dealing with the “formula of Alhim, and that of Alim”, which in turn alludes to anal sex as a magical act, under the guise of a series of kabbalistic and classical references. [452] Crowley suggests that whilst this act “makes creation impossible”, it consecrates the practitioners so long as the “creative force is employed deliberately for destruction, and is entirely absorbed in its own sphere”. [453]

Whilst not wishing to over-dwell on the subject, it is perhaps worth unpacking this piece of writing by Crowley which illustrates how tarot is being used as a language for magical practice:

Aleph may be referred to Harpocrates, with allusion to the well-known poem of Catullus. Lamed may imply the exaltation of Saturn, and suggest the Three of Swords in a particular manner. Yod will then recall Hermes, and Mem the Hanged Man. We have thus a Tetragrammaton which contains no feminine component. The initial Force is here the Holy Spirit and its vehicle or weapon the "Sword and Balances". Justice is then done upon the Mercurial "Virgin", with the result that the Man is "Hanged" or extended, and is slain in this manner. [454]

Crowley takes the letters of the god-name ALIM as Aleph, Lamed, Yod and Mem. He corresponds these letters to tarot as follows:

The “well-known poem” in which the Roman poet Catullus mentions Harpocrates is an invective against a rival suitor named Gellius. The poet says he has not only had sex with his rival’s wife but also turned his rival’s uncle “into a Harpocrates”, by having sex with him too, ensuring he would not be able to speak about it – Harpocrates being the god of silence. There is also a likely allusion in the original poem that whilst Harpocrates is depicted as having a finger to his mouth for silence, Gellius’s uncle would have something else in his mouth, keeping him from speaking. [455]

The planet Saturn is associated with the most basic and earthy of things, and the Three of Swords likely illustrates three points of penetration in this context. The “sword and balances” is a crude allusion to the penis and testicles, and the line “justice is then done upon the Mercurial ‘virgin’ …” is a description of sodomy.

The Moon tarot card is thus an illustration of both the (literally) gross material nature of human excretion and menstruation, and the use of such in acts of transgression for magical purposes. This is not something we may choose to share with our client who simply wants to know when Dwayne is coming back to them. [456]

The nine drops of “impure blood” fall from the moon into the central stream between the two pillars. These drops were originally seen to be dew said to come from the moon, and later drawn into the Golden Dawn tarot designs as Hebrew Yods or seeds of new life. Here Crowley has revised the symbolism to the connotations he held for menstrual blood.

In an original sketch for the Moon made by Crowley long before the Thoth Tarot was conceived, noted earlier in this book, he pictured the two towers as replaced by more complex temple edifices upon two clifftops. In the Thoth Tarot, Harris has painted two dark towers, described by Crowley as representing “nameless mystery, [of] horror and of fear”. [457] They can be considered as emblems of all that we might shun away from, all that instinct warns us of – and in a general reading can signify deep-rooted fear of a situation based on early social conditioning.

This card is the “threshold of life”, so is attended by Anubis, whom we have introduced earlier in this book, as the guide and guard of the dead. He has jackals at his feet, whom Crowley suggests will eat the carcasses of those who do not know the name of the God.

We are reminded of a description in Liber Israfel, sub figura LXIV, originally entitled “Anubis”, although it tends to deal with Thoth:

Mine is the Unseen Force, whereof the Gods are sprung! Which is as Life unto the Dwellers in the Watch-Towers of the Universe.

I see by mine own inward light: Lord of Resurrection; Who cometh forth from the Dusk, and my birth is from the House of Death.

However, Crowley is also specifically referencing the rituals and temple layout of the Golden Dawn. Here, the figure of Anubis acts in dual form, stationed both at the East and West of the temple and on both the inside and outside. The god-form acts as an interface of the candidate seeking initiation, symbolising their own inner world; the known and the unknown states. The line Crowley echoes in his description of the moon is specifically found in the Theoricus Ritual, which corresponds to Yesod and the Moon:

KERUX: Anubis the Guardian said to the aspirant, “Let us enter the presence of the Lord of Truth. Arise and follow me”.

HIERO: The priest with the mask of Osiris spake and said: “Thou canst not pass the gate of the eastern heaven unless thou canst tell me my name”. [458]

There follows a series of challenges from the deities who require the aspirant to know their name, as Crowley references in the Book of Thoth .

We use this initiatory reference as a metaphor for self-knowledge; we must know the “name” of our own conditions and selves in order to meet their challenges and pass on in our journey to self-awareness. This is a terrifying prospect for the ego-process; “such light as there may be is deadlier than darkness, and the silence is wounded by the howling of wild beasts”. [459] An apt description of the initiatory (or therapeutic) process.

The beetle drawn by Frieda Harris seems to be more similar to a water-beetle than the usual Scarab Beetle drawn for Khepra, but this would also be suitable for the symbolism of the card. Crowley states that the Khepra is “underneath the water”, bearing the solar disk through the darkness and winter depicted by the card. It is the ‘sun at midnight’ which is the mainstay of many initiations; the light at the end of the tunnel.

In a reading we may often find ourselves pointing to this light as a potential outcome despite the darkness implicit in the whole image. We may just need to survive the darkness for the light to grow within us.

At the base of the card appears an overlapping series of three lines which Crowley calls the “graphs of abomination”. We are reminded of the symbolism of menstruation throughout this card, and the graph of the hormonal cycle, which was known prior to the design of the deck. [460] However, the spiral of “serum tinged with blood” at the top of the card is co-incidentally a double helix, as the structure of DNA was not published until 1953, a decade after the deck was created.

In an alternate version of the Moon, unpublished, the helix patterns are more pronounced in a vertical stream down the centre of the card and horizontally across the top of the image. In that version, the “graphs” are far more abstract and repetitive, as if a draft of the more precise version in the published version.

We can certainly read this card as a cycle, an overlapping series of balances and checks, a natural process of potential and shedding. It may be a dark path, but it is an essential one. As Crowley concludes, “whatever horrors may afflict the soul, whatever abominations may excite the loathing of the heart, whatever terrors may assail the mind, the answer is the same at every stage: ‘How splendid is the Adventure!’”. [461]

Key Phrase: The brink of an important change. [462]

Keywords: Negativity, fear, re-arrangement without outcome, deception.

This is an almost entirely negative card to receive in a reading with the Thoth Tarot. At least the deck has some outright bluntness to it. The Moon means the client or ourselves is refusing to face the truth, practising deception or worse, self-deception. It means that they are merely re-arranging the deckchairs on the deck of the sinking ship. It means they are stagnating. It means they are frightened of what is actually the case. It means these things and worse.

The only positive aspect of the Moon is found in the initiatory rites; we must know the name of Anubis, and pass through the darkest hour. We must know and name our fear, our illusion, our deception – and pass between the pylons to discover the Sun at midnight.