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“The point to remember is that, both in their appearance and in their meaning, the Aces are not the elements themselves, but the seeds of those elements”. [537]

Crowley saw the Aces as the roots of the elements, and in themselves not manifesting any quality of the element itself. They illustrate the source, the tip, the nascent idea of the four elements, without any material form or observable presence. We require the concept of their existence because their manifestation exists, much like we require an abstract and almost impossible concept of ‘before time’ because we know that time ‘began’ at some point.

In Kabbalah, above Kether is a concept called the “Ain Soph Aur”, the ‘limitless and endless light’. It exists in much the same way as the modern concept of ‘before time’; to give context to the actual model of reality as it is perceived by observation. Crowley alludes to this idea when he writes that the Aces “are quite above, and distinct from, the other small cards in the same way as Kether is said to be symbolised only by the topmost point of the Yod of Tetragrammaton”. [538]

The Aces, then, are place-holders in the model of the tarot for some element which does not yet exist – but is potential. It is the Twos of the Minor Arcana which are our starting-points, not the Aces, it will be seen from this viewpoint. An Ace is a lazy card in a practical reading; it can mean that someone is not seeing or even refusing to start to manifest some project or relationship.

It is essential that we have these four cards to represent this potential quality in the Atlas of the Universe which is the tarot, otherwise we would not be able to represent it in our readings.

There is an interesting musing by Crowley in the Book of Thoth , Chapter IV, where he introduces the Minor Arcana by sets, i.e., the Aces, Twos, Threes, etc. He considers that “the idea of the element of Spirit is very difficult to grasp”. [539] He goes on to say that the Hebrew letter Shin has to double as both Spirit and Fire, in the system of correspondences. This may seem an abstract point of minutiae, but it conceals a practical point of mysticism and magick.

Whilst perhaps somewhat light-heartedly, Crowley concludes that section by saying, “perhaps it was never in the mind of the Exempt Adept or Adepts who invented the Tarot to go so far into this matter”. [540] This seems to indicate that the problem of spirit as an element is not of concern to those above the Abyss, that is, above the grade of Adeptus Exemptus which applies to Chesed on the Tree of Life. In effect, Crowley is stating that below the state of divine unity and the dissolution of consciousness, spirit itself is seen as a ‘separate’ element; in its grossest example, people talk of “living a spiritual life”, or something “not being spiritual”. To those above the grade of Adeptus Exemptus, these sentences make no sense because spirit is no longer an abstract or separate quality.

Interestingly, despite this abstract philosophy, Crowley goes on to make a very practical and manifest point in his introduction of the Aces. He reveals the Golden Dawn attributions and correspondence of the Aces on the sphere of the heavens, their correlation to the Court cards, and then further down to their physical location on the globe of the earth. This is a much under-stated element of the whole Golden Dawn system of correspondences – the logical extension of the correspondence of tarot to astrology and hence to physical locations on the planet.

The use of this set of correspondences is unlikely to be made in most mundane readings, however, it is an interesting system to have in the magical toolbox should one require it at some point.

In the Minor Arcana section of the Book of Thoth, most cards receive half a page to a page of treatment. The only exception is the Ace of Disks, which reaches almost three pages of text in comparison. Crowley sets out with this card “one of the essential theoretical theses which have inflamed the constitution of this present pack of Tarot cards”. [541]

He begins by claiming this concept is one which sets the Thoth Tarot apart from the “crude efforts” of past decks, such as those by “the grotesque barber Alliette, the obscurely perverse Wirth, the poseur-fumiste Péladan,” and then “down to the verbose ignorance of such Autolycus-quacks [such] as Raffalovitch and Ouspensky”. [542]

“Raffalovitch” is an interesting reference here, as whilst the others are known for their writings on tarot (Ouspensky, only a little), “Raffalovitch” is a less obvious reference. Crowley was friends with a George Raffalovich (1880 - 1959) although they inevitably fell out. He published a collection of short stories for Raffalovich entitled The Deuce and All in 1909, under the Equinox publishing imprint.

The story ‘Devil of a Tale’ included in that collection is dedicated to Crowley; “that most subtle reincarnated soul”, inscribed to him “this the first tale of Elphénor”. [543]

Raffalovich includes a character in that tale called Malcolm Graves, who seems a parody of Crowley – or perhaps A. E. Waite. The character may be a parody of all magicians of the time, as later in the story, Raffalovich writes:

There was no dream of noble deeds behind his dreamy eyes, no decisiveness behind his resolute brow, no real energy behind his energetic and edge-cut lips. His appearance was deceitful, to no one so much as it was to himself. Yet, he could have done much and some of his writings denoted an impulsive, perhaps irresponsible, certainly remarkable, genius. [545]

Graves is referred to jokingly as “the wickedest man in the world” and designs a tarot deck within the story, which was published in 1909, another seed in Crowley’s own conception of the tarot some decades later in 1938. [546]

Having denigrated these prior works on tarot, Crowley goes on to state the central thesis of his new pack, which is incorporate a new vision of the material realm as an interactive, moving entity, rather than a “passive, immobile, even dead, even ‘evil’ element”. [548]

The card is also an “affirmation of the identity of Sol and Terra”, much like the identity of fire and spirit as we have seen in the general description of the four Aces. [549] It creates a “whirling disk” showing the new Aeon conception of dynamic matter and the unification of the elements at every level of existence; Crowley has the various formula of existence inscribed on concentric patterns:

In this sense, the Ace of Pentacles can be compared with the Universe card and perhaps the Princess of Disks, each illustrating the far reaches and extremes of the interplay between matter and spirit, unity and diversity.