In this series of talks about the Thoth Tarot this book I have been guiding you through the
structure, the unusual structure of why this book has been put together by Aleister Crowley
and what it means. The fascinating thing that came out of these talks is that nowhere does
Aleister Crowley mention divinatory meanings, they don't exist. It is a strange and remarkable
conclusion that you come to. He talks about tarot as living beings, he talks about the
characteristics of the Major Arcana, he talks about behaviours. Because normally tarot people
think that the court cards represent people and that is it and everything else is just
they are kind of flat or something else. But he is taking things onto a whole new level.
And it is all about tarot as living beings. All the cards act all the cards interact,
he brings it all together with the Opening of the Key spread. Now the interesting thing
about the Opening of the key spread is that each stage called an operation. It is an action,
an operation (not to do with surgery) it is more akin to magical rituals and ceremonies
and all these kinds of things. So he is seeing the entire process of the cards now he has
established that the cards are living beings, they actions, they have behaviours, they act
and behave in different ways, just as we do. Just as we do depending on who we are with,
circumstances, things we need to achieve and intend, it is more about how life is than
trying to remember why the meanings of the cards, which of course everyone has problems
with, and if you have been following my videos over the years and my writings and you see
me speak, I always tell everyone I am rubbish at the meanings. Now you know why, because
they are not that important. If you have read this book, Lon DuQuette's The Thoth Tarot
he puts the divinatory meanings back into the tarot, the thoth tarot - its in there.
Divinatory meanings kill the tarot. Its a problem. In tarot, people who do courses have
this problem of how do you assess students when they can't remember meaning? Its a strange
thing that sort of is going on here. I want to look deeper into what is really going on
in this case. Its funny of course because clients come, and say they can't remember;
its a good thing they can't remember because it shows things are working at a deeper, more
fundamental level. So Aleister Crowley has behaviours and characteristics, in tarot and
Crowley liberates from the meanings, we are free, liberated, we don't have to worry about
them. Well, we do in the sense that we need to know what they are, but its a bit like
talking about the English language, the meaning of the letter A, the meaning of the letter
C - you need to look at the word, those letters create that word, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,
or potato, you don't look at the individual letters, you just see that is potato, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,
its just recognition. Once these are established that the conclusion of the essay which is
the about in previous videos, not being about divinatory meanings it is about the cards
are living individuals. And then he goes on to say, the headline of the next section which
is on the Opening of the Key spread, he says, the behaviour of the tarot, its use in the
art of divination. So he is making another distinction he is putting divination separately
from all this what we have been talking about so far. Of course, with the Opening of the
Key spread where you have counting and pairing, and elemental dignities, you are using those
techniques to see how the cards interact with each other, their behaviours, and the characteristics,
and just remember divination is a very small section of the Book of Thoth. Only about 3
or 4 pages. Now and of course if you watch my videos, on the Opening of the Key you will
see I make mistakes, I misidentify cards and all sorts of things, it doesn't matter, I
carry on anyway, its not important. This is a big relief for tarot students, if you really
want to take things further, is that when the reason we sit down and do the readings
your mind goes blank and you can't remember the meanings of the cards, its what supposed
to happen. Now, the secret of magic, of your intention, of your will to achieve something
is that when you do whatever ritual or thing that you do, is that you forget it about it.
Have a cup of tea, have sex, send in your tax return, help the kids with their homework,
do some gardening, have a drink, doesn't matter. You just put that aside, forget about it,
and you don't speculate or dig it up again or anything like that. You do not want to
keep these things at the level of the conscious mind. And the conscious mind is saying I don't
remember the meaning of the cards, what are the meaning of the cards? I don't remember.
It is the conscious mind to allow those energies to come through, what is really going on.
So in essence the divinatory meaning is kill the tarot. Why Lon DuQuette put these divinatory
meanings back in there, is something to speculate on. As I said, the Opening of the Key does
not mention divinatory meanings any more than the rest of this book mentions divinatory
meanings. It is significant in its absence. And I also said, that each stage, and there
are 5 stages of the Opening of the Key is called an operation. It is directly related
to magic. And here is where we need to look at something that Crowley says, in here, It
is just after page 253 of this book, around about here. So we just completed the 5th operation.
And there is a quote from O.M, Aleister Crowley himself, he says, I may add that in material
matters this is extremely valuable, I have been able to work out the most complex problems
in minute detail. So he is saying he used it, and he says can do minute detail, which
is exactly something I have found, which is why I champion the Opening of the Key spread,
and the Thoth Tarot. Now, he makes a key statement, it is quite extraordinary, I will read it
to you and discuss it. Here goes. It is quite impossible to obtain satisfactory results
from this or any other system of divination unless the ART is perfectly required. It is
the most sensitive, difficult and perilous branch of magic. The necessary conditions
with such a comprehensive comparative review of all important methods of use are fully
described and discussed in Magic Chapter 17. So he is saying far from divination as being
in some kind of trivial thing, it is actually the most sensitive, most difficult and perilous
branch of magic. Well, you might have thought sex magick or that kind of things are more
difficult or dangerous, but he is making a pretty heavy and clear statement of what this
is really about. its not just divination, it is something more. It is the other skills
that you have which of course most tarot readers aren't equipped with because they don't know,
and all these sorts of things. The interesting thing is to really understand divination is
to go into a lot of the magic and the ceremonies and rituals that I have described, and you
can find them on the internet now, they are easily available. The Argenteum Astrum A.
A., the O.T.O., Golden Dawn, all these things are kind of the things that go on there help
you to read the tarot cards. If its so difficult and perilous, things can go wrong, and in
the next paragraph covers that. He says, The abuse of divination has been responsible more
than any other cause for the discredit which the whole subject of magic has fallen. When
the Master Therion undertook the task of its rehabilitation. Those who neglect his warnings,
and the profane the Sanctuary of Transcendental Art, have no other than themselves to blame
for the formidable and irremediable disasters which infallibly will destroy them. Prospero
is Shakespeare's reply to Dr Faustus. Pretty heavy stuff there, isn't it? This is kind
of, I am not sure what to say but it shows that how important divination really should
be in this whole kind of system. And that the requirement of the operator to know so
much stuff. In a sense divination shouldn't be left to amateurs I guess, that is probably
the message. I know my experiences as a professional tarot reader the importance and the responsibility
that one has in doing a reading for someone about divorce, infidelity, whatever big decisions
in their lives people are coming to a reading for. It is not a trivial matter we are talking
about. hopefully this is a kind of now that we have gone through these sections of the
book, and I have given you an insight into what Crowley was trying to do and how he did
it, and how you end up with this conclusion that it is about magic, and divination is
fundamental aspect of this magic. I hope you will be able to see tarot in an entirely different
light, a more powerful, more complex, more fun, more interesting than you can ever imagine.
I am available to do tarot courses and lessons, we can go 1to1, day sessions, if you like
or something like this. There are ways we can do things. If you are interested in taking
things further I can do bespoke courses, depending on how far you have got with tarot, and the
Book of Thoth, or which area you want to look at. We can cover all these things as well.
Reading and watching this video you might want to feel you go back to the first one,
to see with this extra knowledge, to see how these things fit together. Happy divining!