Turning Things Around: The Inner Tarot Revolution Week 22
Trust Thyself
Last week’s post in this series announced a turning point from a focus on the personal to the transpersonal for what will amount to roughly the second half of the Shadow work meant to be accomplished here. I expressed the desire for my work to begin having the collective and worldly impact it’s truly meant to have. At the time I penned those words, I did not yet know what this week’s cards would be—in fact, I had to go back just after publishing the post to flip my cards over and quickly edit the post to include them. However, the turn of the cards reflected that intention very clearly, and it’s been a rough week for me as a result (for those who have only tuned in recently and have not followed this series from the beginning, the procedure I am following for this working is outlined in the first post in the series, The Super Bowl Halftime Game).
Of course, since the purpose of the working is Shadow work, the focus cannot be entirely divorced from the personal perspective, but the emphasis thus far has been on working through past traumas and their present-time manifestations, with occasional side-trips to portray the larger mythic (and also Aeonic) backdrop within which I often contextualize my own unfolding.
In this post, I will be getting more explicit about matters where previously, I have hesitantly beaten around the bush. In order to accomplish this, I will be giving the complex story I’ve gradually told here the “once over” to save newer readers from hours of reading in order to piece it all together. Since the focus has been mostly autobiographical thus far, a recap is in order at this juncture of transition to the transpersonal perspective. This is the main picture I have been dropping hints about all along. The theme for this week’s pair of cards will be:
The Great Work
I have been preoccupied with existential questions since before I learned to talk, and had a deep terror of death for the early part of my life. By the time I was taught magic by a schoolyard friend around the age of 11 or 12, I was already very well-versed in the paranormal, having read every book I could get my hands on in local public libraries.
After those early phases, I eventually made contact with three entities I describe in When They Talk Back. To recap briefly here, first came Rose, an Anima figure, and Minora, a Shadow figure. They basically played a role in my life not unlike the angel over one shoulder (Rose) and the devil over the other (Minora). Later, a red dragon named Ilyas entered the picture to help Rose. Where Rose represented the Anima and Minora the Shadow, Ilyas corresponded instead with The Self. This makes a lot of sense because he was fiery, incredibly powerful, and “severe,” but also good-natured and wise…which means Ilyas as an archetypal figure was basically Rose and Minora, reconciled and synthesized. However, at the time, I experienced them as a triad.
In that post, I also compared Ilyas to Aleister Crowley’s Aiwass, and this went beyond a similarity of pattern: Around that time, Ilyas and Rose also started getting more serious with me and implying that the work I am here to do overlaps with Crowley’s. I have favored that word, “overlap,” and in the past, other non-committal terms that dodge a clearer expression of what they meant; a better word for what they were saying is that I am here to continue what he started.
Ever since they started telling me that, I have felt overwhelmed by the prospect because of what I perceive to be my personal limitations in doing such a thing, and that is the reason I have downplayed this all by fudging the language I use around it. I know full well what a bold claim that is, and I always have. I have never felt equipped to deal with the kind of opposition from other people that I would inevitably face in making such a claim, and I have always waffled in my commitment to the task, even though Rose and Ilyas have always told me I basically have no choice in the matter. This would sound like spirit possession or some kind of oppressive harassment, but the thing to keep in mind is that they’ve always told me that my Higher Self chose this, so even if my personal ego doesn’t like it, it’s going to be yoked to this task no matter what because it is inherently linked to said Higher Self. Rose and Ilyas have told me many times that I came into incarnation with that link much more established, from birth, than most people. Despite my considerable resistance over the years, I’ve experienced quite a bit that ultimately bears this out. Telling the stories around that has been one of the main purposes of all of the posts preceding this one. I have done this sufficiently that it’s safe now to be more matter-of-fact about this.
In Following the Fire Part I, Part II, and Part III, I address how I coped with receiving such news: I fought it tooth and nail, tested their claims (but also tried to escape this incarnation) by basically trying to kill myself, then accepted it to the degree that the story of my being “Shiva” sounded plausible.
Then I moved to Roselle, IL, to live with my aunt and uncle, where I dealt with family sexual abuse along with other abusive situations. Soon after, I calmed down quite a bit from all that and learned a lot in my “T.S. years,” working as Member Services Coordinator as well as a National Speaker for The Theosophical Society in America.
Then I moved to Norway, where I first began practicing Ceremonial Magic, culminating in the Self-Initiatory working (detailed in the post Ten Years Gone) that resulted, among other things, in the “reception” of “the VSigil,” a sigil that was first intended as a personal sigil, but which later developed very transpersonal meanings.
In the 5 or so years after returning to the U.S., while living with a Pagan Priestess of the Fellowship of Isis, I received the Word of “Hermekate,” which has many meanings I have yet to write about here, but one aspect of which is described in the post Song of Hermekate. Here is where the claim of Ilyas and Rose that my work in this life will carry on from Aleister Crowley’s work finds its most recognizable direct expressions; it was in this time period that The Priestess directed my attention to Temple of Set, and by reading some books published by ToS members, learned that if my work is meant to continue Crowley’s work, I needed to sufficiently understand the ways in which Crowley’s legacy has developed since his passing; that path leads through the Church of Satan and through Temple of Set’s history. I learned that it is basically unavoidable that my own work has to be seated somehow within the context of ToS work and teachings.
I’ll try to give my best “explainer” about this, because I have tried and failed to join ToS and have ultimately made the decision to “go it alone,” at least in terms of formal affiliations. Aleister Crowley himself ultimately identified Aiwass as not only his own Higher Self, but also with the real being behind the mythological figures of Set and Satan; the fact that there is no historical connection between those two mythological figures is actually important here, supporting the concept that the actual entity behind those figures occasionally contacts humans directly in order to further its work with regards to humanity. This is how the claim is substantiated that, although Anton Szandor LaVey professed to be an atheist who did not believe in a literal Satan, he was nonetheless the actual “envoy” (the term used by Michael Aquino in Temple of Set was “deputy”) and chosen servant of that being through the work he did; this is an interpretation that comes to us from Michael A. Aquino, who was at one time LaVey’s “left-hand man,” but who later broke away from the Church of Satan to found Temple of Set. Aquino regarded this entity as a real, spiritual being who is responsible for bestowing the gift of consciousness to humanity. Michael Aquino’s attitude was, essentially, that LaVey was Satan’s agent whether he actually believed it or not; and later on in this post, I will discuss how this dynamic is reflected in my work and its somewhat “unorthodox” nature in the ways that it breaks from some of the patterns that have prevailed thus far in the unfolding story of “the Prince of Darkness’” ongoing relationship with human beings.
If you’re following along closely enough, with understanding, the implication unfolding here is that I partake of this same lineage; that it was the Prince of Darkness who was speaking to Crowley, and that Anton LaVey carried out the next stage of the Prince’s Work, albeit in ways that would necessarily have been less consciously cooperative than Crowley owing to his particular theological stance, and that the Prince then shifted “his” focus onto Michael Aquino as LaVey took the Church of Satan in a direction that was centered on his own personal gain.
The implication, which I have tried so many times over the years to deny, is that Ilyas was just another form for the Prince of Darkness, or Satan, or Set, and that I am a part of the lineage I just outlined above. There have been many signs of this, the first of which is the form Ilyas took, that of a red dragon, which in many other contexts is directly associated with that same being: The Devil himself.
There are certain traits that all of the above-named Magi have in common that I simply don’t perceive in myself, so it’s been an uphill battle embracing all of this…which makes the perfect segue into discussion incorporating this week’s cards.
Let’s do cards.
Top/Sun Card
This week’s Top/Sun card is Prince of Wands, which in the Thoth system makes it Air (Prince) of Fire (Wands). The first personal association I make when I see this card is to the demon Vine, with whom I have a strong connection that has gone so far as for me to invoke and identify with him. I’ve mentioned this in a few posts, but the main one where I talk about this is My Cousin Vine. This ends up tying into other connections I will be discussing in the next section, which will address the way my work overlaps with that of Edward Pandemonium, who has a connection with the demon Malphas that I think might be similar to mine with Vine, though I won’t be able to comment further on this with any certainty until I finish studying his books; the events of the past week have motivated me to finally crack The Black Ship, a copy of which I’ve been holding onto for a few months.
I laughed when I turned this card over last week, because it had come up synchronistically for me that same week. For shits and giggles one afternoon, I was watching The Lion King, and my fiancée, Veronica, asked me to do a reading in which this card came up as the center card. It also came up in a separate reading I did for myself—all of this while watching The Lion King. I was particularly moved by the aspect of the story in which Simba fled from his duty as King to try to live a care-free life in the jungle with Timon and Pumbaa, only to ultimately be called back to his legacy and destiny by Nala (who also became his wife and Queen). I mentioned in last week’s post that I have been called back to my seat at The Red Queen’s Loresraat, and it was the day after this all happened that my friend reached out to me to issue the call.
This ends up tying into the next section and Edward Pandemonium’s work, as well, via the context of the Hexorian magical current, which centers itself upon urban magic.
I also have to laugh because in last week’s post—almost as if I felt this week’s cards coming up—I made an emphatic effort to break away from Lon Milo DuQuette’s eminently Thelemic take on The Hermit, and this week’s card dragged me right back into the thick of it.
In this deck, the court cards have a close relationship with the astrological decans; a given person’s significator card in this context is determined solely by their birth date and the decans associated with the Knights, Queens, and Princes (the Princesses are not assigned to decans, but instead to entire quarters of the globe). For example, by this system, my significator card is the Queen of Wands, because my birthdate falls in between March 11th-April 10th. This is related to one’s Sun Sign, but apparently one’s Ascendant is also important, and based on the portion of the sky that corresponds with this card, Aleister Crowley’s Ascendant is ruled by the Prince of Wands…and he wore this association (if you’ll forgive me this pun) with pride. According to DuQuette in Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot:
This card is Crowley’s idealized image of himself. First of all, we find his personal seal, the Mark of the Beast, emblazoned upon the breast of the Prince. This device appears in only two other places in the Thoth Tarot—on the Five of Wands (which represents 0° to 10° Leo), and the Ace of Disks, which, by tradition, is the signature card of the deck’s creator. The Prince is even seated in Crowley’s favorite yogic posture, the Thunderbolt asana. Crowley, because he felt he knew himself so well, has a great deal to say about the moral qualities and intellectual paradoxes of this card:
He is often violent, especially in the expression of his opinion, but he does not necessarily hold the opinion about which he is so emphatic…His character is intensely noble and generous. He may be an extravagant boaster, while slyly laughing at both the object of his boast and at himself for making it…his courage is fanatically strong, and his endurance indefatigable. He is always fighting against odds, and always wins in the long—the very long—run.pp. 178-179
The most relevant aspect of this commentary is the way this card is such an emblem of Crowley’s self-image, because that has parallels with everything I just wrote above in the intro section of this post: Based on the above, I have formed a self-image of being an “heir” of sorts to the station Crowley carved out for himself. In short, to pull a card so loved and adored by Crowley as to be an identity of sorts that he adopted is pointing to my relationship throughout my life to my role and the ways it connects to his.
As far as the actual personal qualities described by Crowley, I can relate with (and even identify with/own) a few of them: By even making the claims that I do, I very often feel that I myself am being an “extravagant boaster,” and yet because I carry so much self-doubt about them, I also tend to balance that out by “slyly laughing at both the object of [my] boast and at [my]self for making it.” It’s not necessarily the best coping strategy.
Last week, I focused for a bit on the magic(k)al injunction “To Keep Silent;” in this case, this card is pointing to another one: “To Dare.” Although I do not stand firmly rooted in the role on a consistent basis, I have “dared” to identify myself as being one who carries forward the lineage of relationship with the Prince of Darkness that I described above more often than not, or at least sufficiently to have found my way as far into this work as I have.
One does not get to where I am, writing the things I am writing, without basically holding the idea to be true.
Am I as self-deluded in that assessment as DuQuette seems to think Crowley was for identifying with this card? Time will tell.
However, the card’s placement in my Sun Stack basically holds true, which means I should probably start acting like it.
Shadow Card
Le sigh…The Star…what a complicated relationship I’ve had with thee! This card’s placement in my Shadow Stack is fitting; while the card preceding it in order, Atu XVI - The Tower (which came up in Week 15 of this series), is widely considered the worst card to get in a reading, Atu XVII - The Star is widely considered one of the best. The song lyrics “when you wish upon a star” apply to it, because generally when it comes up, it means you’re gonna get your wish. One of the key words associated with the card is “hope.” My experience with the card belies this, because while it is not always the case, there have been many times when turning this card over has led to sunken spirits and dejection on my part. This is because of the card’s association with doing one’s True Will, and my sense of my True Will has been a heavy burden to carry ever since high school.
Again, it’s funny that just last week, I made an end-run around the complex Thelemic symbolism of my Sun Card, The Hermit, because according to DuQuette, this card is “one of the most intensely Thelemic cards in the deck,” owing to the way it centers around imagery drawn from The Book of the Law itself. In fact, he recommends a thorough study of Chapter I of that book, which is centered upon Nuit (the goddess depicted on the card), in order to fully understand the meaning of this card.
Because I have my own copy of The Book of The Law, as well as three different commentaries on it, sitting on my bookshelf, I had to pull those books out this week. I have spent the week in a tizzy, suddenly feeling the pressure to step up all of the considerable studying I have to do in order to take my next steps on my path.
Why do I have a whole shelf full of unread books loaded with a great deal of the very information I need to understand all this stuff? I think I made that clear above: Because I doubt my competence to carry out my task in relationship with it, and because I often wish I could shirk the whole thing. I have tried. I always get roped back into it, and this is a strong suggestion that it is, in fact, my True Will.
One of the main results of my inquiry thus far (and I have a lot more to do) has been to get more acquainted with The Gospel of Pandemonium. It’s beyond the scope of this post to fully relate them all, but I did find a lot of overlap in this book between my own ideas and work, and that of Edward Pandemonium. I need to address this because I want to make it clear that blatant plagiarism has not been a part of this picture. A lot of the allusions I’ve made that overlap with Pandemonium were in play decades ago, before I ever knew he existed; that is part of why I have been so resistant to actually reading a couple of his books that I’ve held onto for quite a while: Because I knew they were going to line up a lot, and I knew I still had a lot of personal clearing to do (which I have been doing via this series) in order to deal with the inevitable fallout of diving into his material. I’ve had a lot of syncs related to Pandemonium and his work, as well…a couple of which I have already documented here.
The concept of Pandemonium as expressed in The Gospel is framed in that book as “The Daemonic Invasion,” which is reflected in the vision I had many years ago tying into WarCraft, the opening of the Dark Portal, and the invasion of the demonic Burning Legion into Azeroth. To read more about these connections, see the following posts:
Edward Pandemonium’s concept of Pandemonium is, I believe, the reality to which the events in those posts are pointing. In the LHP-specific parlance he employs, the Daemon is roughly analogous to the Higher Self or Holy Guardian Angel (so in other words, Ilyas is my Daemon), and the idea of the Daemonic Invasion is essentially that at this time, the Daemonic level of reality of which the Daemons partake is “breaking through” into our reality—through people like us, and through our work. In a sense, this is The Star card, only manifesting on a collective level.
This idea correlates directly with my concept of the “Song,” which basically describes a “phase shift” emerging into the world in which the same process described as the utterance of a Word by a Magus is now beginning to happen on a collective level. In Week 10 of this series, I elaborated on this theory by proposing that those who hear and sing such “Songs” are “Babes of the Abyss,” stating that Songs issue forth from Da’ath; to my way of understanding things, this is fully aligned with the concept of Pandemonium, and “Songs” are the new paradigm of collective-yet-decentralized manifestation of True Will that has been Initiated through my Utterance of Hermekate.
Secondly, in earlier posts, I have documented my Oath to “The Princess of Darkness,” which was the first place on this blog that I said, in far fewer words, what I said with much more conviction in this post: That I am working in concert with the being also known variously as The Prince of Darkness, Satan, and Set…except that now, this being wants me to acknowledge its essentially feminine face. This is more than a superficial change, and the statements I made have stirred up some confusion, because technically speaking, the Prince of Darkness is not gendered at all (the term “Prince” is not a reference to gender, but to primacy, owing to its relationship with the word “principal” meaning “first;” this is referring to the fact that this entity is the first self-conscious entity to exist apart from the natural universe as an “I", and who passed that Gift on to we humans). This is one of the things I have doubted most, especially because when I first started writing about it, it was with a lack of understanding of the meaning of “Prince” that I just related. When I learned about that, I felt foolish, and really thought maybe I was just making this shit up.
But the synchronistic occurrence I documented in this post suggests to me that even if I misunderstood some of the context at the time, The Princess of Darkness acknowledged my oath to Her, and will hold me to it.
As it happens, there is an entire chapter in The Gospel of Pandemonium entitled “The Princess,” which describes an incomplete corner of this complex, Thelemic/Satanic/Setian saga that I will not fully understand without further study. Nonetheless, it supports the authenticity of my charge, my relationship with this entity, and the work I’ve claimed.
It also illustrates the fact that just because a person might be a deputy of the Prince(ss) of Darkness, it doesn’t necessarily mean their knowledge or understanding of that entity is fully-developed. There can exist distortions in this understanding, even as the connection holds true.
This, in turn, adds weight to the idea that no matter what Anton LaVey might have professed about his nonbelief in a literal Satan, it doesn’t mean he wasn’t working for Satan anyhow.
Much of my doubt has stemmed from the fact that I am simply not the dedicated, disciplined, hard-working Magus that any of my antecedents were. For this reason, I have felt ridiculous or even delusional for believing such; this, even though Rose and Ilyas have always assured me, over and over, that “things are going to be done differently from now on and you need to trust in that.”
I have already outlined my own ideas about this, and Edward Pandemonium has covered similar ground: As Pandemonium manifests on Earth (a multiplicity of Daemons in human flesh doing their True Wills, or a collective phenomenon), via, among other things, the singing of Songs (a collective of Magi Uttering harmonic Words), this entire process is shifting away from an emphasis on being borne by a single person.
This also means no individual Magus will need to retrace all the same steps that our predecessors did. A lot of what was once necessary will no longer be so, because there will be more people to distribute the tremendous “weight” and gravity associated with the Grade of Magus.
Many existing magicians who are still rooted in the paradigms this is supplanting will refuse to accept this; that’s not our problem. This is happening despite them, and they can’t stop it.
Yesterday, Veronica and I traveled from Houston to St. Louis (a business trip for V's job) aboard Southwest flight 2022. I packed a few books, along with my working Thoth deck that I am using in conjunction with this series. On the plane, I read Pandemonium's commentary on Chapter I of The Book of the Law, feeling by turns validated by some of the statements I saw, and daunted by the emerging magnitude of the place my work is pointing toward. It had been getting stressful.
Suddenly, Veronica turned and remarked to me, "3:33!" noting the time. At that moment, I was just about to begin reading Verse 51:
"There are four gates to one palace; the floor of that palace is of silver and gold; lapis lazuli & jasper are there; and all rare scents; jasmine & rose, and the emblems of death. Let him enter in turn or at once the four gates; let him stand on the floor of the palace. Will he not sink? Amn. Ho! warrior, if thy servant sink? But there are means and means. Be goodly therefore: dress ye all in fine apparel; eat rich foods and drink sweet wines and wines that foam! Also, take your fill and will of love as ye will, when, where and with whom ye will! But always unto me."
I often receive signs through Veronica, regarding her as I do as the physical emanation of Rose; so I knew this verse would be important, especially since yesterday was the New Moon in Cancer, which has its own meanings that relate directly back to the work of Crowley and The Book of the Law (I have written about the associations between this work and the sign of Cancer via the Chariot card; also, this New Moon, marking the beginning of the New Year in the Egyptian calendar, has been recently associated by Mogg Morgan with Set).
I made a note in my copy of the book, as this was a pivotal moment...I know it was.
This points directly to the next phase of my work. In his commentary on this verse, Edward Pandemonium follows Don Webb in attributing the “palace” in question with the domain of The Self. In addition, the number 333 is associated with Choronzon, the demon associated with Crossing the Abyss, who is interpreted as an emblem for the personal will and ego which must be defeated so that the True Will and Daemon can manifest clearly. In so many words, I have already expressed many times in this post that such is the work I must finish; and this entire series, The Inner Tarot Revolution, is, as it turns out, an essential part of how I am doing that very work.
As such, I am announcing the need to slow this all down, because I have a lot of catching up to do in expanding my knowledge. I will no longer be adhering strictly to a weekly schedule, but will instead be taking my time and proceeding through the work only as I have thoroughly and sufficiently integrated new material and the lessons of the cards in question.
I will also be taking this opportunity to go back and revise older posts, assign new tags, and build out a new page to serve as a directory for making all that I have to offer on this site more easily accessible. This is something I’ve promised multiple times in the past to do, but my living situation (and my mind) were less stable then. With the new life start Veronica and I are sharing here in Texas, I now have the stability I need to fully attend to such matters.
The next pair of cards is:
Top Sun Card: Three of Disks - Works.
Top Shadow Card: Atu I - The Magus.
See you when I see you!