How do you interpret's Thoth's Devil in a reading?

Aeon418 said:

If "All things equally exalt him" and "The formula of this card is then the complete appreciation of all existing things", where does this leave the grossest matter that you are supposedly liberated from? You can cast it off and call it evil like the Christian mystic. Or you can accept it and integrate it into the unified Self as represented by the Devil. That's a very different idea altogether.

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Let's look at my original post in this thread which for some reason or another has bothered you, and let's take it in context.

I'll defend this in my own way.

I too interpret the card _roughly_ the same as any other devil card. The concept is enslavement. Are you, or aren't you? Well, if i invoke the Devil in your presence and you decide "the devil with that! I'm leaving" then maybe you who do not understand true liberation from the grossest matter should leave.

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now, the "grossest matter" was given in context in that paragraph to anyone offended by the potential of someone invoking "the Devil".

Liberation, as I have come to understand it, is total freedom. Freedom from it without and from it within. I am not a slave, say for example, to substance abuse because I neither am required by addiction to support a habit nor required by fear to avoid the occassional "guilty plessure". That is what I meant by liberation from the grossest matter.

So what scared you about my statements?

Devil-As-Pan?

Could one also say that Crowley's Devil is similar to the mythological Pan? Pan is that wild, horned, animal, forest energy that plays a huge part in Paganism for its connection to nature. But if you try to invoke Pan on a ceremonial level, he might throw some good, hard lessons at you. He seems to be about experiencing the pleasures of being here in our physical forms, but also about walking that fine line between pleasure and addiction, as others are saying. Any thoughts on the Devil-As-Pan?

Well, Pan's is associated with Capricorn and in the right cell there's a little faun, perhaps Pan himself. I personally am a little ambivalent to the whole Devil as Pan thing; when thinking about the archetypes of Pan and the Devil card and how they relate to each other the first thing that comes to my mind is Pan dancing drunk in a bachanal chasing nymphs, in the Devil archetype in terms of excess and single minded focus but not the embodiment of it; that would be Dionysious (until the manaeds turn on him, after that no one single figure would be embodying the Devil). But then Pan is also the god of panic, rapist of maidens and sheep herders so there's more than one way to look at it.

3crows said:

Any thoughts on the Devil-As-Pan?

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I'd go along with that one fully, but see the (AC/Thoth) 'Devil' as exactly Pan.
Not the RW devil as Pan or any other.

he never was the devil until the church made him the Devil, long before that he was Pan ... cloven feet, horns we all knew who that was exactly ... before the church came along : "Your God is the Devil!"

Why? because we say the devil has cloven feet and horns. ergo your god is the devil. For heavens sake ... all this is kindergarden is it not?

AC is not understood by comparing his system to AEW's

Gov said:

...Ithe people trapped in those cells are analogous to the chained up devils in the RWS.

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I totally disagree. I don't believe AT ALL that there is an analogy.

Why are the people 'trapped' in those cells? One could easily be forgiven in interpreting the shape on the card as representing the male generative organs and the shapes as testicles and the cells as sex cells.

That's our genetic information in there and it is only 'trapped' when you restrict yourself. The whole thing is a glyph for Crowleys Man of Earth initiation Triad. None of it is ananlagous to Waite (except the title [and good ploy in using it Alice!]).

ravenest said:

I totally disagree. I don't believe AT ALL that there is an analogy.

Why are the people 'trapped' in those cells? One could easily be forgiven in interpreting the shape on the card as representing the male generative organs and the shapes as testicles and the cells as sex cells.

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The cells are the testicular shapes.

ravenest said:

That's our genetic information in there and it is only 'trapped' when you restrict yourself. The whole thing is a glyph for Crowleys Man of Earth initiation Triad. None of it is ananlagous to Waite (except the title [and good ploy in using it Alice!]).

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If they're not trapped then why don't they simply exit the cellular membrane and approach Capricorn?

Gov said:

If they're not trapped then why don't they simply exit the cellular membrane and approach Capricorn?

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Do I really need to explain THAT? They exit via another method that ensures their lack of contamination and their ability to co-join with other similar cells.

Well I suppose there's that yes, though I tend to read the phallic column as perpetually erect embodying desire rather satisfaction and possesion of power or force rather than expendeture, (not that the situation doesn't have the capacity to resolve, but rather that the Devil card by itself doesn't signify that resolution) but I think we mainly just differ in terms of what aspect of the card we focus on, you see them being liberated soon, I see them trapped right now, even if its not permanent. For me there's still the analogue to the RWS devils who could easily slip out of their loose fitting collars but haven't.

Gov said:

For me there's still the analogue to the RWS devils who could easily slip out of their loose fitting collars but haven't.

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Interesting .... I guess I slipped my collar some time ago ... and put it on the goat.

Actually I find the RW Devil v.interesting and amusing (I was forced to go to a catholic shchool for a while )... but wrong forum here for that.

Although I'm aware that this is a very old topic I'm posting a reply anyway because I don't want to start a new topic for just one small question related to this topic... I hope that's allright.

Some time ago I did a quick three card reading for myself using, offcourse, the Thoth tarot.
The first card symbolized what is important right now in this spread, the second card showed what's in the past and the third card showed me what to expect, the second (eight of swords) and the third (three of swords) card made perfect sense to me, I can see exactly how these cards apply to the situation.
The first card however puzzeled me (and still does), it was the devil, the problem is not that I do not comprehend the meaning off this card but that I don't know how to interpret it in this particular situation... How is the devil what is important right now? ... I don't get it, maybe a more experienced tarot reader has any ideas?

By the way, the devil card was reversed in this reading, I know that the meaning of reversed cards officially doesn't change in the Thoth tarot but in this case I am wondering if maybe it does... I read that the goat with it's horns symbolizes a reversed pentagram, if the card is reversed could it symbolize an upright pentagram instead, or is this just crazy thinking?
I'm curious what others think about this (potentially crazy )theory.